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This Mob Is Big in Japan

Sat, 2008-05-10 03:42 — Robyn

Sunday, May 11, 2008
By Jake Adelstein

I have spent most of the past 15 years in the dark side of the rising sun. Until three years ago, I was a crime reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest newspaper, and covered a roster of characters that included serial killers who doubled as pet breeders, child pornographers who abducted junior high-school girls, and the John Gotti of Japan.

...Most Americans think of Japan as a law-abiding and peaceful place, as well as our staunch ally, but reporting on the underworld gave me a different perspective. Mobs are legal entities here. Their fan magazines and comic books are sold in convenience stores, and bosses socialize with prime ministers and politicians. And as far as the United States is concerned, Japan may be refueling U.S. warships at sea, but it's not helping us fight our own battles against organized crime -- a realization that led to my biggest scoop.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Comments

Thu, 2008-05-15 20:02 — jakeadelstein

Thank you.

Robyn-san,
Thank you for posting my article. Although I did spend most of college lviing in (rather renting a room for almost nothing) in a Zen temple and doing zazen regularly, not smoking or drinking, etc--I was never a great Buddhist and certainly not monk material. Even the five precepts I can barely keep. Well, it's not always to keep the five precepts when telling the truth could get your sources burned or place them in danger.
I'm a neo-Buddhist because if there is karma--I don't see it happening in the world around me. It seems like evil men flourish and good people get trampled on. It would be nice to be "an instrument of karma" and get to Goto what he deserves. Probably not a very loving Buddhist sentiment.
On my way back from Japan to visit my family once more before putting the final touches on the Washington Post article (I didn't want to be around the family when it came out--don't want to put them in the crossfire) ---I met the Dalai Lama on the airplane from Tokyo. I had a very nice talk with him, and ended up giving him noise-cancelling headphones. He was very funny, very laid-back. I felt like I was talking to a favorite uncle or the head priest at the temple where I lodged in my college years.
Perhaps, I should take it as a sign to reconsider becoming a Buddhist priest. Buddhist priest reporter. Now that sounds like right livelihood.

jake adelstein, incredibly lapsed buddhist, writer, investigator

Fri, 2008-05-16 15:02 — Robyn

You're welcome

And thank you for writing the article. I learned a lot from it. In fact, I think I'll go back and reread it now.

Re: the priest question...I know some bona fide American Buddhist priests (not monks) who have studied the dharma for a long time and who have benefited me and many others immeasurably. Their practice is diligent, robust, and sincere, but they do it in their own, unique, and sometimes irreverent ways. They drink beer, they enjoy goofing off, they respond scathingly when confronted with bullshit, and they have no scruples about employing the f-word when it's called for. Which seems to be often.

(You know, come to think of it, my Buddhist friends swear more eloquently than anyone else I've ever known...)

Anyway, I guess you can take that as a note of encouragement. Meeting the Dalai Lama in Japan was an auspicious sign.