Lindsay Hawker and Tatsuya Ichihashi

This is Lindsay Hawker, a 22-year old English conversation teacher from Coventry, whose body was found buried in a bathtub of earth in an aprtment in Chiba prefecture on Monday.

This is Tatsuya Ichihashi, who ran away from the apartment when the police called and who is sought by police in connection with her death.

More about this in The Times in a few hours (and on this blog). In the meantime, if anyone has any information about the case, or either of the people above, please contact me.

03-3270-3481

from outside Japan: +81-3-3270-3481

or by email:

richardlloydparry@compuserve.com

Comments

[Ron]

Japanese people’s reaction to this mishap came up to my reactions. Just as was expected, Japanese people didn’t fail to go into action at many websites in order to distort the true nature of the murder case. Is the kernel of a question Lindsay Ann Hawker’s illegal private lessons? Any victimized person himself/herself is more responsible for his/her own death than a murderer just because of illegal tutorage outside of an employed English school? The core of the case is that she had been stalked and was brutally murdered by a man. Japanese people should not try to attract public gaze at something else. They’d better express their condolences to the deceased, help the Japanese authorities to cooperate with the British authorities in handling this murder case. They should know their distortion of the matter will do no good to anything, even to their UJP (Ultra Japan Pride). Do you remember when an American Lucie Blackman was killed by a Japanese man in Japan? At that time, the Japanese mass media concentrated only on her being a bar hostess and her mental anxiety.

[Andrew Milner]

Lucie Blackman was a Brit. In fact her body was found very near one of the places I live. Before I move to the area I hasten to add. Because 99.999% percent of Japanese are really nice or at least harmless, you tend to have your guard down when you occasionally run into "nutters".

[Dave]

This is a sad story and as a fellow educator in Japan my thoughts go out to her family and friends. However, I do believe there is more to come out about this story. I have talked about it in my blog article and made comments on a couple of details that have been mentioned by the media, but not questioned or investigated by reporters as of yet.

The BBC has already put a story online entitled "Is Japan safe for foregners?". You don't have to read the article as I can give you an answer here. Yes it is! It's most likely safer than your home country (unless you live in Iceland or Scandinavia somewhere). Sure there is crime, but there is crime everywhere. I have never once felt threatened walking around in Japan, unlike numerous times back in England.

[Natsuko]

My comment is not of this tragedy but I wish to give some protection hints for girls in Japan . If you are there, it is advisable not to show your cleavages. I lived half of my life overseas so I dress like Westerners, but when I return to Japan, I go little conservative. If you want to be treated with respect, it is wiser to go that way. Showing your bare skin often appear indecent and sex- laborer like. More importantly, you are considered to be asking for attention from anyone, even from disgusting guys.There are many creepies out there, just like anywhere else. Some guys think ( or his penises think) if you are showing your bosoms, you are doing so because you want guys (any guys) to touch them. Be more protective and stay safe!

[Bridget Slater]

Japan does suspend your radar for the dangerous. I lived in Osaka for 2 years and worked for Nova, where a lot of my friends gave private lessons. Japnese people are lovely, but sometimes i found thier veiw of westerns a little distroted.

My friends who are men see the places as amazing, where the men are lovely and the women are even better. But for western Women in Japan there is often problems. I dress conservatily, but even then I had old men grab me on the train and young men ask me for sex acts.

I think when it all boils down to it Japan has some women objectification issues that need to be sorted out. But do not blames this girl, she only did what hundreds of foreigners do every day in japan, and teach a private lesson.

[Lee]

Natsuko, a violent man bent on harming women will do that no matter what she's wearing. Showing "your bosoms" is NOT asking to be stalked and killed. After all, rape and sexual assault also happens to children and the elderly--it's not about sex, or sexual attraction; it's about violence and the need for control. This Ichihashi clearly had no respect for women at all, and it had nothing to do with how she dressed. Your outdated attitudes only help contribute to the idea that victims of sexual assault and violence somehow "deserved" it or brought it on themselves. I suppose all the respectable, non-bosom showing, business-attired women who get groped on Japan's train system were also appearing "indecent and sex-worker like"? Get real. My advice to you is not to kid yourself that you are safe from a violent assault at the hands of a misogynist criminal just because you are keeping your bosoms under wraps.

[Y.O.]

Agreed Japan is generally safe, but I have heard too many stories from women here regarding stalkers, flashers and gropers. There is something to wonder about a society that makes a comicbook hero called "Rapeman" and cartoons about "tentacle rape." What does this tell children about gender roles? The "adult" entertainment here evolves the violence and degradation of females, with, for example, gang "bukkake" or rape videos -- often involving bound and screaming schoolgirls.
I generally don't care for censorship and I don't know if sexual violence in manga and videos contributed to the terrible killing of Lindsay Hawker. Maybe what appears to be a culture of self-perpetuating misogynism is really just harmless fantasy. I think maybe a lot of foreigners here rationalize it that way.
"It's just crazy Japan" -- one of the last messages Lindsay Hawker wrote home.

[Eleanor Goldsmith]

Rubbish, Natsuko! The vast majority of Japanese girls go around showing far more flesh than your average foreign female. That's certainly been my experience in more than 8 years of living in Niigata, anyway.

[Alexandra Willoughby]

I agree totally with Eleanor on that point. In fact, when I was in American Midwest, more often than not Americans mistook female Japanese tourists for hookers because they walked around in snow in very short skirts over ankle boots without any tights or leggings.

[Copacabana]

One point that women of all nationalities should be very aware of is that different cultures regard different parts of the female body as provocative.

In Western culture, wearing a belt-like skirt is seen as sluttish -- as is showing one's cleveage In East Asia. In any case, women should be able to do either of these things without fear of attack.

Having said that, I agree with Lee's point that how you dress is not necessarily a factor in these crimes: walking home to my flat in Saitama early one evening last year, I was approached by a man who asked me to perform a sexual act on him -- at the time, I was wearing trousers and a baggy jumper, and looked about as unattractive as I possibly could.

Again, no excuse for murder but willingly going into the flat of a man you do not know sends a certain kind of message in any culture, and it doesn't have much to do with the desire to teach English!

[albert lee]

Well, all said and done, the woman did invite the jerk into her apartment, after he followed her home, that is nutters on her part. You NEVER invite someone into your home, even with room mates there, that you have never met before. She made fatal mistake. WHY was she so stupid? But of course, the real monster is him, and he will be caught
.\

Sad

[Michi Yamaga]

Japan is not particularly dangerous - it is only peculiarly so.

Otaku is one species you want to be wary of. The objects of their fantasy vary, but "gaijin" is one of them. Though most otakus are harmless in real life, some do forget the boundary between reality and their fantasies. Otakus very often are just that in the first place because of their inability to distinguish the two worlds.

Such dual worlds do not exist in the West, not yet anyway, to the same extent as in their "homeland," Japan.

As a Japanese language teacher in Europe I am constantly alarmed by the permeation of Japanese subculture among European youth who have no real understanding of the cultural background.

Japan, like any other country, has its unique beauty and ugliness and is certainly no paradise. Be happy, but please, be on your guard.

[NB]

I found an interesting academic article on the relationship between pornography and sex crimes in Japan (manga-porn is also discussed in it).

http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_rape_jp.html

[The killer] is [a disgusting psychotic pervert, but I think one should be careful before making any direct connection between so-called otaku culture and sex-crimes. I hope it adds something to the argument.

[Y.O.]

Thanks to NB for posting the link to that paper. Frankly I found the reasoning terribly flawed, repeatedly Mr. Diamond and Mr. Uchiyama seem to be comparing apples and oranges.

For example, the idea that there has been a relative decrease in sexual crimes between the 1970s and 1990s in Japan as compared to Western countries does not reflect the fact that women's liberation movements of the time pushed authorities in Western countries to become more diligent in protecting women, that is, improving and enforcing rape response protocols and laws, setting up shelters for abused women and so on. There has been no such parallel movement in Japan, actually here when women report being stalked, groped or flashed the default response from police is to tell them to "be careful" and send them away.
In the case of rape, if the perpetrator is caught, the authorities' default action is to request he pay "jidan" or apology money to the victim. In this case, no one gets arrested, no trial, nothing gets added to the crime statistics.

Another quick example of what's wrong with the paper cited above -- the authors argue that "exposure to sexually explicit materials can have therapeutic advantages" but this is related to a study of prisoners in American jails. No distinction is made between, for example images of what might be called "standard" sexual activity that these prisoners might see, and the sort of sexual violence that Japanese youth are currently exposed to, comic books and videos which involve bondage and ultraviolent gang rape of schoolgirls.

[Helen]

Interestingly enough this morning I was watching the news here in Tokyo, they had 3 foreign English teachers on and asked them questions as to what they would do in this situation. Their last question was if they felt Japan was safe, they all agreed that it wasn't which really surprised me.

[KHAY]

From all the activity on the blogs, and countless quotes from people who have reiterated how they feel from their experiences etc- I am suprised that you are surprised! A Japanese ex-police man who was a student of mine gave me very good advice when I first moved to Japan, namely,don't travel in a train carriage on your own late at night, and don't wander around on your own late at night.That's good advice, for any country,including Japan.
That aside, flashers, stalkers and other general chikan seemed to be attracted to women, foreign women and occasionally foreign men.

[Michelle]

What Natsuko was trying to say is that different cultures perceive and respond in certain ways to things which they find sexy and provocative, so she was providing advice on dressing conservatively to hopefully decrease one's chances of being harassed.

Although, of course, harassment is harassment, whether you're wearing a burlap sack or a micro mini.

[Lora]

For Natsuko,
When I was single, I was stalked several times by Japanese men even though I normally didn't wear clothes showing cleavage. There was even a man with a Yokohama license plate who used to park regularly a number of times per month for over a year outside my Tokyo apartment waiting for me to open the window, or better yet, go outside--which I tried to avoid as much as possible when he was there. I have no idea how he could have found me and my apartment, except by stalking. This ended only by chance, when some apartments above mine were broken into, and the police came by to ask questions. I gave them the Yokohama license plate number, although I pointed out that I thought the man was only interested in me--not in robbing the apartments on the second floor. The Yokohama man didn't stop by for more than a month after that; and when he did, I took photos of his license plates. Upon noticing what I was doing, he drove away quite angrily. I have no idea if he tried coming back again, as I moved to another place a few months later. My point is that a young, attractive, single foreign woman can attract attention and stalkers no matter what she wears.
The only mistake--and a very fatal one--made by Ms. Hawker seems to have been to accompany a man she hardly knew to his apartment.

[Andrew]

For Ron,
Itis not illegal to teach private students in Japan, although I gather it is illegal in South Korea.

[Kath]

What baffles me is how quickly the media has lost interest in this tragedy. Every day I scour the Japan Times for the tiniest mention of it. One would expect, at the very least, a police spokesperson to come out and say,"We're doing all we can."

Have I not been reading the paper closely enough?

I have lived here for over nine years and most of the English teachers I know subsidize their incomes with private lessons. Japanese people are the first to assure you that this is a very "safe" country, so, looking back to a more naive version of myself in 1998, it's easy to imagine myself trusting someone, even if he exhibited odd behavior (this being a safe country and all).

From now on I intend to take all stalking incidents (like the one last year where the guy was hiding in the bushes waiting for me to go into my apartment) more seriously and put the whistle firmly around my neck with my keitai.

The comment from "Natsuko" (who clearly hasn't spent much time in Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku or even Kanagawa lately) does not even warrant a response.

[Vanessa]

I've been living in central Tokyo with my Japanese husband and child for near to 11 years. I teach at a school and supplement my income by giving private lessons at my home. Like so many of us do.
I have lived in NYC/London/Paris and many other major cities in my life. Do I find Tokyo safer than the rest? Probably yes,because the statistics say so, although I've never had any trouble in any of the places I've lived before. When you live in a foreign country, you often rely on instinct and trust.
Why should Lindsay Ann Hawker have assumed that the young man she was teaching would have muderous intentions? That certainly isn't my first instinct when I meet a new student in my home. I trust that there intention is to learn English and to enjoy and respect the opportunity presented.
We don't know why she went to his apartment - perhaps he told her he left his wallet there after they had had their lesson in the cafe - so the speculation that she may have been wearing provocative clothing or that she was "stupid" to go to a stranger's apartment and this contributed to her death, is irrelevant and careless at this point. We need to wait until this man is caught and then try to find the truth of this sad and shocking crime. The only one at fault is the muderer.
My heartfelt condolences to her family.

[Simon]

Dear Natsuko, you are talking utter rot.
I live in Tokyo and, as others have already said, I see young Japanese women every day who look like they've stepped out of a fetish movie. Schoolgirls with skirts that barely cover their knickers and every woman between 18 and 25 wearing a combination of hotpants, hold-up stockings and thigh-high leather boots.....and this is in WINTER!

As to Kath's comment about the Japanese media losing interest (which was why I was forced to locate this site in the first place), perhaps it has something to do with the fact (widely reported on English TV but totally ignored by it's Japanese counterpart) that the murder suspect has family links to the Yakuza. (This may also explain why 9 armed policemen allowed him to run away in bare feet and haven't caught him since!)

[I haven't come across reports of these damily links to the yakuza - where did you see that? RLP]