We’re not in Yokohama any more, Toto- san!
KAMIKAZE TOURISTS Japanese backpackers risk life and limb in war zones
In the bullet-scarred hotels of the world’s war zones, they are fast becoming as familiar a sight as the mercenaries, television crews and aid workers. The bumbling Japanese tourist, long considered a sign that somewhere is no longer off the beaten track, has acquired a surprising new reputation as the backpacker who goes where others fear to tread.
To the consternation of staff in Japan’s overseas embassies, however, the wanderlust of the country’s younger generation does not appear to be matched by the instinct for self- preservation.
The discovery of the bullet-ridden bodies of two Japanese tourists in a notoriously dangerous part of Afghanistan recently has highlighted fears among foreign ministry officials that when it comes to adventure travel, many Japanese tourists do not appreciate that not everywhere is as safe as central Tokyo.
Jun Fukusho, 44, and his female travelling companion, Shinobu Hasegawa, 30, were travelling by taxi into the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar — a region so dangerous for foreigners that aid workers only venture there with armed guards. Their deaths were the latest in a grisly series of tragedies to befall Japanese holidaymakers who have strayed into foreign trouble spots.
Although fellow visitors to Baghdad or Kabul dub them the “Kamikaze tourists,” the Japanese media has come up with a more sophisticated term: heiwa boke
— meaning “senility from peace.” The theory is that after 60 years without war, and almost unparalleled levels of prosperity and social harmony, most Japanese people are incapable of appreciating the dangers posed in other parts of the world.
So worried is Japan’s Foreign Ministry that last month the country’s two main airlines, JAL and ANA, began screening 30-second films on international flights, advising passengers on how to keep themselves safe at their destinations.
Foreign ministry officials have also published safety pamphlets advising travellers to switch to “overseas mode” whenever they leave the country.
“ Japan is one of the countries in the world most blessed with safety,” it says. “But we have seen an extremely large number of cases of Japanese being caught in incidents overseas... It is not an exaggeration to say that Japanese overseas must, unlike at home, always anticipate danger and know that they are in an environment where trouble is always lurking.”
The problems posed by the novelty of independent travel first arose in the mid- 1990s, when Japanese embassies around the world complained of the growing number of backpackers who turned to them for help after being conned or robbed. Today, however, Japan’s decision to send troops to Iraq has meant that the country’s citizens are also considered a target for international terrorism.
The dangers were illustrated most graphically last November when Shosei Koda, 24, was beheaded after being kidnapped by Abu Musab al- Zarqawi’s terrorist network in Iraq. Koda, an Englishlanguage student on a gap year, had travelled alone into Baghdad by bus from Jordan, despite advice from teachers and fellow travellers that it was unsafe.
He had also ignored explicit warnings from his own government, issued six months previously after the kidnapping of five other Japanese in Iraq. The kidnappers had threatened to “burn them’’ unless Japan removed its small contingent of 500 troops from the country.
While condemning the kidnappers, Japanese newspapers branded Koda and the other hostages “reckless’’ for their decision to go to Iraq — and the government charged the survivors for their flights home to reinforce the message.
Other incidents have verged on the comic. In 2002, two Japanese tourists walked into a volatile stand-off between heavily armed Palestinian gunmen and Israeli troops at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The pair were so engrossed in their guidebook that they apparently failed to notice a curfew and deserted streets around the church. They had not read a newspaper for six months.
Kotaro Suzuki, a professor of tourism at Japan’s Meijo University, believes that Japanese tourists are particularly vulnerable because they previously travelled almost entirely on package tours — with every detail of their trip managed by a tour company.
“ Things have changed a lot since the days when, under the supervision of guides, there was little free time and little opportunity to interact with local people,” said Suzuki.