Japan's Burakumin: an Introduction

Volume 4 | Issue 1 | Article ID 2075 | Jan 04, 2006 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus

Japan's Burakumin: An Introduction

Alastair McLaughlan

Japan’s Burakumin: An Introduction

Alastair McLaughlan

“Burakumin maggots…kill eta filth…burakumin have four legs…buraku people cause AIDS…” These examples of anti-buraku graffiti are not from Japan’s distant past, but vivid reminders from the 21st century that anti-buraku prejudice remains extant in some sectors of Japanese society. Formal discrimination against all outcastes was abolished by the new Meiji government’s 1871 Although the Japanese word buraku literally Eta Emancipation Edict (Eta Kaiho Rei) but, means a hamlet or small village, in many parts only since 1969 has the government directed of Japan, especially southern Honshu’s Kansai, significant financial resources toward Hiroshima and Hyogo regions, the term has a overcoming the historical problems of buraku connotation akin to our own word ghetto. socio-economic circumstances via its series of Furthermore, the word burakumin (lit. buraku Laws on Special Measures for Dowa Regions. people) is pejoratively applied to denigrate the Together with Japan’s postwar economic residents of buraku villages. Anti-buraku progress, funding from Special Measures Laws attitudes are largely founded on those(SML) has helped improve the physical residents’ historical connections to Tokugawa environment of many buraku significantly. Japan’s eta (lit. much filth) and hinin (lit. non- However, apart from improved living conditions human) outcastes. In particular, the leather within many buraku neighborhoods, surveys and butchery work of the despised eta were and buraku activist organizations continue to once regarded as polluted occupations,highlight significant statistical discrepancies permanently and irretrievably infecting those between buraku and non-buraku populations, who carried out such tasks, as well as their especially in education, social welfare descendants and associates in all future dependency, social attitudes, employment and generations. The Japanese governmentmarriage. currently acknowledges 1.2 million buraku residents living in 3000 buraku, while activists Over the years, many more residents have claim 3 million residents and 6000 buraku. The shifted out of their buraku altogether, a difference comes about in part because the process known as “passing”. Although attitudes government figure includes only thosetowards current and former buraku residents currently residing in a buraku and who claim have mellowed since the 1960s and 1970s, buraku ancestry, while the activists’ figure “passers” may still be liable to discrimination if embraces all current and former buraku their buraku connections are subsequently residents, including those current residents discovered. Accordingly, even today, former who claim no buraku ancestry. buraku residents are very careful about

1 4 | 1 | 0 APJ | JF divulging their buraku connections, including served by one, whether their taxi-driver, even to close friends. Outside of Kansai, most school-teacher, dentist, car mechanic or bar families would not care and, in fact, most have hostess is one, or whether their neighbour is probably never heard of the buraku issue. But one. However, when the issue is as serious as in greater Kansai, the issue is still verymarriage or employment, substantial sums of sensitive and the risk of discrimination,money are paid to the hundreds of private ostracism and graffiti is still very real. One of investigators who conduct (illegal) background the leading activist groups, the Buraku Kaiho checks specifically looking for any hint of Domei (BKD), reports more than 300 incidents buraku ancestry or association. If any such of specific anti-buraku discrimination in Osaka connection is discovered, the parents will often City alone each year. In their efforts to avoid do their best to prevent their child marrying criticism and prescriptive labels, official“into the buraku” by attempting to break the government agencies do not use the term relationship, emotive imploring, bribes, buraku at all, but refer exclusively to dowa absolute forbiddance or disinheritance. chiku (lit. assimilation communities) and dowa mondai (the assimilation issue). In spite of having poured billions of yen into attempting to solve what is one of Japan’s least Many, but not all, of Japan’s modern buraku discussed social issues, neither the government communities are located on the sites of former nor the residents of buraku are completely free eta villages and many buraku residents do have from the “buraku problem”. This leaves eta ancestry. It is also true that many buraku activists scathing over what they see as the residents have maintained their tanneries and government’s lip-service approach and at reputation for the skilled manufacture of shoes, entrenched prejudice within Japanese society in drums, jackets, belts etc. Sadly, this ‘leather general. On the other hand, many Japanese connection’ remains a link between today’s respond with claims of reverse discrimination – buraku and the spiritual pollution enforced the notion that the problem has already been upon the eta of the Tokugawa periodsolved and that the government is now guilty of (1600-1868). Moreover, the reality of continued doing far too much merely to placate the marginalisation and prejudice is that many greedy and aggressive buraku organisations. buraku are of low socio-economic standing and One further contentious issue is the BKD’s that many of their older inhabitants, incontinued practice of kyudan (lit. particular, are unskilled and/or unemployed. denunciation). These feared sessions require Moreover, all buraku residents, whether of eta the accused individual, company or ancestry or not, are often stereotyped as the organisation to appear before a series of public perpetrators of crime, drug dealing, violence, hearings of buraku officials and residents. Each prostitution and gang activity. session may last for several hours until the accused admits to the charge of discrimination, One of the great ironies of the buraku issue is promises a “change of heart”, and agrees to that with the exception of Chinese/Korean undergo human rights education and to actively families who have moved into the buraku, the promote buraku justice. The denunciation residents are ethnic Japanese and, therefore, sessions are highly emotive and, while judges indistinguishable from ippan (mainstream) in the 1980s reluctantly approved of the Japanese. This means that even Japanese process if strictly monitored, there is serious people who still despise buraku and their criticism today that the sessions are themselves residents, actually have no way of knowing infringements of human rights and that they do whether they are seated next to one on a train nothing other than intimidate, drive attitudes or bus, whether their food has been cooked or underground, and generate even greater anti-

2 4 | 1 | 0 APJ | JF buraku feelings. academics, entrepreneurs and others have been successful in their lives and careers. Buraku which have received government Many, many more have never revealed their funding are referred to as kaiho buraku buraku backgrounds. (liberated buraku). Their slums have been replaced with multi-storeyed apartment blocks The historic belief by many Japanese in their and the communal facilities are often better own homogeneity has produced a strong sense than in non-buraku communities, including of ‘self’ versus ‘other’. While international libraries, kindergartens, swimming pools, travel, trade and marriage have greatly health centres, aged persons’ homes, human reduced Japanese xenophobia, some Japanese rights centres, sports facilities and the like. In are still quick to accuse, avoid and discriminate addition, social welfare is available for the against those they identify or regard as needy. Sadly however, alcohol issues and ‘other’.[1] negative attitudes towards education are still over-represented and the buraku stigma This includes non-Japanese, especially Korean remains entrenched. Some residents still report and Chinese, Japanese children with mixed getting off buses one stop early so that work blood, the native Ainu from Hokkaido, the colleagues do not see them alight at the Okinawans and, of course, those believed to “buraku stop” and become suspicious.have buraku connections. While discrimination Furthermore, while very few Japanese are must always be condemned, Japan is hardly willing to discuss the matter, everyone knows if alone in its attitudes towards ‘other’. India’s there is a buraku in their own neighbourhood scheduled castes (‘untouchables’) have often and where the dividing line defining the been compared to the eta/hinin of Japan’s community is. Tokugawa period, while the Romanies (the former ‘gypsies’) of central Europe are still Alastair McLauchlan lived in a buraku in east widely feared and despised by some. Anti- Osaka while conducting the field-workSemitism remains extant in many European interviews for his Ph.D. and subsequent book communities, and the native peoples of published in 2003 by Edwin Mellen, NY. His countries such as Australia, New Zealand, novel Hell for Leather tells the story of Taka, a Canada and America are increasingly troubled buraku teenager and, although the demanding redress of their grievances over characters are fictional, the story draws on traditional land, language and culture. many hours of Japanese interviews recorded Moreover, Indian, Pakistani, African and West with buraku residents. He wrote this article for Indian immigrants into Great Britain, France Japan Focus. Posted December 31, 2005. and Germany claim widespread discrimination based on colour. The buraku issue is but one of This excerpt from Chapter 4 of Hell for Leather innumerable scenarios around the globe where portrays the frightening and confusingthe majority, for whatever reason, exclude circumstances confronting Taka and his sister those whom they regard as different. This does Eri on an almost daily basis: sub-standard not make it any less obnoxious, but helps locate housing, alcohol, violence, poverty anddiscrimination as a human condition, rather discrimination. Woven among these graphic than as a specifically Japanese one. descriptions are equally appalling stories from several buraku elders about their own[1] For a detailed explanation of this issue see childhood experiences in the buraku. Readers McLauchlan, A. (2003)Prejudice and should bear in mind that many former buraku Discrimination in Japan: The Buraku Issue. residents, including politicians, sportsmen, New York: Edwin Mellen Press.

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from his mouth and sailed over the railing, hurtling down to the parched earth below. Hell for Leather “Atseee,” he cursed again before making his way unsteadily inside the flat where Taka and An excerpt from the novel Hell for Leather his mother and sister sat, listening and waiting. In a room where the humid heat made it “Atseee…” (It’s hot) A ruddy faced man in his difficult to breathe, idle chit-chat was avoided early forties paused and glared through the and people communicated with single words or doorway, spat and cursed again the heat of gestures. Summer is the dread of every poor another evening in the endless Osaka summer. Osakan. Some hate it even more than the sticky His left arm, from the shoulder down to the rainy season which precedes it. Taka also hated distorted and lifeless hand, hung limply by his the summer, although it was more than just the side. Grasping the edge of the door with his just the weather that he despised. right hand, he kicked and flailed furiously until one shoe finally came free. He continued He knew from the surly look on his father’s thrashing in frustration to remove the other. face and the way the man cursed that his The broken shoe cupboard waited for him to parents would soon be arguing again about the fill, for once, one of its grimy alcoves, but the air-conditioner. Since the government shoe thudded into the wall and dropped to the rebuilding programmes, most enclave families floor among the clutter of other shoes. had purchased air-conditioners for the kitchen/dining area so that they could sit in The dark, unwelcoming porch had not been re- relative comfort in the evening. But the painted since the building was put up in the machine in Taka’s flat had been donated, early 1970s. Under the government’s new second-hand, by the people at the center. “Just legislation, Taka’s community was one of the four bolts, one in each corner of the bracket, first enclaves to see its sprawling slum of like this,” explained the delivery man. “Drill the dilapidated wooden huts replaced with multi- holes here and push the bolts… you’ve got a storeyed apartment blocks. A human rights drill, haven’t you,” he continued. Taka’s mother center was established, originally as a small shrugged, possibly hoping that he would offer office to register residents immediate housing to complete the installation, but the man just requirements. A much larger building with said that he was too busy. In the end, neither offices, emergency accommodation,the drill, the holes nor the bolts ever classrooms, a theatre, a library and a home for materialised. The unit was simply plugged in he aged soon replaced it. It rapidly became the where the delivery man had left it on top of a hub of all community activities within the television set that Taka had once rescued from enclave and from there, the central office and the rubbish. For several summers the air headquarters for activists in east Oaka. The conditioner had worked fine where it was, rebuilding program generated enormous nodding up and down to its own mesmerising opposition from families outside the enclaves, rhythm as it whirred away in endless battle with many claiming that the government was against the heat. spending so much money on the project that their own needs were being neglected. Monday was “burnable rubbish” day in the streets surrounding the park, and there was Breathing heavily from the cheap alcohol, the seldom anything worth retrieving from the piles heat and the flurry of physical exertion, the of paper, clothes and old containers. But man turned back, sniffed and poked his head Thursday was “non-burnable” rubbish day and out of the porch. A sticky wad of phlegm flew an early scout along some of the streets on the

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“school side” of the intersection could result in school that Thursday, he beamed with delight good finds of furniture, bikes, sportingas he announced to the few classmates willing equipment, toys, in fact, just about anything. to listen what he was going to watch when he “Such a waste,” people from the enclave would got home that afternoon. “Of course it’s a lament as they did the rounds at first light each colour set…yeah, big screen…course it’s Thursday morning. “Look at that…it’s not even ours…of course dad paid for it...of course it’s broken…some people have just got no sense of got teletext.” By the time school was over, Taka value…it’ll fetch ten dollars at the market.” had dealt with every angle of sarcastic questions and sneering that his classmates Early one morning while out scavenging, a could think up. Oblivious to the afternoon heat much younger Taka spotted one of the latest as only excited children can be, he and Rie ran colour television sets, full-sized and still in its non-stop all the way home, their minds on fire cardboard box. He raced round to Ataru’s with the thought of sitting in their own flat and place, his face alight with a sense of excitement watching their own television. that he had never felt before. Ataru was away, having stayed the night as a treat at his The design of the apartment buildings reflected grandfather’s place in Shiga, but Mrs. Ebisawa a clear expectation that enclave families were agreed to let Taka borrow her son’s trolley. not expected to have more than one, two at Struggling on his own, Taka managed to drag most, electrical appliances. Each tiny dwelling the set all the way home. Built to the absolute had two tatami rooms with one socket set into minimum government specifications, the new the floor between the two rooms, and one more buildings in the enclave had no elevators so outlet in the kitchen/dinette area. But by a Taka parked his find at the bottom of the strange twist of logic, the government’s special outside concrete steps and sprinted up to get measures spending had gone much further some help. Taka and Rie were besidethan just providing the minimum in themselves. Their mother joined in their accommodation. Much to the jealous horror of excitement as the three of them strained to get many families outside the enclave communities, the giant box up the narrow, concrete stairs. residents were able to access government money to purchase many of the commodities Taka’s father had ruled that television was a that everybody else had always taken for “bloody waste of money…and no money from granted. As a result, the floors of those families this poxy house would ever be spent on a poxy in the enclave which had TV, video, electric television set.” But to a nine-year old boy, it toilet seat, stereo, hair dryer and the like was the find of a lifetime, a treasure which resembled plates of spaghetti with extension might even help him gain some coveted cords joining onto more extension cords and credibility in the school-yard chatter every crawling their way round furniture and through morning before class. Taka had only been able doorways. Some elders had tripped over the to stand and listen as the others talked about tangled maze on the floor and broken a leg or what had been on TV the previous night. He an arm, while other families had lost everything wanted nothing more than to be able to join in when overloaded circuits had shorted and burst and be able to say “did you see the bit into flames. Several residents had been burned where…?” and “I liked the part where so and to death in their tiny flats. Fire had always so…” Excuses such as “Our TV isn’t working at been one of the greatest fears in the enclaves the moment,” and “Mum and Dad wanted to and those who had lived there prior to the watch another channel while that was on” were government building program often talked just one more invitation to another round of about the terrible blazes and how the lack of cruel jibes and teasing. But when Taka got to water and the narrow roads made the problem

5 4 | 1 | 0 APJ | JF so much worse. rich. He gets everything he wants and anyway, he’s long overdue for a smack in the gob.” Taka “Push this button,” shrieked Eri, “I think I can was already preparing himself mentally for the hear something…” next morning at school.

“No I reckon you have to…give me the remote “Mizuno? That clown,” retorted Ataru. His and see if…” dumb mother won’t even let her precious son talk to me…and his old man told Mrs Nishi that But no amount of twiddling knobs, or aiming he’s not allowed to sit next to me in class the remote and pushing every button on it either.” made any difference. The coveted find produced neither picture nor sound. Taka and “But, I’ll tell you what,” concluded Taka, “if he his sister dragged the set into the other room starts skiting about their giant fuckin’ TV with to try the other socket, but to no avail. Then built-in DVD and all that…” they used a stick to lever out the plug for the fridge and Taka all but stood on his head to “You said fuckin'…” insert the shiny TV plug into the grimy wall- socket directly behind. Still nothing. “So what? I don’t care what I fuckin' say. I can When Ataru returned from his grandfather’s say what I fuckin' like…” place and came bounding in later in the evening, they went through all the same The next morning as the boys and girls in Mrs. routines again and again, begging the god of Nishi’s class were filing into the classroom, one television to send an electronic crackle or of the boys called in a loud whisper over his flicker into their lives. But Ataru’s advice was shoulder. “Hey Taka. You know that TV that useless and finally the three despondent you reckon your old man bought, well my Mom youngsters flopped down, unable to hide their saw you dragging it back from the junk pile in disappointment. The two boys were about to our street yesterday. It was our neighbour’s but drag the lifeless set back outside in disgust it blew up as soon as they plugged it in…that’s when Taka’s mother suggested they use as a why they chucked it out. The shop just brought small table. “Oh yeah, bloody nice table, just so them round another one.” A hiss of sniggers posh, haa haa,” Taka hissed, no stranger to erupted from those who had heard the giving and receiving sarcasm and derision. But comment. “So, what cool programs did you it was the first time he had ever sworn directly watch last night?” chortled another boy, into his mother’s face and the burning hurt in followed by one of the girls who sneered, “did her eyes made him immediately regret it. you watch a nice piece of glass, Taka?” His face scarlet with humiliation, disappointment and “You know what they’ll all say tomorrow at anger, Taka said nothing as he shuffled to his school, don’t you,” Taka began quietly as the desk and sat down. Morning break came and as two friends headed disconsolately towards the the line of pupils snaked outside and divided up park. “Why not just pretend”, Ataru suggested. into the usual cliques, Mizuno sidled up. “Hey, “Just say ‘yeah that was great eh’ and ‘nah, we it’s old no-TV Taka. Don’t turn it up too loud or were watching something else’ and things like you’ll piss the neighbours off,” he snorted. that.” “We’ve got surround sound on ours and we can…” “They’ll know straight away…. And I bet that rich Mizuno jerk won’t be able to keep his gob So Taka’s coveted television find had brought shut when he finds out…just ‘cos they’re so nothing but more teasing and a makeshift table

6 4 | 1 | 0 APJ | JF to put the air-conditioner on. But at least it did broken lock banging against the door-jamb serve that purpose and the air conditioner had signalled his departure. worked well for several years, in spite of the annoying hum which accompanied its equally Most of the enclave communities in the eastern annoying wobble, until Taka’s father tripped part of the city had been rebuilt over the last one afternoon in a drunken spiral, sending three decades, but the folk who ran the after- himself and the machine crashing to the floor. school sessions at the center regularly showed That was almost six years ago and in spite of the children slides of the old enclave ghetto the endless fights over it every summer, it was with its rotten, wooden shacks which leaked no nearer being fixed now than ever. Repairs and which had no plumbing. They talked about cost money and that was the end of the matter. the river that had flooded several times a year, causing the contents of the communal long The tiny flat in Apartment 2 where Taka’s drop toilet to flood through the houses. family lived was known as a “middle flat” because it had no side windows for through “It used to sweep all our shoes out of the ventilation. As a result, every day in summer entrance porches and leave them covered in a the place baked like a furnace. The teachers at huge pile of crap at the end of the alleyway,” the center used to tell stories to the children the woman who did the cleaning at the old about babies dying from the heat in their person’s home explained. Another, her back so apartments and about how the government was bent that the children used to joke that she not doing enough to help. could hardly see where she was going, added that her mother had once slipped down Taka’s mother glanced sideways across to between the two planks which formed the seat where her husband was sitting with his back to on the long-drop toilet. “We had no hot water her. “The heat doesn’t get any more bearable,” so all we could do was rinse her with buckets of she ventured nervously. “Sometimes I think cold water from the pump,” she recalled. someone’s going to faint and die right here if She reminded the children that they used to we can’t fix the air conditioner or findcall the toilet the devil’s shit hole and that lots somewhere else to live. I hope the people at the of people had often fallen right in. But the center can find something….” She knew she mood always became serious again when she had already gone too far, but it was too late. added that some children had drowned after Taka’s father spun round from his sullen falling into the toilet. retreat at the kitchen table where he was puffing clouds of cigarette smoke into the The men told stories about how there was no already stifling room. “Stop your damned street lighting and how the roads were so nagging…I’m sick of asking…I ask week in and narrow that the fire engines could not get week out at the center…but still you don’t shut through. In the 1950s and again in the 1960s, up, do you…” he hissed, no longer even looking the wooden shacks had simply burned to the at the woman he was screaming at. “They’re as ground. The single communal pump at the end sick of me asking as I am…so bloody sick of it of each of the barrack-like buildings couldn’t that I’m not asking again...they haven’t got generate enough pressure to force water enough apartments…alright?...can’t you get through the fire hose. “And none of us went to that into your thick skull.” He glared a lifetime school…we were just too poor…couldn’t afford of resentment at the woman before scurrying a book or a pencil,” explained one old man with off to curse and jab his feet into the reluctant heavy tattoos showing below his short-sleeved shoes lying untidily in the entrance porch. The shirt and down his open neck. “No money for family sat in silence until the “clack” of the medicine or visits to the doctor either…” he

7 4 | 1 | 0 APJ | JF yelled excitedly as his tongue flipped in and out At the back end of the flat, the remains of a over his toothless gums. “Anyone who got sick, sliding shoji door led to a balcony. Most of the well, their mums would go and ask the people paper panels of the door had long since been in the noodle shop to try and mix up something. ripped away, leaving only the bare wooden Even our injuries were never properly fixed.” lattice which reminded Taka of how it must feel Rolling up his left trouser leg, he revealed an to look through a prison window. He often unsightly lump about the size of a small pretended, as he slipped out onto the balcony, mandarin half way between the ankle and the that he was escaping through the bars of his knee. “Broke it when I slipped over…I was ten,” own cell, even though the balcony itself was he slurred, minute beads of saliva sparkling in just another dead-end to nowhere. The grimy the light. “Of course we couldn’t go to the balcony was big enough to hold the rack of doctor so my mother just bandaged it tightly hangers for drying clothes, no more. “If there’s and didn’t let me walk on it for a couple of ever a fire and you can’t get out through the months…that’s just how it was…we never entrance porch,” his mother used to warn Taka mixed with anyone on the outside…” The men and his sister Eri, “at least get out on the also talked about working in the tannery and balcony.” The warning had once seemed other things about life in the old days, but the important to a small boy who, like all Japanese children always thought the stories about the children, had been taught to be afraid of fire. devil’s shit hole were the best. But the same balcony now only seemed to offer a choice between being burned alive inside and Taka was 16 now, almost 17, and he thought leaping to a certain death onto the baked earth the new apartment buildings looked like cold, below. concrete blocks. The people at the center referred to the individual flats honeycombed Taka often used to stand out on the balcony to inside the concrete towers as “rabbit-hutches”. get away from the heat and the cramped, unpleasant atmosphere inside the flat. Each Taka’s “rabbit hutch” had two tatami rooms argument between his parents would quickly where he, his parents and Rie slept, although turn into a slanging match which Taka’s father the sliding doors to the futon cupboards had invariably won, not through superior logic or long since disappeared. Apart from a tiny common sense, but because his mother, kitchen/dinette which had a fridge, a gas physically and mentally worn out, would simply cooker, the derelict TV with the broken air- go silent in the face of her husband’s abuse. conditioner and a table and chairs, there was Following a particularly bitter argument late just a bathroom which had a mirror, a wash- one humid evening when Taka was about basin and a cracked toilet which leaked, but no twelve, he had sat on his futon and listened as bath. When Taka was about 13, he asked his his father physically grabbed his mother round father why it was called a bathroom when it the neck with his good arm, shaking her as if didn’t have a bath. The reply taught him not to he were holding an empty dress. “You question the family’s circumstances. knew…you slut, you bloody well knew…didn’t you…didn’t you,” he spat. Taka’s mother didn’t Taka’s flat was on the fourth floor of Apartment answer and the enraged man screamed the 2, the middle of the three grey buildings. It was accusation again and again. Taka closed his fifth in from one end of the drab concrete eyes and wished that they lived in a big house corridor and sixth in from the other end, its where his mother could slip away into another entrance guarded by a dented, metal, paint-less room or into the garden. When Taka appeared door which led to the porch where shoes were at the doorway, his mother’s seemed to be removed, and from there into the tiny kitchen. pleading with his father, even more desperately

8 4 | 1 | 0 APJ | JF than usual, not to say anything more. avoided asking him for money, even for school or sport, and could only stand aside and listen None of their previous arguments had ever in silence as the other kids at school talked come to physical violence because Taka’s about their fathers giving them spare cash for mother would quickly surrender as the signal ice creams and whatever. They would also for her husband to stamp out of the flat. But on bring things to show their mates at school that occasion, he was far more agitated than saying, “This is what dad brought me after usual. With a sudden shove he sent his work last night.” distressed wife spinning into a heap. After the inevitable silent glare, he stormed into the One evening, Taka had been watching and entrance porch and struggled to force his feet listening, unobserved, from the balcony when into a pair of old leather scuffs. Thereafter, a his father’s luck at mahjong ran out and he well-aimed kick sent some of the other shoes in wagered a very different sort of bet to cancel the porch skidding away like startled rats out the evening’s debts. He eventually won that across the floor. With the usual click from the “all or nothing” last round and, while Taka never let on to anybody what he had overheard, steel door, he was gone. he felt sick with rage the following morning as he walked with his mother along the narrow Taka despised his father, yet he also envied him path that curved through the enclave. Leaning his freedom, even if that freedom only led him up against the iron railing at the bottom of the to the nearest vending machine outside the steps to Apartment 1 were two of the men from public bathhouse. There, he would slide the previous evening’s gambling session. “Hey whatever coins he could scrape together into missus, lucky for you your old man’s good at the slot, wait impatiently for a bottle of the mahjong, eh,” one of the men called out with a poorest quality shochu to clank into the huge grin. “Yeah, it’s not that we’re fussy or collection tray and swagger off to the anything, but we’re not sure now if we wanted neighbouring park. From the balcony, Taka to win or not,” chimed in the second man. The used to watch his father and the other men one who had spoken first had a distinctive during their binges under the trees. If the air speech impediment and Taka’s mother hated was still, he could hear their drunken singing, him. He was the most frequent caller to their including one song which mocked their wives flat, always to entice his mate away on yet by chanting “I pretend you’re a princess as you another drinking spree from which he might turn it up, turn it up…” Sometimes, they would not return for two, sometimes three, days. settle into a game of mahjong although Taka’s father seldom had any cash to bet with. Taka Posted on January 16, 2006.