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uberscheisse
Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 94
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 Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 9:47 pm Post subject: |
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| dove wrote: |
Uber,
You said in your original post that you alerted the staff and the police. Did the police come? What was their reaction when you called? What did the staff do to help the situation? Also, were all the people in your group foreigners or were there Japanese members? When you went to the lobby were any Japanese coming to your aid? I'm only asking because I wonder if Japanese onlookers would come to a foreigner's aid in a situation like this. My instinct is that they wouldn't.....anything not to get involved. |
the staff guy was kind of just shitting his pants, mostly not wanting a fight on his premises/his shift.
the cops were called by my friend's japanese wife, the lady who had been shoved. their reaction was "well, call us again if it gets REALLY bad."
the group was 6 foreigners and that japanese wife. 2 of the foreigners are fluent in japanese.
i can't remember if there were any significant group of onlookers in the lobby, because i had that adrenalin thing going that you get when you have been wronged and are ready to serve someone.
i think anyone who had been watching would have seen an equally matched set of competitors, and would therefore have not got involved except to maybe help calm things down.
i'm thinking the sight of one freaking-out skinny drunk guy pushing a chuckling, calm guy who clearly outsized and outranked him would have elicited more of a "hey, let's watch this!" reaction from most people, japanese or not. |
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gonzarelli
Joined: 20 Jun 2007
Posts: 151
Location: trouble in the henhouse
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 10:53 pm Post subject: |
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| but i want to thank gonzarelli for providing an internet eye-roll rather than concrete information. i feel so much more... grounded now. |
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Canuck2112
Joined: 13 Jun 2003
Posts: 239
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 12:08 am Post subject: |
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To the comment about how Asian guys come flying out of the woodwork during altercations to stomp down the "aggressor"...in all fairness...this kind of thing happens in every single country on Earth and is not limited to Asia. Anybody who goes drinking with a group of mates and has a cell phone is liable to summon re-enforcements.
As to whether or not this guy is Yakuza...who knows? A lot of the Chimpira lack the discretion of higher ranked members and openly brag about being connected. On the other hand, a lot of non-connected Japanese guys claim to be members in order to intimidate people.
You did the right thing in not caving in the side of this jerk's head. The law would not look favorably upon you.
Long story short, I had some Japanese guy pick a fight with me a couple years ago. I did absolutely NOTHING to provoke it. I honestly think it was because the guy didn't like the way I looked and wanted to show off to his mates. He was the alpha-male of a group of total chumps. Anyway I gave the guy every possible "out"...I apologized and such...but he wouldn't let it go. He took a swing at me and I struck back, breaking his orbital bone as I later found out. He started whimpering and his back-ups just stood there in shock. Anyway as the cops came he started making that "cheek-cutting" motion to me, saying he was a Yakuza and that he was going to kill me. All in front of the cops. They took me down to the station and kept me there for a few hours while they talked to him in a separate room. Finally at about 6am they told me that he didn't want to press charges and that I could go. I dodged a HUGE bullet here, as a lawyer acquaintance of mine informed me afterwards. It likely would have been jail time had he persisted, even for self defense.
To this day I still don't know why he didn't press charges. I still see the guy sometimes and he refuses to make eye-contact with me. It's been a couple years and so far no late night Yakuza attacks. Guy was full of BS. |
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gonzarelli
Joined: 20 Jun 2007
Posts: 151
Location: trouble in the henhouse
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 12:30 am Post subject: |
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I lived in Japan for over five years and I had only one incident. I was riding my bike along the sidewalk when a guy and his girl came barreling around the corner. The guy was behind the girl and he came REALLY close to me and nearly made me wipe out. They were going the same way so I sped up and caught up to the guy.
I told him to be more careful next time. He wasn't in an apologetic mood so he proceeded to punch me in the shoulder. I figured I could have crushed this idiot and I started laughing. This was followed by more shots. Finally, I took his baseball cap off his thick skull and launched it. I left still laughing at the guy. This infuriated him but he only proceeded to yell obscenities at me. No more violence after that. His girl spent the whole time calling him an idiot and yelling at him.
I didn't even consider punching him back. Was it worth giving up my life in Japan and losing my job and seeing jail time over some idiot? Not to mention embarrassing my GF (now my wife) by having me in jail? I think not. Even if it was in self defense, there would have been witnesses who would have sworn on their family honour that I hit him first.
You did the right thing OP. NEVER become violent in Japan, even if you hit another gaijin. Double jackpot there for the cops. |
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Apsara
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 2142
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 12:42 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| I'm only asking because I wonder if Japanese onlookers would come to a foreigner's aid in a situation like this. My instinct is that they wouldn't.....anything not to get involved. |
I don't think this would be a racist thing restricted to foreigners- even if only Japanese people had been involved, the possible presence of someone with yakuza connections would make most people think twice about stepping in I would say.
Not restricted to only Japan either- given a possible gang presence or even without it, many people in any country in the world would avoid getting involved with something that looked like it might turn into a drunken brawl, myself included. |
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shuize
Joined: 04 Sep 2004
Posts: 1270
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:47 am Post subject: |
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I'm going to disagree slightly here. If the story the OP related is completely accurate (and I have no reason to believe it's not) where some guy follows you back from the bathroom, walks into your karaoke room uninvited and then starts shit by pushing and hitting people, I think you're free to at least throw his ass out. If the trouble maker takes a couple of shots to the nose in the struggle to eject him, I don't think the J-cops are going to be in such a hurry to arrest anyone.
Moreover, while I'm sure chimpira and other assorted low-level yakuza talk a lot of shit, I don't think they have carte blanche to just start fights in unrelated karaoke rooms without facing later consequences from the police or -- probably more likely -- their mafia superiors. From my arm-chair quarter back position, I'll say I doubt he was mobbed up.
Still, I'm not sure why you felt any need to return his beads once he was gone. Hindsight, of course, but it'd probably have been better to just drop them at the front desk on your way out. |
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Sour Grape
Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 241
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:11 am Post subject: |
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| shuize wrote: |
Still, I'm not sure why you felt any need to return his beads once he was gone. |
I thought this was slang for giving him the finger or something at first, then I read the original post more carefully. |
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natsume
Joined: 24 Apr 2006
Posts: 409
Location: Chongqing, China
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:22 am Post subject: |
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| Miyazaki wrote: |
| some people might be a little surprised what buisnesses are actually owned by organized crime (and i'm not talking pachinko parlours or snaku clubs). |
Reminds me of my first trip here. My friend lived in inaka Shikoku, and he took me to his favorite onsen in the area, which he told me was notorious for yakuza. Sure enough, there were a couple guys in there that were literally covered in tattoos, full sleeves, etc., and some older men that just kind of smelled like yakuza hanging out and drinking. In this case, there was zero tension between us and these guys, and as I said my friend was a regular. Don't bother them, and they won't bother you. Granted, these same guys might not feel the same way if we had tried to go into one of their clubs later. I have lived in some pretty sketchy areas of California, not the worst areas, but lots of gang activity nonetheless, and kind of experienced the same thing. I am not really on most of their radars, so I never really had any problems.
Which is not to say I haven't experienced the random unprovoked occurance, or the random looking to be provoked *beep*, but most of the time there is that kind of unspoken truce. To answer uber's question, I really would suspect that the guy loudly proclaiming his criminal ties is either super low on the totem pole, or lying. |
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GIR
Joined: 12 Apr 2007
Posts: 64
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 7:24 am Post subject: |
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I'm not trying to disagree with the general sentiment of "don't get violent", but it really seems like a raw deal for gaijin.
Everything here seems to suggest that we can be bullied or beaten with no repercussions for the aggressor, unless we choose to fight back, in which case we face almost certain jail time. So either the bully is going to get you, or the system will.
And they think my country isn't safe! |
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uberscheisse
Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 94
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 8:02 am Post subject: |
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| GIR wrote: |
I'm not trying to disagree with the general sentiment of "don't get violent", but it really seems like a raw deal for gaijin.
Everything here seems to suggest that we can be bullied or beaten with no repercussions for the aggressor, unless we choose to fight back, in which case we face almost certain jail time. So either the bully is going to get you, or the system will.
And they think my country isn't safe! |
anyone i have talked to here has said that the first obstacle would be the cops, who would either 1. do f-all 2. blame us. one could end up with both parties getting off scot free, the other could end with us in jail.
the second obstacle, were it to go before a judge, would be using what record we had, i.e. the phone calls to karaoke lounge staff and the cops and the complaints therein to establish a claim that it was in self-defense.
i'm mostly worried about my rights and limitations. i'm not going to get involved with scraps that are not mine, but it's just instinct if someone f-s with my friends, especially the smaller/female contingent. yakuza or not, i'm going to do my utmost to break a buffalo femur in the guy's colon. |
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