Prosthetics specialist checks a silicone-made finger of a former yakuza gangster, in Tokyo, on on May 27, 2013AFP
TOKYO —
Going straight after a lifetime spent as a member of Japan’s feared yakuza organized crime mobs poses a number of challenges. Chief among them is what to do about the fingers you chopped off.
For one reformed wise guy, the answer lay in thousands of dollars’ worth of prosthetics crafted to look exactly like the three of his digits he hacked off to appease his one-time bosses.
“You see how real these fingers are?” said Toru, 53, proudly showing off his artificial body parts—both little fingers and his left ring finger.
“There was only one time that anyone ever knew they were fake. She was an old lady in her 70s. I told her I was injured in a factory.”
Like the Italian mafia or Chinese triads, yakuza gangs engage in activities ranging from gambling, drugs and prostitution to loan sharking, protection rackets, and white-collar crime.
The gangsters in Japan, who number 63,200, have historically been tolerated by the authorities, and are heavily romanticised in popular culture, spawning a vast catalogue of manga comics and movies.
Observers say the strict code of honor of the yakuza, passed down from the samurai warriors of the 17th and 18th centuries, is largely gone and many are little more than brutal criminals.
But even in the mob, Japan’s rigid societal rules play out.
This means your peers are always supposed to look out for you and protect you. Likewise, it means you have to look out for them.
Toru—not his real name—used to make his living offering “protection” to the bars and clubs of Tokyo’s Kabukicho red light district.
He was a success, making sure the rival gangs stayed off his turf and keeping the money flowing up to his seniors.
But then one of the men in his gang—a “brother”—fell foul of the strict prohibition on stealing and drug use.
To assuage his boss’s anger and prove the group was truly penitent, Toru sliced off the top of his left little finger.
Unfortunately, someone got the group into trouble again a short time later, and Toru had to take the knife to the second joint.
“The first joint of a little finger can be sliced easily,” he said. “You tie the bottom of it with thread tightly and put your body weight on a kitchen knife. But the second joint was tougher than I thought.”
Luckily, there was a brother to hand, who could stand on the knife and slice through the knuckle.
The loss of the tip of the pinkie on his right hand was his own fault—he got drunk and started throwing furniture around in a bar.
Unfortunately for him, the bar belonged to a friend of his boss. Out came the kitchen knife again, and off came the top of his little finger.
But his fourth amputation bore a whole different significance.
“I met my wife,” he said. “I wanted to marry her, but she said she couldn’t possibly marry a yakuza guy. So I quit.”
Of course, you can’t just resign from the yakuza. You need to offer a sacrifice. A ring finger, for instance.
“I tried to do it as usual with a kitchen knife, but the blade didn’t go through because of the muscle. I had to ask a brother to take a hammer and a chisel to lop it off,” he said.
“Oh, it was painful.”
Where once the missing fingers were badges of honor, proving to fellow gangsters that Toru was loyal, hard-working and prepared to make sacrifices, they now worked against him.
Life as a “katagi” (civilian) is tough when everybody knows how you used to make your living, with respectable companies unwilling to be connected to the yakuza.
The only solution is to get your fingers back.
That is where prosthetics specialist Shintaro Hayashi came in, crafting three silicone fingers, complete with the creases and lines of a natural digit.
His works are so delicate that he even implants individual hairs taken from his subjects’ hands and arms to give each finger a really lifelike look.
“I think of myself as being like Geppetto,” he said, referring to the woodcarver who created Pinocchio.
“My job requires not only knowing the person well but also injecting his or her personality into the parts,” he said, adding that he keeps a photo of his client on his desk as he works.
The bulk of Hayashi’s clients are people who have lost hands, feet or ears in accidents, or are born with something missing, but around five percent are former yakuza.
Making a mold for the silicon casting is expensive—around 300,000 yen (about $3,000) for one finger—but it means the prosthetics are easy, and relatively cheap, to replace when they look tatty or worn.
“For me, these fingers are consumable items,” said Toru. “I have to renew them every three months.”
And they have been well worth the initial outlay, allowing him to build a house renovation company that does legitimate work.
“I now run two outlets for my business, making about 300 million yen a year,” he said.
Asked why he granted the interview, Toru has a quick and easy answer—he wants to show yakuza stuck in a life of crime that there is another way.
“They could do well if they work hard, even if they have lost some of their fingers.
I love coffee and I love hanging out at cafes but I don't want to be broke because of it. Thanks to Italian Tomato Coffee Jr, I can have my frequent dose of cafe-chillax-time whether to meet friends or clients. This Italian cafe offers affordable and flavorful coffee along with cakes, pasta and sandwiches.
A medium-sized glass or cup of brewed coffee only costs 200 Yen. My favorite which is Cafe Au Lait only costs 230 Yen. The taste of coffee is not as strong as one may get from Starbucks but it's exactly the way I want my coffee- mild and a bit sweet. They don't have flavored coffee but they have tea and juice.
For those wanting to have sweets while drinking coffee, Italian Tomato Cafe Jr. has a cake set worth 450 Yen. (It used to be 350 Yen.) You'll get a slice of cake along with a coffee of your choice.
Sandwiches and pasta are affordable as well though I haven't tried them yet. However, I can see most people ordering pastas so they must be good.
The staff are friendly even if they don't really understand me. Also, they have an ongoing promotion wherein you'll get a 50 Yen discount for your second order of drinks.
As for the ambiance, this cafe has a casual atmosphere common in cafes. It's comfortable but nothing really special. My only complaint is the small non-smoking area space. Because the place is almost always full, I seldom sit on the no smoking area causing me to inhale other people's smokes. Aside from that, I only have good words for this place.
Even before I came to Japan, I have always loved Japanese school uniforms as seen in their animes. Students look neat and scholarly in their uniforms. So when I first saw the students here in Japan, it was like all the anime characters in my childhood came to life. And my thought was "So this is how they really dress like." What's more, there are interesting facts I have learned regarding students uniforms and related school apparel in Japan.
I know I shouldn't be surprised by this since Japan has four seasons. But I'm surprised anyway. During the warmer months, students wear shorts and shirts inside the school. Then during the cooler months, they would wear jogging pants and jackets. Outside, the would wear cooler polos and blouses while they wear coats during winter.
2.) Students change clothes upon arrival in the school.
I don't know if this applies to elementary and high school but in the Junior High Schools I have worked in, students change clothes when they arrive in school. Students will come to school i their formal looking uniforms- skirts and blouses for girls and pants and polos for boys. Then when they arrive in the school, they would change to their sports clothes and wear them for the rest of the day. They can change back to their formal uniform when they go home. The only reason I can think of why they do that is because they don't want to soil their uniforms.
3.) Students wear identical shoes.
Japan is all about belonging and being part of a group- even with their footwear. Japanese schools require students to have outdoor shoes, indoor shoes and gym shoes. All students have the same style in all of these type of shoes. Some schools add various colors to the students' indoor shoes depending on their grade level. In one of the schools I have been to, the first year have green lines on their shoes, the second year have blue and the third year have red. But the style is the same in all levels.
4.) Students have identical bags. The type of bag a student carries reveal what level he's in.
The concept of belonging to a group does not only stop with the footwear. It also goes to the students' school bags. Elementary students all over Japan have identical backpacks similar to Dora's that usually costs 30000 to 50000 Yen. According to a Japanese mother, the bag is expensive because it is very sturdy. Students will use it until they finish elementary. Even junior high and high school students have the same bags. The only difference is the school name and logo printed on their bags.
5.) Students must always wear identical outer wear.
It doesn't matter how many layers of clothes a students has during winter. What's important is that he should be wearing the school jacket outside all his clothes. There was even a teacher who disallow a student in removing his jacket even if that student feels warm already. The teacher's reason? The other students are wearing their jackets. Therefore, everyone should be wearing their jackets. That doesn't seem logical for me but that's how they think. Then this same teacher ask a student to remove his jacket because, according to him, it's not yet the season to wear jackets. Ironically, he is already wearing one.
Uniforms should really be identical but what struck me most I guess is that everything is just the same from the shoes to the bags. A Japanese teacher told me that the schools want the students to have identical things to avoid breeding envy. Initially, I think it's too much suppression of individuality. But then overtime, I realized that students in those school ages don't really have defined individuality yet. So maybe it's better for students to know how to blend in first before they find their "so-called individualities" starting with having identical uniforms.
Prosthetics specialist checks a silicone-made finger of a former yakuza gangster, in Tokyo, on on May 27, 2013AFP
Prosthetics specialist checks a silicone-made finger of a former yakuza gangster, in Tokyo, on on May 27, 2013AFP
