Some murders are shocking in their strangeness, others fit a sickeningly
familiar pattern: but the cases that intrigue us most are those that combine
elements of the known and the unknown, seeming to confirm in us something we
hadn’t realised that we already knew. The death of Lindsay Hawker, the
English-language teacher strangled in Japan ten days ago, is one of these
cases.
For her family and friends it is a crushing tragedy: for the wider world,
viewing the unfolding events through the lens of the media, it has a
compelling ghastliness.
There is the victim herself — young, popular, beautiful, and profusely
photographed, out with friends, alongside her devoted boyfriend, sipping a
drink by a swimming pool. There is the suspected murderer, 28-year-old
Tatsuya Ichihashi — lean, “a loner”, and only ever pictured in a single
image, a glazed face staring out of a police mugshot. And then there is the
third character, both a participant in, and the setting for, the drama — the
country of Japan itself.
It is difficult to put a finger on it, but for many people it is somehow
naggingly appropriate that this murder took place in Tokyo. How many times
in the past ten days, foreign friends — both here and at home — have
commented “how Japanese” the story is, without ever being able to say
exactly how. The case seems to speak to unarticulated but deep-seated
Western stereotypes of a culture that even in the 21st century remains a
mystery. A jumble of images and ideas are called to mind — concerning
stalkers, repressed and perverted sexuality, Japanese pornographic comic
books, and notions about the way Japanese men regard Western women.
It is as if, far from being an appalling aberration, the death of Lindsay
Hawker was an accident waiting to happen. Japanese, too, have an anxious
sense of this — especially since the words of her father, Bill Hawker, that
the murder of his daughter has “brought shame on your country”. Last weekend
Japanese television nervously sent a film crew on to the streets of London
to ask passing Brits whether Lindsay’s death had sullied their image of
Japan.
There is one obvious reason why the Hawker murder induces a sense of déjà vu:
the killing seven years ago of another young British woman. Lucie Blackman
was a bar hostess rather than an English teacher, but for sheer
grotesqueness the details of her death surpass even those of the latest
case. Lindsay Hawker’s naked body was found on the balcony of an apartment
in an earth-filled bathtub. Her suspected killer had a conviction for wallet
snatching. The man charged with killing Lucie (the verdict in his case is
due in three weeks) was accused of multiple rapes and one other killing over
several years. Lucie’s body was found cut into eight pieces and buried in a
seaside cave.
But two murders in seven years is hardly decimation. In fact, by the standards
of any comparably developed Western capital, Tokyo is a fantastically safe
place to live.
Imagine a city in which burglary is rare, car break-ins are virtually unknown
and women walk the streets alone, without anxiety, at all times of the day
and night. Japan has a population more than double that of England and
Wales, but in 2005 it recorded 2.56 million crimes, according to police
figures, fewer than half the 5.6 million reported in our society. Most
remarkably, only 3.5 per cent of these were violent crimes, compared to 21
per cent in Britain. One of the reasons why Japan’s police frequently appear
so bumbling (like the moment last week when Tatsuya Ichihashi dodged nine
officers to escape in his stockinged feet) is that they have so little
practice fighting real crime.
But there is much more to it than bare statistics. The first thing that
visitors to Japan notice is the drastically unfamiliar atmosphere on the
streets, the body language of individuals and the mood of the crowd. An
intense and thrilling energy drives Tokyo, but it is one narrowly channelled
by the constraints of convention and conformity. This is the source of the
famous Japanese restraint and politeness, but it greatly complicates the
business of reading people and understanding situations.
The notion that Japanese men are “obsessed” with Western women is a lazy cli-ché
- from my perch in Tokyo, cocky, skirt-chasing foreign men with an appetite
for Japanese women are far more obvious than the famous Japanese train
gropers who are tediously cited whenever the subject of crime in Tokyo makes
the British news. Japanese pornography and manga comics are certainly
distinct in their preoccupations, as a rudimentary Google will reveal, but the idea that Japanese onanists are greater consumers of porn than their
counterparts in the West is something which, in the absence of solid
scientific research, I find difficult to believe. And anyone who believes
that this is a sexually repressed country should spend a Friday night in a
district such as Roppongi, where young Japanese women feed on foreign men
with equal enthusiasm and ferocity.
Japanese men rarely make the overt displays of aggressive masculinity that
Westerners deploy from time to time to impress or intimidate. They seldom
preen or strut: to a relative newcomer such as Lindsay, with no command of
Japanese, they might appear “sweet”, “shy”, even “boring”. In almost 15
years here I have seen only three fist fights in Japan. Each one exploded
out of nowhere, with no preliminary shouting or goading or facing off — and
came to an end with equal abruptness.
The effect of this for many foreigners is to disable the instincts for caution
and suspicion that guide and protect us at home. This is what Lindsay Hawker
shared with Lucie Blackman, another decent, respectable English girl who
would never have contemplated working as a hostess in a London nightclub.
Japan is safe: we know it’s safe — and so we end up doing things that we
would never risk at home.
There is so much that is still mysterious about the death of Lindsay Hawker.
When exactly did she meet Tatsuya Ichihashi? Was it at her Nova
English-language school? Why did she chose to leave the coffee shop where
they had their English conversation lesson and go to his apartment on that
Sunday morning? And what exactly happened between the time of their arrival
there and the discovery of her naked body, bound and buried, the following
evening. But I can easily picture her, finishing her coffee with the polite,
sweet, shy young man with whom she had just spent an undemanding hour.
Perhaps he explains to her that he has forgotten his wallet with the money
he owes her. Would she mind coming to his place? He is sorry, but
it’s only round the corner. How harmless such a suggestion might have
seemed. And then the walk back, and the door closing behind her, and the
sudden change in him, and the unspeakable aftermath.
Many young women would have done such a thing in similar circumstances. Many
more will in the future, and only the minutest fraction of them will ever
come to grief. This, I suspect, is the sad and mundane truth about the death
of Lindsay Hawker: not that she was rash or idiotic, but that — in a safe,
but complex, society — she was very, very unlucky.
‘A kind of recklessness’: three stories of teaching in Japan
HANNAH SHEPHERD, 21 Fukuoka City, Kyushu
I read the story about Lindsay Hawker when I had just got back from
hitchhiking around Japan, and I suddenly realised that it was something I
would never do back home.
I went with a male friend who speaks Japanese, so I did feel slightly safer —
but still, I wouldn’t ever consider it in the UK.
I felt comfortable almost the whole time, whether it was single guys who
picked us up, or couples. I’m actually a bit of a worrierer but everyone
here is so incredibly friendly it that if I was ever going to do it, Japan
seemed the safest option.
One family I’m sure belonged to the Yakuza — the Japanese mafia.
They had this huge Western car, there was this big, Soprano-style guy
and a wife chain-smoking over the top of the baby on her lap. But even then
I just felt somehow that it was funny.
We did get picked up by single men as well, but there’s a difference between
men over here and men back home. They are generally shier, and that can come
across as naivety and trustworthiness.
WILL PAVIA, 27 Near Hiroshima
It seemed to me that the entire population of Japan existed in a perpetual
state of caution: they were always telling us, and each other, to be
careful. A walk in the countryside was fraught with potential hazards, we
were told, travelling into town was risky, and things became progressively
more dangerous the further afield you travelled.
I liked to shock my employers by telling them that I was going on holiday to a
foreign country where there was a lower standard of living, and I had not
arranged any accommodation. They looked at me as if I were some sort of
desperado.
In many of my fellow foreigners, these constant exhortations to be careful
bred a kind of recklessness, because Japan seems so safe. I left my house
unlocked and my car keys in the ignition. There were persistent stories of
people who left wallets stuffed with cash on park benches and returned days
later to find them still there: even if the stories were apocryphal, they
were entirely believable.
I found myself becoming strangely overconfident. Foreigners in Japan are often
accorded instant and entirely undeserved credit. Despite all evidence to the
contrary, strangers would tell me within minutes of introduction that I was
tall, young and handsome, that my faltering Japanese was flawless, and that
I was obviously extremely cool. It seemed to mean that we expatriates could
get away with things that we would consider rash at home.
Complete strangers would ask me to stay at their houses, so they might give me
supper and practise their English. In the seediest bar, in the roughest
parts of town, and in the company of the most obnoxious alcoholics, I felt
safe.
Reading the papers, we saw that Japan was just another country, with its own
social issues, drug problems and crime; but standing in a school gymnasium
in Matsukasa, watching children practise crossing the road, it seemed
impossible that such things could exist.
RACHEL BORER, 27 Shimane prefecture
There was a real community feel there. Everybody is so nice to you, you think
it wouldn’t be in their nature to attack you. Once I was in a small karaoke
bar for a celebratory dinner. As I was leaving, I stood up to shake the hand
of this 72-year-old and he placed both of his hands on my breasts.
I didn’t say anything because I knew it would go all round the village. You
don’t want to rock the boat because you don’t want to be seen as that awful
foreigner who makes scenes in such a normally polite and friendly society.
You let people get away with things you might not back home, but equally you
begin to think that they can’t really be quite so serious after all. There’s
such trust. People go shopping and leave their cars running. They don’t
believe crime will happen, so they send their tiny children off to school on
their own, but then they give rape alarms to five-year-olds, as if under the
surface of this community spirit the Japanese themselves know that bad
things do happen.
Every so often someone would become infatuated with one of the teachers. There
was this very pretty blonde girl who just couldn’t tell people she wasn’t
interested and already had a boyfriend, and so she’d give English lessons,
and let the hairdresser cut her hair for free to be polite.
Lots of the people you meet very rarely see a foreigner so you feel as if
you’re representing not just your country but the world abroad.
But everyone gives private lessons out there anyway. They’re so lucrative, and
Nova, the language school company, was known as No Vacation because it paid
badly and worked people so hard.
actually I didn't hear any rape or murder of foreigner white women in japan between 70s to 80s too... but as the they rised again, their real face exposed, so eventually tragedy happened.. after all they are too ambitious from a historic view.
welllll, japanese certainly are not born to be evils, it's their propaganda that brainwashed their people(many were innocent I guess), from the childhoos so, even the japanese children are sorta perverts
i know many japanese films portral they are polite, brave,determined ,honest. even beautiful(see animes)
but that's all to please americans and europeans, to give them a lovely image of japan.... they rarely let a westerner play a villain. they are extremely friendly..sometimes even me was cheated......but reality is not like that in films
actually their media teach them they are superior to other people even white people....
being, nanjin, china
In my opinion, the victim was very careless to give private lessons to a person whom she met very recently. It is an unspoken rule that any single woman should observe in any country not to let her guard down towards strangers.
In all these homicides towards westerners, the victims were exposing themselves to danger due to their job nature. Any place in the world, a bar hostess meets all sorts of people with many with one thing on their mind and it is definitely not collecting stamps. If advantage could be taken, it would happen. As for the teacher, was there a rule by the school that she must go back to the house to give lesson so that it was really private. Could the lesson not be done in the cafe where there were more people around when it is still one to one. My japanese teacher used to teach me in cafetarias.
Japan is still a safe place. Of course you see racism and discrimination but where else dont you see it. Take for instance, the recent mongolian murder case in malaysia.
omega supreme, malaysia, malaysia
It is very common for English teachers in Japan to be stalked by their students and a lot of the blame for this has to be put on the shoulders of the schools. Their sales staff will do anything to get a sale and that includes virtually pimping their teachers to prospective customers. Often they aren't selling English as much as offering the student the chance to pay for time in the company of a foreigner. If you are "lucky" they will sell you as a fun-to-be-with novelty, if you are unlucky they will make you feel like a badly-paid escort who is there to be chatted up by the so-called student like a bar host/hostess. I know of people who have been forced to take dozens of private lessons with the same student because that student is obsessed with them. I know of teachers who have been followed home, telephoned, given letters, proposed to, etc by students and the schools never report the serious incidents to the police, because that would mean losing a customer.
ELT Tokyo, Tokyo,
what i have realised after hearing of tragic deaths murders such as this one are that we go abroard and judge situatiions diffferently than we would at home. We can read so much from our own society and instinctively know when there is danger. In a different society though we may read the situation all wrong. We seem to be so excited to meet and intergrate into that new world and so we are vulnerable. Travel brochures encourage us with pictures of happy smiley people with open arms. We would do well to remember that human nature is dark as well as light. A young girl working as a hostess in japan may attract kind nice men and also evil desperate ones.
rose, bristol,
Im from Australia and have lived in Japan for 4 yrs. I dont consider it more or less safe then home or many other countries. After 1yr in Japan I lived in Nagoya city and was followed home, before 12 at night, and with quite a few people around, I was held up with a knife to my throat. I screamed and my attacker ran away laughing!! I was lucky. And for most women who live here, how many stories have we all heard or experienced of ´the freaky weird guy` or dirty old man. Back home it is completely unacceptable, here it is just ´japanese´ or weird japan as Lindsay said to her boyfriend. I know of a foreigner who was beaten and raped, the police told her there was nothing they could do. Bad things happen everywhere, and I always urge women especially new to Japan to beware of their safety as much as they would visiting any other foreign place. So much goes on in this country that is not reported, thus does not end up as a percentage on a crime report that a country can be proud of.
Carmel, Nagoya, Japan
I have just returned from 2 years in Japan. I lived in Ichikawa city and I must say that Lindsay's murder rocked the foreign community in Japan. Yes, Japanese society did seem safe and we all did things we would not do at home. Things such as an obssessive student (which is very common in Japan) or comments such as "I want to follow you and take photos of you on your holiday" (which did happen to me) for some strange reason seemed comical in this country. But it wasnt until this incident occured that I really stopped and thought about the significance of these comments. To be honest I was glad to get out of this socially repressed country.
MD, Gosford,
Finding some hints on women and Japan (and japanese society): Tanizaki's novels, Shoten's "The Japanese and the Jews", Okonogi's essays on japanese family and society
F. Bruni, Milano, Italia
To Tomo in Osaka/Adelaide
How dare you say Lindsay Hawker was reckless. That is an insult to her and her family. Anyone can be reckless without the knowledge of what will happen in the future. Did you even read this article? As a 'gaijin' living in Tokyo i could not agree with the article more. I find myself doing things in Japan I would never consider doing back home. The feeling of living in such a 'safe' society lulls you into a false sense of security. I believe Japan is a country in denial. It is too easy to blame crime on foreigners yet when one of their own commits a horrendous crime it is the victim's fault. There have been some crime examples this year already. As a Nova teacher I was frequently reminded about the Nova teachers arrested for possession of drugs in my classes and made to feel ashamed. If i had brought up the Lindsay Hawker case in such a situation then surely i would have been chastised for being a provocative and aggressive foreigner. Make of it what you will
pipford, tokyo, japan,
For those who are writing in and saying there's not much media coverage on this case:
Just finished watching a program tonight "Broadcaster" on channel 6 here (a major tv station). Every Saturday they do a ranking of how much time they spent on each news topic that week. Well, Lindsay Hawker's case was #1.
Get your facts straight before you talk about media coverage.
Smith, Tokyo, Japan
OK everyone, let's keep in mind that the Lucie Blackman case and this Lindsay Hawker case is completely different! Try not to compare the two, they were two different people and there has been 8 years between each tragedy:
The Blackman case was 8 years ago, she was a bar hostess (I believe in Roppongi), got mixed up with drugs and also with a filthy rich young man who was also mixed up with drugs. That's how the 2 of them got together and got to know each other, led to od-ing, he freaked and hid her body in some cave. That's why this case is taking long to convict, since the evidence from the autopsy was o.d.
Lindsay's case was different. She just graduated from college, loved Japan and taught English. Stalker boy chases her, asks her if he can come in to her home for a drink of water, she let's him in, they chat and he asks her for an English lesson, she agrees, they meet at a cafe, chat for an hour, they get in a cab to his flat, she gets murdered.
John, London, UK
To me, Ms. Linsday Hawker was just unbelievably reckless. I do feel terribly sorry for her family and bf. But who would let a guy that chased you from a station come into your room and even give private lessons? I am Japanese and i know the country is safer than other countries. I can walk around alone at night without feeling much fear, which i cannot really do in Adelaide where i am at the moment. But there are, of course, some perverts, criminals or rapist in that safe country. You are in an unfamiliar country where people don't even speak English. You don't really know what is really happening in Japan in terms of crimes. It goes without saying that you have be more causious and sensible than you are in your own country.
Tomo, Osaka/Adelaide, Japan/ Australia
As some here have pointed out, there truly is a false sense of security, not only in Tokyo but in the surrounding areas. I've had my apartment robbed, in broad daylight, and a Japanese friend of mine had her house robbed, also in broad daylight. In that case, a number of her neighbors were also robbed on the same day. Interestingly, all of those women kept large amounts of cash at home, and none of them bothered locking their doors.
There is a very false sense of security, among Japanese also. It is not surprising that tragedies like this happen.
I've pointed out to numerous Japanese and foreign friends here that in my native Canada, the crazies and 'dangerous' types on buses and in the street often look a little dodgy, whereas here, the 'crazy' will often be wearing a business suit. One only has to look at a 'typical' groper on the train to see this. So it seems to be true that you'll be given very little indication of trouble before it happens. The visual cues just aren't there.
Mark, Saitama City, Japan
I realized that Tokyo was definitely safe place when I began to live in foreign cities. Also, various statistics proves the safeness. Any society has wrongdoers. Ichihashi is undoubtly crazy, but far from a typical Japanese.
H.A., Durham, US
The psychopath exists in every single society. Japan is not exception. Even if Japan is a safer place, it is still risky for women to visit places of unkown guys. It is a common sense in any society, I think. The description of Japanese guys by the UK tabloid media is really the reflection of prejudice, which is nothing to do with the case itself. The generalisation of specific people in a specific country often stems from prejudice and naiveness. The propotion of the cases that foreigners are murdered in Japan is extremely low, and the safe society in Japan is underpinned by the strong sense of morality and publicness by Japanese people. Not knowing these facts, exposing prejudice and naiveness of the UK tabloid media is just shameless and naive. Japan is a highly democratic and cultural nation where people are highly educated more than some British people imagine it as a country in Far East. The British people should criticise such naive news media on their own.
Taro, Leeds,
I found in Japan a sort of dislike towards english speaking, and expecially towards English and american persons. The first is mostly because of the colonial past in the asiatic area (Japan had some plans in that area, sic), the second because of last w. war. Many people, expecially older, do not like speaking in english even if they know it. And more, the country has been completely and decisely closed to foreigners from 1639, when shogun forbade travelling abroad and almost completely isolated Japan by reducing the contacts to the outside world to very limited trade relations with China and the Netherlands. This situation lasted more or less until the Meiji restoration in 1868. The immigration from other countries to Japan is still very very low... There are still prejudices towards women as well (in general). The country is complex and has got various cultural stratifications.
F. Bruni, Milano, Italia
Part 2
Might go some way to reduce the increasing number of birth defects that are swept under the carpet. That said, one has to assume Madame’s motivation was recreation rather than procreation. But perhaps this was the first time in her life she said, “I want”, rather than “I ought”. You tend to get this “cut to the chase” behaviour in countries that have been cut off from western influences. Check “China Bounder” on the web. There are so many stories like this, passed around in the mess by those in the know. In sufficient number and with sufficient variation to give credence. One alternative is the two-girl version. My point (at long last) is that switch gender roles and you have rape, coercion, sexual deviancy, even murder. Hardly needs mentioning, but all this is all anecdotal, naturally.
Andrew Milner, Yokohama, Japan
Japanse are polite, shy, sweet and friendly? Yes, only to western people, not between Japanese themselves. I'm a Japanese who has lived in Canada for 2 yeras. I rarely come across polite, shy, aweet, friendly Japanese. Why is that??
Just be reminded that you are just one of cute /handsome "foreigners" in Japan. Nobody really treats you as a individual. You will understand this fact when you look at how chinese or Korean are treated wthin Japan.
Don't believe anyone who has multiple aspects in their personality. If someone is really polite, shy,sweet and friendly, they could be like that to anyone, you know.
Satoshi, Nara, Japan
According to the Gyotoku Police Station that is in charge of the Gyotoku district in the southern part of Ichikawa City (for a location map of this city, see English Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichikawa%2C_Chiba), Chiba Prefecture (to the east of Tokyo) where the murder of Lindsay Hawker took place in late March, no murder took place from March 2005 to February 2006, and one murder from March 2006 to February 2007. Thefts were the most frequent kind of crimes in this district, which amounted to 418 and 309 during the same two periods, respectively. These were among all crimes in the district against the Japanese Criminal Law that amounted to 533 and 435 during the same two periods, respectively.
H. Y, a Japanese citizen, Yokosuka, Japan
Japan is safe? No, people just believe it's safe. It is not so safe as people say. Living in Tokyo for 4 years and now living near King's Cross (one of the most dangerous place in London?), I feel unsafe walking streets in night and even during daytime in London just as I felt in the same way in Tokyo. Japan is the country even 6 year old kids has to have a mobile phone with GPS to make sure their safety and to enable their parents to know where they are.
Everybody should be careful as they are at home when they are in Japan.
a Japanese woman, London,
To me, Ms. Lindsay Hawker was unbelievably reckless. I do feel terribly sorry for her family and bf. But who would let a guy, who chased you from a station, in a room and even give private lessons?? That was my first thought about this horrible incident. I am Japanese and do know Japan is safer than other countries. I can walk around late at night alone without feeling much fear, which i cannot really do in Adelaide where i stay at the moment. However, there are of course murderers,criminals or rapists in Japan too. You are in an unfamilier country where ppl don't even speak English and you have no idea how safe the country is in the real aspects. It goes without saying that you have to be more causious and sensible than you are in your own country.
Tomo, Osaka/Adelaide, Japan/ Australia
What I find hardest about this story is how little the Japanese Police are doing to find this suspect. Since the crime happened I have seen little media coverage on the TV, and only some brief reports in the newspapers. I am sure that if the opposite scenario occured whereby a foreign national had murdered a Japanese citizen then there would be more attention given to this case
I.P Freely, Tokyo, Japan
Don't make a prejudice for Asian. Every country has a crime and pornographic business. You have to know more terrible and horrible crime for Asian woman by British man. British man who married with Korean woman killed his Korean wife and cut her body and stored it on his refirgerator for several years in UK. How do you analyse this case? UK is very dangerous country for Asian woman as well.
Ell, UK, UK
Why does this article mention Tokyo five times, when the murder actually occurred in a small town (Gyotoku) in Chiba prefecture? At the end this gives a totally inaccurate picture of what has happened.
Pat Willener, Tokyo, Japan
I am Japanese.
The other party thinks and even neither the Japanese nor the foreigner think that it perpetrates a crime.
It is news big because the victim is white's British woman.
Does the Japanese feel the foreigner very?
A passive person makes no relations. Because English cannot be spoken.
The aggressive person starts making friends.
The conversation with them becomes study of English, and because it is profitable to see more of life.
The Japanese is not malicious to the westerner.
Even the Japanese is difficult finding man who has small number of malice.
It sincerely prays for to Lindsay Hawker.
Y.A., Tokyo, Japan
By your logic, Kay, any Arab woman in NYC is in fear of being found naked and strangled soley because of 911! Before you call people filthy, look in the mirror.
Michael, Pueblo, CO. USA
Kay,
Hiroshima = Auschwitz
Nagasaki = Belsen
Sleep tight.
Mark
Mark, London, UK
Yes Japan is safer than other countries but if there is one thing that I learned while in Japan, It is that you are given very little indication of what someone is actually thinking so that you could be with someone that is angry or really dislikes you but there is very little outward indication and you need to read between the lines in order to workout what is really going on. Many foreigners find it understandably impossible to decipher these subtle signs, you have been warned!
Graham Wharton, St. Albans, UK
The colonial hatred towards Lameys is still widespread among Asians. That's the real and sole cause of Lindsay Hawker's death.
Bill Hawker should look into "shame on his own country" before pointing his filthy finger.
Kay, New York City,
Like the Lucie Blackman case, Lindsay appeared to cross the safe and sensible boundary that looms over over the social decisions of single girls everywhere. They like countless others felt that they could control a situation which was probaly not going to be approved by their nearest & dearest. For them it was to be a fatal miscalculation. I cannot believe Japan has a higher proportion of sociopaths that any other society as implied in the media. Instead the views of the media and others are more a mirror of the society from which they originate rather than the society they are discussing. A deepset fear of the unpredicable foreigner bursts to the surface on the occurence of these horrible crimes. I now see this from both sides of the fence, having lived outside UK for 10 years (incl 5 yrs in Japan) My UK perception is from the online press and what an unsavoury, violent and hopeless place it is now, full of crazed armed youth and pointless crime. Should I be scared ?
Alice Mason, Shanghai, PRC
That's not quite it, Neville.
The student was Issei Sagawa who murdered Dutch classmate, Renée Hartevelt in Paris. He was deemed insane so didn't stand trial.
He was released from hospital some time (about a year?) after repatriation. That much is true.
But I gather he went on to appear on television frequently, was a sought after guest on shows where he would speak at length about his crime. Bizarre, yes. But there was no cover-up.
Jon, Kumamoto, Japan
I wonder if the content of this article would have been different if written from a female perspective of life in Japan rather than a male one.
Charlotte, Wiltshire, UK,
This current tragedy reminds me of a case some years ago
reported in Newsweek where a Japanese student in Amsterdam invited a Dutch co-student to his apartment, killled and cannibalised her. He spent some years in a Dutch mental hosptital and was finally repatriated to Japan. There was hadly a mention of this dreadful crime in the Japanese media. No-one seemed to care.
neville davis, bangkok, Thailand
Good article.
I agree totally with the part about the rampant foreign males who seem to be in Japan just to pursue Japanese females, no matter what they told me about how much they wanted to learn the language, culture etc...
This killing has not shamed Japan. It has shamed just one man. He'll eventually be caught. But then again, he may have taken his life as has happened in the past.
John Fulton, London, UK