Crime in Japan
Wendy Nakanishi
Word Count 703
When I lived in Japan, my fellow expats often swapped tales testifying to the honesty of the Japanese. We’d excitedly relate to each other how a wallet we left on a park bench got returned to us—all cash and cards inside, of course—or how someone who’d scraped the side of our car had left an apologetic note taped to the door including personal details so we could get in touch to ask for reimbursement.
And yet, there is crime in Japan. Twice during my long residence in the country, I was visited by police to make a witness statement about a crime committed in a neighbor’s house.
Five years after I married my husband, a wiry black-haired orange grower, we finally were able to move into the house he had designed and helped build on family land once occupied by a muscat grape vineyard. Two years later, a strip of land that bordered our property was sold, and we were dismayed to hear that three houses would be built on it.
The middle plot of land had been bought by a taxi driver and his wife, who ran a small local restaurant selling ‘homestyle’ Japanese favorites like okonomiyaki pancakes and yakisoba stir fries. I recall asking the man who delivered gas canisters to our home, and who knew the family, what they were like, and his replying that they were very ‘ordinary’.
At first, I thought he was right. Mr. and Mrs. K lived in a modest little house with their two sons. Then the younger son married and moved out and the older also married but moved his new wife into the house to live with his parents. This was common practice in our old traditional neighborhood. The young couple soon had a son and daughter.
About seven years after the Ks moved next door, I was dusting the upstairs bedrooms when I heard a strange noise. At first, I couldn’t make out what it was. When I threw open the window, I realized it was the sound of someone screaming. I also heard the thudding of footsteps approaching my house. Leaning out of the window. I saw it was Mr. K’s daughter-in-law. She was running down the road barefoot, shouting for help.
I ran out and so did some other housewives. We comforted her. The police arrived. It was all startling, even incomprehensible. It was a week or so later that we heard what had happened. There had been tension between Mr. K and his daughter-in-law. He didn’t like her. He felt she disturbed family harmony. The smallness of the house couldn’t have helped matters. Apparently on the day in question he had left home as usual, apparently going to work. After his wife and son had left and the grandchildren were at a daycare center, Mr. K had crept back into the house and hid in the attic. He put on a frightening mask and went downstairs to terrorize his daughter-in-law, flourishing a knife.
Mr. K was sent to prison. Mrs. K continued to live with her son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren. I never saw Mr. K again. Nobody ever alluded to what had happened.
What did Mr. K think he might achieve? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps he didn’t care. Perhaps he was just desperate to vent exasperation. In my neighborhood, there are many such three-generational families living in one dwelling. I had to live with my own in-laws for a few years while our new home was being built. I occasionally harbored violent thoughts myself, finding the proximity of my in-laws maddening.
When the police came to question me about the events of that day, I recall telling them that ‘the dog didn’t bark’. That is, the little dachshund owned by the daughter-in-law, that always let out an infuriating stream of frantic yipping noises whenever any stranger approached the house, had made not a sound that morning. I later understood the implication of my observation. The dog didn’t bark because he knew Mr. K, the supposed ‘intruder’.
Japan is a peaceful, safe country of law-abiding citizens who are polite but keep themselves to themselves. Beneath its calm, orderly social surface, however, there are tumultuous currents invisible to the casual observer.
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Wendy is an American by birth, spent thirty-six years living and working in Japan. She is now dividing her retirement between the UK and Japan. She has published widely on Japanese and English literature and, under the pen name of Lea O’Harra, is the author of the Inspector Inoue mystery series set in rural modern-day Japan: Imperfect Strangers (2015); Progeny (2016); and Lady First (2017), originally published by Endeavour Press and recently reissued by Sharpe Books. She has also just published a standalone murder mystery set in small-town America: Dead Reckoning (2022).