• Isage yo! Shita de Kawasaki no kutsuharakachiya om no koto matteru ze! Hurry up! That heister from Kawasaki is waiting downstairs for you!
• Goji ni rei no konkurusarubisa to au tehazu da. We're supposed to meet that heister guy at five.
After World War II, downtown Tokyo gangs had become ethnically even more diverse as hordes of eager Chinese youths spilled out of the tightly knit Chinatowns of Yokohama and Osaka. Both Japanese and Korean gangsters were charmed by the exotic vocabularies these new conscripts brought with them. Breaking into a house was given the pounding name hkoyau (banging at the furnace), which was inspired by the Japanese burglary words tonton (bang bang) and kanamono (ironmongery). The new secret words for burglar were honpa (from heng pa, “unconscionable snatcher”), chiin-chende (hard-cash-taker) and yauchienu (from yao qien, “wanting money”). Chiipaishu'ende became the alternative word for sneak thief, and ninkt (he who leaves no traces) was reserved for cream-of-the-crop master thieves.
• Shinmai no hkoyau umaku yatteru kai? How's your new ironmonger working out?
• Ano honpa itsumo hitori de shigoto o yaru no sa. You know, that unconscionable snatcher always works alone.
• Ore wa tekkiri ana chiin-chende wa kono hen no koto shitteru to omottan da ga n! Man, I thought that hard-cash-taker knew the neighborhood!
• Oi, chotto kore mite miro yo! Kono ate wa saka no ninkt kara te ni ireta mono da ze! Yo, take a look at this one! I got this door jagger from an Osaka pro!
Along with ethnic diversity came the initial wave of lock-picking and safe-cracking burglaresses. The first female mob bosses had begun ruling their streets with an iron fist, buying, selling, and even marrying their way up the violently masculine hierarchy of the Japanese underworld. In 1982 the struggle for criminal gender empowerment reached new heights when the gentle and soft-spoken Taoka Fumiko maneuvered herself onto the throne of Japan's largest and most powerful mob-syndicate, the Yamaguchi gang. With the first signs of equal employment opportunity, the toughest and most belligerent women mingled with their local sneak thief crowd and soon began acquiring their ownsanyabukuro (widget bags), in which they could neatly arrange their own tools of the sneak-thieving trade: koburi (master keys), harigane (wire-jiggers), neji (crowbars), hch (“kitchen cleavers,” or lock-breaking wrenches), and aka (“red,” or blow torch). This first generation of female professional burglars has been given a jargon name of Chinese gang extraction, b (the maternal ones).
Lootable homes were also ordered into strict categories. For instance, a house that is always left unattended in the morning is asa aki (morning empty), while hinaka (broad daylight), and hiru'kisu (noon-time empty-nest) are good midday targets.
• Asa aki bakkari to omotetan da n! Chhe! Poka shichimatta! I thought that house was always empty in the mornings! Man was I wrong!
• Nagahama-dri wa hinaka darake datta no shitteta ka? Did you know that Nagahama Street is full of empty houses at lunch time?
A quick noon job is known as hirumai (noontime dance), tent (heavenly road), or nitch o fumu (stepping on broad daylight). Thieves who work exclusively during lunch hours call themselves hishi (day masters), nitchshi (broad-daylight specialists), hiruwashi (noontime eagles) or, in downtown Tokyo, shirotobi. The origin of the word shirotobi has sparked great controversy among the gangs. Some maintain that it means “white kite,” others “white cape,” others still “white pilferer.” In his book Ingo Kotoba no Kuruizaki, the renowned linguist Umegaki Minoru argues that the shiro of shirotobi is really just a bastardization of shiru, the Tokyo-dialect word for lunchtime (hiru). The elegant shirotobi, he decrees, is none other than the modest hirutombi (lunchtime pilferer).
Homes that are regularly left defenseless in the evening are ranked as yoiaki (nightfall empty), and more poetically as bankei (evening scenery), and evening thieves call their sprees yoimatsuri (nightfall festivals), koigamari (dark crawls), yoigamari (evening crawls), and yoarashi (night intrusion).
• Yoiaki da to omotte shinobikonda no ni, bab ga neteru no mitsukete tamagechimatta ze! I broke in thinking it was a nightfall empty, but this old bitch was asleep inside. Man, you should have seen me freak!
• Koko futaban no yoimatsuri wa mattaku hisan datta ze! The last two nighttime festivals were a total flop!
• Kin no ban wa koigamari ni wa chotto samusugi da ze. Last night was a bit too cold for a dark crawl.
Professionals who specialize in late-night thievery are known on street corners as kmori (bats), taka (hawks), yonaki (night cries), yash (night businessmen), yonashi (night specialists), and anma (traditional blind masseurs—they work in the dark, feeling their way around). Fuke (staying up late) is also used, along with nimble variations such as fukenin (stay-up-late person), and fukeshi (stay-up-late specialist). But heavy criminal jargon, in constant fear of police discovery, calls its nocturnal thieves tatonuhowa (blowing out the candle), ptairen (uninvolved guy), honteinu (confused in the dark), yauren (servant gang), and teinshin (by starlight), words of ethnic Chinese extraction, and kipuntoi, chinsa, and ssyotsu, of ethnic Korean background.
• Aitsu wa anma ni wa chotto toshi ga ikisugiteru ze. He's getting to be a bit old to be a blind masseur.
• Oi, hora, are o mite miro yo! Kmori ga yojinobotteru ze! Yo, man, take a look at that! Look at that bat scamper up!
• Oi, miro yo! Ano futari no chinsa wa Kawasaki ni sunderun da ze! Yo, look there! Those two night thieves live in Kawasaki!
• Ano onna ga kono atari dewa ichiban no ssyotsu da'tte koto omae shitteta kai? That woman there, did you know she's the best night thief around here?
Thieves who go on walks looking for eligible houses are said to be flowing (nagasu). During these flows, buildings are carefully appraised and classed according to potential loot, lighting, street exposure, and the accessibility of front and back entrances and windows. Likely looking houses are earmarked as anzan (“easy deliveries,” as in birth) or andon (flimsy lanterns), while buildings that offer easy entry but are dangerously close to busy roads or police stations are rated as gan kitsui (the eyes are tough), and more lyrically oki ga kurai (the seascape is dark).
• Nante kot'a! Koko wa anzen no hazu datta no ni, aitsu tsukamachimatta ze! What the fuck! This was meant to be an easy job and he got busted!
• Iy! Nanda kono hen, zenbu andon ja n ka? Kor'a boro mke da ze! Man! Fuckin'-A! This area is full of easy houses! We're really gonna cash in!
• Kono hen wa gan kitsui kara, saketa h ga ii ze. A void this neighborhood. The eyes are tough.
• H! Kono yakata wa mepp ii ga, oki ga kurai ze. What a beautiful, stately mansion. Pity the seascape's so dark.
After flowing past house after house, the thieves close in on the most suitable target in three phases. Toba o kimeru (choosing the den) is the preliminary audition, in which whole rows of homes are given a general glance-over. Toba o tsunagu (tethering the den) is the second, closer look in which alarm systems and entry and exit points are examined. The final stage is toba o fumu (stepping on the den): out of all the possible targets, one home is chosen, and the thief approaches it, tool bag in hand. Once a house has been picked, the thieves proclaim ate ga tsuku (the aim will be fulfilled), and it graduates from being a toba (den) to a taisaki, pronounced by some groups daisaki (the table ahead).
Many of the better burglar gangs employ individu-als who make a career of spotting vulnerable houses. In the post-war years in Tokyo these men and women came to be known as doroya (streetsters) and hiki (pullers), while