No looting in Japan huh.......

Thats what I thought. But after reading a few threads, articles, etc, It kinda hit me.....

We obviously dont trust the government in Japan or the U.S. They have a problem reporting the FACTS, when it comes to pretty much...EVERYTHING. Of course the majority of people in Japan are peaceful and more into helping than hurting each other, but I wanted to see if looting and crime was actually a problem there thats not being reported here.

I mean look at Katrina and Haiti, we saw looting, beatings and crime being reported everywhere on every news station. We saw over and over the blood that was shed, not from being injured from the earthquake or Hurricane, but from the rampant crime that was going on, from people who were either trying to protect there families or just trying to survive long enough to get help or get out of dodge. Both places were victims from the disasters and victims of relentless crime.

Now we know that as far as Japan is concerned, we werent getting good information from the start. We had to dig and claw to find decent sources to get SOMETHING other than BS. Now, we add the Japanese government to the list of authorities that cant be trusted, they made the entire situation far worse than it couldve been. I hope we all agree on this.

Now, here's a few things I found on looting and crime in japan:

This video shows a guy who went to check the damage at his place of business when he gets there, it's all open and destroyed, you hear him say the food was going to spoil anyway so they might have as well taken it. He locked the second floor so if there were looters, at least he still had stuff locked up. People broke in that floor was destroyed also. While they were there they saw a few people coming to their business to look for more and as people were walking away with bags filled, they said "at least they are peaceful looters. I agree. After that it shows an article that you can pause and read, but i found the article anyway to post here.



Link to article from video

"Of course when night falls it is very dark," said Shoji Yoshiaki, a councillor, who is overseeing the shelter. "I'm worried about the tension. People are stressed out. "We got hit very badly and the recovery effort is lagging. A kilometre or two away, they have electricity, food, water, gas – everything – but here there is nothing." Several evacuees, as well as people still living in the rubble of their homes, reported that a burglar had been stabbed during a robbery. There were also reports of a sexual assault. Their accounts could not be confirmed as the local police post has been destroyed. But the sense of fear is real. Suzuki was burgled while he was in the house. The barber had gone back to pick up some belongings and check on the family shrine. In the short time he was there, a thief climbed up the ladder through which Suzuki entered his home and made off with his bank card and cheque book. "I totally lost trust in everyone," Suzuki said. "My sense of trust is as badly destroyed as this landscape." He is convinced, though, that the thieves had to be from outside the neighbourhood. "I was born and raised here and grew up here," he said. "I know everyone here." Those bonds are what have sustained people since the tsunami: sharing food and water, and whatever warm clothes they can salvage from their homes. But as time goes on, those bonds are becoming more fragile and they only stretch so far. "In this school everybody helps each other and it is great, but when we go outside that is when I am afraid," Matsumi said. Matsumi's home – or what remains of it – is just across the street from the shelter, but she is afraid to go there alone to try to salvage her belongings. "When I have to go to my house, I get somebody to watch me from the window. Even then I run to get what I need. I don't want to stay there for too long," she said. "I survived this earthquake and tsunami and I'm still alive. I can't die now because of some criminal out there."

JAPAN WOMEN, WARNING ABOUT POTENTIAL RAPE & ASSAULT! TOKYO EARTHQUAKE & TSUNAMI AFTERSHOCKS, WOMEN-ONLY SHELTERS.

Link to Blog

However, Midnight Mess Maya has a very important rape warning to women stuck on the streets. There have been reports of men approaching single women, pretending to be police officers who will take them to a safe place. Some are knocking on doors and pretending to be from aid organizations. In fact, these men are potential rapists, trying to take advantage of women stranded during the earthquake crisis. It’s not a myth; a friend of Maya even saved a girl in Nakano. A guy was grabbing her arm and trying to take her somewhere… Another Tokyo friend confirmed the rape warning: men in Shibuya followed her as she was walking, and pulled her arm. She RAN. Please help keep these women safe by spreading this rape warning via Tweeting, Facebooking, blogging, etc. Women in Japan, please don’t go into toilets or anywhere with strangers alone. Stick together on the streets. There’s a women-only safety shelter in Shibuya: AJWRC, 211 Sakuraoka Cho, 14-10 Shibuya-ku Tokyo, tel: 0337805245

This little snippet below is from the Chicago Sun Times:

From a website of Kyodo News, Japan’s version of CNN, headlined, in Japanese: “In Miyagi, police report 40 robberies by those taking advantage of the earthquake.” The text, translated, reads: “According to police on the night of the 13th the morning of the 14, approximately 1 million yen in cash was taken from the Miyagi City Home Center. There were robberies at a convenience store and a food store, and robberies at approximately 40 other stores by those taking advantage of the earthquake amounting to 1.65 million yen.” A City Home Center is a store like a Target. And, at 80 yen to the dollar, the loss isn’t great — $12,500 in cash; $20,000 in theft. In this one report. But here was some looting, and there is no reason to think there wasn’t a lot more.

Chicago Sun Times

This next article that I am posting is titled "There are reasons why Japanese earthquake looters are MIA" and it explains for example Haiti, how there was poverty before the earthquake, so basically where theres poverty, theres looting. Doesnt show examples of looting of course but it talks more about the poverty levels and the difference between Japan and the U.S, you get the idea. Very Interesting.

Washington Examiner

I feel so bad for these people, it seems like there is no end in sight. But I after seeing and hearing some of the things going on, we cant simply say there really is no looting, at the end of the day, in a disaster stricken area, it will happen. Desperate times calls for desperate measures when your town is destroyed and your family and kids need to eat.

Allegedly this video was banned (which at the end of the video is a screenshot saying the video was deleted do to a copyright claim by tokyo broadcasting system) but the video shows alot of images of places or things broken into such as schools, stores, atm's etc.




I would like your thoughts on this as everyone seems to think that everything is quiet and peaceful over there when in reality there are families scared for their lives and little security that they have left....

Humans are...wait for it....human. Culture, civilization, society etc etc are artificial bubbles...pop that bubble and you will see the real face of humanity, not a pleasant one but one that has helped us get this far in many ways. The only difference is how fine the line is between our savage roots and the artificially constructed society we create, something that differs greatly all around the world. Is the construct closer to our true primordial roots or to a more Utopian construct? That is why wee see differences in how people react to these events. Japan is undoubtedly more to the Utopian side compared to America, but that does not mean you will not see glimpses of our true nature.

There are no absolutes, humans will be humans. There are cultural differences that make looting less likely than in the Unites States doesn't mean it isn't going to happen. You could look at the strengths of the Japanese culture and think "they must be better than us" or you could look at the weaknesses of the Japanese culture and think "how can they act like that" or you could look at the whole picture and decide that they are human like anyone else

TC, the crime listed is just everyday crime like every other place around the world. If anything, Katrina was 90% worse concidering mostly it's thugs that live there and the fact that todays black culture teaches hypermasculine savage values.

Originally posted by WeBrooklyn
We obviously dont trust the government in Japan or the U.S. They have a problem reporting the FACTS, when it comes to pretty much...EVERYTHING. Of course the majority of people in Japan are peaceful and more into helping than hurting each other, but I wanted to see if looting and crime was actually a problem there thats not being reported here.

Don't confuse editorial commentary by the US media with official Japanese reports - government, media, or other.

I've always found the western media - in particular the US media - has a strong desire to phrase any story coming out of Japan to fit one of the following:

a) Heartless, untrustworthy killers
b) Honorable, duty-bound individuals
c) Otaku.

These are the stereotypes. Stories are bent to fit them.

Japanese TV showed quite a bit of footage of looted shops. On a couple of occasions, I can remember watching that footage and switching over to a US based stream and immediately hearing how there was no looting.

The only conclusion I can draw is that the western media is reluctant - for some reason - to drop their comfortable stereotypes of Japan. It's certainly not anyone on this side of the ocean responsible.

If you look at my three criteria above, you can sometimes see the first two (contradictory as they are) represented in the same article fairly often.

The only ones I've seen with all three have been articles wondering why Robot-Obsessed Japan didn't send an Army of Robots in to clean up Fukushima, and instead relied on heroic, honorable workers to sacrifice their lives for the good of all people at the demand of the evil bloodthirsty TEPCO and Japanese Government.

I understood that a major crime gang like Yakuza had the whole area sewn up. They have a lot of political sway and of course the police keep their distance. Japan just have a different way of handling things and of course shame is such a powerful force they hide anything they don't want people to see.

OMG?? Say it aint so....Japanese are humans after all..

Originally posted by squandered
I understood that a major crime gang like Yakuza had the whole area sewn up. They have a lot of political sway and of course the police keep their distance. Japan just have a different way of handling things and of course shame is such a powerful force they hide anything they don't want people to see.

I read something about life in Japan after world war 2. Apparently the Yakuza raided some big stash of military philopon(amphetamine) and sold it like crazy. People were very hungry after the war and a lot of them used meth to stifle the hunger pains so lots of people got hooked.

Anyway point being I wonder how much stuff is really going missing and where it is ending up.

reply to post by FEDec


I think it will move through some very sophisticated channels. Yakuza are accepted in Japan and they have a massive network. It's nothing like an American crime gang even Mexican drug lords are weak in comparison. They have connections to networks all over the world. Most Asian countries have massive and well organised crime gangs that run above the law. They all deal with each other and what can a gov't do when they run unions, hold prominent positions and do the do the dirty work for the big corporations that that in turn run the gov't anyway.

This is why we see the corruption from the nuclear fall out cover-up. This is business as usual. The sophistication behind the tactics they are using are as highly tuned as hollywood - to create another reality.

I wasnt surprised that there was looting going on.

The point I was trying to make was the fact that we werent hearing this information here.

reply to post by vox2442

Don't confuse editorial commentary by the US media with official Japanese reports - government, media, or other. I've always found the western media - in particular the US media - has a strong desire to phrase any story coming out of Japan to fit one of the following: a) Heartless, untrustworthy killers b) Honorable, duty-bound individuals c) Otaku. These are the stereotypes. Stories are bent to fit them. Japanese TV showed quite a bit of footage of looted shops. On a couple of occasions, I can remember watching that footage and switching over to a US based stream and immediately hearing how there was no looting. The only conclusion I can draw is that the western media is reluctant - for some reason - to drop their comfortable stereotypes of Japan. It's certainly not anyone on this side of the ocean responsible. If you look at my three criteria above, you can sometimes see the first two (contradictory as they are) represented in the same article fairly often. The only ones I've seen with all three have been articles wondering why Robot-Obsessed Japan didn't send an Army of Robots in to clean up Fukushima, and instead relied on heroic, honorable workers to sacrifice their lives for the good of all people at the demand of the evil bloodthirsty TEPCO and Japanese Government.

Thank you for your response, (I had to google Otaku). I wasnt following japanese tv as much and when I did, I only saw images being that I couldnt understand what was being said. But reading here and there how the government there was censoring and banning certain things, I put them in the same catergory as our government. Also, the french guy from Japan on youtube, In the beginning I was following him and he was pissed because they wanted to censor etc.

Im still learning, not for nothing, I really didnt know too much about japan other than it was a beautiful country, some of it's history, NOW im taking the time to learn more and basically just be more informed.

Do they really have an army of robots? That is really terrible if they had other options than sending fathers and husbands in there....

reply to post by squandered

I understood that a major crime gang like Yakuza had the whole area sewn up. They have a lot of political sway and of course the police keep their distance. Japan just have a different way of handling things and of course shame is such a powerful force they hide anything they don't want people to see.

Interesting...do you any links on that?

Doesn't matter what part of the world you are in, anywhere there is income/power/control disparity, there will be crime and rape.

Originally posted by squandered
I understood that a major crime gang like Yakuza had the whole area sewn up. They have a lot of political sway and of course the police keep their distance. Japan just have a different way of handling things and of course shame is such a powerful force they hide anything they don't want people to see.

Kinda like the MSM hid that little children were being raped and murdered by the "thugs"
after Katrina? Or the martial law that went into affect? I think the media keeps the truely ugly stuff out because it is well... ugly. To the Japanese for other countries to witness looting and the likes would be an embarassment to them and their culture. The Japanese, from what I know, are very honorable. There is nothing honorable about looting or taking advantage and being opportunistic like people are here in the states. Remember the LA riots? Whole hell of a lot of looting and raping goin on than! But than again, we get @ like that just about everyday in our large cities so it isn't as "shocking" to come from the US as it would be from Japan.