tangentbot

I just finished reading the book Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter, the autobiography of Shoko Tendo, a woman who grew up around, and got involved in, the yakuza. The book moves at a jostling pace, most likely due to translation, but presents a horrific glimpse into a Japan that not many Westerners are familiar with. Tendo is subjected to constant abusive relationships as a “kept woman”, girlfriend and wife. She suffers through drug addiction, rape, poverty, an eating disorder, humiliation and death in a very matter-of-fact way. The celebrated tiny sucesses throughout and her unflinching duty to family are strikingly Japanese, and her eventual rehabilitation is bittersweet at best. I wondered, at several points throughout; how much of Japan is actually like this?
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