After a random knife assault at a bus stop in front of JR Nagano station on January 22 left one person dead and two injured, Nikkan Gendai (Jan 25) raised the issue of how incidents of this nature might impact on foreign visitors.
Nagano, a prefecture in central Honshu, played host to the 1998 Winter Olympics and each winter attracts large numbers of skiers to its slopes, including growing numbers of foreign visitors in recent years.
On the evening of Jan 22, police were summoned to the bus rotary at the Zenkoji Exit of JR Nagano Station, where three people had been stabbed.
Hiroyoshi Maruyama, a 49-year-old company employee in the city, was confirmed dead from his wounds. Another man, a 37-year-old company employee and Nagano resident, was stabbed in the back, suffering serious injuries. The third victim, a 46-year-old woman, incurred less serious wounds in her back. Eyewitnesses described the assailant as a thin, middle-aged male of medium height and wearing eyeglasses.
The day after the attacks, Nagano prefectural police released an image of the suspect, who was last seen fleeing toward the south of the station, apparently still carrying a knife.
On Jan 26 police announced the arrest of Yusuke Yaguchi, a 46-year-old unemployed man, in a housing complex in Nagano City. Analysis of security camera footage enabled police to trace Yaguchi's movements.
In the wake of the stabbings, the atmosphere in the city was tense. At a primary school near Nagano station, worried parents could be seen accompanying their children to and from school. The Nagano prefectural government circulated security camera footage from the area, and fliers were distributed in front of the station asking eyewitnesses for information. In addition to the station area, precautionary alerts were raised throughout the city's elementary and junior high schools.
But what Nikkan Gendai wanted to know was, what sort of action, if any, was taken to warn out-of-town visitors following the stabbings?
"The number of staff at the tourist service counter inside Nagano station was boosted, and the state of alert was raised for visitors," said a worker at the Nagano Tourist Convention Bureau.
The reporter encountered a Japanese couple from out of town who had come to visit the Zenkoji temple, a popular destination for Buddhist pilgrims built in the 7th century. They seemed flustered by news of the attack, but decided to proceed, saying 'We've already come this far, so we might as well go there.'"
In 2023, noted Nikkan Gendai, some 1.41 million foreign tourists spent at least one night in Nagano Prefecture. Many of these visitors transfer to buses at Nagano Station and head for the slopes at Hakuba, Tsugaike Kogen and other ski resorts. Other nearby popular destinations include the Snow Monkey Park, Togakushi Shrine and the Zenkoji.
"Nearly all the passengers on the buses to Hakuba are foreigners," the bureau staff was quoted as saying. "In particular, the number of visitors from Asian countries has increased. I'd say the number of people stopping by our counter for information in 2024 was up by around 20% over 2023."
To its credit, the Tourist Convention Bureau responded rapidly to the stabbings by posting signs around the station, in Japanese and English, by the morning of Jan 23 that read, "The criminal is still at large. We ask everyone to always check the situation around you, exercise extreme caution, and if you see anyone who appears suspicious, please call the emergency police number."
"Even local residents are living in fear," the reporter opined, "so tourists in an unfamiliar place, who don't understand the language, must also be frightened to learn of such a heinous crime -- no matter how much they have been assured that Japan is safe."
The assault in Nagano came a month after a random knife attack on two high school students at a McDonalds outlet in Kitakyushu City on Dec. 14, resulting in one fatality.
The article ends by asking, in an ironic tone, "Since when did Japan become such an unsafe country?"
© Japan Today
9 Comments
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Namahage
Way after the danger has long passed, through some third-rate website.
Hawk
By a service, notification or email based and preferably free, that they've voluntarily signed up for.
Roten
What a dofus repoprter! A single stabbing in Nagano near the bus center. I don't imagine foreign tourists were concerned at all if they heard about it. BETSUNI, it doesn't concern me is the probable attitude amongst tourists. If several incidents occured in the same area, and if foreigners were the targets, foreigners might take note.
The real question should be, what was the reaction of Japanese tourists to the increased police activity around the area of the stabbin? But to conflate Japanese tourist attitudes to foreign attitudes is a major problem not only for the Nikkan Gendai, but for many Japanese organizations, newspapers, and governments.
NCIS Reruns
Roten@ I think you miss the point. If an unidentified random slasher is out and about, it's a sensible precaution to advise people to be on their guard. And until he's caught, assumptions of his motives and intended targets can be dangerous. Also, the authorities have an obligation to alert everyone, irrespective of nationality. Not to do so would be negligent and subject them to all kinds of criticism. Better to be safe than sorry, as they say.
wallace
It can only be done with a smartphone app that is used for disaster warnings.
Roten
NCIS Reruns, I agree that it is sensible to advise people to be on their guards. I was questioning the opinion of the Nikkan Gendai that because tourists in general, most of whom are Japanese, were "living in fear" that this meant that foreign tourists would also be living in fear over a single incident that happened in Kyoto. It is the problem of equating tourists to foreigners that I am objecting to, not the idea that all people should be warned that there was a stabbing crime in the area.
According to an AI source on the Internet, In 2023, about 5.36 million foreign visitors visited Kyoto, Japan, which was the highest number since 1958. This was part of a total of 81.19 million tourists visiting Kyoto Prefecture in 2023, with most visitors being domestic. If these figures are still the case, it indicates that over 93 percent of the tourists visiting Kyoto are Japanese, and slightly less than seven percent are foreign.
Tourists visiting Kyoto should not be conflated to foreign tourists to Kyoto. Yet, when the Kyoto residents express their concerns about being overrun by tourists in other articles that are posted in Japan Today and other media targetting non-Japanese readers/listeners, the stories invariably feed the perception that Kyoto is being overrun by foreign visitors. 5.4 million foreigners is a bunch, for sure, but 76 million Japanese tourists are so much more. When we have Japanese on foreigner stabbing crimes, this story will become much more significant to the foreign tourist community. Even then, one of 5.4 million is not statistically significant unless that one is you or me.
Totally unrelated, though, I wonder what happened in 1958 for it to be such a peak year for foreign tourists in Kyoto. All I can easily find is that some 50 colorfully-garbed Buddhist monks march from the Buddhist goddess of Mercy Statue in Kyoto, Japan on May 11, 1958, after the unveiling of a memorial to Allied dead of World War II on June 8, 1958. Surely that did not cause such a spike in foreign tourism that it took over 60 years to replicate.
NCIS Reruns
Roten, it was around that time that Kyoto forged Sister City ties with Paris, Boston, Cologne, Florence, Kiev, Xian, Guadalajara, Zagreb and Prague. My guess is that had something to do with the spike in visitors.
kohakuebisu
There are measures in place for a natural disaster like an earthquake or flooding. This is all written down In what Japanese call a "bosai manual". As wallace says, there is an app too.
Thankfully, attacks like the Nagano one are not frequent, and are probably impossible to stop. The best way to warn skiers of a "killer on the loose" in Nagano City is through their accommodation. Most ski accommodation providers, including those just off the plane, boast of having "extensive local knowledge", so I'm sure they will know all about something getting blanket coverage on local tv.
WatanabeBuddha
A stabbing isn't worth putting out an emergency alert for alone, unless the alert is to warn about an attacker on the loose, ideally in Japanese so people can choose to translate into whatever language they want to.
Heck, if there's one in Europe or the UK, the media and the police won't even report it if it deems it to portray members of the Muslim communities badly. No reason why an ultra safe country like Japan needs to warn foreigners.