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In other news, our search and rescue patrols are going well. Will update in due time.
For something of a more redemptive nature, see the short film Paper Flower. Worth a watch! I hope they make many more films like this, or develop a TV series. If only I were Japanese, I’d act in it for free.
So there's this. You can find drive-by videos on YouTube, but I just wanted to introduce this subject of red light districts, like this very traditional style one, basically a relic, in a more gradual way (in other words, more to follow).
Ramone, Zach, and I did a walk-by around noon the other day to do some assessing and pray the advent of the kingdom. You might call it the meat market. Of all the red/pink areas in this city, this is the one that still retains remnants of a wall around it. We think of it as the fortress. And its days are numbered.
"For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ..." - 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
Holiday for the lonely hearts. Strangely, there’s plenty of snowfall, almost unheard of in this city. May have to buy a heavier jacket.
11:10AM. Meet with Ramone and Zach at the train station south of the zoo. Straight off, we’re approached by an old man, straggly wisps of a beard, worn out shoes. He’s quick and intelligent, despite appearances, and eager to chat. He’s lived abroad for years. We don’t have time for a coffee, but exchange phone numbers to meet our new friend again.
Snow is getting slushy outside. A sense of the forlorn and rejected is a fine white powder that blankets the people. A warm and pleasant drowsiness takes them. That’s their hope. The morning after, returning to their hovels and high-rises, they sleep and slumber and try to forget. Stardust and snowflakes. But the track marks are still on their arms, and when the effects wear off, they’re left with a wretched loneliness inside.
It’s an old neighborhood. The kind where the walls are everywhere, though no one can see them. The original place burned down. They moved it down here. As far as red light districts go, this is the fortress, a hundred and twenty brothels. The mayor serves as a legal advisor to the area. As we walk the streets, we stay alert to any following us. There’s two different gangs controlling these businesses, about three hundred members strong going by the police reports.
As we pass the windows, it’s difficult to know where to look. Maintaining a sort of respectful, yet cordial distance from the merchandise. Hurm. Well, it’s a scouting mission. Zone recon. The girls sit stoically in the cold, heat fans blazing around them, as the window-shoppers survey. Some are in uniform, others in their delicates. They are young and beautiful. One would never tell by seeing them outside the wall what kind of persona they put on each day.
Mind is reeling. “Turning and turning in the widening gyre…” We get lunch at a shifty little café and exchange notes. Our small team is ramshackle. Makeshift. Determined. Formidable. Like the Blue Blaze Irregulars. The word will spread. Makes my blood beat hot. Surely some revelation is at hand.
11:15PM. It stopped snowing. Now a light rain outside. Meet with the Colorado Kid about scoping out Doyamacho and Toganocho. He’s a seeker, but a good hand. Got a good eye for what’s what as well. Lucky to have him with me. I brief him and give some heads up about what to expect.
12:30AM. Head out on and find some local referral guides. There’s a fetid stench in these kind of catering businesses, another part of this predatory system, but CK and I play our cards well. They’re friendly enough and give us information.
After we take our leave, we come across some girls with sandwich boards. Younger girls mostly. Once I loosen things up, CK is a natural. They are surprised and eagerly take our Valentine gift bags, happy to talk to people that are not there with money in hand. Chocolate, handwritten note, and contact info is inside. Me and my heart of gold. In all, we chat up with nine or ten folks around the neighborhood. Most of them ladies bar workers. Others are in deep. Wonder if they’re using their real names.
2:03AM. Pass a drunk slouched by a building. He waves away our help. Others that walk this hour are in their own world, conversing with themselves. The mentally disturbed. The spirit-oppressed. It’s still drizzling. We’re ready to head in. Not much choice - tomorrow is an early day.
Perhaps the most essential of Japanese proverbs is 出る杭は打たれる。 "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down."
That reminds me of what the theologian Theodore Beza replied to the King of Navarre in 1562 after a congregation of Huguenots were burned alive in the barn they were meeting in: "The church is an anvil which has worn out many hammers."
Vice-Consul Chiune Sugihara, possibly an Orthodox Christian himself, risked much to defy his government and issue transit visas to refugee Jews fleeing the Nazi onslaught. Though it flew in the face of the official orders he was given, his courageous actions were bold and daring, resulting in thousands of people being saved from the extermination camps. He was proud to be the nail that sticks up. Oskar Schindler's story has been made famous with the Spielberg movie, though Sugihara and others actually saved more lives.
Would that every Japanese history include the heroic story of Sugihara with the Jewish proverb, וכל המקיים נפש אחת, מעלים עליו כאילו קיים עולם מלא (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:8 (37a). "He who saves a life, saves the world."
This guy… Theodore Roosevelt’s biography reads like a larger-than-life litany of manly courage. He explored Africa, the Amazon, and the Dakota Badlands. He won the Medal of Honor, Nobel Peace Prize, and title Chief Scout Citizen. With a photographic memory, he was one of the most well read presidents. He hunted down outlaws, cleaned house when it came to political cronyism and the corrupt NYPD, patrolled crime-ridden New York streets late at night, led his Rough Riders in an uphill charge at San Juan on foot, sparred in jujitsu three times a week with Japanese in the White House, not to mention packing heat as president. Once a guy tried to assassinate him, shooting him point blank. Roosevelt just shook it off and went on to give a speech with a hole in his chest.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt
"The nation must make ready the tools and train the men to use them, but at the crisis a great triumph can be achieved only should some heroic man appear." - Theodore Roosevelt
- Theodore Roosevelt
If you ever wanted to poke around inside a guy's mind regarding mizu shobai (besides the obvious), but didn't have the chance or couldn't speak good enough Japanese, here you go: What a guy thinks about going to a hostess club
Honest, yet heartrending, answer. Somebody get that dude a Bible stat!
Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; For emptiness will be his reward. - Job 15:31
Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, "Consider your ways! "You have sown much, but harvest little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; you drink, but there is not enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but no one is warm enough; and he who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes. - Haggai 1:5-6
For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. John 1:16
Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.” John 6:35-36
On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” - John 7:37-38
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” - John 10:10
Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the riches of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.
Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon. - Isaiah 55:1-3, 6-7
