C. Buddha's Hasty Musings

I have quite a few relatives in Japan, and have met many of them over the course of my stay here. They are all from my father’s side of the family, because the wealthy snobs on my mother’s side cut off contact with their American relatives years ago. I have not tried to get in touch, either – although I’ve made plans to several times, it’s not really that important to me, I guess. I get busy and forget about it, you know how it goes. I’m quite close with a few of my second cousins (on my father’s side). I go visit them in Nara sometimes, and we hang…

… where people often get shanked. I never used to be fazed by shit like this in the news because over the years I just became numb to it. When you first start living in Japan, it is hard to understand why the people can be selflessly polite and compassionate on one hand, and yet were feared as such ruthless self-disembowling baby killer rape-happy sadists not so long ago. One hint that perhaps not all is well in modern times, either, is the frequency of shockingly violent/sadistic/twisted incidents reported in the Japanese media. It seems like we hear about classroom slashings, group suicides, and heart-wrenching abuse cases on an almost…