Amy Chavez talks with Robert Whiting about his recently released book Gangsters, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies: The Outsiders who Shaped Modern Japan (Tuttle, April, 2024).

Show Notes:

Bob talks about several colorful characters who populated Tokyo in the 60s and 70s, including strong women like Australian bar hostess Maggie, who became famous for using scissors to cut off the neckties of customers, and a female yakuza gangster who carried a revolver in her purse. And if you think Japan doesn’t have a drug problem, think again. Whiting talks about North Korean drug-smuggling and its contribution to a surging number of meth users in the country. Lastly, while most tourists to Japan can’t help but be impressed by Japanese taxi drivers who wear white gloves and offer impeccably polite service, things weren’t always so good when hailing a cab in Japan. In fact, drivers used to be rude, dirty and reportedly, the job was so loathsome that Japanese wives were embarrassed to tell people their husbands were taxi drivers! As Whiting tells us, that all changed with the MK Taxi company, started by a Korean determined to put a new face on ride hailing.

At the end of the podcast, Whiting tells us what he’s reading right now:

The C0ldest Winter: America and the Korean War, by David Halberstam

Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, by Peter Guralnick

Listen to our previous BOA podcast 11: Robert Whiting talks Baseball and Tokyo Junkie, or read a review of his memoir Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights, Back Alleys and Baseball (Stone Bridge Press, 2021)

The Books on Asia podcast is produced and edited by Amy Chavez and Michael Palmer, and is sponsored by Stone Bridge Press, publisher of fine books on Asia for over 30 years. Amy Chavez is author of Amy’s Guide to Best Behavior in Japan and The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island.

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