Most of my life in Japan

Today is 2010 October 17.
I came to Japan on 1990 October 17. Twenty years ago.
I was 20 years old when I came to Tokyo…so I’ve now lived half of my life here. Starting tomorrow, I will have been in Japan for “most of my life”.

Time goes by so fast.

In 2008 on this date I wrote a post that compared some of the differences between Japan in 1990 and Japan today.
Click here to read it.

Today is also the anniversary of the day that Yoshihiro Hattori was shot to death in America because he went to the wrong house by mistake on his way to a Halloween party.
Last year I wrote a post on the seventeenth anniversary of his death.
Click here to read a bit about his story in the post I wrote last year.

I can’t believe I’ve already been in Japan for twenty years. October 1990 doesn’t seem that long ago.
Unless that is, you look at I list of the music and movies that were released in 1990!
I checked on Wikipedia…and twenty years seems much longer now that I realized that in 1990 Macaulay Culkin was a cute kid and “Home Alone” was a new movie!

The top-ten movies of 1990 were:
1. “Ghost“…This movie was pretty good, I think.
2. “Home Alone“…This was one funny…but all the sequels (some with different actors in the lead role) were ridiculous.
3. “Pretty Woman”
4. “Dances With Wolves”
5. “Total Recall“…I like action and suspense movies, but this one was mediocre.
6. “Back To The Future Part III“…This is an excellent trilogy. Of course the first one was the best, but the two sequels were good too.
7. “Die Hard 2: Die Harder“…The four “Die Hard” movies are among my all-time favorites—and I recently heard that they’ll will be making “Part 5” soon. I hope so!
8. “Presumed Innocent“…Harrison Ford is a great actor who has starred in many excellent films!
9. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles“…I knew about this comic book because in the liner notes of the excellent 1986 “Master Of Puppets” album by the heavy metal band Metallica it has in the “Thank you” list, among other things, “sushi, Absolut Vodka, Alka Seltzer, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles“.
Metallica is cool, this movie isn’t.

As a sidenote, there’s a similar story with the metal band Anthrax. On their 1987 “Among The Living” album there is a song titled “I Am The Law“. In the album’s liner notes it says that the song is inspired by the “Judge Dredd” comics. In 1995, Sylvester Stallone starred in a terrible movie adaptation of this comic series.

But I digress. Back to the list.

10. “Kindergarten Cop”

I was going to include a list of the music albums that were released in October 1990, too. But I’ve either never heard of most of the bands on that list or they’re albums by bands that I can’t tolerate.
There were a couple good albums released the time I came to Japan in October 1990:

“No Prayer For The Dying” by Iron Maiden

And the “Led Zeppelin box set“.

October 17

I came to Japan on 1990 October 17.
Nineteen years ago today.

Last year on this date I wrote a post about some of changes I’ve seen in Japan since I first arrived (Click here to read it).

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Also, seventeen years ago today, 服部剛丈 (Yoshihiro Hattori) died.

Do you know about his story? It’s quite tragic.
And it was big news when he was shot and killed in America in 1992…at least here in Japan.

He was a sixteen year old Japanese exchange student in Louisiana, America and on the evening of (1992) October 17 he and a friend went to a Halloween party that they were invited to.

They mistakenly went to the wrong address and when they rang the doorbell he was fatally shot by the homeowner who claimed in court that he thought Yoshihiro was a criminal trespasser.

The home-owner, Rodney Peairs, pointed his gun at Yoshihiro and said “Freeze!”.
Obviously, not familiar with that command in English, Yoshihiro walked towards Mr. Peairs and said “We’re here for the party”, at which point Mr. Peairs panicked and shot the teen.

This case became big news in Japan at the time. I remember it was on the news constantly.
What made it even more shocking to the Japanese people was that the U.S. courts ruled that Rodney Peairs was within his rights to shoot Yoshihiro Hattori under Louisiana’s law and they acquitted him of all charges.

Also shocking to Japanese was shortly after this case there were two more cases of Japanese exchange students being shot in America.
A TV reporter at that time said that if Japanese must travel to America they should be sure to understand the phrase “Freeze!” lest they become the next victim of America’s “sick gun-obsessed society”.