Kwon Choul: Kabukicho Photojournalist

Back in 2000, when I first moved to Tokyo I missed the train one night and spent some time chatting with this Korean lady who worked in a Sunkus convenience store in Shinjuku's Kabukicho district. We became friends, and one day she introduced me to her husband who was a photographer.

They said that they moved to Japan from Korea because there wasn't as much appreciation for the arts in Korea, so as an artist, they thought he'd gave a better chance for success in Japan.

She had a lot of belief in her husband's art and was working three jobs to support him. Unfortunately I never saw any of his work back then, but I use to see him often, taking pictures on the streets in Kabukicho. Sadly, after I moved to Beijing in 2001, I lost touch with my new Korean friends.

Fast-forward seven years. I'm sitting in Shinjuku talking to a writer named Steven about a project I'm working on. It's related to Kabukicho, so he brought a few books he had that he thought might be useful to me. One was entitled, "Once Upon a Time in Kabukicho: 1996~2006" by Lee Xiao Mu. Lee-san is a Chinese associate of mine and expert on Kabukicho who I've already interviewed for the Kabukicho project, but I hadn't see this book before--he's authored 14 books on Kabukicho (in Japanese, Mandarin and Cantonese).

Lee's a very interesting character. He trained in ballet and studied fashion before coming to Japan in 1988, where he's been working as a guide for visitors to Japan's biggest entertainment and red-light district. Last year I saw a autobiographical drama he penned which debuted at Kabukicho's Koma Theater. Lee is frequently interviewed by journalists trying to keep tabs on underworld happenings, and he recently signed a three year contract with Newsweek magazine (Japanese edition) to pen a monthly column.

So getting back to my story, "Once Upon a Time in Kabukicho: 1996~2006" is largely about underworld crime and various major and minor events that have taken place in Kabukicho during that period. But what really impressed me more than the writing is the more than 200 photos taken by Kwon Choul of things like such as mafia fights and beatings, police chases, murder scenes, building fires, immigration raids, a lady posed to jump off a building in a suicide attempt, and the like. It seems impossible that one person could have so often been in the right place at the right time to get so many great shots. But it makes since once you understand that the photographer has basically been shooting in Kabukicho every night of the week for years on end.

Even if you don't read Japanese, the book is worth it for the photography.

After seeing the book, I wondered: could this possibly be the same Korean husband of my friend from the convenience store? Steven and I walked over to Lee Xiao Mu's Chinese restaurant a few blocks away to learn more, and he gave me the photographer's phone number. Sure enough it's the same guy. We plan to meet tomorrow so I can see more of his photography, and I look forward to getting reacquainted with his wife after these many years. It will be a nice story is after all these years I end up publishing some of the work of her husband who she has worked so hard to support.

I'll see if I can get some photos from Kwon-san to post here.

If you live outside of Japan, "Once Upon a Time in Kabukicho" is available worldwide via my company's special order service:

White Rabbit Xpress

(Not much) more info about my Kabukicho project here:
New Product Teaser

Lee Xiao Mu's homepage is http://www.leexiaomu.com/

Info on his Hunan style restaurant appears here