Dead Gaijins

[Mulboyne]

AP: Opera singer Behrens dies in Tokyo

Soprano Hildegard Behrens, one of the finest Wagnerian performers of her generation, has died while traveling in Japan. She was 72. Jonathan Friend, artistic administrator of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, said Tuesday in an e-mail to opera officials that Behrens felt unwell while traveling to a festival near Tokyo. She went to a Tokyo hospital, where she died of an apparent aneurism...Organizers of Behrens' visit said she was in Japan to perform at a music festival and then give lessons at a hot springs resort. Miyuki Takebayashi, an official at the Kanshinetsu Music Association, said Behrens was taken to a hospital Sunday night and died there Tuesday. [Aug. 18th] "Her son and daughter were at her bedside when she passed away," she said...more...

[TFG]

Anyone know a George Schneider who had lived here since the late 1970's and formerly worked for the Japan Times.

It seems they found his body in Hakone several days ago but details of how he died are not yet apparent.

It seems that suicide is unlikely as he had arranged to meet his GF at a cinema in Tokyo but did not turn up. A couple of days later the police contacted his GF and informed her they found his body in Hakone.

[Mulboyne]

Guardian: William Miller obituary by the novelist David Peace

William Miller, who has died aged 75, lived a life of many passions, but perhaps the most enduring of these was to try to make "good books popular and popular books good". And, first as an editor, then as a publisher, and finally as an agent, that is what Miller did.

His first job was as an editor under Frank Rudman, the pioneering paperback publisher, at Four Square. From there, in 1962 he joined John Boothe as joint managing editor at Panther Books. At the time, Panther was an independently owned middle-range paperback publisher. William and John set about challenging Penguin's supremacy, publishing new writers such as Beryl Bainbridge, Len Deighton and Fay Weldon, and bringing Jean Genet, Herman Hesse and Jack Kerouac to a wider British readership. They also published the first mass-market paperback editions of The Kama Sutra and The Perfumed Garden.

In 1965, Panther was bought by Sidney Bernstein's Granada Publishing and William and John were joined by Carmen Callil and Patrick Janson-Smith, among others. The drive to challenge Penguin continued, with authors such as John Fowles, Antonia Fraser, BS Johnson, Ruth Rendell and Kurt Vonnegut.

In 1972, William and John resigned from Granada and, along with Ken Banerji and Brian Thompson, launched Quartet Books. The unique vision of Quartet was to publish both hardback and paperback editions under the same imprint, which at that time was unknown. Quartet also invented a new format called a "midway", a soft binding with a jacket and flaps, halfway between a hardback and a paperback. The Quartet list continued the tradition of writers that William and John had begun at Panther and Granada, publishing Angela Carter and Michael Moorcock, along with Maeve Binchy and The Joy of Sex (which no other British publisher would touch and which had to be printed abroad).

In 1976, the original four founders agreed to sell Quartet to Naim Attallah's Namara Group. While he stayed on as an editorial director, William was already searching for something new. It was also in 1976 that William first met Bamba Toshitani. This meeting, when he was 42, began a new phase in William's life.

In 1979, he moved to Tokyo to be with Bamba and to manage the English Agency Japan founded by Anthony Blond, Desmond Briggs and Peter Thompson, along with William, to sell the translation rights of British books to Japanese publishers. The company began small, with just William and Junzo Sawa, but gradually grew and established itself as one of the leading literary agencies in Japan.

William would, on occasion, introduce himself as "a Scot, a homosexual and a socialist". He was born of Scottish seafaring stock in Kent. His father was a chief engineer on the Clan Line who died when William was seven. William's education was funded by the Marine Engineers Association and, following national service in the Royal Navy (where he took the Russian course), he read modern history at Lincoln College, Oxford.

Towards the end of his time at Oxford, William briefly edited, with Paul Thompson, the student magazine Isis, in which they wrote a piece detailing the British government's contingency plans in the event of a nuclear strike. The publication of this piece was to have serious ramifications for both of them. William had come across the information through a contact in the navy. He had also, in the course of his own national service, signed the Official Secrets Act on a number of occasions. Upon graduation in 1958, he applied for a job at the News Chronicle and, as an example of his journalism, submitted the Isis piece. William did not get the job, but the News Chronicle got a story.

The government reacted with fury and William and Paul were sent to trial at the Old Bailey for breaching the Official Secrets Act. Dennis Potter, who had by then taken over the editorship of Isis, was among the most vociferous campaigners on their behalf, but both were found guilty. However Lord Goddard, then lord chief justice, described the government's prosecution of the case as taking "a sledgehammer to crack a nut" and sentenced William and Paul to three months' imprisonment each, stipulating that their sentences be served in an open prison.

In later years, particularly after a second bottle of wine, William would often romanticise these experiences. But, in truth, the case distressed him and would also cause him many problems when travelling to the US (which then, in part, encouraged his antipathy towards that country).

In 1959, William took up a post as a journalist on the Financial Times, and it was also during this period that he wrote a novel, Every Night and All, which was published by Blond in 1961. William never wrote another book but, from this moment on, he would remain in publishing. But the work is only half the story; William was at his best in a bar or a restaurant, in London or Tokyo. These were his courts and his classrooms, where he both taught and learned. An evening with William was always an education, but he himself never lost his curiosity, his desire to meet new people, to discover new books, films, plays and music. This last summer, when he could hardly walk a foot without help, he still travelled with Junzo to Lisbon, because he had never been there.

And this curiosity, with his compassion, his kindness and his love for everyone he met was, I believe, the reason he was so trusted and loved and will always be an inspiration to those people lucky enough to have met him. I was one of those lucky people; I met William 12 years ago in Tokyo and – as agent, editor, teacher and, most of all, friend – he changed my life, and turned my world upside down; for he truly was, in all he did, in how he lived, a radical.

Bamba died in 2001. William is survived by his sister, Morag, and nephews Mark and James.

[FloatingTokyo]

George Schneider, who passed away on Nov. 4, was a long-time Tokyo resident and great friend. He was a pioneer of gaijin in Japan and worked for the Daily Yomiuri as well as the computer firm Landor & Associates.

Sadly, it does seem he took his own life.

A memorial was held on Nov. 26 and his ashes were scattered in Tokyo Bay on Dec 2.

To all those that knew him, he was a funny, insightful presence.

[GuyJean]

George Schneider, who passed away on Nov. 4, was a long-time Tokyo resident and great friend. He was a pioneer of gaijin in Japan and worked for the Daily Yomiuri as well as the computer firm Landor & Associates.

Sadly, it does seem he took his own life...

:( Sad to hear..

GJ

[TennoChinko]

http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Diston/502744832

http://www.legacy.com/CAN-Vancouver/Obituaries.asp?page=lifestory&personid=138011624

DISTON, Michael William June 17, 1984 to December 26, 2009 Bill & Sandra Diston wish to announce with great love, memories and deep sadness the sudden passing of their son Michael Diston, on December 26, 2009. He will be remembered dearly in our hearts and in the hearts of all his friends and relatives. A celebration of Michael's life will be held at Richmond Funeral Home, 8420 Cambie Rd., Richmond, B.C. on Sunday January 10, 2010 at 2:30 p.m.; reception to follow. In lieu of flowers, donations in Michael's memory to Crisis Centre, 763 E. Broadway, Van., B.C. V5T 1X8 would be appreciated.

http://www2.canada.com/richmondnews/news/story.html?id=5bf19dd7-99cb-47a9-998e-11e0419d41de

Richmond man, 25, dies suddenly in Japan

Parents waited for him to arrive at Vancouver Airport

Nelson Bennett
Richmond News

Wednesday, December 30, 2009



[SIZE="1"]Michael Diston, 25, died recently in Japan, where he worked as a translator.
A 25-year-old London secondary grad who had been working in Japan has been confirmed by friends and family to have died.[/SIZE]

Michael Diston was supposed to return home Dec. 22 from Japan for Christmas.

But when his parents went to pick him up at Vancouver International Airport, they were told he never boarded the plane.

Friends and family began sending out e-mails and posting Twitter alerts and Facebook bulletins in an attempt to track him down. Police in Japan were reportedly investigating his disappearance.

Reached by phone Monday, Bill Diston confirmed that his son had "passed away," but did not wish to divulge any more information.

It's not clear whether the young man's death is being considered an accidental death, a suicide or a death from natural causes. Richmond RCMP have little information about the case.

"The only thing I can tell you about that file, is that it's an ongoing investigation," said Sgt. Joel LeBlanc of the Richmond RCMP.

Citing privacy concerns, Lisa Monette of the Canadian Foreign Affairs Department, said she could not comment on the cause of death, except to confirm that a Canadian citizen had died in Hamamatsu City, Japan. However, she suggested it was not a case of foul play.

"There's no reason for Canadians living or working in Japan to be concerned," Monette told the News.

According to Facebook postings by Diston's family and friends, Michael Diston, who graduated from London secondary in 2002, had been living and working in Japan as a translator.

Co-workers in Japan said he was last seen going to work on Dec. 18.

Friends living in Japan said they tried calling him and visited his home in Tokyo, after learning he had been reported missing.

On Friday, Diston's family posted a message saying they had decided to "deal with the situation privately," but were still appealing to friends and family to write them with any information about their son.

[ashinoato]

Rodger Swan (YouTube Vlogger) has passed away from a condtion relating to aute pancreatitis. It was really shocking for me as a viewer of his videos.

[Taro Toporific]

Rodger Swan (YouTube Vlogger) has passed away from a condtion relating to aute pancreatitis. It was really shocking for me as a viewer of his videos.

I will take the liberty of quoting the entire JapanSoc obit notice

R.I.P. Japanese Horror Fan - Rodger Swan
Posted by samuraidave Jan 21, 2010 in Film & Books JapanSoc.com
Some of you who don't frequent Youtube may not be aware that a long time Japan Vlogger on Youtube, Rodger Swan, recently passed away suddenly. He put out a lot of videos of his experiences in Japan, first as Tokyo Swan then later as Iwate Swan when he accepted a job offer from JET to teach in Iwate Prefecture.
His most popular series was his Japanese Horror movie reviews where he looked at the good, the bad, and the gory of Japanese horror cinema. If you like Japanese horror you should check out his work. This is the first video of his playlist where he reviewed the Ring series. He has a whopping 50 reviews!

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

It's sad to see so many young people dying here recently. R.I.P. dudes.

[TennoChinko]

http://avherald.com/h?article=426f3adb

Incident: Delta Airlines B772 at Tokyo on Feb 7th 2010, stowaway found dead

By Simon Hradecky, created Sunday, Feb 7th 2010 16:25Z, last updated Sunday, Feb 7th 2010 16:57Z

A Delta Airlines Boeing 777-200, registration N867DA performing flight DL-59 (dep Feb 6th) from New York JFK,NY (USA) to Tokyo Narita (Japan) with officially 193 people on board, had seemingly performed an uneventful flight and landed safely.

In a post flight inspection a mechanics found a dead black male stowaway in the left main gear bay.

Japanese Police have opened an investigation and currently assume, that the person got into the gear bay in New York and froze to death and/or died from hypoxia. No injuries have been found.

[American Oyaji]

F.O.A.?

[Greji]

F.O.A.?

Damn AO, it had me worried for a moment. They first announced it as a Stoned Brother had been found, and I was afraid it was you after trying some of that cheap Ohio sneeze.....

[dimwit]

What is it with people stowawaying in wheelwells of airplanes. That was to be about the seventh time in the past five years that someone has attempted it all with the same inevitable results.

On June 8, 2005, the remains of a stowaway were found inside the wheel well of a South African Airways aircraft when it landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport, arriving from Johannesburg via Dakar, Senegal.

On January 28, 2007, a 17 year old male from Cape Town, South Africa was found in the wheel well of a British Airways flight in Los Angeles, CA. He died from exposure as a stowaway on a previous flight and the body had not been immediately found. That flight had last been in Cape Town five days earlier, on January 23, 2007.

On July 19, 2007, maintenance workers at San Francisco International Airport found a dead man in the wheel well of a United Airlines Boeing 747 arriving from China after an 11-hour trip

On October 11, 2007 A man known as Osama R.M. Shublaq was reported to have been a stowaway aboard Singapore Airlines Flight 119. The flight, which took off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at around 10:56 PM, arrived in Singapore.

On July 3, 2009 The body of a man was found in the undercarriage of a jet traveling from Ghana to Britain.

On August 9, 2009, the body of 19 year old Filipp Vitaliyevich Yurchenko from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky was discovered in the landing gear bay of an Airbus A320 aircraft after the flight from Irkutsk to Vladivostok, Russia. According to experts, the man had been dead for at least five days.

On February 08, 2010 a body was discovered in the landing gear compartment of the Delta Airlines flight which arrived in Tokyo from New York. A mechanic found the body inside one of the wheel wells of a Boeing aircraft during maintenance. The man, who was of dark complexion and dressed only in blue jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, was carrying no passport or personal belongings, police say. He was possibly a stowaway and probably froze to death, they added.

Is it mental illness? Suicide? Or are they just very very stupid? If suicide, I suppose it is better than drowning in a septic tank but not by much. If merely stupid, what is this guy aim in getting to Tokyo. Assuming by some miracle that he survived the trip what next? Like a black wandering around the tarmac isn't going to attract immediate police attention at Narita.

[American Oyaji]

Damn AO, it had me worried for a moment. They first announced it as a Stoned Brother had been found, and I was afraid it was you after trying some of that cheap Ohio sneeze.....

Sheeit, man. I only fly business class or above!

I only deal with the high quality homegrown when I do my aodaima dance.

My snowy weekend went up in smoke.

[Greji]

Sheeit, man. I only fly business class or above!

I only deal with the high quality homegrown when I do my aodaima dance.

My snowy weekend went up in smoke.

Ahh, it's great the warm weather came upon you
and your aodai...

[Dragonette]

What is it with people stowawaying in wheelwells of airplanes. That was to be about the seventh time in the past five years that someone has attempted it all with the same inevitable results.

Is it mental illness? Suicide? Or are they just very very stupid?...If merely stupid, what is this guy aim in getting to Tokyo....

I think this poor guy must have gotten in there on a prior flight from a small tropical country (the odds are someplace in Africa), and wasn't found here at Kennedy. He was probably trying to get to NY where he could make a decent living selling fake Rolodexes on 6th Ave.

It was so cold here that night that he probably wouldn't have even made it to the airport dressed like that, and even NYC street people aren't [color="Gray"]dumb[/color] uninformed enough not to know that's a fatal error. If you live in a place where "cold" means 60˚f you have no conception of freezing to death.
And why would he risk his life to get from NY to Tokyo? (No, forget YBF Syndrome, there's more than enough available here to satisfy anybody's needs)...

[American Oyaji]

:rofl:
Ahh, it's great the warm weather came upon you
and your aodai...

I know what an Ao Dai is. Those with YBF must know what the LYS wear in order to divest them of their garments.

Aodaima is a word I made up on the fly.

[Mock Cockpit]

Forget about some Nigerian moron trying to set his cock on fire, this is how Roger Binny Laden and his scaly mates are gonna go next. Fuckin nude-o-scopes and no water my arse. Fuckwits

[IkemenTommy]

[maninjapan]

Woman killed by train after jumping on tracks to retrieve bag

Not exactly Japan-related, but I still love the name.

She deserves a darwin award.

[maninjapan]

Here's a terrible bit of bad luck:

Scotsman.com: City man dies in Japanese bike accident

just thought would update this with this:

http://tristans-school.org/

[Behan]

just thought would update this with this:

http://tristans-school.org/

Establishing and funding a school in Tristan's name in Afghanistan is a really nice gesture.

[Captain Japan]

[Ganma]

This seems to have slipped under the radar...

Made a thread (misleadingly titled perhaps) about it here...
http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/showthread.php?p=245426#post245426

[phaelon56]

George Schneider, who passed away on Nov. 4, was a long-time Tokyo resident and great friend. He was a pioneer of gaijin in Japan and worked for the Daily Yomiuri as well as the computer firm Landor & Associates.

Sadly, it does seem he took his own life.

A memorial was held on Nov. 26 and his ashes were scattered in Tokyo Bay on Dec 2.

To all those that knew him, he was a funny, insightful presence.

I stumbled across this forum and thread when searching for some photos of George. He was a close friend of my brother in his youth and we grew up a few houses away from each other. His memory deserves the air to be cleared about the nature of his demise. His sister Anne and cousin Martha visited Tokyo for the memorial ceremony and to finalize details of the estate. Without belaboring the details - the short version is that subsequent investigation proved with a high degree of certainty that his death was accidental, due to carbon monoxide poisoning from a small hibachi he lit to warm the interior of the car where he was ensconced in a sleeping bag. He was a truly unique and memorable character as a young man and I'm sure he made an impression on all he met during his many years in Japan.

[Yokohammer]

I stumbled across this forum and thread when searching for some photos of George. He was a close friend of my brother in his youth and we grew up a few houses away from each other. His memory deserves the air to be cleared about the nature of his demise. His sister Anne and cousin Martha visited Tokyo for the memorial ceremony and to finalize details of the estate. Without belaboring the details - the short version is that subsequent investigation proved with a high degree of certainty that his death was accidental, due to carbon monoxide poisoning from a small hibachi he lit to warm the interior of the car where he was ensconced in a sleeping bag. He was a truly unique and memorable character as a young man and I'm sure he made an impression on all he met during his many years in Japan.

So sorry about your loss, but as painful as it might be to come to terms with, lighting a small hibachi in a car is a "traditional" and widely known way of committing suicide in Japan. If he lived here he would have known that. People just don't use hibachi in sealed cars unless it's for that specific purpose. Sorry if that's harsh, but it's probably better to face reality.

[TennoChinko]

So sorry about your loss, but as painful as it might be to come to terms with, lighting a small hibachi in a car is a "traditional" and widely known way of committing suicide in Japan. If he lived here he would have known that. People just don't use hibachi in sealed cars unless it's for that specific purpose. Sorry if that's harsh, but it's probably better to face reality.

Yep. There are plenty of references to this method of suicide by CO poisoning including this medical journal article on Internet suicides in Japan -- all four case studies (pages 7 to 9) involve carbon monoxide poisoning using some form of charcoal.

If any small consolation, other than headaches, dizziness and nausea, death by CO is not painful.

[duke]

[Coligny]

If any small consolation, other than headaches, dizziness and nausea, death by CO is not painful.

But the survival makes for a miserable week. (got quite an accidental close call with a kerosene heater)

[GomiGirl]

David Landrigan 1973-2010

http://david.landrigan.muchloved.com/

This site is dedicated to the memory of David Landrigan.

On April 19th we received a devastating news: our dear friend David passed away while on a business trip to Rome.

David was a happy and life-loving person and he was truly loved by everyone who knew him. He will be greatly missed by all of us. Our hearts go to David's wife Mari, his mom and family back in Australia and his wonderful kids, Joshua and Elena.

We have created this site to bring together all the people who knew and loved David. Let's remember David and celebrate his life by sharing our best memories and pictures of him amongst family and friends.

This is a good friend of mine... I am gutted. He died of a brain aneurysm and passed away peacefully in his sleep on Monday. He has lived in Japan for many years and worked for Pernod-Ricard. Previously he was with Orlando-Jacobs Creek. He studied in Osaka from the early 90's.

He is survived by his beautiful wife and my dear friend, Mari.

The funeral will most likely be in Casino - Australia. Mari has just flown to Italy this week to repatriate Dave's body to Australia but given the airline delays, it is unclear when she will be able to get out so no funeral dates have been set. At this stage, a Tokyo memorial has not been announced - it is just too early. But if you knew Dave keep your eye on the site listed above as it will be updated regularly.