Yakuza Daughter Autobiography

[Catoneinutica]

Where's your sense of adventure? Didn't Oscar Wilde say "I like men who have a future, and women who have a past..."?

Mr. Wilde liked men with pasts, presents, AND futures. But speaking of women with pasts, Hep C can have origins other than less-than-pristine tattooing equipment. Boys, be ambitious, but approach our Yak minx here with caution. Fumigate thoroughly, and be sure to wear appropriate hazmat gear.

-catone
-writer of delete-worthy posts

[Greji]

Mr. Wilde liked men with pasts, presents, AND futures. But speaking of women with pasts, Hep C can have origins other than less-than-pristine tattooing equipment. Boys, be ambitious, but approach our Yak minx here with caution. Fumigate thoroughly, and be sure to wear appropriate hazmat gear.

-catone
-writer of delete-worthy posts

Too Late. Sorry AO!

[maraboutslim]

You only live once. She may have had a wild ride but those photographs are drawing me in. The tattoo, the glimse of breast in the picture in post #25, the small waist...the fact she is a writer...

[Captain Japan]

Interview: Shoko Tendo on growing up in the seamy world of Japanese gangsters
Independent

Her memoir of growing up in the criminal underworld gripped Japan. But, as Shoko Tendo explains, she's now escaped her violent, drug-addled past to begin a new life of middle-class respectability
By David McNeill
Published: 11 November 2007

Shoko Tendo grew up in the house of a crime boss, spent her teens in a fog of hard drugs and sex, then careened from one doomed relationship to another with a succession of violent petty gangsters. Her life has been scarred by beatings, addiction and several attempted rapes and suicides – all reported in a sometimes stomach-churning biography that has gripped Japan.

So it is disconcerting when she shows up clutching a bag of cakes, which she presents with the deepest of bows. "I'm so very sorry for cancelling our previous appointment," she says. Polite, delicate-featured and painfully thin, she looks more like a slightly weathered manga character than daughter of the demimonde... as long as you ignore the garish tattoos poking out from under her sleeve...more...

I love this quote:

"You can see what happens when they are run out of a place such as Kabukicho," she explains, referring to Tokyo's biggest red-light district. "Other foreign gangsters move in and it becomes chaotic and disorganised. It is better to have them keeping order."

Pity the poor yakuza as their turf gets compromised by filthy FG gangs. Pure bullshit.

[jingai]

Pity the poor yakuza as their turf gets compromised by filthy FG gangs. Pure bullshit.

It's bullshit with a long pedigree and part of the post-war social order. Poor yakuza had to take to the streets to protest the 1992 anti-racketeering law...

This quote reminds me I never did finish reading Fuyajyou （不夜城）.

[Captain Japan]

[maraboutslim]

Sure. Because if she were the sort of person to let herself get 30 pounds over weight, she probably wouldn't have had the will power necessary to write such a book in the first place!

As for the yakuza, i figure 'organized' crime is always better than disorganized crime. sort of like how ruthless secular dictators are better than various fundamentalist religious leaders.

Remember after the kobe earthquake how the yakuza had food and supplies to hand out to the public before the government had a clue what to do? good PR, that one.