Homeless in Japan
Have you ever been to Berkeley, CA? Well, if you have you’d have come away with a few distinct impressions of the city. Number one, you’d notice how friggin cold it is there during summer. I think Mark Twain said something like “The coldest winter I’ve ever spent was a summer in San Francisco”. San Francisco being just a drive over the Bay Bridge, you see.
You’d notice the nice campus, of course, and myriad bookstores and cafes, where intellectual dudes hang out and debate politics and Che Guevarra.
And you’d notice the bums and the homeless. Wait, let me back up. Sorry, not “bums”, but “domicile challenged”. We are talking about Berkeley, after all, perhaps the most politically correct city in the universe.
The thing about these homeless is the fact that many are quite aggressive, funny, or just plain deranged. Many of them have taken to living on a patch of land near the university called “The People’s Park”, which I avoid assiduously since the only “People” living there are stabby drug dealers.
Many have a funny sign for panhandling, such as “Please give me money or I’ll eat my kittens”. Hm. I’ll pay to see THAT. It’s been a while since I’ve lived there, and I wonder if the homeless are as prevalent there now as before. Which is not to say that there aren’t homeless all over the world.
Perhaps some think that Japan is so clean and nice that there simply aren’t homeless people, but that would be a wrong assumption. I clearly recall seeing blue-tarped make-shift tents under train bridges as I was riding the train into Osaka. And on the streets of Osaka itself, one can quite often see drunk passed out gentlemen, who definitely seem domicile challenged. But aggressive panhandling? I’ve never encountered that. Only time I’ve seen someone who is seeking donation are the “ninja monks”(I made that word up) who hold out a bowl of alms holding a staff. Presumably using the staff to beat teenage thugs.
I was shocked and disgusted, of course when I saw on TV that some punkass teen set fire to an old homeless man’s tent burning to death the poor guy inside. I believe when the authorities asked this twisted jerk why he did what he did, he simply answered something like “It’s a shame that a country like Japan has these human trash. So I decided to do something about it.”
As grotesque as that story is, this type of homeless bashing is not an isolated incident in Japanese society, to which i have to ask, “What the hell is the matter with some of you?!” It’s not like America, where some shady dude approaches you and asks for change. In fact, you’d hardly know some of the homeless would even exist, unless you were paying attention, as most of these folks keep to themselves. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Tokyo Godfathers”, you would see how badly some of these people are treated sometimes.
In PingMag, a German artist named Anke Haarmann did a documentary about the homeless in Osaka, and it’s a very interesting read.
The facts are vague: there seem to be about 25 000 homeless people in Japan. Some of them describe themselves as ‘no jyuku sha’ or ‘field campers’ - as they manage to settle in parks and other public spaces on a more permanent basis, easily distinguishable by their tent houses made of stark blue plastic covers. Especially in Osaka, these ‘campers’ not only organize themselves increasingly over the internet. They also engage in political activities to stand up for their rights and protest against the increasing park clearings by the municipiality. German artist Anke Haarmann did a documentary about this situation called Public Blue. For PingMag she explained the ‘no jyuku sha’ movement and talked about the current state in Japan and its conditions.
From PingMag