The Least Useful Guide to Fukuoka

Without our knowledge, Fukuoka has become the capital of crime related to Gold (metal). As far as I know, there have been at least four gold-related crimes involving an awful lot of money since last year, and probably more which have been undetected. Your see, if you find a cockroach, there should be thirty more!

Here are the four major gold-related crimes publicly reported:

1. Last summer, gold bars worth around seven hundreds of millions of yen were robbed in front of the central railway station;

2.In September last year, a man was caught at the Custom for attempting to smuggle gold worth 13million yen into Japan from Korea:

3.This month, around 380 million yen was robbed in the very heart of Fukuoka City (just a few steps away from the City Office and the biggest police office in the city;

4. Also in this month, four men from Korea, original caught at the Custom for carrying a ridiculously lot of  money, were arrested on the suspicion of gold smuggling.

I've heard that Fukuoka is a gold smugglers’ heaven because of its convenient location to the neighbouring continent and a variety of transportation (boat and aeroplane, and our signature close-to-the-city-centre airport)—and possibly the lax control.

Apart from the gold-related crimes, there have been a lot of unpleasant news here and there in this city—murders, car crashes which is related to a particular type of cars and drivers (but any real and convincing cause has never been released as long as I know), petit embezzlement by public servants, a holing up in a hotel, unidentified dead bodies (usually sorted out as suicide), oil spill from a sunken ship(we haven’t been informed whether locally caught fish is safe to eat by now), and a ground sinking in a very busy street… It’s hard to imagine the same amount and frequency of these types of events could be witnessed in any Japanese cities, or any other cities in the world (apart from some unfortunate cities in terribly unfortunate situations).  I began to wonder if this place is safe to live.

I used to avoid visiting particular places when traveling around foreign countries assuming they were too dangerous for someone like me who came from the safest country in the world. But now, I’ve found myself living in one of the most eventful cities in Japan (or in the world)!

I don’t understand why Fukuoka is so keen to attract tourists without addressing such a shameful and dangerous situation both for its residents and visitors. Am I wrong to think that public safety is more important than a new (and very likely loss-making) underground railway line?