Tokyo English teacher murder - a small update
As a follow-up to the previous article I posted about this subject, a couple of new pieces of information have come to light. First of all, this guy was apparently stalking her, and chased her as she went home from work on her bicycle. When she got home he entered her home by asking her for a glass of water. I’m not sure about the details on that one, but once again it makes you think. Would you allow someone who’s just chased you from your workplace into your home and get them a glass of water? I think probably not.
As regards to the suspect, apparently he came from a very rich family in Gifu. Hopefully the family’s wealth will not be a factor in whether the suspect is brought to justice or not, but you’ve got to take it into account. Secondly, the suspect escaped from his apartment through the front door in just his socks, after answering it to police. He confirmed his name and then just ran. Surely police could catch someone running away in their socks??? The socks were later found about 600m away from the apartment, near Gyotoku Station on the Tokyo Tozai line. Sniffer dogs were called in to track the scent but it suddenly went cold, which would suggest that he may have used a taxi flee the scene. Hopefully a taxi driver will remember this guy and where he went.
Sorry there’s not a lot else to report on the case so far, but as soon as there is something I’ll be reporting it here.
English teacher murdered in Tokyo
Unless you’ve had your head in the sand all week, you can’t fail to have noticed at least something about this tragic story coming out of Japan. On Monday, the body of Lindsay Ann Hawker, a 22 year old British 
girl from Coventry, was found in an apartment in Chiba, Greater Tokyo. The body was in a bathtub out on the apartment balcony and was covered with sand. Preliminary reports have suggested that the girl was either strangled or asphyxiated. Currently her father and long-term boyfriend from the UK are in Japan to identify the body and conduct press conferences and launch appeals for information about Lindsay. This is a very sad event, and as a fellow educator in Japan my condolences go out to her family and friends for their loss. Rather than just repeat what the news reports are saying, I’ll try and make some comments from what I’ve heard and my experiences in Japan.
Apparently, this girl went to the guy’s apartment on Saturday with the intention of giving him an English lesson. She left his address at her own apartment in case there were any problems and headed off. Nobody heard from her after that, and by Sunday night her friend had got worried and called the police. Initially, news reports said that Nova (her employer) had contacted the police, although this has since been denied by the company themselves. She had only been missing 24 hours though and understandably the police were not treating this as a hugely serious case. However, they did follow up the call her friend made on Monday, and they went to this guy’s apartment. When the police arrived, the guy (now the main suspect in the case) was still at the apartment, and he proceeded to leg it barefoot out of the window, and into the rats nest of alleyways and tiny streets at the back of the apartments. The police didn’t chase or track this guy at all, which does come across as strange. Admittedly, they didn’t know anything was wrong with the girl at that time but imagine the situation: you are a police officer investigating a missing person case. You knock on the door of her last known whereabouts and a guy somehow manages to escape out of the apartment. Usually that would be the signal for any officers with sense to think “He’s getting out of there pretty fast - maybe we should have a word with him”… but not here in Japan.
Reports said that her purse/handbag and passport were found close to the apartment (probably dropped by the suspect). My question to that piece of reporting would be: why did she have her passport in her bag when she’s going to teach an English lesson? As a foreigner in Japan, she would have her foreigner’s card to use as identification, and there would be absolutely no reason for her to carry around a passport with her. It’s hardly as if apartment break-ins and passport theft is a huge problem in Japan. It did seem a little strange.
Rapping “otaku” salesman in Tokyo
This is the first in a series of articles I’m going to post, most of which come from the excellent Japan site, Japan Sugoi. If you want to know about everything that is cool and happening in Japanese culture, then this is definately the blog to subscribe to. I’ve been regularly visiting it for the past few months now and it is really interesting and usually funny, even for someone who lives in Japan.
There are many famous subcultures within Japan, and one of the most famous is that of the otaku. Translated to English, it would probably mean something along the line of “geek” or “nerd”, although otaku doesn’t nevessarily have to have the negative conortations associated with those English words. It is usually a person who is an avid fan of manga (Japanese comincs) anime (Japanese animated films) and/or video games. These people will spend huge amounts of money pursuing their hobby and there are big conventions held for all of these people all over Japan. Continue reading this entry »
Trip to North Korea - review of an unforgettable journey (pt. 3)
I’m sorry part 3 of this report has taken so long in coming. I’ve been pretty busy with teaching and arranging dive courses for prospective students, and haven’t had time to sit down and tap away at the keyboard for any length of time. But I’ve got some time now and am ready to give you the next instalment of my trip into Kim Jong Il’s wonderland! For those of you that need to catch up, part 1 is here, and part 2 here. Once again, this one is even more special than its predecessors, as I’ve added video clips from each of the places I went to! Still can’t get clips embedded though, so you’ll have to click through the links.
When I left you last, we’d just finished visiting the Mangyongdae Shrine and the birthplace of Kim Il Sung. And a new day was starting with lots of tourist attractions in prospect. Looking back at my journal, I should probably re-emphasize the importance of getting along with the guides and going along with what they say, even if it seems relatively far-fetched. A few people seemed to be asking questions with the sole purpose of making the tour guides feel uncomfortable, and even some going right up to people and taking photos of them without asking permission. This just mean the guide got into trouble (who is ultimately responsible for our actions), which in turn means we may have missed out on other opportunities during the remainder of the tour. A couple of us kept trying to build bridges that other tour members seemed intent on burning down, but it was pretty embarrassing.
OK - ranting over and onto business. An 8:45am start got us to the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in central Pyongyang (Google Earth link) (video clip). This war is known in the West as the Korean War, and more interestingly in China as The War of Resisting the US & Aiding Korea. This war started on June 25th, 1950 and there was an armistice on July 27th, 1953. There was no actual peace treaty signed between the Koreas, and so they are still officially at war. This museum is huge, covering around 80,000 square metres. It shows how the “Koreans battled and defeated the US Imperialist army of aggressors”. You heard that a lot: “US Imperialists” in DPRK. It was a very interesting museum, especially seeing some of the documents and letters (allegedly) sent by US military staff. The presentation was biased, but so would a similar museum be in the US. I now have the opportunity to see both biased sides of the story, and try to make my own mind up by finding a middle ground. Not sure believing any government will give you the full facts now, so it’s just a case of using some intuition and common sense. The highlight of this museum was a huge panoramic painting, depicting the Battle of Taedong. This 360-degree painting was 132m in circumference and we sat on a platform which rotated us around the picture. It was a memorable view and beautifully created.
Dive logs 228-235 (10/2-24/3)
Just catching up with a few diving logs. Again, this is only for those interested in the figures of my diving, but if you are then read on…