A Life in Japan: My encounter with the Yakuza

Across the road beside a brightly lit Mr. Donuts (I was surprised to see donut shops are quite popular in Japan) sitting on a park bench was a woman with her laptop open. "Let's try over there," I enthusiastically stated. Voila! A perfect Internet connection in a tiny, somewhat shady park, sandwiched in between a donut shop and a convenience store. Who would have thought, here would be our place? We all sat down, flipped open our laptops and started getting our Internet fix. We were turning heads from everyone passing by, what were these three crazy foreign girls sitting in the park using an unlocked Wifi signal, is I'm sure what many were thinking? Our desperation had taken us far away from any polite manners and was saving us heaps of yen, to get the Internet for free. The first thing I did was hop on skype and call my boyfriend. Of course, the girls were doing the same. The signal was only strong in on area so we sat butt cheek to butt cheek, gabbing away over the traffic noises, people walking by and muttering what weirdos we were and over each other.

Once I got a hold of my boyfriend, he of course was happy to hear from me but also annoyed with barely being able to hear me and seeing random passers by stopping and staring and me and me glancing up at them, tightening my grip on my laptop. It was a rather sketchy situation, three young woman sitting there with nice laptops on there knee. But this was Japan right, super safe..right?

Mid conversation I ceased talking and my mouth dropped. My boyfriend sensed something was up and was asking me "What's wrong?" Standing in front of me was a muscular, long-tattered haired, tattooed man with a slight smirk on his face, that made the hairs on my arm stand straight up. He looked at me and I stupidly stared back, in shock. I looked down at his fingers and saw one of them was missing. First thought that came into my head YAKUZA (Japanese mafia). He glared at me for another second then kept walking. My heart was in my throat. "I..I..I..saw Yakuza." The girls turned to me, "Where where?" they asked excitedly, as if they had just missed seeing Ashton Kutcher . I tilted my head at his back walking away. "Aww we missed it!" one of the girls said. I was freaked out. I told the girls it was getting late and maybe we should come back tomorrow. They said they'd be a couple more minutes. I left my poor boyfriend in a miserable state with our hard-to-hear, sketchy surroundings, skype chat.

The Yakuza are the largest mafia in Japan. I have heard about them back home, but never thought I would see one in the flesh! Many of you may have heard about this mafia gang from the Kill Bill movie where Lucy Liu was a Yazuka leader.

Lucy Liu, was not as scary as the Yakuza member I saw.

Tattoos here are most often associated with Yakuza, as many of them have some type of tattoo to commemorate their membership. Many public places won't allow people in with tattoos, mostly because of the stigma Yakuza's have brought to it and to keep public areas, Yakuza-free. The man who was missing a finger, would have cut off his finger (called Yubitsume) as a type of apology or repentance for a mistake he has caused his group. Generally, I've heard, the Yakuza don't mess too much with foreigners, but at that time it did not bring me much comfort. I hoped never to see another frightening member again!