Scholar of the Strange and Mysterious
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Professor Hex
Scholar of the Strange and Mysterious
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting



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Monday, July 04, 2005

Denizens of water trade circulate message of strange serpent savior 
"Lord Tsuchinoko? Ah, right. I've got one. Isn't this what you mean?"

The attractive woman, who operates one of the tiny bars in a corner of Shinjuku called the "Golden Gai," produced a cell phone and called up the picture to its display.

The photo she showed was a man named after a "tsuchinoko." For those unfamiliar with Japanese legends, a tsuchinoko resembles a snakelike creature, but one unlike any snake you've ever seen, with a big head, narrow neck and wide flat body. The existence -- or non-existence of this mythological creature whose existence has never been fully established. It's sort of like a land-based version of the Loch Ness monster.

Shukan Taishu (7/11) raises the issue because "tsuchinoko" has been making the rounds among people who toil in the water trade in the Golden Gai and its adjacent, much larger district, Kabukicho.

It was last April," recalls Anna, 20, a hostess at one of the area's cabaret clubs. "Business had been way off, since the new ordinance went into effect banning touts from soliciting customers on the street. We girls were just sitting around in the foyer, with nothing to do, and one of the older gals got the picture of a man via e-mail. It was pasted in upside down, and he was labeled 'tsuchinoko.' We looked at it and it sort of gave us the creeps.

"Then one by one, we began receiving the same picture via our own cell phones."

Since then, so widely have the pictures become propagated, the denizens of Tokyo's largest drinking area have come to refer to the phenomenon as the "Tsuchinoko-kyo," as if it were a form of propagation by some religious sect.


Interesting article.

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