On Feeling Safe

The Absence of Gun Violence and Home

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Photo by Louie Martinez on Unsplash

I have seen every city I have ever loved and lived in destroyed by aliens, human folly, climate disaster, or other catastrophe. Tokyo is no exception. I’ve watched Godzilla obliterate Japan’s capital on multiple occasions. But it was the anime classic “Akira” that introduced me to an ultraviolent, dystopian version of the world’s largest metropolis. In reality, Tokyo is the cleanest and most quiet city I have ever lived in. It is also the safest place I’ve ever called home.  

I like to regale fellow New Yorkers with tales of leaving my handbag at an empty table and then traipsing off to order coffee, confident that my belongings will be exactly where I left them. I relish confounding laid-back Californians with accounts of items lost and returned no matter said item’s monetary value. Such was the case when a long-lost train pass holder turned up nearly a year later at a far-flung koban with ¥2000 (about $20) in emergency cash still tucked behind my youngest son’s Pasmo card. It was also the case when I left a sturdy white bag with an instantly recognizable silver, produce-shaped logo and the NIB contents contained within, on a hook under a table at an eggslut in Shinjuku. The hit television show “Old Enough!”, offers concrete proof to support my previously dismissed claims that even the youngest children routinely navigate Japan safely, without adults. 

I like to regale fellow New Yorkers with tales of leaving my handbag at an empty table and then traipsing off to order coffee, confident that my belongings will be exactly where I left them.

The resounding exclamations of incredulity from fellow Americans when I describe these experiences fall more in line with the response one might expect had I declared a successful free solo ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park rather than a simple admission that I enjoy the occasional solo walk at night, without fear for my personal safety.

Purse as placeholder at an outdoor table at a Starbucks in Tokyo. (April 2022)

Of the many, many experiences that took my breath away when I first moved to Japan, it is perhaps the absence of gun violence that surprised me the most. This was in part because I never realized what a tremendous weight the ever-present possibility of violence (in the form of mass shootings, active-shooter school lockdowns, or random traffic stops gone terribly wrong) was until it became, more or less, a nonissue.

In Tokyo, my children frequently navigate public transportation by themselves, traveling to school or to meet friends at some designated point along the way. In some ways, this is similar to the way I grew up in New York City. By my final years of elementary school, I was a pro at riding public transportation by myself. The big difference, of course, is context. I grew up in Brooklyn in the 1980s and ‘90s, which necessitated a heightened sense of awareness and a particular subway etiquette or way of being. I’m not saying Brooklyn was as bad as the fictive streets of Neo Tokyo in “Akira” but I am saying I wouldn’t have batted an eye if I saw one of these dudes on the subway either:

Though my high school alma mater is just minutes from Lincoln Center, students passed through metal detectors every morning to gain entry to the building. Removing my earrings and tucking them away was common practice during my daily commute whenever Decepts, a local gang that carried hammers as their weapon of choice, were rumored to be on the subway as well. (Decepticons, it’s worth noting, borrowed their moniker from a hugely popular cartoon series that started with a toy — made in Japan.) To counter the inaccurate singular narrative that violence is a core value of hip-hop and youth culture a vibrant anti-violence movement emerged. Violence and the threat of violence are never the whole picture.

The Columbine High School massacre occurred the year after I graduated from college. Less than a decade later, I would become a parent for the first time. I will never forget the moments of anguished silence shared by every single adult waiting at the school bus stop to collect and hug our children on the day we learned about Sandy Hook. Soon thereafter, active shooter drills became common practice, and my children became familiar with a certain kind of awareness, in a very specific context, in a way that I never experienced as a child. 

In so many ways, my time in Japan has been a revelation, a moment of respite and a time of reflection. There is no one place that checks all the boxes. Permutations of the ills that plague society (from ableism to xenophobia, racism to misogyny and everything beyond and in between) exist in every country to greater or lesser degree. I would be foolish to think otherwise. But lately when I talk about home and where home is with my family and friends, the discussion eventually comes round to a question of whether to stay rooted and bloom in place or propel gently forward like dandelion seeds in search of safe and fertile ground to grow. 

A Few Things:

1. The assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by gunfire is shocking. And an anomaly. Death by firearm in Japan typically falls in the single digits annually. By contrast 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries in the US in 2020. Learn more about gun deaths in the US here.

2. American writer and world citizen James Baldwin on living at home and abroad. 📖

3. An interesting look at the Lo Lifes, another late ‘80s and ’90s Brooklyn crew, notorious for boosting Polo brand clothing specifically. 🐎

4. Christine Pride’s essay on traveling while Black. She writes: “…the question of where I can go, and not just feel at ease but also safe, is all the more pressing. And this isn’t just a worry for Black travelers, of course, but other folks, too. Where can gay couples vacation and be safe holding hands? Where can one wear a hijab at the beach and feel perfectly relaxed? Where can an Asian-American family gather and not risk stares or worse?”

Tell Me

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? Where is the most memorable place you’ve ever lived? Let’s talk about it in the comments. 🌍