Ex-groper-turned-campaigner shoots woman in a train

25-July-2003

There is a group in Japan "Chikan Enzai Higaisha" (Victims of False Groping Accusations) that fights for clearing men who are charged of groping women. A leading member of this group, Mr. Mitsuru Nagasaki has been arrested on charges of allegedly filming up a woman's skirt on a night subway train. He was sitting next to this lady on a 11pm train when he used his camera-fitted mobile phone to film up her skirt. A co-passenger who was standing, saw what happened and grabbed the photographer, who happens to be a printer by profession. Later, Mr. Nagasaki refused to admit he had done such a thing, and added that he was very drunk that night. But before he was handed over to the police, he had deleted the photo, and also smashed his mobile phone.

Nagasaki was first arrested in 1997 when he was charged with groping a woman in a subway train. He had denied the charge and had gone all the way to the Supreme court to plead innocence. But the court found him guilty last September, and fined him 50,000 Yen. After this, Nagasaki has become a leading campaigner against men falsely accused of groping women. He has been distributing leaflets to support his cause, as well as visiting the UN Human Rights Commission several times with other members of his group to protest against the Japanese justice system, which he said supports a "witch-hunt" for accused gropers. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, July 16, 2003)

Reminds me a story I read a while back which said that an increasing number of Japanese men are using their savvy hi-fi camera-phones to take these types of pictures. All they have to do, is bend down their heads (as the Japanese most so often do), pretend they are sending a SMS, or playing games, turn the camera to the right angle, point, and shoot. They are also exchanging these pictures over mobile phones. "Hello, today was mostly pink, what about you?" "Well, I got some black ones and white ones, and gray ones, and dotted ones, and those with pictures of Mickey Mouse, and those with a real Gorilla embroidery all over, boy they sure are making some clothes these days."

Some Japanese companies have made it mandatory that their employees cover their cell-phones' cameras with tape.

That is all the space I have for Netnihon News this time. Though there is much much more that I want to tell, we will keep it for the next issue, as a MEGA NETNIHON NEWS issue is coming up in the second week of August. I will leave you with extracts from James' "My First trip to Japan," and Rie's "My Friend is a Dracula." Please click the link to visit our website for the entire column and story. As usual, we still don't have any advertisement or commercial banners on the site, and the only reason we are there, is YOU. So do visit, take a look, participate, and most of all, Enjoy!!Thanks for reading Netnihon, have fun and enjoy the weekend. See you next time!

Barun Sen

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Comedy of Errors, and more...
2003-May-05

Greetings fellow Japan aficionados,

Please accept my apologies for this late issue. I have nothing else to say, just Sorry and Thanks for being with us. All the news in today's newsletter is from the superb online database of Mainichi Interactive. The credit and copyright is entirely theirs, the words and the spice is, however mine.

Pachinko Rammed: A Pachinko parlor was rammed by a truck driven by a Mafia gangster this Thursday. The truck driver rammed his truck not one, or two, or three, but exactly half a dozen times into the Pachinko* parlor late around 2:35 am, when many employees were still in the building. It destroyed part of the wall of the parlor, broke some glass, and ruined a few Pachinko machines. The entire place was full of balls scattered everywhere (Pachinko is basically a ball-game). What a mess. Reason? When the cops caught up with the guy, who must have had balls all over him too, he said he wanted to teach the parlor's owner a lesson for neglecting the Yakuza (Japanese for Mafia). Apparently, the parlor owner had not paid a courtesy visit to the gangster as he was supposed to, though the parlor was in the "gangster's territory."

(*More on Pachinko from this web site: http://www.allsands.com/HowTo/whatispachinko_ycm_gn.htm, and this one: http://village.infoweb.ne.jp/~fwgd4578/pachi/pachie.htm).

Silent Revenge: Silence is golden in most cases, but when you get over a hundred "silent phone calls," you'd think twice. Tomioka had voluntarily left his job with a painting and building material firm five years ago, but apparently it was not all over for them. Probably because of some grudge he had nurtured, he decided to take matters into his own hands. And what better way to take revenge than to do absolutely nothing? All he did was call the firm from his cell-phone, and listen. Someone at the other side of the line would pick up and say, "Mushy mushy*," ..... no answer, he would repeat, "Mushy mushy," ..... still no answer ... "Mushy Mushy," no answer, now the frustration grows, "Mushy Mushyyyyy" .... nothing ...."M-U-S-H-Y .. MUSHY" silence ...."@#$%"...Beep Beep Beep. Tomioka did this for about a hundred times when the frustrated and tormented operator of the firm thought enough is enough with this "silence of the lines," and called the cops. Tomioka said he did not think he would be a suspect since five years had passed. No wonder he left the firm. Probably someone in the firm asked him if he was doing something about his single digit IQ.

(*The Japanese for "Hello," on the telephone is "Moshi Moshi")

Comedy of Errors: Japan has a system of nationwide family register currently under scrutiny for often goofing up records. Take the case of this 42-year-old gentleman from Settsu in Osaka Prefecture. When he asked for a copy of his registration while applying for a passport, the records said that he was single. He had been married for the last three months. Maybe the government did not think his marriage is of any importance (though all marriages, births, deaths, etc. are registered in the nationwide network), because next year the same government body sent this man's family records where, believe it or not, his wife was shown not to be his wife, but his brother's!! His brother was single. Wait, don't go away, there's more. This year, the same department sent another "updated" copy of the records of this gentleman. In this copy his eldest son was listed as his eldest daughter!!!! The Mayor's office, on repeated complaints by the gentleman, wrote an apology. But this fine gentleman dreads the time his records come around the next time. If his wife is his sister-in-law, and he is single, though his eldest son is actually his eldest daughter, he does not want to imagine what's in store for him next.

Caught snacking on job: And you thought you could munch your way through your work, and that there was no harm in a working lunch either. Think again, because if you drive a train in Japan, you are not allowed to eat anything but chewing gum while driving. A Japan Railways driver was suspended from work as he was caught eating a mochi (rice-cake) while driving his train. He was happily chewing on his sticky-gummy-rice-cake when an automobile that passed the train saw what the driver was doing and alerted authorities. Upon confrontation the driver apologized profusely and said that he regrets what he did. Still want to work in Japan?

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Thanks for reading Netnihon, we will let you know as two new sneak-a-peek on the country comes up on our site from "Chiaki Talky" and "Rie's Corner" in just about a week. Also, soon our Netnihon Penpal section should be up and running as we are currently testing our beta-stage CGI script. Finally, for those of you who have applied for a link exchange, please drop me a line again. We lost some data due to a Windoze "System Crash". Here's a Japanese Haiku that explains the situation:

Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that.

Not enough? Okay, here's one more:

A crash reduces
your expensive computer
to a simple stone.

Cheers,
Barun Sen