Summary
Steve Lee Hayes, a 65-year-old American tourist, was arrested in Tokyo for allegedly carving family members’ names into a wooden Torii gate at the Meiji Shrine.
Surveillance footage led police to his hotel, where he was detained.
Hayes admitted to the act, which could result in up to three years in prison or a fine of 300,000 yen ($1,900).
The Meiji Shrine, a significant Shinto site, was built in 1920 to honor Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. The incident occurs amid a surge in international tourism to Japan this year.
Sounds like a great idea, maybe he should twerk in front of those South Korean “Woman of Comfort” statues next. /s
What an arsehole.
He’s cooked.
For the unaware, Japan has like a 99.9% conviction rate after arrests, because they basically don’t arrest unless they’re absolutely 100% positive that they can secure a conviction. The suspect also has no right to an attorney, and police abuse is common; Even if you’re innocent, they’ll just keep you in an interrogation room without any food or water for 72 hours until you “confess”. They’ll literally just rotate cops into the interrogation room, without giving you a break for food or sleep.
And Japanese prisons are some of the strictest. You’re basically expected to remain silent, and every moment of your time is accounted for. You get like 20 minutes to eat each meal (in your cell) and then like 30 minutes of “recreational” time outside, where you’re expected to kneel in place in an empty courtyard. Moving to and from your cell is akin to old elementary schools where everyone would have to line up single file and silently walk from one place to the next while following the teacher. And that’s pretty much your daily routine for the entire time you’re in. You sit in your cell, slam down what little food you get, silently walk to the courtyard, silently kneel for 30 minutes, silently walk back to your cell, and slam down dinner before bedtime. Any deviation is dealt with swiftly and violently by the guards.
Japan has a very skewed idea of criminal justice, because the prevailing attitude is that if you’re in prison, you must have done something to deserve it. It’s sort of a cyclical problem, where their insanely high conviction rate means that the public already assumes suspects are guilty before they have even been convicted.
I’m really hoping this does change in Japan once the boomers fall out of power because younger Japanese people are also learning about the world online
“Guilty unless proven innocent” is literally the law in Japan
the Phoenix Wright series was literally made as a scathing critique of the Japanese Legal System, luckily the absurdity appeals to the West even if the commentary doesn’t.
Hmm, I happened across this video last week of a womens prison, and it doesn’t seem quite so grim…
I also saw another video in a mens prison a while ago that showed them cooking all the meals, and it looked strict, but not so bad as you describe.
Of course these videos are propaganda…
Still, I would take a Japanese prison before an American one.
Thanks for telling the truth, Alot of media like to show japan as a good country,like they wanna show certain countries as bad and good(I already knew some of the stuff but not everything mentione).
Well, it’s kind of an open secret that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about any non-white majority country that isn’t China or North Korea on American Television.
Not saying that’s a bad thing, in fact before that little “rule” was in place we got shit like “Tokyo Jokey-o” so I full understand the bias in favor of only focusing on the positives.
Ohh they got a rule for it, that would make sense.
Asshole should have his passport revoked on top of being jailed.
He likely was, it’s very easy to lose your passport and be thrown to the wolves when you misbehave in another country, especially in Japan and South Korea. They do not fuck around.
As he should be, what an absolute moron.
what a stupid fuck
Oh. I thought maybe he ate a banana on an offering plate or something culturally ambiguous
He fucking carved his name into wood? That’s never OK anywhere
True.
That’s a slap on the wrist if they only impose the fine. That should be a five year jail sentence at least.
You cannot act like a dick like this in other countries. Defacing a religious site no less.
So true.
Re-open Robot Restaurant and force him to sit there watching it 24/7 for 3 years.
Looks like the Temu version of Bannon.
Why people want to carve names on stuff… It’s the same people who write their names on bathroom doors
No idea but it’s been going on for millennia
Bathrooms are like the only place this is OK…but do it in sharpie so it can easily be removed
Like how dumb do you have to be?
… Checks timeline. Oh thats the norm…
Put that fuckin Boomer in prison for 3 years.
Bordering on Gen X but anyone this disrespectful is still a boomer. They need to jail him. A fine is too easy.
Genx is 1965 – 1980.
At 65, he’s 6 years too old to be Gen X.
I was under the impression that gen x started in the mid 60s, whereas 65 would put this guy at 1959ish
I said bordering for a few reasons. One it is close, i.e. bordering at the change. Two being that I know some people right at that near generational change (same age actually) act way less boomer and more gen x. People aren’t hard lines in the sand like dates. So people born around that generational shift can swing either way. Way more thought than I wanted to explain about an offhanded comment, but there you go.
Lol all good man. It certainly seems like everyone has their own interpretation of generational cutoffs, but you make a good point of how people born near the cusps can swing either way in terms of identity.
I feel it myself honestly. I’m in the Xennial range. I don’t fit standard Millennial tropes generally, but also don’t really fit Gen X either. Just somewhere in limbo lol
Prison would be most appropriate.
The fine sure seems low for defacing an important religious shrine.
Not sure that shrine in particular but I do think torii gates in some shrines are replaced somewhat often. At Inari they had business names behind them which I assume are the ‘sponsors’ of that torii, probably they pay to have the gate fixed and I imagine that brings luck to that business. In short, he might have been lucky to deface the least critical part of the shrine.
My understanding is that the business names are there because Inari is a kami associated with merchants and businesspeople. They donate a gate, slap the company name on it, and Inari provides.
That’s good at least. I’d hate to think this was a century old (or whatever) torii he defaced.
oh, Im just guessing here though (from what I saw when visiting), hopefully that is the case
The toriis at meiji jingu are gigantic. It would unfortunately cost millions to replace one.
Then the sentence makes no sense to me
Kinda like Americans donating to have a bench named after them in a park.
I completely agree
Good, americans act like this and they get the consequences they deserve
If anyone acts like this they get the consequences.
I could have guessed he was over 60 because he wasn’t live streaming the whole thing. Just an old school asshole, not an influencer.
All that really proves is that people don’t need YouTube to do things for attention.
