Jake Adelstein with his book, Tokyo Vice
I finished reading this book within 48 hours after buying it at Kinokuniya. If world crime and underground economy are your kind of stuff, this is the book for you.
Add in idiosyncratic Japanese contexts, these make the book an more entertaining read than other similar crime books like Roberto Saviano’s Gomorrah on Italian gangsters and Misha Glenny’s McMafia on organised crime at the international level.
To be fair, the two other two books are more informative as they deal with heavier material, jammed pack with facts and figures. These are not friendly for light reading though. Jack Adelstein’s book on the other hand, reads like a pop-autobiography, documenting his transformation from a rookie foreigner crime reporter to someone bent on taking down a then yakuza top dog, Tadamasa Goto.
It also helps that the author himself had a pretty interesting life:
Jake Adelstein was a reporter for the Yomiuri Shinbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, from 1993 to 2005. From 2006 to 2007 he was the chief investigator for a U.S. State Department-sponsored study of human trafficking in Japan. Considered one of the foremost experts on organized crime in Japan, he works as a writer and consultant in Japan and the United States. He is also the public relations director for the Washington, D.C.-based Polaris Project Japan, which combats human trafficking and the exploitation of women and children in the sex trade.
The transformation came about when Adelstein received death threats on him and his family while pursuing a story related to Goto.
Tadamasa Goto, was then head of a group affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate and had offered the FBI information in return for a visa to the U.S. to undergo a life-saving liver transplant four years earlier.
Adelstein had trouble finding a Japanese publisher willing to run this story. Eventually, the Washington Post printed Adelstein’s story in May 2008.
Jake Adelstein’s radio interview:
Jake Adelstein’s interview Q&A with BoingBoing.Net on the politics of yakuza
Japan Sub Culture Research Centre – Jake Adelstein’s own website on the Japanese underground
Other than his feud with Goto, the first half of the book also covered on how Adelstein learn to integrate into the Japanese way of doing things as a reporter and more specifically as a crime reporter. I find these very informative on the nuances of Japanese culture. For instance, women reporter are the ones who pour beer for everyone, including male subordinates at social functions and that there’s clear demarcation of seniority among the reporters.
Jake Adelstein’s Tokyo Vice: Underground with the Yakuza is available at Kinokuniya bookstores in Singapore. It should be available at other major bookstores too. Go check it out.
Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Oil Rig Leak After The Explosion: Another Oil Spill Of The Persian Gulf?:The Coast Guard reports that a mile-long oil sheen extends from the place of today’s oil installation explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Associated Press.
College football: Utah beats No. 15 Pittsburgh in OT:Once able to hold 11 points in the fourth quarter, Utah’s defense redeemed itself in overtime.
USC Football:University Of Southern California Football:Hard to believe, but there was a time when the University of Southern California, a mediocre football team. In 2001, the Trojans had not won or shared the national championship since 1978.
Jan Brewer Starts Badly, Finishes Worse, In Last Night’s Arizona:The first and possibly only debate between candidates for governor of Arizona on Wednesday night, there was plenty of fireworks as governor
Watch Online Jersey Shore Season 2 Episode 6:Guess what, “Jersey Shore” fans? Sammy “Sweetheart” Giancola done! It is done! Except it is not! It is not! Remind you that Sammy was opened (thanks to anonymous note), which each Ronny Magro was fooling around with other women from the clubs, and then return home to sleep with her. I would have bet my last can jet Bronzer, that Sammy really means it this time at the end of the last series. In the end, how humiliating would play for a fool in front of audience of millions? But it turns out, it’s not humiliating part. What really kills her, we learn through the anonymous note, even though she asked everyone in the house to tell her if they saw Ronnie went over to the other girls.
Soundarya Rajinikanth Wedding in Chennai?
Cammie King Conlon,Scarlett And Rhett’s Girl, Dies at 76:Cammie King, who, as an angelic little girl playing the daughter of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler in “Gone with the Wind,” something is used following the fan festivals, died on Wednesday at his home in Fort Bragg, California. She was 76.

