Japanese Pop Idol Recast as Junkie (Big Drug Bust in Japan!)

Channel Asia, Entertainment ^ | 21 August 2009 | Tim Kelly, Forbes (via Channel Asia)

[Ronin]

Those English tack on lines are really starting to annoy me.

You’d think that by now they could at least make them gramatically correct.

Ah well...

Nihon wa Nihon desu...

[AmericanInTokyo]

I can think of a puzzled if not terrified Japanese traveler taking a “wrong offramp” in San Francisco/East Bay or Detroit, and feeling “America is weird”. ;-) Actually, weird is a little bit everywhere when you think about it.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Hint: They are not “English”, nor were or are or will they ever be, intended to be “English”.

[Ronin]

I’d be terrified, myself. No time to be puzzled.

[PureSolace]

I guess you’re right. :)

[Ronin]

Though discussed little in public, estimates put Japan's regular drug users in the millions. Amphetamine crystals, known locally as shabu shabu is common, but cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana and other narcotics are readily available despite stiff penalties. Japan doesn't differentiate between soft and hard drugs.

I have problems with that paragraph. They are NOT readily available in anything like the sense they are available in America or any other European country.

If you go out looking for them, you can probably find them, but drug users in Japan are almost a completely separate community -- restricted to the entertainment community and the Yakuza set.

I wouldn't have the foggiest idea who to talk to or where to go, myself.

But then, maybe I am just too old and straighlaced for that crap these days.

(He said, sipping his first scotch and water of the weekend.)

[snowsislander]

I can think of a puzzled if not terrified Japanese traveler taking a “wrong offramp” in San Francisco/East Bay or Detroit, and feeling “America is weird”. ;-) Actually, weird is a little bit everywhere when you think about it.

Having had the experience of trying to explain various bits about American culture to Japanese, I believe that Japanese are generally puzzled by our country.

[AmericanInTokyo]

I was just going to say, I have heard this criminal substance referred, in Japanese slang and even in the tabloids screaming above the fold just tonight, to as　シャブ (shabu) but not as "shabu shabu" (I guess thats for the no-pan kissa) But what would I know? This is clearly a territory outside of my domain.

So there might be some inaccuracies in that article. Yes.

By the way, believe it or not, the US State Department actually has a "Travelers Advisory" out for Roppongi. Shame it came to that. Ah, the good old years before the riff-raff came in. Fortunately they are being shown the door these days.

[AmericanInTokyo]

You or I would go right straight to "terrified". They would fiddle around with "puzzled" for awhile before it dawned on them there were in deep unchi.

[SpaceBar]

Judging from the content on Noriko Sakai's wikipedia page regarding the police action and the public outcry over the drug incident, Japan looks like a complete authoritarian hell-hole. Pulled all of her CD’s from shelves and cancelled consumer endorsement contracts? Sheesh, get a grip people. I guess terrorizing most of Asia last century was okay though.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Yes, very photogenic indeed.

Here, you get one just for being a nice person, bill:

She has a line of hats she "pushes" (oops, sorry no pun intended), which she is doing here, above...and which I think are going to have sales plummet.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Hey, over here, at times, it is guilty until proven innocent. Probably in 85% of the world for that matter, advanced and developing country alike.

Look at what they do in Singapore for chewing gum or chucking a cigarette but...or spray painting grafitti for that matter!

[SpaceBar]

You might as well just fill up the thread with various images of her. No sense wasting the space.

[SpaceBar]

If they instituted those same policies stateside there would be more people inside prison than out.

[AmericanInTokyo]

OK you asked for it:

[Fresh Wind]

Japan is weird.

No kidding. Where else can you buy whiskey from vending machines on the street?

[Ronin]

It’s not though. It is completely different than America in so many ways that is is virtually impossible to explain to someone who has never lived here.

Her CDs will be back on the shelves in a week or so. I do not think this is going to kill her career although she is probably going to have to publically apologize to her fans and express sincere remorse.

I am SAFE in Tokyo. There is nowhere in this city that I would fear to walk at night. Or, if there are, they are so far off the beaten path of normal life I could probably never find them anyhow.

Japan is... Japan.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Yep. This low crime business ‘aint all its cracked up to be anyways, know what I’m saying? Give me the feeling of wondering if I will be shot down in the middle of the night at a 7-Eleven in a bad part of town just trying to get emergency baby formula ANYDAY.

[AmericanInTokyo]

It will all blow over. But I am afraid not THAT quickly.

If anything, if I were her relatives, I would put her on suicide watch once released. She already threatened it the first day of her going missing...as intimated to her mother in law or grandmother by phone, I forget which one.

[rabidralph]

Game shows. But I love the country anyway.