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

They talk about strong women characters such as an Australian bar hostess named Maggie who became famous for using scissors to cut off customers' neckties 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.

Lastly, while most tourists to Japan can't help but be impressed by Japanese taxi drivers who wear white gloves and deliver impeccably polite service, things weren't always that way in Japan. In fact, taxi drivers used to be rude and dirty, and the job was so loathsome that Japanese wives were embarrassed to tell people their husbands were taxi drivers! Whiting tells us about the MK Taxi company that was started by a Korean who was determined to change all that.

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

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

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

The Books on Asia Podcast is sponsored by Stone Bridge Press. Check out their books on Japan at the publisher's website.

Amy Chavez, podcast host, 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.

Books on Asia

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