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The culture that is Japanese
A homeless woman who sneaked into a man's house and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested in Japan after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.
Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man's closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday.
Even better is how he caught her:
The resident of the home installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.
Hat tip goes to Instapundit.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 1, 2008 at 02:44 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
There is a recent Korean movie (Kim Ki-Duk?) whose ending is not unrelated... Can't say more because of spoilers...
Posted by: Jack at Jun 1, 2008 2:46:48 PM
I think I'm going to go through my apartment looking through every closet and open up that large blue suitcase that has been in here since I moved in.
The news kind of makes you think about how much of your house you truly use.
Or not.
Posted by: Jonathan Hohensee at Jun 1, 2008 3:13:08 PM
How is this even possible?
Posted by: sa at Jun 1, 2008 3:17:07 PM
Was she dancing to California Dreaming while he was out also?
Posted by: Andrew at Jun 1, 2008 4:49:17 PM
So if she lived there a year and was caught when food mysteriously began disappearing; what was she living on for most of the year? Or maybe till recently she left little notes explaining where the food was going so its disappearance wasn't mysterious.
Posted by: Counterfactual at Jun 1, 2008 5:09:06 PM
She could have stolen anything, but she only stole food. That is surprising.
Posted by: Joaquín Mayorga at Jun 1, 2008 5:23:24 PM
I thought Japanese people don't steal?
Posted by: Bob Murphy at Jun 1, 2008 7:20:18 PM
The BBC article about this was particularly humorous, talking about how the woman was immaculately clean and well-groomed, just homeless. It was like she became a literal human mouse, just living inside the walls, practically.
In terms of "I thought Japanese people don't steal," Bob, I think it has to be more of a "it's culturally ingrained in Japanese people not to steal, but it's not going to always hold up, particularly in the case of the homeless. That said, their "homeless" tend to be very neat, clean, law-abiding, and polite (and I've been to Tokyo, it's not just a generalization based on media portrayals.) Part of it comes from not having the "diversity" that we cherish so dearly to create wide gulfs between races/socio-economic-subculturally-defined-entities as well as having no War Veterans to not be properly cared for.
Posted by: Neal at Jun 2, 2008 2:42:59 AM
@Jack: the korean movie by kim ki-duk you are talking about is "bin jip"
Posted by: erhard909 at Jun 2, 2008 3:10:23 AM
I find it hard to believe there is no theft in Japan. I recall reading an article on the Japanese Mafia a week ago that was posted here. Why exactly are they called the Japanese Mafia, if they do not break the law?
Posted by: brainwarped at Jun 2, 2008 8:52:17 AM
Not very on-topic, but something I wanted to get in before you finished the Japan series.
I just learned that in Japanese okonomi refers to
"what you want". I thought that was interesting, since it sounds like "economics", which studies the
results of preferences!
Posted by: Person at Jun 2, 2008 2:18:34 PM
Brainwarped: Of course there is some theft in Japan, but it is massively, massively less common than it is in the US.
The yakuza ("Japanese Mafia") do break the law. They're into the usual things that organized crime is into: drugs, illegal gambling, prostitution. Not so much burglary, pickpocketing, or petty theft.
Posted by: Michael B Sullivan at Jun 2, 2008 3:07:53 PM
SUPPLIES!!!
Posted by: ted_vanderbilt at Jun 2, 2008 9:11:34 PM
I have been living in Japan for the past two years and have never felt safer. I went to the Summer Sonic concert last year. My friend lost his phone, so we stuck around the Lost & Found table afterwards. I was stunned by what I saw. As the masses flowed out of the stadium, dozens stopped by to turn in phone, cameras, and even a watch. In DC, my hometown, a found phone or camera would not be turned in.
Posted by: MRFan at Jun 2, 2008 9:49:11 PM
If you are starving and have no money, is it really stealing to take some food to keep oneself alive. Here the survival imperative takes over. Is it still wrong? Yes. Should it be punished? Yes. But in a jail cell in an institution that provides food.
Posted by: techreseller at Jun 4, 2008 3:40:53 PM
