Woman attacked, robbed in her Tokyo apartment
TOKYO —
A 45-year-old woman suffered cuts to her face and arms on Thursday when she returned to her Shinjuku Ward apartment and was attacked by a Chinese-speaking assailant, police said Friday.
Police said the woman came home from shopping at around 2 p.m. and when she opened the door, a man inside the apartment rushed to the entrance with a knife and demanded money. The man robbed the woman of roughly 100,000 yen and her mobile phone, and inflicted cuts to her arms and face before running away. The woman’s injuries are expected to take a week to heal, police said.
The woman told police she had never seen the man before, and said he was between 170 and 180 cm tall, looked around 30 years old, was wearing a white beanie and spoke Chinese.
Wire reports
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44 Comments
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my2sense
This is exactly why they are changing the visa law next year. Then they are going to round up the scum and then we will only have the natives to deal with. After that slowly clean up the Yaks. Despite the news Japan is still safer than most US cities or even Rio... this wouldnt even make the news in NY, sadly. I assume the nut picked the lock or went thru the window. Get well and recover...
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ogtob
How does she know he was Chinese speaking? Does she speak Chinese?
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kokorocloud
ogtob-- It's probably silly, but I'm wondering this too. For all we know he could have been some other nationality and she just thought it sounded Chinese, or it was a Japanese man who was using Chinese to further confuse his victim/mislead the authorities. ...that's really stretching it though, haha.
Regardless, I hope she recovers after something so traumatic, and I'm glad she's still alive at least.
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buggerlugs
If he was speaking Chinese how does she know he demanded money??
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timeon
probably the guy was talking to himself. in Chinese. and he knew the woman carries lots of cash. great intuition
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Smythe
Being Japanese herself, she probably looked upon him as Chinese & might have recognize a few of the words in being one of the two main languages used by Chinese people.
Still she must have been teriffied beyond belief. Pity this did happen considering we look upon our home as being that of peace & security.
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InTheKnow
Would this be the first story under the 'Top Stories' banner if the assailant was a Japanese national, speaking Japanese? Let's fan the flames of "foreigners are a criminal menace" some more.
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ADK99
I can't speak Chinese either but I can usually recognise it when I hear it. Same goes for German, Italian, Spanish, Russian etc.
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InTheKnow
Exactly, as can anyone. While I can't differentiate Cantonese from Mandarin, I know Chinese when I hear it.
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Valmain
Um, no. I have a lot of friends back home who interpret any language they don't understand to be "Spanish."
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itshay
Common tactic for Japanese punks to use foreign language on the victim in an attempt to throw off the police and the victim to search for a Chinese person. I will give you 10 to 1 odds this person is Japanese.
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Junnama
"Common tactic for Japanese punks to use foreign language on the victim in an attempt to throw off the police and the victim to search for a Chinese person. I will give you 10 to 1 odds this person is Japanese."
Trying desperately not to laugh....
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Harry_Gatto
What is a "white beanie"?
Moderator: A brimless wool cap
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Junnama
I think they meant "white beanie baby"
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Altria
It's what you Canadians call a "touqe", eh?
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Feekalmatter
Wonder if that beanie had a propeller
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kokorocloud
Hahahah I love the last four comments.
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bamboohat
What is unsettling about this (other than the crime itself) is that the police are reporting to the news services that the man was speaking Chinese, as if it were a fact. This "fact" is based only on eyewitness testimony of a most certainly terrified victim.
Note they didn't say "allegedly spoke Chinese" but they described him as a Chinese speaking assailant.
Incredibly shoddy police work as well as reporting.
However, if this guy IS Chinese, and won't turn himself into the local koban like a good citizen, the police will most certainly NOT catch him.
Good work fella's.
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taj
Eye witness said he spoke Chinese AND demanded money. My neighborhood in Shinjuku has lots of Chinese speakers. (Chinese, Malaysian, etc.) It's not at all hard for me to imagine that the victim correctly identified the language.
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MeanRingo
"White Beanie Baby" Ha ha ha. I almost peed at that. Love Japan where the women wear short skirts and the men wear Beanie Babies.
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yamashinaku
Did the Japanese victim speak Chinese? If not, how did she know he "demanded money"? Did he write it in Kanji and shove the paper in her face?
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betterdays
So they can understand chinese if they knew he demaned money!!
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taj
I have failed to find this story reported anywhere elsee (in English or Japanese) so it's impossible to get details.
Yamashinaku, etc., please not the the report above does NOT say anything about the 45-year old victim being Japanese.
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Junnama
Perhaps the Chinese press has some details?
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sakurasuki
"The Safe Japan" is not there anymore.
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kokorocloud
taj-- To be fair, do they usually print "the victim was Japanese" other than when it involves stories that take place outside the country? I was under the impression that they only point out nationality when the victim/criminal is non-Japanese. Or so I thought. Maybe I need to go back and read some of the older crime stories.
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topup2009
hope this woman recover asap, and the criminal will be brought to justice right now.
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TheTim
To assume that a Japanese speaker is not able to discern whether or not someone is speaking Chinese is ludacris. I'm an English speaker and with my minimal exposure to the Chinese language I'm able to determine when someone is speaking Chinese. I'm certain an English speaker can tell the difference between French and German. It's that easy for a Japanese speaker to recognize Chinese. What are they going to do to a Chinese criminal? Put him in a heated Japanese prison cell with hot meals as good or better than he's used to back home and surrounded by many of his countrymen? That's not much of a deterrent.
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poollymook
Okubo and Shin Okubo are both within Shunjuku Ward. Has anyone stopped to think for a second that the victim MAY have been a Chinese national too? Duh...
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Monoflow
It's easy to differ a japanese from a chinese by speaking, acting, even appearance. Even me can do this and i'm european...
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dammit
Another thing they don't mention (in addition to whether the woman understands Chinese and whether the man made his demand for money in Chinese or Japanese,) is how he got in.
I'd bet she left the door unlocked.
If so it's really partly her own fault. But even if that's so I still feel sorry for her, and hope she recovers as quickly and well as possible.
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moonbeams
It's a known fact to the police that criminals are often ordered by their superiors to fake a foreign accent when committing a crime in order to throw off police.
The article lacks information needed to determine the culprit's nationality, so arguing about it is futile.
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ca1ic0cat
Yeah, so what if he spoke Chinese and the victim understood him. The good news is that she wasn't killed.
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isthistheend
Its not just shinjuku where the C-people are robbing the J-people. My J-friend lives in a nice suburb with rich houses about an hour from Shibuya, and 2 years ago his house was robbed clean, wife's jewels all gone. Police said it was a C-network who had pulled, are you ready.....500 such heists within the area in the past year. And now the gov't is extending trouism to include entry without visas? Maybe someone better speak up soon or forever hold your jewels.
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Ari94
First of all Chinese is also spoken by Taiwanese and peple from Hong Kong not only in China with diffierent dialects. So, how come they can brand CHINA?unless they got proof.
I am also agreed with isthistheend I am not against any nationality but not controlling present situation of foreigner is not good. Look at USA, UK and Germany did not they suffer by foreigners? easing tourist visa for making money is not a solution. Foreigners or Locals, it is the duty of Government to protect society not just by installing cameras in the train. (Coming Soon)
May be the thief might be a Foreign Trainee suffered by injusctice in Japan.
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Ari94
This is corrected spell version sorry for mistakes in early post. Please read as: First of all Chinese is also spoken by Taiwanese and people from Hong Kong not only in China with different dialects. So, how come they can brand CHINA?unless they got proof.
I am also agreed with isthistheend I am not against any nationality but not controlling present situation of foreigner is not good. Look at USA, UK and Germany did not they suffer by foreigners? easing tourist visa for making money is not a solution. Foreigners or Locals, it is the duty of Government to protect society not just by installing cameras in the train. (Coming Soon)
May be the thief might be a Foreign Trainee suffered by injustice in Japan.
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whatsgoinon
Sorry, Dammit...blaming the victim has gone out of style. I just can't speak out stronly enough against victim bashing...or really any kind of bashing. Maybe she left the door open..maybe he broke in..maybe she left a window open. None of this matters. Even if she invited him in, unless she handed him the money and begged him to assault her IT WAS NOT HER FAULT.
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Blue_Tiger
Okay, so when do we hear from Gov. Ishihara about how foreigners are to blame for Tokyo's rising crime rate and Japan's problems? After all, if the perp in this crime "spoke Chinese", it must mean the honorable Governor will make a statement sooner or later....
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