YAKUZA ..... DO WE HAVE TO FEAR THEM ? OR FELL SORRY FOR THEM ?

STRUGGLE in life of SHOKO TENDO ;
WHO IS SHOKO TENDO ? She is a daughter of a Yakuza Boss , and now author, she reveal her unique life experiences, in her book "YAKUZA MOON ".

HISTORY OF WHAT IS YAKUZA.
In Japan , organized crime and criminals comes under the general heading of yakuza. The named is derived from the worst possible score in a japanese card game . Japan counterpart to black jack; named oicho- kabu.
The Yakuza were itinerant gamblers, peddlers , renegade warriors, and roving bandits. They served shoguns and municipalities and their legend includes a distinct Robin Hood quality that emerged during the Kobe earthquake. Because of their unique role in japan's history and popular culture, and their usefulness in providing muscle to control labor unions, and providing anonymous service to the public for a variety of typical underworld products in vice versa and contraband accommodation, between yakuza, police, ultranationalist government, political parties, and secret societies seems to be an accepted fact of life in japan. Yakuza are active worldwide, wherever criminal enterprises flourish. They are very skillful in the employment of intermediaries and the absence of japanese within a community does not mean an absence of Yakuza.

Their origin can be followed back as to the year 1612, when men known as Kabuki-Mono( the crazy ones) . Their odd clothing style , the distinct haircuts and bad behavior; longwords quickly got everybody's attention. They were known as masterless samurais, ronin, and several of them began to wander around in japan as a band of robbers, plundering villages, and small cities.

Therefore, among the world's criminal organizations the Yakuza are older than the Sicilian Mafia.

This is where Shoko Tendo family originates. With her dyed-brown long hair,innocent look,and tight designer jeans, Shoko Tendo looks like any stylish young japanese woman, until she removes her shirt to reveal the tattoos covering her back and most of her body. The elaborate dragons, phoenixes and a medieval courtesan with one breast bared and a knife between her teeth are a symbol of Tendo's childhood as a daughter of a " Yakuza" gangster and her youth as a drug-using gang member, and later wife of a mobster. If you look vividly at her, you see her as an innocent japanese woman, hard to imagine that she was subject to such adversities as rape , drug abuse , beatings , that have affected her face , to be completely reconstructed.

As she says " In the films , the Yakuza wife is really on the go. Incredibly head strong and won't budge., with an energy that says even without my husband , I can manage. Truth is different, my mother was scolded , she hid in the toilet and cried.  That's the truth.                      As the  author of Yakuza Moon, the book starts with her unusual upbringing as the daughter of an affluent, powerful yakuza boss on the outskirts of Osaka , Japan, as her father collapses and he falls into debt.

In her early teens, she joins a yanki gang, and later fraught with drug-added violence, join a reform school, fights,and eventually a speed and sex fueled affair with her family friend, joining in loan shark with whom her father was indebted to.   She is to near death in a love hotel and injected with lethal  doses of amphetamines, that she finds the will to overcome her drug addiction.  after failed suicide attempts , a dissolved marriage with a gangster, life as a hostess, and a death of her parents, she finds that , she is truly alone , at that points she decides to follow a childhood dream to write a book.

Given her disparaging account of her Yakuza experiences, there are benefits to growing up in a gangland household. Their manner are impeccable, as she  said " When I'm talking to someone , I am really good at reading what they are thinking, or from their eyes tell what kind of person they are, from their facial expressions, I can see if they are trying to fool me, so in that way it is very advantageous. It made her calm.  The Yakuza are extremely strict with manners.

One of the things that empowered Tendo, during her lifetime was to get a full body irezumi      ( japanese traditional tattoo.) when she was 21.  For her , this signified and end to her dependence on violent men, and gave her strength to move on.   As for her , it's not really that anything good comes about because you have tattoos, in fact, being heavily tattooed has limited her chances of being employed, and that she is being satisfied .  Since she was a child she was brought up around people that had all tattoos, so to not have them is strange, as she relates it is really a weird feeling.  She recalls the ordeal  of getting the tattoo, and  the pain that can result in a fever,  however not wanting to being laughed at, by her yakuza friends for being weak; she got her entire tattoo done in a week.

Become a parent herself in 2005, despite the violence of her upbringing, she doesn't see the wider society raised on the bubble era mentality doing a much better job.                                  "The kids of today seem extremely spoiled from my perspective.  They are parent and child, but that line is blurred and it's  more like friends... It's not wrong, it might be friendly and great, but for me, I don't ever want to have that kind of relationship with my children.                          Parents aren't here forever. Don't ever think that they will live such a long time , and live life like that, then you can think independently what you need out of life.  I was always conscious of my parents mortality.  Most kids don't think of such morbid things,  but I always thought that. And I would cry at night, but it worked out for  the best in reality.  I did lost my parents in my 20's.

Now life for Tendo is much happier and  seemingly idyllic.  She spends time with her child and sister, carves japanese hanko stamps, draw illustrations and has finished her second book, which will be released in December.  Her new book is a story about discrimination.                    " It is incredibly different if you are a single mother from the beginning, or  a single mother because you are divorced. However, despite the joy of being a mother and being able to writes, gives her the main thing, she is grateful  for the fact that she had survived.

" I had a failed suicide at 25 years old, my heart stopped three times, and still  I didn't die. After that my physical condition deteriorated, and still I didn't die.  So I realized that to live my life until it is time to go, is a really wonderful thing."

She adds that while her tale is one of pain and endurance, being the daughter of a Yakuza Boss is more than a skin deep " I think it's because my parents really did their best in bringing me up."

WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY WOMAN.