@samuelszuchan: In 1975, someone in Japan published a handwritten 330-page book of addresses. It listed roughly 5,300 neighborhoods, their household counts, and local trades. 223 corporations bought copies, including Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and Daihatsu, alongside thousands of private individuals. The publisher later said 99% of his customers were people worried a child was about to marry into a buraku family. The buraku are Japan's historical outcaste, descended from people who worked in butchery, leatherwork, executions, and undertaking. Trades that early religious thinking coded as ritually impure. They were legally emancipated in 1871. Estimates today range from 1.5 to 3 million people. And this is what makes the address book make sense. They look like everyone else in Japan. They speak the same Japanese. There are no buraku surnames, no genetic markers, no accents that haven't faded. A 2005 survey in Osaka found that 66.6% of residents identified someone as buraku based on current residence. Birthplace came second at 48.4%. Family names didn't even register on the list. When you can't see the difference, you need coordinates. Which means the discrimination survives on data.

Sam Szuchan

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Tuesday 07 July 2026 14:00:00 GMT