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| Yakuza
Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's
Daughter |
By
Shoko Tendo
Kodansha Europe / Price £12.99 / ISBN 13:
9784770030429 / Hardback
When starting her autobiography
Yakuza Moon, Shoko Tendo didn’t set out to
write a beautiful prose. Insecurities of this being
her foray into literature aside, she was determined,
simply, to stay true to herself—a lesson she
learnt from her father, a Japanese yakuza (gangster)
boss. It was a realisation that came late in life
and only after experiencing two decades’ worth
of brutality and abuse. From her pre-teens onwards,
Shoko’s life has been dogged with drug addiction,
rape, savage beatings at the hands of most of her
lovers, sexual assault, miscarriage, poverty, attempted
suicide and the death of her loved ones, all set
within the closed world of Japan’s yakuza
society. She needn’t have apologised for how
poorly we might consider this book written—it
would have been hard for Shoko to find any beauty
to draw on when hers is a story of living hell.
With Yakuza Moon, we are instead invited to open
Shoko’s journal and share, chapter and verse,
in each and every appalling tragedy that has befallen
her. Written as frankly as any young woman’s
diary, it is her lack of self-pity and matter-of-fact
delivery of each painful memory that makes this
book so intensely-moving and hard to put down. Shoko’s
harrowing but ultimately triumphant tale became
a cult hit in Japan on its original release and
now, her memoirs have been translated into English.
We spoke to Shoko Tendo ahead of the book’s
release in the UK this May.
PIMP:
How difficult was it, emotionally speaking, to pen
this autobiography?
Shoko
Tendo: While I was writing the childhood scenes
of bullying, sexual abuse, sex, and violence, I
often used to feel physically sick. But the hardest
thing was writing about my father: how he lost both
his wealth and his powerful position as a gang leader,
and ended up the subject of malicious gossip and
finger-pointing. It was hard to write about my miscarriage
too. I cried when I wrote the part of the book where
I tried to kill myself, and I woke up in hospital
to find my father at my bedside crying (something
I hadn't even seen him do when my mother died),
and saying "Shoko, I can't bear to lose anyone
else." Emotionally, yes, it was a very hard
book to write.
I
felt you wrote about what must have been incredibly
painful experiences in quite a frank and distanced
tone. Were you deliberately removing yourself emotionally
from your story or is this indicative of your acceptance
of these experiences?
Precisely
because the book was so hard to write and I was
trying not to hide anything, perhaps the tone comes
off as matter-of-fact. Maybe it sounds like a weird
comparison, but to write in a more emotional way
would be like pleasuring myself—like masturbation.
I wanted to write in a way that would allow me to
share my experiences with the reader.
You
mention in the book that you omitted some of the
worst parts of your story. Why was this?
Because
I didn't want to open old wounds for people who
have moved on from those terrible times and rebuilt
their lives.
How
did your family, friends and ex-husband respond
to their appearance in the book? Were there any
negative reactions?
A
lot of people were a bit annoyed when they first
started reading the book, but by the time they got
to the end they were really proud of what I'd achieved.
Your
tattoo must be a daily reminder of the men who have
caused you considerable trauma, given the Yakuza
tattoo association. Yet it appears to have contributed
to your personal empowerment…
My
tattoo holds no memories for me of the people who
have hurt me. When I look at my tattoo, the memory
that most often comes to mind is of my father, and
the tattoo that he had on his back. And that in
turn makes me remember my mother who was always
in the shadow of my yakuza father, quietly supporting
him. My tattoo connects me to my parents and is
a source of support and psychological strength.
As
far as Japanese society goes, is the bullying you
experienced typical of the discrimination faced
by children of yakuza?
In
Japan, it is often the case that people who are
‘different’ are not accepted in society.
This was certainly the case when I was a child,
and although our society appears to be getting more
tolerant of differences, there are still a lot of
prejudiced attitudes hanging on from the old days.
At
what point did you originally decide to get the
story published? What was the initial response to
it by the publishers you approached?
I
left school when I was sixteen, and lied about my
age so I could get a job as a hostess in a bar.
By then, my family was already poor, and some days
they couldn't even afford to eat. By working as
a hostess, a job where you didn't need academic
qualifications to earn a good salary, I could help
my family out financially. By the time I was in
my late twenties, I was the number one earner in
the club where I worked, and I was getting old for
that kind of work. It's important to know when to
quit, and I knew that if I was ever going to quit
this line of work, now was the time to do it. And
when I thought about what I would do from then on,
I decided that I would pursue a dream I'd had as
a child of becoming a writer. I loved books as a
child. Because of the bullying I had no friends,
and was often alone, and so books were an escape
for me into a fantasy world. Then I would feel happy.
It was through books that I realised that I wasn't
alone, that other people had suffered like me. That's
probably what gave me the idea that I should one
day write a book about my own experiences.
The
first time I approached a Japanese publisher with
my book I was coldly told, "Hardly anyone will
be interested in a book like this." My feeling
was that there must be lots of people out there
like me, who aren't necessarily interested in reading
something really heavy, but would enjoy something
easy to read like my book. (Editor's note: The publishing
company in question agreed to publish a first print
run of 1,000 copies. The book went on to sell over
45,000 copies in hard cover and was reprinted 11
times. It continues to sell steadily in paperback.).
The
book featured an extra section by Manabu Miyazaki
where he provided cultural context to your story
along with an insight into his own experiences.
Did you invite him to get involved with the book?
Yes,
I did. He's a really well-known writer in Japan,
and I'd read almost all his books. So by the time
I got to meet him, I felt like I already knew him.
We have so much in common in our upbringing, I thought
he would be the ideal person to write an afterword
to my book, and shed some extra light on the background
to my experiences.
You
say at the end of the book that you are now ‘groping
my way in the murky real world trying to find where
I belong.’ Are you any closer to finding where
you belong? Has writing brought you closer to finding
it?
I
think you can find your place in the world if you
hold on to what you believe in, and never give up.
If you keep that thought in mind, you'll keep getting
closer to the place you want to be. Don't settle
for anything less than what you really want, never
forget your original intentions, and some day you'll
get there.
What’s
next for you? What titles are you working on at
the moment?
My
next book is about my experiences as a single mother.
There's a big difference in Japan between becoming
a single mother as a result of divorce, and choosing
to be an unmarried mother, as I did. Unmarried mothers
have a bad image, and have to face a lot of prejudice.
It's quite a serious subject, but my book is quite
light-hearted and comical. It's due to be published
in Japan towards the end of the year. |
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