New Books in East Asian Studies Robert Whiting, "Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies: The Outsiders who Shaped Modern Japan (Tuttle, 2024)
Mar 27, 2026
Robert Whiting, veteran author and journalist celebrated for books on Japan and baseball, shares colorful firsthand tales from 1960s-70s Tokyo. He recounts flamboyant figures like Maggie the necktie-cutter, female yakuza with a revolver, North Korean drug-smuggling ties, and the Korean founder who transformed rude taxi culture into white-gloved service. Short, vivid stories paint a surprising portrait of modern Japan's outsiders.
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Maggie The Hostess Who Cut Neckties
- Robert Whiting recounts Maggie, an Australian Tokyo hostess who opened Maggie's Revenge and forbade neckties, cutting patrons' ties with shears and hanging them on the wall.
- Her free champagne, connections with celebrities and alleged boyfriend drug links fueled conflict with co-owners and yakuza intervention, forcing her return to Australia.
Shtokiri Jim And His Gun Carrying Wife
- Robert Whiting tells of Vladimir "Shtokiri Jim," a Russian-born yakuza who carried a sword and whose gangster wife carried a revolver, leading to a violent street revenge that killed Jim.
- The episode included a public bench ambush in Shibuya, a sword swing that only slashed a coat, a counterattack, and both participants' subsequent notoriety in bestseller underworld books.
How North Korea Helped Create Japan's Meth Wave
- Whiting links postwar North Korean operations to Japan's long drug problem: initial heroin distribution plans shifted to meth as Japan rejected heroin's debilitating effects.
- North Korea's state-run production and shipments (Red Lion brand) plus Yakuza distribution helped create widespread meth use, reaching about a million users in the early 1950s.
