I remember the hijacking, because it occurred just a few days before I arrived in Japan as a Mombusho research student. It was in the days when there was really no airport security - that mostly came after 2001 - and the hijackers used swords, since handguns were unavailable in Japan.
Arrival wasn't an issue; but a couple of days later, when I was waiting in Haneda to fly to Osaka, I was approached by a pair of kidotai officers who wanted to inspect my luggage. I spoke no Japanese at the time, but fortunately the Mombusho person who was making sure I got the right flight was able to translate, and all went well.
Thanks for sharing your memories. I'd also heard that the weapons were all props -- the swords fake, the gun one of the hijackers brandished being a plastic toy. Add it to the list of examples of how naive these people were.
This hijacking, and Mishima committing seppuku, really bracketed a year when a lot of far-left and far-right craziness was buffeting the country. Kind of like America today.
American politics IS 4chan now. Copy that. Built on Japanese freeware. The scenes are being stacked and re-stacked before us by the minute Thankuou MA for this post. Edifed am i. But LO - the President's notorious antipathy toward all things Japanese? Somehow, that notoriety has bypassed my mileu altogether. And hiis apparent salute to Shintaro Abe? Yr gonna hafta bring me up to speed here, if you will!
I remember the hijacking, because it occurred just a few days before I arrived in Japan as a Mombusho research student. It was in the days when there was really no airport security - that mostly came after 2001 - and the hijackers used swords, since handguns were unavailable in Japan.
Arrival wasn't an issue; but a couple of days later, when I was waiting in Haneda to fly to Osaka, I was approached by a pair of kidotai officers who wanted to inspect my luggage. I spoke no Japanese at the time, but fortunately the Mombusho person who was making sure I got the right flight was able to translate, and all went well.
Thanks for sharing your memories. I'd also heard that the weapons were all props -- the swords fake, the gun one of the hijackers brandished being a plastic toy. Add it to the list of examples of how naive these people were.
This hijacking, and Mishima committing seppuku, really bracketed a year when a lot of far-left and far-right craziness was buffeting the country. Kind of like America today.
Erm, straight up I might agree strongly except Id go a step further and say screen-printed and aggressively psychedelic.
American politics IS 4chan now. Copy that. Built on Japanese freeware. The scenes are being stacked and re-stacked before us by the minute Thankuou MA for this post. Edifed am i. But LO - the President's notorious antipathy toward all things Japanese? Somehow, that notoriety has bypassed my mileu altogether. And hiis apparent salute to Shintaro Abe? Yr gonna hafta bring me up to speed here, if you will!
https://money.cnn.com/2017/02/08/news/economy/trump-japan-comments-abe/index.html
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/donald-and-shinzos-excellent-adventure
do ya got a pdf of that paywalled New Yawker piece uou can send?
whoops...Shinzo!