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Japanese gays bummed out by dangers of walking on wild side
By Ryann Connell
November 14, 2004
Tokyo's gay quarter in the Shinjuku 2-Chome district is fast becoming one of
the capital's most popular tourist spots among Japanese heading in from the
sticks for a sight of life in the big city, according to Shukan Shincho.
But it seems the area filled with pubs and clubs catering largely to a gay and
lesbian clientele can also be a lure for the unwary.
Shinjuku 2-Chome's ascent from simply being the gay end of town to a cult site
where tourists come to gawk at gays and leer at lesbians can largely be
attributed to a couple of the country's biggest pop divas.
Ayumi Hamasaki is a regular at gay bars, which apparently offer her a haven
from adoring fans and lecherous lads, while Hikaru Utada heads the young
entertainers who're said to frequent the area.
"Some cafes have been listed in guide books and there're lots of foreign
tourists who visit, too," a 2-Chome restaurateur tells Shukan Shincho. "There
was even one tourist mob made up of members of a Viennese opera group touring
Japan."
Despite the gay quarter increasingly being seen as one of Tokyo's trendiest
scenes, there's still something apparently queer about the area.
"All the different people coming along to see it has just made the are more
brutal," a reporter for a women's magazine says.
Indeed, the aura of seediness that once hung over the area still appears to
remain, claims the highbrow weekly, citing a particular incident involving a
61-year-old man from Kitakyushu on Nov. 5.
"He says he was in Tokyo for a sightseeing trip and was interested in having a
look around 2-Chome," a police spokesman says of the case.
At about 9 p.m. on that fateful night, the old man drunkenly stumbled around
the streets of 2-Chome.
He came across a pretty young man in his early 20s, who promptly offered to
show him "a really interesting place."
The young man led the old gent to a nearby park, where he was greeted by
another young friend of his guide who stood there brandishing a knife, which he
thrust up against the old man while yet another young man marched him into a
girl's toilet nearby. The three younger men ripped off the old man's jacket
containing 130,000 yen in cash, tied him up in adhesive tape and fled.
"There've been loads of other reports of robberies and muggings in 2-Chome, but
the vast majority of them go unreported," a gay quarter insider tells Shukan
Shincho. "Fraud and illegal drugs are also part of the daily life in this
place."
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Japan's
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10-7-2004
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