22 year old British woman found buried in sand in bathtub on Veranda

[Mulboyne]

About the last comment, I agree. I think that the Japanese media are playing it down as much as possible.

The reason I thought Downer didn't cover herself in glory is that she was using the online archives of the Japan Times to pass judgement on how the Japanese media was reporting the story which is ridiculous.

I'm not in Japan to judge but it doesn't seem as if the media are ignoring the story. There is a suspected murderer on the run so at the very least they appear to be broadcasting Ichihashi's picture to the public to try to get a lead.

[dimwit]

The reason I thought Downer didn't cover herself in glory is that she was using the online archives of the Japan Times to pass judgement on how the Japanese media was reporting the story which is ridiculous.

I'm not in Japan to judge but it doesn't seem as if the media are ignoring the story. There is a suspected murderer on the run so at the very least they appear to be broadcasting Ichihashi's picture to the public to try to get a lead.

Well as of now the Daily Yomiuri on-line has yet to report on the story and that may be what is coloring the outside preception of the story.

[blackcat]

Some stories are too big to ignore, but the J media/cops/pollies will do everything in thier power to divert attention unlike the chinese murderer of the japanese family recently. they went on and on about it.

Never expect justice from Japanese, they are uncapable of fairness as they are too busy telling themselves and the world of thier unique and wonderful qualities, they have nationaly brainwashed themselves this way.
any evidence to the contrary must be a lie ( WW2 as an example)

I am quite convinced that there are more foreign victims of (serious)crime commited by Japanese than the reverse. If you consider human trafficking alone then the debate is over anyway.

The media covered that just come to mind are:

American teacher killed by a Yak gang in yokohama(no one charged)

American bouncer killed by chimpura gang Tokyo (unsure of charges)

Michelle Anne Vizmanos Fillipino raped/murdered in Nagano (japanese charged)

3 South East asian girls die in a fire as they were chained to a bed in Osaka(no charges)

2 bodies od SE Asian girls found in Mie foreset(no charges)

American Exchange student claims of rape by host father ignored(no charges laid)

Lucie Blackman(charges?)

Carita Wridgeway(as above)

Three New zealand women claimed to have been kidnapped/raped and held against their will for 10 days.

Mulboyne hit the nail on the head by eluding to the fact that many girls from "lesser" nations than the UK/USA etc have been murdered/raped/missing and the media doesn't give a fuck.

In the meantime the
JAPAN DENIAL SYNDROME is alive and sick.

[gomichild]

I haven't checked the online news here - but it is definitely being broadcast on Japanese TV.

I caught a bit of News Zero the other night when they broadcast both the messages from her Dad and boyfriend - and one of the newsreaders broke down and was almost yelling and crying. I know they dramatize - but I was a bit taken aback at his reaction - it seemed to be quite raw.

Also there has been a report on pretty much every news show I've seen.

How much can the media say or the police release information until he's been caught though? Surely keeping some details quiet is needed for when they catch and question him right?

[baka tono]

Maybe its timing but I have caught a lot of coverage on Japanese tv. In fact I just saw a fuji tv segment where they had a reporter run the suspected route from the flat to the station.

[Catoneinutica]

Haven't seen any more posts promulgating the he-must-be-Korean meme. Has it run out of gas?

[Doctor Stop]

Out of kimchi more like it.

[Takechanpoo]

[Mike Oxlong]

Ichinomiya is a shithole between Gifu City and Nagoya. Hope the keystone coppers out there are in the loop.

[TFG]

Looks like Takechan has been searching for hidden kimichi in the family but all he could come up with is Oshinko.

[Mulboyne]

From the UK's Daily Mail:


The caption for this photo reads "Japanese men mix with Western European women in Tokyo's Roppongi district".

Details of Lindsay's shocking death exposes a dark side to Japan

...The murder has cast a sinister shadow over the 2,000 or so British women working in Tokyo language schools, with thousands more employed by banks and stockbroking firms and, at the other end of the scale, bars and restaurants. Inevitably it was dominating conversation last night in the smoke-filled bars and restaurants of the Roppongi district, the city's social hub. Even at 1.30am, most of these establishments were still packed with Japanese businessmen in suits, seeking the company of the young European girls they find so intriguing. So what is the fascination that Western women seem to hold for Japanese men? "They look down upon us, yet at the same time they look up to us, if that makes sense," one 24-year-old language teacher from Liverpool told me as she drank with friends in a bar at the start of the weekend. "It makes it difficult for us to really understand them. I've been trying to translate their behaviour for the entire year that I've been here and I still don't know how to read them." While some British women described the attitude of the men they encounter here as strange, uncomfortable and unpredictable, others talked of the awe and mystique Western women hold for the Japanese male.

Taller, more independent and liberated than their female Japanese counterparts, they are regarded with a curious combination of attraction, fear and disapproval. Such is the enduring fascination that there are now websites which give advice to Japanese men on how to be more attractive to British women. One suggests they cut their hair shorter on the side, leaving it longer on top to make them appear taller. "They view the more beautiful Western women, particularly the taller ones, as goddesses," says a British woman working for a Tokyo stockbroking firm who was with friends in Roppongi's Hub Bar last night. "They want you to belong to them, but there is a frustration there because they know they can't have you - and they also don't know how to make an approach unless they're totally drunk and then they're all over you. "The men are very sexist by Western standards. Japanese women here are without doubt second-class citizens, although if you are a European or an American you have a higher status in the men's eyes. "The Japanese are so very different to us that I wonder sometimes if we will ever really understand them"...more...

Another BBC article: Are foreign women safe in Japan?

[Edit:]Another cross-cultural contribution. This from The Sun:

Mafia 'hiding Lindsay killer'

COPS hunting the suspected killer of English teacher Lindsay Hawker yesterday revealed Japan’s mafia may be shielding him. Oddball Tatsuya Ichihachi idolised Tokyo’s violent Yakuza gangs and may have had friends in their ranks...Cops believe he may have committed Yubitsome — a craze among young criminals of severing the tip of the left little finger and handing it to a gang boss. It is meant to show toughness, loyalty and to atone for sins. Ichihachi may have given it as “payment” for hiding him. A police source said: “Ichihachi was one hell of a sick young man.” Det Supt Takeo Terajima added: “This Yakuza line is one we’re following.” Ichihachi — who plucked his eyebrows in the style of crime bosses — asked pretty Lindsay, 22, for English lessons on March 21.

[Samurai_Jerk]

"plucked his eyebrows in the style of crime bosses"



Who writes this shit?

[Takechanpoo]

"They view the more beautiful Western women, particularly the taller ones, as goddesses," says a British woman working for a Tokyo stockbroking firm

Basically Japanese men who consider not only British women but caucasian women as sex target are treated as eccentric guy by same Japanese.
Most of Japanese men are interested in only same Japanese women.
and why most of Japanese stare at white women is just because they are still rare in japan, not because J-guy want to fuck them.

[Behan]

Japanese people are blackbelts when it comes to staring.

[Hokuto-shinken]

She decided to do a private lesson to save up money to go back to England. This wont look good for Nova.

[TFG]

Basically Japanese men who consider not only British women but caucasian women as sex target are treated as eccentric guy by same Japanese.
Most of Japanese men are interested in only same Japanese women.
and why most of Japanese stare at white women is just because they are still rare in japan, not because J-guy want to fuck them.

Bullshit.....If they have any other eye color other than brown or BLACK as Japanese say, Japanese men ALL want to screw their eye sockets.

And to prove this!
What color eyes does your Dutch wife have Taky?
Please post a photo. After you have bathed her of course.

[Mulboyne]

Lesley Downer again:



Telegraph: Lost in translation

...There are no street gangs, hoodies or yobbery. There are many more police per head than in Britain and they still operate a "bobby on the beat" system. Each policeman knows his patch. He knocks on doors, drop in for cups of tea - and if young Jiro feels like misbehaving, he knows the next knock will be on his front door. It all, superficially at least to a Westerner, seems like paradise. So how then do you account for the macabre and tragic killing of Lindsay Ann Hawker, last week, and that of Lucie Blackman in 2000? For the culture of heavy after-work drinking? And for the vast consumption of lurid, violent and highly pornographic "manga" comic books? Is this all evidence of a schizophrenic society: glossy and glitzy on the surface, but with dark, disturbing and dangerous undercurrents? I don't think so.

I spent some 12 years in Japan, living as a single woman. When I arrived, I taught English and, like Lindsay Hawker, gave private classes and taught businessmen. I hitchhiked alone all over the country, something I wouldn't dare do in Britain. And I even worked for a while as a geisha to research a book I was writing. Never in London have I felt as safe as I used to in Tokyo.

To understand the duality of Japanese society - the strait-laced conformity, on the one hand, combined with what we might consider almost reckless abandonment - it is necessary to get to grips with two Japanese concepts: honne and tatemae. Honne means your true feelings, which you normally keep to yourself. Tatemae is the face you present to society, the way society expects you to behave. Japanese people always understand, when someone says or does something, that they may be merely expressing tatemae. It may well not be what they really think or feel.

Everything in Japan, therefore, is not always what it seems. This causes problems with Westerners, accustomed to taking everything at face value. But the Japanese also understand that maintaining this public face puts one under great pressure, so there are times when and places where society allows you to let go. One of these is when you leave the office and head for the bar with your workmates.

It is the same with manga comics. In Japan, grown men read pornographic comics on the subway, without embarrassment. There are racks of them in corner shops, not high up but where everyone can see them. The Japanese attitude is that these comics remain in the world of the imagination and are therefore not a threat. If the imagination is free to roam, people do not feel the need to act out dark desires. There is a clear demarcation between fantasy and reality that doesn't usually get crossed. Tragedies occur in the rare instances when an individual doesn't understand that demarcation line.

This is also the case with otaku, nerds who spend their time in front of the computer, playing games or collecting figurines of games characters. The latest trend is moe otaku, who collect images of underage girls, sometimes, though not usually, engaged in overtly sexual activities. In "maid cafes" in Tokyo, waitresses dressed as cartoon characters in short skirts sit with customers and address them as "master". But it's only commercial flirtation. Fantasy, the Japanese realise, is more fun when it remains just that: fantasy.

Drunkenness, though, is all too real, but is rarely associated in Japan with violence. It's a socially acceptable way of letting off steam. A drunk might fall asleep on the subway or station platform, vomit or need to be helped home by his colleagues. But he will not get violent. The worst he might do is be rude to his boss...In fact, unless they nose around as I did, Westerner visitors are unlikely ever to come across any criminals, gangsters or otherwise. The greatest danger, perversely, comes from its lack of danger: Japan is so safe it is easy for a woman to let down her guard, to take risks she would not in the West. Could that be the explanation for the deaths of Lindsay and Lucie?...more...

[gomichild]

Talk about putting things way out of perspective.

How many Japanese women were murdered during this time? How many English women were murdered in England?

You can't explain the actions of one or two murderers by making general statements about an entire country.

Who knows what drives someone to kill someone else? It seems to be a "case-by-case" occurence. Let's face it - it is not like foreign women are being targetted on a murder spree. Maybe it was the way they laughed? Wore their hair? Spoke to the killer?

Both cases (and indeed those of other foreign women) are sad, and unfortunate. But you are still about as likely to be murdered here as in your own country.

[Takechanpoo]

Talk about putting things way out of perspective.

How many Japanese women were murdered during this time? How many English women were murdered in England?

You can't explain the actions of one or two murderers by making general statements about an entire country.

Who knows what drives someone to kill someone else? It seems to be a "case-by-case" occurence. Let's face it - it is not like foreign women are being targetted on a murder spree. Maybe it was the way they laughed? Wore their hair? Spoke to the killer?

Both cases (and indeed those of other foreign women) are sad, and unfortunate. But you are still about as likely to be murdered here as in your own country.

Hey G-child,
have you ever been stalked by psycho J-guy like Ichihashi?

by the way,
I think Lindsay Hooker must had gotten some money from Ichihashi.
http://www.tanteifile.com/diary/2007/03/31_02/index.html

[TFG]

of course she got some money from him, she was there to teach a private lesson to him. Are you trying to suggest that the money she got was the problem. And as for the "All day lover lesson" suggested on that site, are they trying to suggest she was a whore who got what she deserved?

Seems like Abe's WAIKYOKU methods are spreading.

[Hokuto-shinken]

[CrankyBastard]

by the way,
I think Lindsay Hooker must had gotten some money from Ichihashi.

Damn! That's just cruel.

[Greji]

Damn! That's just cruel.

Not in Akepu's mind. That type of blog entry is enough for him to assume the FG gal should have been done in and it was her own fault!

[Mulboyne]

[TFG]

This guy has a history of abusing women over his rejection.

They interviewed a friend of the murder who said that at high school he had seen this guy approach a girl to try and pick her up when she turned him down he grabbed her by the throat and tried to strangle her.

[TFG]

The news programs are reporting her father saying, "My daughter loved Japan" but they seem to forget the bit where he said "This murderer has brought shame to Japan"...............!

[akatsuka]

I dont get your point... I love Japan too, but also feel that this murder has brought out a bad light on Japan. Any murder would. People know that I lived in Japan in the past, and before they used to say "How was it? That must;ve been a great experience" etc, now they say "Did you find it dangerous...?" etc.

Its only because of the high profile of this murder and the short mindedness of viewers. You can still love japan and hate it at the same time.

[TFG]

[quote="akatsuka"]I dont get your point... I love Japan too, but also feel that this murder has brought out a bad light on Japan. Any murder would. People know that I lived in Japan in the past, and before they used to say "How was it? That must]

I mean, the major news programs are pushing how much she loved Japan and quoting her father as saying that. However, when he made that statement he said also said that "His daughter thought Japan was an honorable country but now this murderer has brought shame to Japan".
I am not agreeing or disagreeing with his comments, I am simply saying that the major news programs are picking up on the good points as they always love to hear foreigners love Japan but at the same time they are choosing not to report his statement about the shame on this country.

[Mulboyne]

The police have released this CCTV picture, which might be the girl and might be the scumbag in some kind of coffee shop around 10 minutes before the lesson was due to start. They are hoping to get a better ID and hopefully jog someone's memory to piece together the timeline that day.

[Hokuto-shinken]

The police have released this CCTV picture, which might be the girl and might be the scumbag in some kind of coffee shop around 10 minutes before the lesson was due to start. They are hoping to get a better ID and hopefully jog someone's memory to piece together the timeline that day.

I watched this video on the news. It does not look like a nice man. The police say they are closer to catching him. Hope they get him soon.