Osaka has a lot of famous attractions, like Osaka Castle, the Dotombori canal area, and Universal Studios Japan. However, there’s one part of the city that’s been drawing crowds for a less wholesome reason than an interest in samurai history, cyberpunk-esque scenery, or movie/video game magic.
A street in the city’s Taiyujicho neighborhood has become an open-secret center for tachinbo. Tachinbo comes from the word tachi, meaning “stand,” but tachinbo isn’t just any standing around, it’s standing around for the purpose of proposing prostitution. Prostitutes operating under the tachinbo style will find a stretch of street to loiter on, often fiddling with their phones as though they’re killing time while waiting for somebody, which is technically true since they’re waiting to be approached by solicitors to negotiate the payment terms for sexual intercourse.
Around 30 prostitution arrests have been made along the Taiyujicho street this year. That’s a drop in the bucket when close to a dozen women a night have been seen plying their tachinbo trade there, but increasing arrest numbers is likely to be difficult, considering the plausible desirability that prostitutes and customers are just talking while on the street, and that the actual exchange of money happens behind closed doors at nearby hourly rate love hotels. So Osaka is also trying to prevent those “just talking” conversations from happening in the first place, and they’re employing an unusual strategy: painting the Taiyujicho tachinbo street bright yellow.
The yellow painting was completed this week, and is part of a larger effort to change the visual atmosphere of the street which also includes installing additional streetlights for brighter illumination at night. Artwork has also been installed at intervals along the ground, depicting schools of fish and other aquatic life.
One could possibly make the argument that the new paint job might have the effect of visually announcing “Hey, here’s the prostitution zone!”, but consciousness is actually the whole point. Rather than a non-descript strip of asphalt with pockets of shadow to stand and negotiate in, by making the entire street extremely conspicuous the goal is to draw attention to anyone who’s hanging out there for an extended period of time, either prostitutes displaying themselves or potential clients perusing that night’s selection while they make their choice. Even the marine animal artwork is meant to have a subtle psychological effect, depicting them swimming forward to plant the idea of “keep moving” in people’s minds.
Since the visual overhaul, local authorities say that tachinbo sightings have become few and far between on the street. Critics contest that this just means the prostitutes and their clients have found somewhere else to meet, but if the yellow makeover keeps them away from this street long-term, we might see other urban neighborhoods take similar action.
Source: Yomiuri TV News via Jin, Sankei Shimbun
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22 Comments
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Nibek32
Cool, now it will be much easier to find at night.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Just make the brothels and off street activity legal.
Jimmy
Follow the yellow brick road
sakurasuki
Use color and wish for problem to gone, that's really Japanese way.
For suicide prevention Japan use blue, for prostitutions prevention Japan use yellow.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190122-can-blue-lights-prevent-suicide-at-train-stations
Newgirlintown
How many people clicked on the firat image thinking it was a YouTube video? Come on, you know who you are!
kibousha
Anything except solving the roots of the problem.
Speed
So much easier to find! Thank you!
Chico3
That was my thought, exactly. At least this gives awarness to people. Great idea, like the marked train and subway paths at train stations. They should do this for the nearest koban and anything else emergency related.
GuruMick
Easier to give directions to Taxi drivers too ....
Is there anything this Govt. cant screw up ?
dobre vam zajebava
ok and so what?
Negative Nancy
They'll find somewhere else to ply their trade. This is classy NIMBY-ism. Shoo them on rather than addressing the actual problem. It should all be legal anyway, but when women are doing this on the street rather than in an establishment, it suggests to me that they are willing to take huge risks by working without the protection of a shop. The financial situation in Japan is causing this, because women don't do this because they love doing it.
virusrex
Seems like a stretch since the painting has finished only this week, it may be just so the people think the street will be dedicated to something special that requires the painting and will stop avoiding it as soon as it becomes clear the only change is in the decoration.
Or put in their minds the idea of releasing little swimmers.
The Original Wing
Of course, the prostitution business will just shift to another place.
But this move seems to somewhat resemble the "broken windows theory" that New York City adopted in the 1990s. The concept is that, in order to reduce serious crime (e.g. violence, robberies), police should aggressively target minor crime (e.g. jumping the ticket gate to ride the subway, loitering) and the city should keep the area physically clean (fix broken windows of empty buildings, clean litter). The theory is that fixing these minor issues is cheaper, and most importantly, creates an environment in the neighborhood that discourages serious crime. Violent crime DID drop significantly in NYC during that era, but some are skeptical as to whether the "broken windows theory" was the cause or not.
Painting the Osaka street may be in that same line of thought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
dan
Japanese bureaucrats.... clueless as usual.
Nifty
I imagine that the only arrests are those prostitutes who appear on the street before 10pm, or whatever the locally agreed upon time for such activities is.
Maybe there was a sale on yellow paint. but surely nobody thought the color would have any effect on the number of prostitutes.
falseflagsteve
This behaviour needs a proper crackdown and elimination, it has no part in a civilised society. Police need surveillance in all these areas to catch the criminals. The women need help and if reoffend punishment. The men should be named and shamed as well as receiving a criminal conviction to deter others from doing the same.
tpstokyo1
More like follow the yellow brick load.
Gobshite
Illegal? It's everywhere.... according to my friend :-)
kurisupisu
There are well known areas (several blocks) that have prostitution and are basically closed to foreigners but there are many.
The difference is that taxes are paid by these companies whereas lone girls don’t pay any-this is a crackdown on tax evasion not prostitution.
Negative Nancy
Why? What's wrong with it? If the transaction is between willing participants, what's the problem?
oldman_13
Won't change a thing, especially since some foreigners who seek that sort of thing in Japan aren't exactly known for their modesty. But I do hope they crack down on the unregulated street trade.
TaiwanIsNotChina
How would you even know given the size of the domestic market?