My Very Brief Fight with a Yakuza
This is the story I don’t want to tell, about my fight with a Japanese gangster, because it’s so horrible. But I’ve held onto it too long already, so I’ll just lay it out.
The night started out pretty much like every other, drinking with some random Japanese girl in Ikebukuro. What can I say, everybody’s gotta have a hobby. Now, I’ve heard people say that Japan’s expensive, but it’s really not. Seriously. Like I’ll tell you what Tony Robbins told me. I’m sure you know him—he’s that dude about seven feet tall with hands like baseball gloves. Sometimes I lie on the floor and watch him on YouTube when it’s two a.m. and I can’t stand any more Japanese TV. I’m not saying I even like the guy all that much, but from a Japanese perspective, he’s amazing. He occupies an opposite universe, where people are huge and loud and can accomplish whatever they put their minds to, like improving relationships and being healthy and successful. And I’m like, Hell yeah! I can take control of my life! I’ll just finish this bottle of Sapporo and then I’m on it!
Japanese Snack Bars and Nomihodai
So lying there with my laptop on my stomach, Tony Robbins said to me, “If you do the right thing at the wrong time, you don’t get rewarded. You get pain.” And I was like, Dude, that is so true. That’s like if you go to a “snack bar” with a cover charge and buy one beer and then leave. That beer’s going to cost you thirty bucks. See, that’s the kind of pain Tony Robbins and I know about. People who do stuff like that think Japan’s expensive. But . . . if you go to a nomihodai, you can drink all you want for two hours for only about fifteen bucks. A couple of hours, are you kidding me? I can power down a good twelve beers in that time, and that’s such a deal. Japan’s cheap if you follow the right program. Anyway, that’s what Tony Robbins and I think.
But where was I? Oh yeah, so that night I went with a lady friend to this nomihodai, which by the way translates to “two hours during which you and everyone else will look way more attractive than you actually are.” And we had a completely fantastic time, eating sliced tomato salad and octopus in wasabi and these mind-blowing shiso and plum sushi rolls. But as it was Wednesday and we had to get up the next day for stupid work, we just said goodnight, bowed at each other, and went our separate ways.
The Descent into Ikebukuro
It was a hot night, and when I walked down the steps into the station, even hotter air rushed up to meet me. Ikebukuro Station is a sweltering, foul-smelling place. Then, near the ticket machines, is where it happened. I heard a loud thud, like a soccer ball being punted. I heard it again, then again. To my left a crowd of Japanese people were ringed in a large circle, and in the middle, a skinny man in a purple shirt was lying face up, unconscious on the white tile floor. Over him stood a huge guy with a shaved head in a cream-colored jacket. The huge guy drew back his foot like he was going to kick a field goal—he had on these leather shoes—and booted the unconscious man as hard as he could in the ribs. Then again in the neck. He kept doing it over and over. The sound was horrible. Around him, nobody said a word.
I really couldn’t process what I was seeing. Like, a couple of minutes ago I was having a bunch of nice drinks with this chick, and now it’s like, What the hell’s going on? Why is nobody doing anything? Where are the cops? Ikebukuro has a ton of police. People were just cringing, looking away, but not moving, screaming, or even speaking. Now, I try not to impose American values on Japan. It’s another culture, like I get that. But if there’s one rule about fighting, it’s that you don’t kick a man when he’s down. No matter where in the world you are, that would seem to make sense. You certainly don’t keep pounding on someone after he’s unconscious. And in the States, if someone’s being attacked, you’re supposed to help. At least you’d call 911 on your iPhone. Or take a video with your iPad. Or chuck your MacBook Air at him like a Frisbee. Jesus, you’d do something anyway.
The Yakuza Outside of my 7-11
Like I said, so the skinny guy on the tile floor isn’t moving and this massive dude is just kicking the shit out of him. And I know immediately the big guy isn’t just an ordinary person. He’s a yakuza. I know these guys because they have a meeting every Tuesday morning in my town, in front of 7-11. It sounds strange, I know, but maybe they just like the rice balls there or something. They’re really good, actually. All these black cars line up with little old gangster guys sitting in the back, while muscly men in black suits mill around outside looking like K-1 fighters, with shaved heads and pounded up faces. This dude was one of them.
The Part you Really Don’t Want to Read
Everything happened really fast. I don’t think I’d even been there five seconds. I was still trying to make sense of the whole scene. Plus I’d had a few cocktails. Then the yakuza dude did something I still can’t deal with. He reached down and grabbed the unconscious man by the hair and lifted him up with one hand, until he was like a marionette dangling in the air. I just remember that purple shirt. Then with the speed of a baseball pitcher, he drove forward and whipped the man’s skull onto the tile floor as hard as he could. It was like an explosion. Jesus. There was blood everywhere. It wasn’t anything like a fight; it was like something from a war movie. I was like, Holy crap, this is an actual murder. The man in the purple shirt lay there lifeless with his eyes rolled back in his head, not even breathing, while all his dark blood poured out onto the white tile.
If you think about it, you probably don’t see a lot of blood very much. Like maybe emergency room workers or soldiers do, but ordinary folks just don’t see massive amounts of blood in everyday life. It’s surprisingly dark red. Yet somehow, the yakuza still wasn’t finished. He leaned over and once more picked the man up by the hair, like a lifeless doll. Nobody moved. The entire Ikebukuro station went deathly silent. And then he hurled his head onto the tile again, as hard as he could. The sound was awful, just bone on rock. More blood came gushing out. I couldn’t believe it. Then he reached down for him again. I stepped forward and shoved the yakuza in the chest.
My Very Stupid Move
Now, I’m not a particularly brave dude. Like if your baby’s on fire, count on me to be the first guy to take off running down the street for the fire department. Those guys are professionals; let them deal with it. They’ve got big trucks and water hoses and oxygen masks and stuff. Police have guns and clubs and handcuffs. Only right then, in Ikebukuro, there weren’t any police. There wasn’t even a lousy JR station attendant. Just hundreds of people watching and nobody was going to do jack shit. I stepped next to the unconscious man in the purple shirt, put my palm in the middle of the yakuza’s chest, and shoved him back hard, without a word, mostly because I couldn’t come up with anything to say. And until that point, I guess I didn’t really realize just how big he was.
His eyes were wild with anger and I knew he was going to take my head off. The moment he looked at me, realized I’d gotten into something I couldn’t talk my way out of. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder, What Japanese phrase would be appropriate at this juncture? Like I can make a dentist’s appointment or book a room at a hotel, but somehow this particular situation had never come up in my studies. I hate when that happens. He moved forward until we were standing about six inches apart, and I understood one thing: backing down was no longer an option. I pulled my hand back from his chest. I saw a look flash in his eyes that said, I’m gonna kill you. And then he did something I totally didn’t expect. He lowered his gaze, nodded slightly, and raised his hand vertically; the Japanese version of “sorry to trouble you.” Like he’d just stepped on my foot in the train. Then he walked past me, up the steps, and out of the station. Just like that.
The Japanese Police, to Protect and to Serve
Suddenly everybody was on the phone with someone, but for ten long minutes, nobody came. No police, no ambulance, nothing. I stood next to the lifeless man and counted the time on my watch. I knew there was a police box near the top of the stairs, but jeez, did I have to do everything myself? The crowd mostly hung around watching, in a loose circle around this dude and all his blood, except for two ladies and a man who knelt beside him and patted him like a dead puppy. Finally an ambulance crew arrived. When they strapped him to the stretcher, to my surprise, he let out a faint groan and I noticed he was breathing. The human body is remarkably resilient. As he was being carted off, the police finally arrived.
People started drifting away. One policeman asked a few casual questions of a couple people from the crowd, and jotted some notes in a notebook. I walked up.
“I saw the whole thing,” I said.
The cop looked at me. “That’s okay,” he said, and turned away.
“I can identify the man who did this,” I insisted.
“We’ll take care of it.
“He’s wearing a cream colored jacket, and he went that way. I know where you can find him on Tuesday morning.
“That’s okay,” said the cop firmly. “We’ll handle this.” He turned his back and strode away.
And just like that, it was over. I looked around. There were a couple of girls hugging each other and crying. A large puddle of dark blood was still on the white tile. I stood there stunned for a few minutes. Then I left. I didn’t know where else to go, so I went I went to the convenience store and bought a tallboy of grapefruit chu-hi. Then I rode the crowded train home and watched another Anthony Robbins video on the floor of my tiny apartment, but it didn’t make me feel as good as before. I guess I still think of Japan as a safe place. I just won’t be walking in front of that 7-11 any more.
No hadouken?
Kenneth Tjendra
August 4, 2012 at 11:41 am
Thank God somebody invented Wikipedia, cause I had no idea what that was.
“The move is achieved by the character thrusting their palms forward, sending a surge of spirit energy (or ki) flying towards the opponent.”
Now that I know, yeah, next time such a situation arises, I’m definitely busting out the ol’ spirit energy.
Ken Seeroi
August 4, 2012 at 12:45 pm
I high-fived my monitor.
Mattholomew III, Esquire
August 6, 2012 at 2:37 am
That’s bound to leave a smudge.
Thanks for the support though, seriously.
Ken Seeroi
August 7, 2012 at 5:55 am
That’s noble Ken, noble and ballsy, you rock! It’s a pity the Japanese are like that, like “I’m just gonna watch in
horror and do nothing” and the cops not getting involved with the Yakuza, but they’ve been like that since they carried swords, so that’ll probably never change…
Emmett
August 8, 2012 at 8:12 am
It was a situation in which getting involved was the only option. I think any Westerner, anyone, for sure, would have done something to intercede.
From a Japanese perspective, I can kind of understand why no one reacted. Life in Japan requires a bland acceptance in the face of often calamitous situations. When there’s an earthquake, landslide, or tsunami, you just pick up and go back to work. Even the daily commute, with people pushing onto trains and walking into each other in crowded stations, demands a kind of non-reaction. In school and at work too, when decisions need to be reached, people don’t argue openly back and forth. Daily life mostly goes smoothly and without confrontation. Japanese people are frequently praised for their zen-like calm, but the flip side is that they’re conditioned to be passive rather than active.
The police, the other hand . . . to me, that’s just unconscionable.
Ken Seeroi
August 9, 2012 at 5:40 am
As expected from a fellow American. I had a similar situation in Japan, but it ended in no violence.
My friend and I were on the train when we heard a women obviously in some discomfort nearby. Apparently a ‘chikan’ was doing what they do best: feeling an innocent chick up. And as usual, the Japanese did what they do best: nada.
So I strolled up to him, grabbed the back of his shirt and looked him dead in the eye and, sarcastically, laughed while saying “Ano saa, nani shitendayo”. I thought it was going to be a fight, but he was terrified and just dropped on bowed to me. No thank you from the girl. No claps from the crowd. This isn’t what the movies said it would be.
I think at that moment I developed the same feeling you did for Japan at that moment. Not so much the ‘is it really safe?’ feeling, but moreso the ‘why don’t they help their own’ kind of feeling. Is everything mendokusai to them?
Chris
August 15, 2012 at 8:34 am
It’s good that you helped out. Some strange things sure do happen on trains at times.
It seems like more than just mendokusai, doesn’t it? More like people have been conditioned to accept whatever comes along with grim resignation. You can really see it in the school system, where obedience is highly valued.
The lack of reaction is partly what keeps everything running so smoothly in Japan. Cars don’t honk and people don’t yell (very much). But on the rare occasions when swift action is required, most people are terribly unprepared.
Ken Seeroi
August 16, 2012 at 11:29 pm
I think that thus far I never ran into Yakuza … or if I did, I didn’t notice.
I guess they’re usually in bigger citites and not in the boonies anyways.
This sounds like a scene out of a movie and I don’t even want to imagine it …..
I find it very interesting to see that there seems to be a “natural limit” when Japanese people stop doing something and just keep watching or pretending to ignore things.
I have the feeling if it’s something that feels like it’s not their job … or it’s not something where they feel capable of helping, they just stand and watch.
Example:
When I was completely soaked after I was hit by a typhoon being outside traveling all day, I was sitting, freezing and shivering, waiting for the train to come (that was back in April, so it was quite cold), several Japanese people approached me asking if they could offer me their coat, shirt, whatever and asked if I was ok.
That situation wasn’t too extreme or something that they’ve never seen before. It was easy for them to do something about it and although I was a foreigner, they offered their help immediately.
Just recently the thing where you put your stuff on in trains came loose and bumped into my nose with full strength.
I held my nose, screaming “itai, itai!” (that’s my normal reaction when something hurts, I guess I’ve been here for too long?) …. it became worse so I ran off to the bathroom and cooled my nose.
It turned red and was a bit swollen. At that time I wasn’t sure if it was broken.
After some time I returned to my seat, still holding my nose, looking miserable.
NOBODY said anything, nobody asked if I was okay or if there was anything they could do.
I guess that situation was already beyond that “natural border”.
(btw. x-ray showed that my nose wasn’t broken and everything is ok again …) ^-^;;; ….
zoomingjapan
August 19, 2012 at 9:19 pm
Glad your nose is okay. いたい！ That sounds really painful.
I agree that Japanese people are generally quite helpful. You said “although I was a foreigner,” but I’ve always felt it was more “because” I was a foreigner. When I’ve paused to look at a map or a schedule in a station people have approached me to help on several occasions, which they probably wouldn’t do if I looked like a local. I don’t think that’s just a Japanese thing though; people in other nations are also quick to assist people that look out of place. It’s not entirely altruistic, of course, since the person helping gets to demonstrate superior knowledge and come away with a feeling of accomplishment.
So it’s not helpfulness that Japanese people are lacking. It’s the ability to take quick action. Nobody’s going to throw off their jacket and spring into action. In a nation where a two-minute train delay constitutes a crisis, people don’t get much practice dealing with real contingencies.
Ken Seeroi
August 20, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Ironically, this uninvolved and non-aggressive mindset most Japanese people have is what makes Japan such a peaceful place.
Aspiring
August 24, 2012 at 5:01 am
Absolutely. I feel that most descriptions I’ve read about Japan come across as too one-sided. They either rave about the peace and harmony of the nation, or rant about how conformist and lacking in motivation everyone is. The reality is that the two are intertwined; you can’t have one without the other. The things I dislike about this country are, ironically, the same things I like the most. Actually, that’s true of the U.S. as well. Thus proving that no place is perfect. Or that I’m schizophrenic, I’m not sure which.
Ken Seeroi
August 24, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Have you thought about becoming a crime-fighting superhero dressed up in a custom-made costume made of spandex and carbon fiber armor? You could patrol certain areas of the city you live in like the superheroes here in America do.
http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/real-life-superhero-walks-streets-fighting-crime/nDRRf/
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/evildoers_nyc_own_superheroes_beware_C07qjscAB2eh34P1CsUOCO#ixzz0kz45tGWj
-Jack
Jack Hydrazine
August 25, 2012 at 4:52 am
Thought about it? Only every waking moment.
I love the costume idea, since I look great in spandex, but it’s more of a transportation issue. You know, like what good is it to have a kick-ass suit if you can’t fly, or swing on a web, or descend with your cape from the darkness? You’ve got all this carbon fiber armor and a bitchin’ cape, and then you gotta ride the train with your lunch box on your lap? Kind of takes all the drama out of it.
Ken Seeroi
August 25, 2012 at 6:47 am
“Japan’s cheap if you follow the right program.”
Sounds like you could write a book about how to live or visit cheap in Japlandia!
Jack Hydrazine
October 29, 2012 at 12:08 am
Thanks. Yeah, and I’ll double-down on that. I know there’s a lot of information on the net about Japan being such an expensive place, but I just don’t see it. It’s far cheaper than the U.S., from my perspective. True, if you compare, say, the price per square foot of a hotel room, Japan comes out more expensive. But if you compare quality, Japan kills it. I’ve stayed in a number of hotels that, while small, were clean and safe for under $50 a night, including in Tokyo. In the U.S., I’d be terrified to stay in a hotel for that price. The same goes for food and drinks. You’re right, I need to get busy on that book.
Ken Seeroi
October 29, 2012 at 6:48 pm
Good job, mate. You did the right thing, hope the guy you help appreciate it. Hope that this incident won’t bite you from past.
PassingBy
September 24, 2012 at 12:16 pm
My general policy is not to interfere in the affairs of others. I certainly wouldn’t get in the middle of a fight between two
guys. They can punch the hell out of each other for all I care.
This, however, wasn’t a fight, since one of the parties was already unconscious. To me, it was more in the realm of watching a helpless animal or child being beaten. Maybe there are just some things that, regardless of the consequences, demand a response.
Ken Seeroi
September 25, 2012 at 3:07 pm
This post is really something out of a movie. I listened to the Halo theme “Arrival” which made it even more epic!
I wonder what goes through their minds as they’re watching a unconscious guy slowly get beaten to so death. Another thing that fascinated me; was how the yakuza-dude just decided to walk away.
I usually don’t comment on people’s blogs, but I felt obligated to do so this time (the music encouraged me). Bravely done and I hope you’re staying safe out of the yakuzas’ way.
Greetings from Sweden
Ka_Shin
November 15, 2012 at 12:08 am
Thanks for the comment. Funny you should mention it, but I was drinking shochu with this old yakuza guy last night. He said he spent three years in prison. We made plans (sort of, we were loaded) to go drinking again, so maybe I’ll have some stories about that soon. Anyway, apparently I’m not doing a good job of staying out of trouble. But I never have, so why start now, I guess.
Ken Seeroi
November 15, 2012 at 8:59 am
Woah dude. That’s heavy. You’re one lucky man.
I saw a video of an American guy breaking up a fight, some guy was beating on his woman, and thought that was pretty brave. What you did is waaaaaaaay beyond that.
Respect.
Deano @ JTM
January 12, 2013 at 12:49 pm
Yeah thanks. I mean, I generally believe in minding my own business. Breaking up fights, saving drowning people, rescuing cats from burning buildings—they all seem like great ways to get killed, something I’d prefer avoid. But you know, sometimes life puts you in a situation where, if it’s not you, it’s nobody. If I weighed it out logically, it’s a terrible idea to get in the middle of a fight in a foreign country. But that’s not how things work. You see someone being killed and, on the spot, you’ve either got to turn away or do something. Maybe this was just my time.
Ken Seeroi
January 13, 2013 at 1:29 pm
My experience with the yakuza wasn’t just as nerve-wrecking as yours, but the reaction of the police was the same. The police arrived at the scene with the guy present, they let him leave unmolested and asked me not to indicate him because he’s yakuza. Which cost me 10.000 Yen in insurance as the damage he caused to my rental car was only insured if the culprit is known.
The yakuza is still something you quite clearly stay away from.
Silvia
January 17, 2013 at 1:52 am
That sucks, but I guess it doesn’t surprise me. I saw a Yakuza in Kyoto get in a fender-bender with another driver, and he immediately jumped out of the car and started screaming at the guy. I mean, the U.S. has road rage, but this guy was going off like he was ready to cannibalize the other dude. I certainly don’t think it’s all yakuza (since I’ve met a few who seemed quite normal), but clearly there are some just looking for the chance to go nuts on someone.
Ken Seeroi
January 17, 2013 at 8:38 am