Tokyo Times

At a recent visit to a local kindergarten, I found myself answering the kids’ usual mundane questions. Ok, I know they are young, but there are only so many times you can feign interest in such banal inquiries as, “Do you like apples?” or, “What colour do you like?”

But unexpectedly I was knocked out of my stupor by one student’s rather unusual question. With a look as serious as any 5-year-old can muster, the little boy said, “Why do you have blue eyes?” Now due to the children’s age and the language barrier, I refrained from going into a lengthy discussion about genetics, and instead told my young audience that my mother also has blue eyes. This information produced a few understanding nods from the obviously enthralled crowd, but I gleefully shattered their comfortable little bubble by adding that on the other hand my father and sister have brown eyes.

This revelation produced a lot of puzzled looks around the classroom, and none more so than on the face of the little fella who asked the question in the first place. Giving him a big smile, I asked him if my answer was ok. But I guess it wasn’t, as he looked away in disgust and said to his friend, “What a weird family.”

A damning judgment indeed!

In a bizarre cut-off-one-of-your-fingers squabble between 2 gangsters, the police were called in, forcing them to invoke the anti-organized crime law.

It turns out that a 27-year-old member of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, told a younger member of the gang to cut off one of his fingers for attempting to leave the organization. Making sure there could be no misunderstandings he said, “You can no longer escape. To take responsibility for attempting to quit the gang, cut off one of your fingers.”

How this situation will be remedied remains to be seen, but if things don’t go well for the man involved, heaven knows what the gang will require him to remove after involving the police.

The young gangster showing off his still intact (yet surprisingly feminine) fingers yesterday.