The safety trap

[I want to move on to subjects other than the Lindsay Hawker murder (although as long as it remains unsolved, I'll no doubt return to it from time to time). But here, anyway, is a piece I wrote for yesterday's paper.

The longer I live in Japan, the more irritated I become by generalisations about the place, and the less inclined I am to generalise myself. But this commission, from the features pags of Times 2, was an invitation to do exactly that. It took a lot of concentration. I'm not sure I managed to articulate all of my feelings about this case, but I got some of the way there.

Comments and criticisms are invited . . .]

The safety trap

Some murders are shocking in their strangeness, others fit a sickeningly familiar pattern, but the cases which intrigue us the most are those which combine elements of the known and the unknown, which seem to confirm  in us something we hadn’t realised that we already knew. The death of Lindsay Hawker, the British English teacher strangled in Japan ten days ago, is one of these cases.

For her family and friends, it is a crushing tragedy, but 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 mug shot. 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, there is something naggingly appropriate about the fact 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 which 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 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 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; the body of his alleged victim 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 nation dweller, Tokyo is a fantastically safe place to live.

Imagine a city in which burglary is rare, car break-ins virtually unknown, and where 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% 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 cliché – 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 the Japanese onanists are larger 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 like Roppongi, where young Japanese women feed on foreign men with equal enthusiasm and ferocity.)

Japanese men rarely make the overt displays of aggressive masculinity which westerners deploy from time to time to impress or intimidate. They seldom preen or strut; to a relative newcomer like Lindsay, with no command of Japanese, they might appear “sweet”, “shy”, even “boring’. In almost fifteen years, 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 instincts of caution and suspicion which guide and protect us at home. This is the 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 which 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? 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 italics] 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.

Comments

[Gyoza]

Your comment about the police being bumbling seems very true from my experience. The feeling I get is that it is often the local mafia who do the true policing. I also get the feeling that if they (the mafia) wanted to find somebody, they could.

[Milica]

Richard, I sympathise on the point of generalisations of Japan in foreign media - I never realised what a distorted image was served up until I moved over. Although many of your blog entries about Japan contain facts and specific opinions, I can imagine that to the readers based outside of Japan, they mostly reinforce the 'quirky' image they already have of the country. I was therefore glad when I read this article yesterday: you are careful in your generalisations, and mention aspects of gaijin lifestyles in Japan not obvious to people abroad to balance the arguments. I find it difficult, when speaking with friends, to sum up so many small but unique details that comprise our everyday lives here into an unbiased and effective picture (now at least I can take a shortcut and recommend this article). At times generalisations are necessary and extremely informative, but they should be approached responsibly and with a view of the target audience. Thanks.

[Julián Ortega Martínez]

Even though people as Lucy Rodgers (BBC) and Lesley Downer (Telegraph) arrive to the same conclusion (westerners are too unsuspecting when go to Japan), your article is the best of the three. Even Jiji Press / Asahi Shimbun referred to it. Thanks for this excellent, balanced, honest, informative article. I've already bookmarked it for future reference.

[Paul Gill]

My experience of having lived in foreign cultures resistant to penetration/dilution (first Catalunya and now Japan) is that the outsider rarely achieves an objective perspective on that society, succumbing instead to the constantly telegraphed messages he gets in his every day encounters and ending by either embracing the culture all out or emphatically rejecting it.
I detect in your post a leaning in the direction of the all-out embrace. It's not a very scientific method I'll admit, but the perusal of a Japanese daily will yield many more accounts of strange and grisly crimes than that of a British daily.

I know of no western country where the train service has had to introduce women only carriages. Nor do I know of any western country where school girl's uniforms are so acceptably part of a sex shop's stock.

Look a little into the history of the country and you get the comfort women scandal as well as the decision to seek volunteers for brothels to service the US occupying force post WWII (at least if the historian Herbert Bix's sources are correct). I don't think there is much evidence to support the notion that Japanese men are "obsessed" with western women. I'd say their attitude towards them is far more nuanced than that. I do think, though, that it's a fair observation to make that the Japanese are weird about sex, at least from a westerner's point of view. Michel Houllebecq, in his book Platform has a prostitute complaining about her clients say that the Japanese are the worst for stated reasons and add that they often end up staring at your shoes and masturbating.
As a gay man and an Irish man, I know well that cultural stereotypes often have a strong grounding in fact.

I'm not convinced by your attempts to fill in the gaps in this sad story to extract some kind of instruction from it. Surely it is best to wait till these key events have been ascertained before you draw any conclusions.
Anyway, the video footage showed Ichihasi ordering and paying for the coffees so that puts paid to your forgotten wallet theory. If his apartment was just around the corner, why did they make their way in a taxi? From what we know, I think it's obvious that he set about endearing himself to her from the outset in order to get her guard down. I shall not speculate on what happened once they reached his apartment.
Finally, it is worth bearing in mind that many more murders of young girls and women have taken place in the last 7 years in Japan. Lindsay Hawker's and Lucie Blackman's are the only ones our western media have picked up on because the others have been Asian and thus of no relevance to western media. As a journalist living here, though, you are in a better position to see the bigger picture and to place the murders of these two girls in the larger context of violence against women by Japanese men and not the necessarily skewered context of violence against western women.

[Wendy McBain]

Nicely written!! Thank you for your true and generous commments and compliments about Japan. I've yet to get to Japan, but will, and see the Tokyo Tower and Kyoto and all the other fascinating things going on in that great and interesting country.

I'm not Japan, but I respect them and definitely Japan would be a highlight in my traveling life.

[Julián Ortega Martínez]

Paul, the "only women carriage" system has been used in Mexico for rush hours (maybe you don't consider it a "western country" after all, do you?) since 2001.

And as for violence against women, few countries (neither England nor Ireland are among them) can say they are so much "advanced" compared to Japan, right? There are perverts and psychos everywhere. As for Japan, well, you've said everything. Remember the "birth-giving machines" controversy? That's the kind of people ruling Japan...

[Paul Gill]

Julian, you are of course right that violence against women is not a problem specific only to Japan. I think, though, that in Japan the attitude to women reinforced by the culture contributes to this violence. A sharper commenter than me on an earlier post asked if there could be a connection between the attitude towards (foreign?) women of Isihashi and that of Shinzo Abe evidenced in the comfort women issue. Anyway, how many countries are there in the world with "famous train gropers"?Incidently, I didn't have Latin countries and their own problems with machismo in mind when I used the word western (stupidly eurocentric of me I now realise).
It's inevitable that western media will look for some kind of slant in their reporting that will feed into their readers' preconceptions of this country but that says more about us westerners than it does about Japanese society; and of course the need to create these familiar narrative is greater owing to the ignorance of crucial events.
I think the best way for us to get a proper perspective on this "story" is for journalists to report it in the context of murders of women in Japan, not murders of western women.

[DATA]

Richard,
Very nicely written and also convincing. I don't think it is useful or fruitful to discuss sexual behavior of Japanese men, seen in some previous comments. It is neither possible to discuss objectively if there are more sexual perverts in Japan than in Europe or America as everone bases their argument from their personal experience. I am sure there are tons of evidence to show how strange British or American men are (similar to some Japanese men's obsression to school girls uniforms). I also think it is totally inappropriate or to link some historical events to current crimes suggested by the previous comment.

The point of Ricahrd's article in my view is to draw readers' attention that this tragic event could have happened anywhere in Japan (more likely in Tokyo area), and the victim may have been easily influenced by what appeared to be a safe atmosphere in Japan. Some articles seem to put too much emphasis on the status of western women in Japan as well as sexual aspects of the crime.

Richard succeeded in describing the "Japanese" aspect of this case. By doing so, you made a point out the danger of easily criticizing the victim for being careless. The "forgotten wallet" is not essential. We are not expecting Richard to be a Scherlock Holmes in finding out what really happened. I think you illustrated very well that the excuse of taking the victim can be anything, and it was quite possible for her to have believed.

Just like you have written at the beginning, I hope you can move onto write something much brighter in the future.

[AndyM]

Part of the perception of Japan is that it is a safe country based mainly on the figures for "reported" crime. I suspect, based on anecdotal evidence talking to colleagues, that many crimes in Japan go unreported due to a belief that the police won't do anything and differences in legislation.

[Aceface]

"based on anecdotal evidence talking to colleagues"

I'm sorry to interrupt with basic linguistic questions.But is this what we Japanese call "rumours"?

[Kara]

Richard, you are a MAN. It is not a sign of normal in any nation when porn is so extensive that you can find cartoons with children raped and bound even in the airport. That's what I saw in Tokyo. Japan is a country of perversions against WOMEN, not at large against your gender. Asians by nature will not show their true colors to anyone in public and it can take years to learn to know them. No matter what stereotype you find that to be, it is a fact. Stereotypes arise from repeated observations. Sometimes I wish men could change sex for a year and learn to see their surroundings in a different light.

You remind me of a friend of mine who in India claimed that my statements that Indian men masturbate in public and have deep seated sexual issues was absurd. He was not a woman and did not get to be witness to what I was witness to. In his view, I was issuing a stereotype. While I saw this happen almost on a daily basis. When I one day entered a bus with his wife I actually spotted a man outside masturbating and looking at us. I imediately pulled my friend aside and said, "Never again call a fact a Stereotype!". Seeing the truth he never refuted other observations I pointed out after that.
You say that Japan has "only" 2.6 mil crimes compared to UK's 5.6 mil. And these "small" figures is your excuse why Japanese police appear somewhat bumbling. I state that this could show that their crime is actually higher and reason why they are 'bumbling' is that they don't care to take it serious. UK does have high crime rate and more aggression and it shows something is going askew in society. But you forget to calculate exactly how many crimes in the UK were actually committed by Brits? Makes a huge difference, and crime always increases in multi-cultural societies. Japan is really not a multi-cultural society and has enormous biases against the western world. So Japan's crime statistics may actually be higher than the UK when you find what original nationality committed the crimes.

Face the facts: hanging out with other expats most of the time (liks Brits almost always do when living abroad), does not necessarily make you see Japanese society in a real light even if you live there. And being a man, does not make you understand the serious abuse of sex that women experience in society too often than should be permissible, not only in Japan, but in other nations. But Japan does have extreme and often brutal sexual fantasies in higher volumes than any other nation. The fact that women don't have equality in Japan shows it further endangers their position. Certainly this kind of porn educates and feeds Japanese men to hate women in a way (whether visible or not) that completely eliminates equality.

I would be more than happy to give my impression and view to Japanese media, if they want it!

[moji]

ANDYM, if you are interested in the figures for crime, I recommend you the following article.
http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2340

The media sensationalism has provoked the strong fear among the people, and the government and the police have been using cynically this trend though Japan still has a low crime rate. So, I want to say loudly; "Japan remains safe!"

[Sarah]

Kara, I am not a 'MAN', and yet I disagree with nearly every point that you make. I doubt the Japanese media will be asking for your inflamatory opinions on the 'perversions' of Japanese men anytime soon, so please don't get your hopes up.

[moji]

KARA,
I am waiting for your comment. I dislike also extremist otaku's sexual fantasies and I think that certain regulative mesures are needed, but your remarks would please especially the cultural conservatives, and I assure that they are willing to pick up the foreigners' accusations to impose more strong social displines among younger generation. Now, it's the cultural conservatives that use gaiatsu(the foreign pressure). Toward the beautiful country!

If you are really interested in the corelation between the pornography and the crime against women in Japan, I recommend you the folloing link.
http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_rape_jp.html

So, I want to say from the heart; "Japan remains safe for women, too!"

[KHAY]

Richard,
I appreciate your balanced view, however 'women walk the streets safely at night' has been trotted out one time too many.
It seems difficult to get police motivated to assist when one needs it.
For general interest, please see this post, I found it informative.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070410zg.html

[Pipkins]

Japanese crime statistics have everything to do with what the police choose to respond to and what they choose to ignore. When I had an attempted break-in, I was told not to waste police time. That, and a lot of other crimes, won't go down on the statistics. Neither will the rapes that women are too ashamed to report, nor will the ganglad crimes that the police just walk away from.

I don't feel particularly safe on the Tokyo streets - no safer than I'd feel in London. I've had my fair share of trouble with nutters in both Britain and Japan. I've even been stopped by the police in Tokyo while out walking alone at night, and told it's not safe. There's an admission for you.

As for porn, the fact that it is perfectly legal to find programmes with underage girls sprawling around for the cameras on late-night TV says it all. In the recent Japanese film 'I didn't do it', an (innocent) suspect in a train-groping case has the case against him clinched when police find train-groping porn and a sleazy magazine about underage girls in his room. His response is 'if that makes me guilty, every man is guilty'. There is something very worrying about a country where stuff like that is considered to be the kind of 'normal' stuff every boy might have.

It's hard to feel safe - harder to feel confident about your kids being safe - with that sort of stuff around.

[Andrew Milner]

Out here in Karuizawa, a few days ago I saw this guy driving a grey no side windows panel van (perhaps Toyota Hi-Ace) that looked very much like that Ichihashi dude. You know, like seriously ugly. It was the day after the elevator pictures of him were on Japanese TV, and just before the Daily Mail carried them: so well banged into my subconscious. We exchanged eye contact as we drove past, and his return glance carried a wealth of meaning. This area would be perfect for anyone on the lam; most of the "besso" are unoccupied for some 50 weeks of the year. So if you holed up in one chances are you would unobserved. If this fits with other information (like his parents have a besso in the area) it could be worth a sweep. The contact was made by the golf course was just off Route 43 (right) as you come in from the Interchange. A load of minor roads and tracks go in but essentially go nowhere except back to the main road/s. Might be worth checking the 7/11 and Lawson tapes (if any), as anyone would need to go out for food.
Realise this is very tenuous.

[Christophe]

perfectly described

[Mahinda]

Hi. I have never been to Japan so I can not comment on the life and culture. However, I am sick to death with the British media and the way they try and convince the British people that everything British (including the people) is good and if it's not then there is always a good reason. I remeber Reading an editors comment in a british newspaper about the innorcent Brazillian who was murdered by the police in connection with the 7/7 bombing in London. His comment was this: " If he was in his own country then this would never have happend". God forbid if he was an innorcent British person killed the same way in a forign country?

Richard, you are a gift from God. It is so wonderful to read a story written by a journalist thats not written to brainwash people. Journalists around the world should follow you lead and write stories about actual events and speak the truth instead of writing about things they want people to believe.