Week 8: アンダーグラウンド

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Week 8

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Start Date: Jul 13
Previous Part: Week 7
Next Part: Week 9

Reading:

Week Start Date Chapter Start Page Page Count
Week 8 Jul 13 丸ノ内線 - 荻窪行き Interview 9 to 丸ノ内線 - 池袋行き／折り返し Interview 2 232 37

Discussion Rules

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弁護士 中村裕二

I broke the spell and managed to get past this interview! But many of the details were a bit cloudy. So it seems that the interviewee was mainly talking about a lawyer (boss or partner) who was abducted by Aum because he researched into their whereabouts for quite some time before the incident. And although he seems to have talked to the police at the time, they didn’t care and didn’t do anything about it? Hmmm…

丸ノ内線 - 池袋行き／折り返し

Now this is the most incredible story so far :rage: They knew already that something was going on, they searched for plastic bags like these but overlooked them, and when they finally found them, they let the train continue to run for another hour :woman_facepalming:
I‘m speechless.

駒田晋太郎

I think he gives a very good depiction of the general state of mind of many of those involved: He did not really know what was going on with him, so he thought he should just endure the situation a little longer until reaching his destination. I’m really surprised that he raises such strong criticism as 手落ち. In hindsight he seems to have grasped the whole situation really well, from the problem of the student who did not properly clean the train, to the train company staff who did not stop the train, and did not stop it even after they removed the Sarin bags.

中山郁子

Amazing how cool she was after all, and that she somehow realized that it’s Sarin…

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I also didn’t get most of the lawyer interview. Not because of the language, but because it lacks a lot of context, or footnotes, or additional explanations… I should search the internet for more info but… I haven’t had time yet. However, I do plan on coming back to that particular interview…

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弁護士 中村裕二

Well that one was hard indeed. Almost machine translated every sentence, and even with that, only got the gist of it.

Three of the things I believe they refer to:

  • The friend lawyer (I understood that they were studying at the same time) that disappeared: Sakamoto family murder - Wikipedia
  • The first sarin attack in 1994, several other interviewees know about the sarin gaz because of this: Matsumoto sarin attack - Wikipedia
  • There seems to have been letters sent to warn about Aum but there were not taken seriously

But yeah, definitely missing a lot of context here.

丸ノ内線（池袋行き／折り返し）

So strange to see that all the perpetrators where super smart people.

In the first train, the bags were removed after a few stops. In the second one, it took way longer, like 8 stops. But this train had time to turn around twice before it was stopped :confused:

駒田晋太郎

駒田さんはずっと大手都市銀行に勤めておられたが、五〇歳になったときに関連不動産企業に出向し、五三歳で定年を迎えてそのままそちらに籍を移した。
Retired at 53? My planned retirement age is 69yo :o
Also Japan is weird, people retire and then go to work anyway?

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Wow, quite an eye witness of what happened when the train turned around. I wonder if the young part-time employee had noticed the newspaper and was too lazy to take it out or didn’t see it or what happened in his head. And if he even connected the dots afterwards. But, as Murakami says himself, wouldn’t have necessarily made less victims if the package had been thrown away in a bin.

中山郁子

名前と住所と年齢は明らかにしてほしくない、できるだけわからないようにぼかしてほしい、という強い要望が最初にあった。オウム関係者には今でも強い警戒心を抱いている。

Seen Aum’s history of trying to assassinate people who are after them, I get that. Also now that I think about it, the fear might even be a reason for some of them to declare publicly that they are not mad at Aum. I wonder if Murakami ever got worried when he wrote the book.

日本語教師の養成講座では、日本語は六〇パーセントくらいしか論理的に説明できない言語だと教えられたのですが、意外とそうでもない。

Haha very interesting to read what a Japanese person thinks about teaching Japanese.

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もしアメリカで同じようなことが起こったとしたら、これはかなり大騒ぎになるのではないかと思うんです。

Interesting how she says that Japanese people and Americain people react differently to situations. I don’t think she’s wrong.

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I’ve finally caught up with the club and will share my impressions of the lawyer interview later.

It is a common practice in Turkey due to the low pensions :face_holding_back_tears:

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:cry:

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それからこれまでよく私も知らなかったのですが、日本には実際にはふたつの警察があるんですね。

In my country, there isn’t a separate unit called criminal police. Still, from what I remember from my college courses, public safety police handle surveillance and crime prevention, while criminal police gather evidence and build cases, reporting to the public prosecutor. It is very unfortunate that they wasted time with the criminal police instead of contacting the public safety police sooner. They might have been able to prevent the sarin gas attack in the subway. However, there is a possibility that even if they had contacted them earlier, it might not have made a difference. Despite numerous incidents, the police still did not suspect or investigate the cult. I think there were insiders within the police force.

医者と弁護士を側近において重用しました。しかし医者はわりとだましやすかったが、弁護士のほうはどうも考え方がひねくれていて（笑）、信仰心の篤いのもあまりいなかった。

Based on what I’ve seen in the press and on social media, this observation applies to the cults in my country as well. However, I don’t believe doctors are more prone to being deceived. Typically, they join cults for money and status, not for religious reasons. On second thought, perhaps their ambitions make them easier to deceive :thinking:

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