Robert Whiting, "Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies: The Outsiders who Shaped Modern Japan (Tuttle, 2024)

Summary

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New Books Network: Robert Whiting on "Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies: The Outsiders Who Shaped Modern Japan"

Host: Amy Chavez
Guest: Robert Whiting
Aired: March 27, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this lively episode, Amy Chavez interviews renowned author Robert Whiting about his latest book, Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies: The Outsiders who Shaped Modern Japan. Whiting, famous for his explorations of Japanese subcultures, yakuza, and baseball, presents a wide-ranging discussion of the extraordinary and sometimes notorious foreigners who left a mark on Tokyo’s society across the decades. The conversation delves into the stories of female hostesses who defied expectations, gritty yakuza figures, North Korean drug operations, and the immigrant who revolutionized the Japanese taxi industry.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Unlikely Power of Women in Nightlife

[03:13–08:23]

• Whiting shares the story of Maggie, an audacious Australian hostess in Tokyo’s nightlife scene of the 1970s and 80s.
  • Maggie didn’t fit the stereotypical demure hostess role—she was bold, loud, and irrepressibly generous.
  • Signature anecdote: She opened her own, wildly popular bar, Maggie’s Revenge, famed for its "No Neckties Allowed" policy—she literally snipped off customers’ neckties as a symbolic gesture of relaxation.
  • Maggie’s unconventional management and ties to both celebrities and underworld figures sometimes drew yakuza protection and trouble, culminating in a dramatic departure and an eventual return to Australia.

“She would go to the customers who came in and cut off their neckties, even expensive neckties.” – Robert Whiting [05:56]

• Whiting briefly touches on another rare example: a woman who was not just a hostess but a female yakuza partner, carrying a revolver and sporting full-back tattoos—a mark of courage and affiliation.

Tokyo’s Underworld: Foreign Gangsters and Their Legends

[08:54–16:39]

• The story of “Jim the Slasher” (Vladimir Granby Oscus), a Russian émigré turned gang leader in Shibuya:
  • Jim’s celebrity stemmed from his willingness to challenge Japanese yakuza and his notoriety for violence.
  • His Japanese girlfriend (later wife) turned heads with her elaborate tattoos and willingness to wield weapons in defense of Jim.
  • Their saga ended in tragedy after a brawl with gang rival Hanagata, with Jim dying from his injuries and Hanagata serving a prison sentence for manslaughter.
  • Details on Nobuo Ando, a yakuza head who later became a bestselling author and movie star, highlight the blurred lines between infamy and popular culture in postwar Japan.

“Jim dashed home, got his sword and, accompanied by his gangster wife who had brought a revolver... went out to seek revenge.” – Robert Whiting [12:01]

North Korea, Drugs, and Japan’s Hidden Battles

[17:52–24:28]

• Chavez and Whiting discuss North Korea’s covert role in trafficking drugs and counterfeiting U.S. money, with shocking figures:
  • Since 1989, North Korea has printed over $40 million in fake U.S. currency.
  • In 2020, Japanese authorities seized a 700 kg shipment of cocaine worth $130 million.
  • Despite a reputation for low crime, Japan contends with significant drug traffic—originally heroin, later methamphetamines, often funneled through yakuza networks and targeting vulnerable groups like U.S. GIs and local laborers.
• Whiting details U.S. “Cannon Agency” black ops in postwar Japan, which tried to thwart North Korean trafficking through infiltration and espionage.

“The Japanese did not like heroin very much... you couldn’t work long hours on heroin. So [North Korea] switched to manufacturing methamphetamines... taxi drivers, construction workers, nightclub hostesses—people who had to work until hours of the morning found it very useful.” – Robert Whiting [23:32]

Reinventing the Taxi Industry: From Outcasts to Elite Service

[24:28–30:52]

• Spotlight on MK Taxi founder Sadao Aoki, a Korean immigrant who transformed Japan’s taxi industry:
  • In the 1950s and 60s, taxi driving was a stigmatized, low-status, often rude profession.
  • Aoki insisted on high standards: drivers in white gloves, customer service, English-speaking staff, and fair pricing.
  • He faced fierce resistance, lawsuits, and even yakuza harassment. Ultimately, he prevailed in court, becoming the only person to successfully sue the Japanese government on such a matter.
  • His son, a flamboyant playboy, eventually joined the company and kept the brand alive during Japan’s “bubble” era, despite family drama rooted in ethnic and social tensions.

“He really revolutionized the taxi business.” – Robert Whiting [27:52]

Book Recommendations & Current Work

[31:12–33:33]

• Whiting’s current reading:
  • The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam (Korean War)
  • Careless Love by Peter Guralnick (Elvis Presley biography)
• He is co-authoring a forthcoming book with Greg Kelly, the Nissan executive prosecuted alongside Carlos Ghosn—but its publication awaits the conclusion of court appeals.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Some people went [to Maggie’s Revenge] just to have their neckties cut off... they would point to it hanging on the wall.” —Robert Whiting [06:23]
• “He made them [MK Taxi drivers] wear white gloves. They would get out of the car and open the door for the customers... It was so unusual.” —Robert Whiting [25:40]
• “He sued the Japanese government and he won. The only person in the history of Japan, as I understand it, to sue... and actually win.” —Robert Whiting [26:53]
• On North Korean meth: “By the early 50s, there were a million—amphetamines users in Japan... including taxi drivers, construction workers, nightclub hostesses.” —Robert Whiting [23:24]
• On his own substack: “I spend a lot of time staring at the computer screen trying to think of something to write. I have this subtext like that, you know...” —Robert Whiting [32:04]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Hostess Culture and ‘Maggie’: [03:13–08:23]
• Female Yakuza and ‘Jim the Slasher’: [08:54–16:39]
• North Korean Drug Operations: [17:52–24:28]
• MK Taxi’s Revolution: [24:28–30:52]
• Book Recommendations & New Projects: [31:12–33:33]

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Tone & Style

The conversation is richly anecdotal, candid, and at times irreverent—matching Whiting’s reputation for blending investigative depth with colorful storytelling. Both host and guest are deeply familiar with Japan’s underbelly, and the dialogue is welcoming and vividly descriptive, making dense topics accessible to newcomers.

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Suggested Further Exploration

• Follow Robert Whiting's Substack for more stories from Japan’s hidden corners ([32:04]).
• For a primer on recent Japanese culture through a Western lens, read Whiting’s previous works on yakuza and baseball.
• Upcoming: Look out for Whiting’s collaboration with Greg Kelly for insight into the Carlos Ghosn scandal ([32:41–33:33]).

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This episode offers a unique lens on Japan—often hidden from mainstream narratives—through the experiences of its true outsiders.

Transcript

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[Amy Chavez]

Hello and welcome to the Books on Asia podcast sponsored by Stonebridge Press, publisher of fine books on asia for over 30 years, located at www.stonebridge.com and I'm your host, Omi Chavez. And today we're diving into the fascinating world of Robert Whiting's latest book, Gangsters, Fraudsters, Dreamers and Spies, where he tells stories about all of the interesting people who have populated Tokyo, and many of them foreigners. Now, Robert is known for his books on the underworld and also Japanese baseball and Japanese culture. So we are especially excited to welcome Robert Whiting back onto the podcast to talk about his latest book.

[Robert Whiting]

Thank you very much for having me.

[Amy Chavez]

It's a thrill to have you back on Bob's going to be talking about his recently released book, Gangsters, Fraudsters, Dreamers and Spies. What a great title. When we talk about women in Japan, we often think of women as victims. And you know, while that, you know, is certainly true, there's another side to that story as well. And for example, in the hostessing industry, of course, Lucy Blackman and Lucy Hawker became, you know, world headlines because they met unfortunate ends in Japan as hostesses working in the water trade. But there was another woman who was also a very powerful hostess named Maggie and she was Australian. Could you tell us a little bit more about Maggie?

[Robert Whiting]

Well, I knew Maggie back in the, in the 1970s and 80s. She was Australian and she come up to Tokyo to work in, in the Mizu show by, as they say, and she got a job as a hostess. But she was too loud, too, too aggressive, too brazen to really make it as a, you know, shy, demure hostess and you know, who has to flatter the customers and remember his favorite drink and light his cigarette and you know, act really subservient. It just wasn't in her character. She was a very boisterous person. But she, you know, would hold these parties at her apartment, her friends apartments, and she had this way of connecting with well known people, company presidents and important foreigners on the Tokyo scene. And she'd bring them together. So she got a job at this as a kind of co host of this country in western bar called chaps that was run by the people on the music scene in Japan. A lot of people went there, you know, movie stars came in, all the big famous ball players, oh, Nagashima, Roy White of the Omiri giants, Charlie Mann, Manual of the occult, Swallows. But she had a bad habit of giving away free bottles of champagne which, you know, really cut into the P L statement. So Chefs was an extremely popular place. But she got into an argument over her use of the menu, you know, to do favors for her friends. And so they got into an argument one time and she grabbed his sunglasses, which she habitually wore and threw them on the floor and stomped on her and broke into pieces and she quit.

[Amy Chavez]

Now in the meantime though, even Chaps, they started doing really, really well when she started kind of schmoozing with all the, you know, all the clients. And even though she was giving away a lot of alcohol, still the profits were very high. Am I correct?

[Robert Whiting]

Yeah, she had a way about her. You know, the place was lively because she was, she was unpredictable. You never know what she would do. She might get up in front of the microphone and sing a song or do a little dance and you know, always fluting from table to table and sitting down and talking to the custom. It made him feel Important. And so she opened up this place called Maggie's Revenge. The name of her, her bar.

[Amy Chavez]

Love it.

[Robert Whiting]

Typically, I've heard, is think of something like that. And so all the, the Tokyo businessmen and the athletes or who left chaps and started going to Maggie's Revenge. She had this thing about Maggie's Revenge being a place where uptight people were supposed to relax. And she didn't allow Nectaris. So somebody came in after work with a necktie. She had a pair of shears and she would go over and cut the necktie off and she would, you know, hang it on the wall.

[Amy Chavez]

So she would go to the customers who came in and cut off their neckties, even if they were expensive neckties.

[Robert Whiting]

Frank. There was a sign on the door as you walked in on the outside, as I would call no neckties allowed.

[Amy Chavez]

Love it.

[Robert Whiting]

She wanted people action, you know, let down their hair and be as noisy as she normally was.

[Amy Chavez]

And that's so un Japanese. And that must be what the customers kind of liked is they were allowed to just do it. Relax.

[Robert Whiting]

Some people went there just to have their neckties cut off so they could say that she came and sliced off my necktie. And then they would point to it hanging on the wall. And she had a couple of co owners, Al Stamp and Joe Suzuki. Joe and Al had the same problem. They complained that she was giving the store away. She gave away these magnums of champagne to her friends. At one point they decided to get rid of her. And so this boss of the Sumiyoshi Kai, that's just one of the, the, the leading social yakuza gang in Japan, came in and, and said, you know, we like Maggie and we want her to continue as a, you know, co proprietor of this place. And, you know, if you fire her, you'll pay the consequences. And she brought in some men with him and they just sit down at the table and they order a glass of tomato juice or something and they'd sit there for several hours and there'd be no profit, you know, out of that. And so they said okay. So they decided not to fire her. And then it, it turned out Al Snap, who was fluent in Japanese, she asked him to translate a letter from her boyfriend in Australia to this boss of the Sumiyoshi gang over the phone. He read the letter and he said, there's a shipment of fish that's coming in. It's such a. Such a time and place and be sure to pick it up. And he said it was only later that he realized that, you know, the Fish was a pseudonym for drugs. Her boyfriend was, you know, had spent several years in prison, was out, and he was exporting, I guess, because he was in Australia, drugs to Japan. You know, one thing led to another and she finally left the day the situation became so toxic. They had to pay her off, you know, that was a substantial amount of money. And so she eventually moved back to Australia and she died. She was fairly young, I forget, 50s or 60s. But she had a serious asthma problem, which she could never quite conquer.

[Amy Chavez]

I wonder what she did when she went back to Australia.

[Robert Whiting]

I don't know. Maybe she helped out in her boyfriend's business.

[Amy Chavez]

Yeah, one would think. Another intriguing woman in your book was a female yakuza, as you mentioned in your book that it's not often that there are women who are yakuza. But she was the wife of Hito Kiri. Jim. Right, Jim the Slasher, I guess, in English. And I was wondering if you could. I mean, this woman carried around a revolver.

[Robert Whiting]

Well, Jim was the child of Russian immigrants who emigrated to Japan during the Bolshevik Revolution. And there are a lot of Russians who come to Japan to even seek asylum. And his name was Vladimir Granby Oscus. He gravitated to the underworld. He was a big, tough guy. And he got, you know, jobs in Mizu Shobai, as they say, the water business, meaning bars and nightclubs. He was very good at fighting and he liked to beat up Japanese yakuza, which is how he got into gangs. He was a member of the Nihondo Gumi, which reminds Shibuya up to the time, but they called him Stoky Jim Stokitti means slasher or killer. Depends on how you want to translate it. Nobody could pronounce his name Japanese Vladimir Grandiosa. It was just too much to handle. So they just Killer Jim. They weren't. Had this Japanese girlfriend who had worked in a bar in Shibuya, and she came to work in his bar. He ran what they called a catch bar, which is a bar with hostess in it. And you'd have somebody standing outside on the street, you know, catching people as they walk by and say, come on in, you know, get first beer is free or something like that. Then of course, you go in and have a couple beers and they present you with a bill for it will cost you a month's worth of salary.

[Amy Chavez]

And there. There's still a lot of catch bars around, aren't they? I don't know how that they charge like that anymore. But you

[Robert Whiting]

are the back streets of Ropponge And Akasaka, you'll see that guy standing out there holding signs or somebody be out there, you know, saying, yelling a mile a minute, you know, most beautiful hostess in town. Come on in. And then you go in and you wind up, you leave with no money in your pocket.

[Amy Chavez]

Yeah, buyer beware.

[Robert Whiting]

But she had a. Had some tattoos put on her back. Like a lot of the opposite as a very laborious process, very painful to have some of these, you know, elaborate dragon tattooed on your back with all these different colors. And it was very painful process. And the fact that she went through it was a sign of the. Your courage. Because of her boyfriend's influence, somehow she got this revolver and she had carried her arm with her. She waved it at people who threatened her boyfriend. Jim got beaten up one night by this local gangster, Hanagata Big tall, a Japanese guy who was raised in Seattle. His father ran a used car business in Seattle before the war. And then he came back after the war, started with the United States and wound up joining the gangs because, you know, he liked to fight. He got into a fist fight with Jim and you know, Jim got the better of him. Let me read this paragraph to you. Jim had gotten into an argument with a notorious Ando gang captain named K. Hanagata one afternoon on a street in Shibuya. There was a chance shoulder bumping encounter that had turned violent. Then Jim came out on the short end of the fisticuffs that ensued. So. Which means Shit. Cried the Rosnyakosa, picking himself off the ground. Who do you think you're dealing with? I'm Shtokidi, Jim. Jim dashed home, got his sword and accompanied by his gangster wife who had brought a revolver and a person out to seek revenge. We found Hanagata later that evening sitting on a public bench in the center of Shibuya. I've come to pay you back. Jim yelled. With that, he took a furious swing of the sword and sled off. The left shoulder pad of Hanagata's suit coat managalated by knocking Jim to the ground and delivering several kicks to the head. When he saw Jim's wife reaching inside her handbag, he kicked it out of her hand and punched her in the jaw, knocking her unconscious as well. Vladimir Granby o this was carried to her. I can't say it either. Was carried to the hospital in a coma with a severe concussion. And several days later Stokini Jim died. Anagato went to prison for manslaughter. Both men were immortalized in a pair of bestowing underworld books, Yakazoto Koso, which means Ganges in conflict by Nobodo Ando, the captain of the gang. And Kizu Scar by Yasuhara Honda Yomiri Yomiri Shimbun reporter who had researched the Ando gang. Ando Nobudo was quite a character. He was the head of the Shibuya based Ando gang that took over the black markets after the end of World War II and the Americans moved in. And he'd been a member of this human torpedo unit during the war. His job was to swim underwater with a torpedo attached to his back and ramp under a ship.

[Amy Chavez]

Wow.

[Robert Whiting]

But you know, he never got called, so he made it out alive. But he was quite a good looking guy and he later became a movie star.

[Amy Chavez]

Wow.

[Robert Whiting]

He had a scar on his face. He got into a fight with another gangster in the Ginza, which was not his territory, and he was seen there buying a suit. So rival gangsters slashed him across the face with the razor blade. And he wrote this memoir that became a bestseller. Let me see if I can remember this story. It's an interesting story. He had crossed paths with Hideki Yokoi, who was a famous green mailer and who later built a hotel New Japan. And then it was burned down in his accident. Cost several lives. Yokoi had borrowed some money from this Dukachizoka who belonged to the Imperial family and he didn't pay it back. So this Duke Hachizoko went to who knew about Hondo and he said, can you help me get my money back? So Ando took his right hand man, who was black belt in judo. He gone to college where there was one of the few college educated, you know, because have a meeting with Achizoka. They had this meeting in Yokoi's office and Yokoi had hired a hitman to come in and shoot Ando. And so his bodyguard, he said the guy burst. As Andrew wrote about the incident, he said the guy burst through the door and he's punishing his gun and my bodyguard. The first thing he did was dive under the table.

[Amy Chavez]

Oh my gosh, no way.

[Robert Whiting]

And you know, he basically gave the version of, you can't get decent help these days.

[Amy Chavez]

And you know, I'll say, oh my God.

[Robert Whiting]

But he survived. He was shot on the shoulder, but he survived. He later, you know, found the guy and, and did Iman. And he did some time in prison and he got out just as the Olympics were starting. And he wrote this memoir. He became a movie star. They called him the George Raft of Japan. He starred in his own Movies. He's quite a good actor.

[Amy Chavez]

So in those days, there was, I guess, no laws against criminals writing books about their lives or their incidents. Right. Is there now? Because I know for a long time there hadn't been. Has that law changed at all? Can people still, like, go out, commit crimes and write books about them? Because, like, in the us, I don't think you're allowed to make any profit from a book, for example.

[Robert Whiting]

Well, I don't know what the law says. I know that that's a sentence that some judges hand down if they send a murderer to prison. So you can't profit from. That's what happened with O.J. simpson.

[Amy Chavez]

Right.

[Robert Whiting]

And he said that he'd made any money off his writings. It belonged to the Goldman family. So he did write a book. And I think Fred Goldman got the money, if I'm not mistaken. I have to go back and check to make sure I think part of the sentence that was handed down to him. I'm not sure about the law, what that says. So many books by gangsters in Japan there are.

[Amy Chavez]

Yeah. And you've written some books about some gangsters, too. So.

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[Amy Chavez]

to North Korea now. You said in your book that since 1989, North Korea has printed over $40 million in counterfeit US currency. Wow. And in addition, in April 2020, Yokohama sees 700 kilograms of cocaine worth with a street value of 130 million US and that cocaine had quadrupled in the last 20 years. Wow, those are quite big figures. I mean, Most people think of Japan as a country that doesn't have a drug problem. And you barely, you know, hear about, you know, people smoking pot even, and doing drugs other than the Yakuza gangsters, maybe. So when I read that figure, I was really surprised.

[Robert Whiting]

There are tough drug laws in Japan. People are always getting arrested for, you know, celebrities for smoking marijuana, which is considered an evil drug in Japan, sort of like it was in the states in the 1940s. You know, you can go to prison for, you know, if you're. You're caught selling marijuana to even just your friends. But as I wrote in this new book, Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers, and Spies, the North Korean state was formed in 1948 and split into the Korean Peninsula, split into two states. South Korea, which was a US friendly nation, and North Korea, which was close to the Soviets and the Chinese Communist. There were, you know, like, half a million Koreans left in Japan. You know, Japan had colonized Korea starting back in. In 1910, and there were a lot of Koreans who'd come to work as cheap labor in Japan. The war ended. They were basically given the choice. They could go back to South Korea, or they grew back to the Korean Peninsula and leave and live there, or stay in Japan. And under this, you know, special status, they'd be given resident visas. When the North Korea and the South Korean nations were formed, the ROK and the dprk, some of the Japanese took Korean citizenship, and others became naturalized Japanese. Very few wanted to have a North Korean passport because it didn't do you any good, and it was not very well received around the world. But, you know, because of this, you had a large population of Koreans in Japan that had ties to the Korean peninsula. And when the DPRK Democratic People's Republic of North Korea was formed, the North Korean government began manufacturing heroin and trying to sell it in Japan with the goal of to addict as many GIs as possible, American GIs, so they wouldn't be able to fight in the coming war on. On the Korean Peninsula.

[Amy Chavez]

And how. How did that one work?

[Robert Whiting]

Well, there was a black ops group during the occupation under General WBY called the Cannon Agency. And that was their job. Their job was to hunt down communist activists and, you know, terminate them in any way that was necessary. And when they found out that the North Koreans are manufacturing heroin to sell in Japan, they set out to stop it. And the Cannon Agency was run by a guy named Jack Cannon. He was a former Texas Border Patrol agent who joined the army and was an explosives expert. And he'd come to Japan. One of the first things he did in 1945 was go to the German embassy and blew open a safe. His mother was from Germany, so he spoke German. And he found out there were documents showing that the infamous Surge spy ring was still in operation in Japan. So he went to the GHQ and introduced himself to General Willoughby, who was head of the G2 intelligence wing. Willoughby also was from Prussia originally, so they had this, the German language in common. So he trusted Canada and he gave him his own group. And he had 26 agents working for him, and many of them were Korean Americans from San Diego. So he outfitted them with a boat and they had, you know, foot tattoos on, and they disguised themselves as a Japanese yakuza gang and they sailed to Ponyang. They said, we understand you've got some heroin for sale and we'd like to be one of your distributors in Japan. And so I interviewed one guy who is one of the surviving members of the Canada Agency a few years ago for this book, and he explained to me that it was his job to take a boat from Yokohama out to the mouth of Tokyo Bay and pick up this shipment of heroin. A Korean fishing boat would dump it in the water in a flotation device, and he would pick it up. It would be contained in these long tubular aluminum containers weighing about 11 kilogram each. And on it there was a label, Red lion, which was the brand name of the. The North Korean heroin. They would take it back to their headquarters on the docks in Yokohama, and they unpacked it and processed it. And they said it was so powerful, just the power getting in the air was enough to get them high. And so they kept doing this. And the North Koreans became suspicious because there were no GIs becoming addicted to, right, a heroin. And we weren't getting enough money through sales. So it turned out that the North Koreans started giving their. Their product to the Yanagawa Kai, which was the leading yakuza gang in Yokohama, and they started selling it. It turned out that the Japanese did not like heroin very much. They were in the process of rebuilding their country, and you couldn't work long hours on heroin. So the North Koreans switched to making methamphetamines, crystal meth. And the Oxer were selling that. And by the early 50s, there were a million. That's the amphetamine addicts in Japan, or users, I should say. You know, taxi drivers, construction workers, nightclubosis. People had to work until hours of the morning, found it very useful, gave them a lot of energy and Even today, as I understand it, they're still manufacturing is meth. And as being so that connection has always been there. It's been there since the early 50s. It still exists today.

[Amy Chavez]

Lastly, I would like to talk briefly about the rise and fall of the MK Taxi Company. I feel like the MK Taxi Company was, I mean when, when people think of Japan, they think of the taxis and the taxi drivers, they're so, they're so polite, they wear white gloves, they are always buffing their vehicles and it's just the highest service that you can get. And so I was so surprised to read in your book that it didn't used to be that way. We all think that this is something from, you know, some habit from a long time ago and well, maybe it was a long time ago that the MK Taxi came in and changed things. Still, it's rather striking to hear that taxi drivers were originally rather dirty, rude and the. It was such a low job that their wives were embarrassed to say that their husbands were taxi drivers.

[Robert Whiting]

Well, the MK Taxi was founded by a guy named Sadao Aoki in the early 1960s. And he had, he was an immigrant from South Korea, came over and studied at a university and he lived in Kyoto and he worked at a gasoline station and he became a part owner and he, you know, decided to go into the taxi business. So he borrowed some money and bought a couple cabs. And he insisted that his drivers be really polite and well groomed and never turned down a customer. And you know, later on they became successful in the beginning because it was so unusual. He made them wear white gloves. They would get out of the car and open the door for the customers. So I gradually grew in that way and he lowered his prices. At the time, you know, the taxi business was. Was run by all these huge taxi companies. They would periodically get together and decide to raise the prices. And so he one time they had agreed on a nationwide raise and he refused to do it. And so they, you know, sued him to make him raise his prices. So he in turn where he was called in by the Minister of Transportation and Japan and given a dressing down in the guy's office, you know, for failure to cooperate with the leaders of the taxi industry. And so he got really angry and he sued the Japanese government.

[Amy Chavez]

Now this is in the 1950s, right?

[Robert Whiting]

This is in the 1960s, I think late 50s or early 60s, okay. He lowered his prices and the other taxi companies would hire yakuza to cause trouble for him. You know, they throw pachinko balls through the window and, you know, hire yakuza to get in a cabin, give the driver a hard time. Anyway, he went to court and he sued the Japanese government and he won. The only person in the history of Japan, as I understand it, to sue the Japanese government and actually win. The judge in the case, you know, said, I think it's quite reasonable to have lower prices. You know, this gives the consumer a break. And so then he opened up the MK Taxi company in Nagoya and Osaka. And then in the late 60s, he opened up the Tokyo branch of MK.

[Amy Chavez]

And of course, all the foreigners used MK taxis because the taxi drivers could speak English.

[Robert Whiting]

He made it a policy to hire college graduates, as many college graduates as possible, paid them good salaries, getting a place to live, dormitories, healthcare plan. And so he really revolutionized the taxi business.

[Amy Chavez]

And then later, he became a bit like the first Uber taxi, didn't he?

[Robert Whiting]

Well, that was his son. He had this crazy son. He had three sons. The youngest one, Masaha, went to the States. He decided he didn't want to go into the taxi business. He went to USC and studied. And he was a real playboy, you know, a real ladies man. And he liked to drink. And he traveled around the globe, and he picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal one day. He said there was a story about his father on the front page about how he revolutionized the taxi business. And he said he decided, hey, maybe that's what I should do is go back. And this was during the bubble. And he said he started his own business in which he would buy golf clubs in the States and fly back and forth, and he would take several golf club packages with him and sell them in Japan, you know, because this was the height of the bubble when the end was really strong. And so he would make four or five times the money that it cost him to buy. And he was making quite a good living then. But then his father asked him to open up a MK Taxi branch in Japan, which he did, and they made a fortune. I bought a building and Kachidoki. And then when the bubble burst, the MK taxi businesses in Kyoto and Osaka were having difficulty staying afloat. So he sold the building and saved his father's company. And he told me a really interesting story. He said that he met this young woman who was a receptionist at Nissan because the MK taxi companies were using Nissan, buying and leasing Nissan autos. He fell in love with this girl, and he took her home to introduce him to his parents. And during the course of dinner, she mentioned the fact that she was A full blooded Japanese. And the father lost his temper and started throwing things and screaming and pounding the table. Says, how dare you, you know, marry a Japanese woman. And he said he was really shocked at that because he knew that his father had suffered discrimination as a Korean in the beginning and. But he said his father always said treat the Japanese with respect because there are customers. Said, you know, the girl just ran out of the house in tears. And he said he never saw her again. So he had a choice. He can go marry the girl and give up his share of the MK empire or vice versa. Yes, they're trying to spend a really dissolute life. They've arrested several times for public drunkenness and loss. A really fascinating guy, one of the most interesting people I interviewed for this book.

[Amy Chavez]

Great. Well, unfortunately we're coming to the end of the podcast. We're out of time. But I usually ask people what their three favorite books on Japan are. But the last time you were on the show you gave us your three favorite books. So I was wondering if you could just share with us, you know, one or two recent books that you've read that you really liked.

[Robert Whiting]

Well, I'm reading the Coldest Winner by David Halberstam about the Korean War, which is really good. Another one on my shelf right now I'm looking at is Careless Love, which is the biography of Nova's presslet.

[Amy Chavez]

Oh wow.

[Robert Whiting]

It's one of the definitive rock and roll books by Peter Girl and Nick. I'm not pronouncing that properly probably there. It's a two volume our book. The first one is called the Last Train to Memphis. It chronicles Elvis's life from the beginning. Kaimik became a star up until the time he went into the army. And then the second one is called Careless Love was chronicles his descent into drug addiction and making all these horrible movies that he hated doing. Then he's going to come back in Las Vegas.

[Amy Chavez]

Oh, sounds great. You do a lot of reading, don't you?

[Robert Whiting]

I spend a lot of time staring at the computer screen trying to think of something to write. I have this subtext like that I,

[Amy Chavez]

you know you have a great substack channel and I would encourage anyone to subscribe to that if they want to hear some more fantastic stories by Robert Whiting that really they come from your background and your all that time you have spent in Japan and Tokyo. So highly recommend that as well as picking up the book Gangsters, Fraudsters, Streamers and Spies and Are you writing anything new?

[Robert Whiting]

I'm doing a book with Greg Kelly, who was the Nissan executive who was arrested along with Carlos Ghosn.

[Amy Chavez]

Right.

[Robert Whiting]

I got to know him through some Bill Hagerty, the former US Ambassador and some friends. We got to know him as some social media gatherings and he asked me to help him do a book. Really interesting stuff, I think.

[Amy Chavez]

Yes, yes.

[Robert Whiting]

I've got 100,000 words done. But he, it can't be published until, you know, appealed the one guilty verdict that he had in court. He was charged with fraud, eight counts and found innocent, not guilty on seven of them. And the last one I was kind of suspicious. It seems like a sop to the prosecution, but. So he's appealing that. The verdict's not coming down until the end of the year, early next spring.

[Amy Chavez]

Okay.

[Robert Whiting]

Takes forever in the Japanese court system, but it can't be published till then.

[Amy Chavez]

Right. Okay. And you did give us an introduction to Carlos Gon in your book that was quite, you know, a nice little summary of, you know, what has happened up to this point. So I would encourage people to also, you know, get a taste of that there. And I'm so glad you're doing a book about this. It's quite a big topic in Japan and for those of us interested in it, it's very nice to see you again and thank you for coming on the podcast and thanks for that terrific book.

[Robert Whiting]

Thank you.

[Amy Chavez]

You've been listening to the Books on Asia podcast produced and edited by Amy Chavez and Michael Palmer Logo by Alex Kerr, sponsored by Stonebridge Press, publisher of fine books on asia for over 30 years. They can be found at www. Stonebridge.com and I'm your podcast host, Amy Chavez, 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. For more interviews, book reviews and other features, visit the Books on asia [e-mail].

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