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parasitegirlI haven't commented on the recent knife attack in Akihabara.
It was horrible, yes, but such things are still rare here. Many co-workers think it is terrifying and that it has changed their ideas about how safe Japan is, how safe they are. I'm from America. I'm an American woman. As much as I spend a certain amount of energy telling Japanese people that America isn't THAT scary, the knowledge that walking down a street, even a busy street, might not always be safe is part of who I am. I don't worry about it, it's just something I know to be true. Random violence and targeted violence happens. There are things you can do to be aware of your surroundings and situations, but nothing is 100%. You can only worry so much, some things are out of your control.
The attack didn't kill or wound anyone I know. All my geeks are in America and not currently visiting Japan/Akihabara. It did, however, kill a recent graduate from the public school system I work at.
The connection is close enough to remind me that these things happen...but not enough to feel the impact of it.
It reminds me of Jerry, my best landlord ever. Jerry was a nice man in MIlwaukee who made me steamed veggies when I was sick and who moonlighted as a low-level pro-wrestler. He knew all the folks in his building: the jazz pianist who lived next door (my bathroom sounded great ), the stoner upstairs who loved anime...all. A few years before I moved to Milwaukee he had lost a tennent ...to serial killer Jeffery Dahmer.
I remember talking about the Dahmer days with a female teacher of mine from MIAD. She told me about the time when Dahmer was as of yet unknown, but the disappearances of young men was being felt...and our school was in the gayer area of Milwaukee, so it was felt...she remembered seeing male students being hesitant about going out to their cars or apartments alone after dark and other small issues of vulnerability American women are raised to be aware of but (muggings and bad neighborhoods aside) most men aren't.
Between Dahmer one year and the cryptosporidian problem the next, there was a certain awareness of human vulnerability.
Mmmmmm. Rumors of a boil water advisory...there are certain rumors worth paying attention to.
It was horrible, yes, but such things are still rare here. Many co-workers think it is terrifying and that it has changed their ideas about how safe Japan is, how safe they are. I'm from America. I'm an American woman. As much as I spend a certain amount of energy telling Japanese people that America isn't THAT scary, the knowledge that walking down a street, even a busy street, might not always be safe is part of who I am. I don't worry about it, it's just something I know to be true. Random violence and targeted violence happens. There are things you can do to be aware of your surroundings and situations, but nothing is 100%. You can only worry so much, some things are out of your control.
The attack didn't kill or wound anyone I know. All my geeks are in America and not currently visiting Japan/Akihabara. It did, however, kill a recent graduate from the public school system I work at.
The connection is close enough to remind me that these things happen...but not enough to feel the impact of it.
It reminds me of Jerry, my best landlord ever. Jerry was a nice man in MIlwaukee who made me steamed veggies when I was sick and who moonlighted as a low-level pro-wrestler. He knew all the folks in his building: the jazz pianist who lived next door (my bathroom sounded great ), the stoner upstairs who loved anime...all. A few years before I moved to Milwaukee he had lost a tennent ...to serial killer Jeffery Dahmer.
I remember talking about the Dahmer days with a female teacher of mine from MIAD. She told me about the time when Dahmer was as of yet unknown, but the disappearances of young men was being felt...and our school was in the gayer area of Milwaukee, so it was felt...she remembered seeing male students being hesitant about going out to their cars or apartments alone after dark and other small issues of vulnerability American women are raised to be aware of but (muggings and bad neighborhoods aside) most men aren't.
Between Dahmer one year and the cryptosporidian problem the next, there was a certain awareness of human vulnerability.
Mmmmmm. Rumors of a boil water advisory...there are certain rumors worth paying attention to.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-11 11:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-11 12:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-11 03:57 pm (UTC)You're right, you can protect yourself or take precautions against some things (funnily enough I just had a police talk on personal safety yesterday, turns out my office is in the red light area - news to me!). But at the end of the day you can't prevent something that is randow - bar wearing a bomb-proof suit 24/7 but otherwise you just live in fear and what's the point of that?
What makes me wonder is how much the media perpetrates it. Once you get one weird murder sometimes several others arise. There was a huge furore over some suicide cases amongst young people in Wales. Basically so many young people in this little town starting ending their own lives. This continued both during and after all the publicity and media attention on how the village was "spooked" and people started wondering if it actually encouraged kids to do it more than anything else. After all, if someone was so depressed yet afraid to do it, then all their peers started taking their lives suddenly it seems so close to home, and yet acceptable? I don't know how to explain that...
Whenever things like this happen people start looking for patterns too, as if to rationalise it or make it make sense. Like the girl who was killed in Tokyo not all that long ago, the British press was dragging out a similar ten year old case to prove that Japan is such a scary and dangerous place to be! Full of Manga fiends all intent on murder, some readers and papers seemed to claim.
And yet how many stabbings happen in Glasgow in a week? A lot I can tell you, but I'm still not afraid to leave my home and walk the streets.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-11 11:56 pm (UTC)Our social circles are clearly very different.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-11 04:10 pm (UTC)I think we are more inured to the idea of random acts of violence here, even though as a whole, we don't experience such things on a day-to-day basis. I lost a friend to the Railroad Killer in '99 and it was totally random- but I've never been randomly hit with violence myself. I think we are trained to always keep our heads on a swivel here, no matter where we are or who we are with. It's a certain wariness that permeates everything we do. You don't talk to random strangers or make eye contact- they might be crazy. You don't walk in urban areas alone after dark- someone might jump you. You don't open the front door to an unexpected stranger- they might try a home invasion. It's just part of the American psyche at this point.
I love your posts like this. ^_^