Visit Spooky Osaka (1)

The second largest city, Osaka, is known to be very unique with its friendliness and open mind. The strongest dialect also characterizes the people in Osaka to the level that "only people from Osaka never want to adopt accents of Tokyo." The humane city, however, has been burdened with its shameful issue, casual workers and home-less people. (This article is borrowing pictures from a pioneering website "Osaka Minkoku damepo tour".)



Normal international visitors won't pay a visit to the district, Kamagasaki, located in the south part of Osaka since places for sightseeing are mostly in the northern Osaka. So are high-income residents.

Incredibly, Kamagasaki is pretty near the center of Osaka. As soon as you get off the train at the station and make a breath, you'd know something wrong is happening in this town with strong irritating odor of ammonia.
(Kamagasaki is in Nishinari district, Osaka.)



You may see the blue sheets like the picture above here and there. Yes, this town is full of homeless people who seldom take a bath.



It used to be an energetic town since way before WWII with casual workers. It was good as they were young. They enjoyed their freedom in spite of their poverty. However, they got old now. The town has become a ghost town with so many old people who are living under the blue sheets with skinny dogs.



The unsavory administration in Osaka has been pointed out. The welfare policy for the poor is neglected while the fake socially vulnerable, Buraku people, have grown with a parasitic aspect. It is said that Osaka has spent $1.2 billion so far for compensation for Buraku people. But apparently the money has been taking a huge detour. Osaka administration has also invested in huge public projects of buildings or bridges which by the way are not needed so much. The money is not used correctly especially in Osaka.


Although they are already old, they are willing to work to lead a life. The nearby job-placement office (the picture above) has a long line of such workers every day.



This video clip from youtube vividly tells you how insane this town is. I just couldn't believe there was still such a place in Japan.

Identifying the cancer of this problem was the most difficult to me. Looks like many of those workers have created multiple certificates of residence and sold their right of vote. The buyers can freely relocate their residence certificates to anyplace they like. Some political party is known to be very powerful when it comes to election. I'd want to assert you that a political party is very fishy about this, but I won't say the name here due to no evidence. But now you see the trick, don't you? Just because of those workers who have sold their right of vote, the election in this district cannot reflect the workers' will.

**Never get close to this town even if you got interested. It's not safe! **