This story begins with Ai, a 20ish Japanese woman who was at the end of her 3 month part-time English studies. She planned to return to the US as a full-time student with hopes of going on to the University of Hawaii for her undergraduate. Ai is not her real name, it is a common girl name in Japan which also means love. Other names have also been changed as well.
A few years after Ai's encounter with the predator she was diagnosed with cancer. She chose to fight her battle among her family of friends in Hawaii. I was already in California at this point but others told me of her strength and courage. The cancer went into remission but then returned to wage war-- a battle she would not win. Although she has passed, I still feel the need to protect her memory as it doesn't feel right to share her story with her actual name.
It began on a Friday morning about 11:00. Fridays were light days at the language school. Part-time students studied Monday through Thursday. Only the full-time students studied on Fridays with classes ending at 1:00 PM. I was working at my desk, when I heard the door open. I looked up I saw two part-time students clearly worried. They were worried about Ai and didn't know what to do, so they decided to come see me. Ai had completed her part-time course the day before and was going back to Japan that morning. she, they related, had gone to spend the evening with her boyfriend--John--but hadn't returned. Ai had been dating John for about 2 months. At first he treated her as a princess but towards the end he was exhibiting increasingly unstable behavior. She was worried about this last visit but she wanted to leave without making him angry since she planned to return to the Hawaii a few months later as a full-time student. She thought he would lose interest in her absence and would move on to someone else. If she provoked him before leaving, he might make it his business to make her return uncomfortable. Before she went to John's apartment, her friends convinced her to leave her passport with them, so that they would know she had returned safely. But she had not returned to retrieve her passport, she wasn't answering her cell phone, her flight was in the early afternoon so she should already be getting ready to go to the airport --clearly there was something to be worried about.
I collected John's information as well as her passport. I called John to see she is was still with him. He answered and told me that Ai had left for the airport and was going back to Japan. I explained that I didn't think that was possible as I was holding her passport. He went silent and then asked why I had her passport. I explained that it was routine for me to hold students' passports. They retrieved it for their final check out before returning to their home countries.
He said that he didn't know where Ai was, she had left early that morning. I disconnect with John and called the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) reporting that I believed that Ai had been abducted and was being held against her will in John's apartment. HPD informed me that the best that they would do, since no minors were involved, was a courtesy check.
HPD called back about 20 minutes later. They had gone to the apartment, it took several knocks for John to open up. They saw Ai but she insisted that she was not their against her will. Directly after their call, John called back. He was livid that I had the nerve to call the police on him. He then admitted, that Ai was still in the apartment. They had had such rampant and prolific sex the previous night that they lost track of time. She was getting ready, so he was to going to come to the school to get her passport for her so that they could go to the airport. I explained that it didn't work that way. I would only release the passport to Ai herself. He hung up.
Twenty minutes later, he called back and said he was sending his friends over to pick up the passport. Again, I explained that I would only give Ai her passport. He hung up. I communicated this to HPD. Still they could do nothing. John called again, put Ai on the phone and had her tell me to give the passport to one of his friends. I re-iterated that I would only give the passport to her and no one else even at her direction.
John called back to tell me that his friends were going to bring Ai to the school to get her passport, then she was going to go back to him and in graphic detail he explained what they were going to do. I was revulsed put said no problem as long as I got to see Ai that morning.
I updated HPD on the situation and they said that they would send officers over. A while later, John's male friend came in asking for Ai's passport. Once again, I said I would only turn it over to her. He said OK, then called his girlfriend to bring Ai up to the school. In the meantime, the HPD arrived and began questioning the guy. About a minute later, Ai walked into the school with the guy's girlfriend. When they entered the school, Ai saw the police. She immediately fell to her knees and started crying. My office assistant rushed to her side. The girlfriend started backing out of the door but the other officer stopped her.
It turned out the friend had an outstanding warrant, so he would be spending the evening behind bars. Soon other officers arrived to take John's friends in for questioning while Ai's statement was being taken. My office assistant acted as interpreter while I gave moral support and assisted in clarifying some of the finer points. Over the next hour, I heard intimate details that no one should ever have to share. But here we were combing through every minute detail. The evening quickly went downhill after Ai arrived at John's apartment, he began terrorizing her and told her he was going to keep her as a sex slave. When he got tired of her, we was going to farm her out to other men. Eventually, hyped up on who knows what, he raped her. Here the officers wanted to know if Ai has said NO. She wasn't sure, she didn't think so because she just wanted to get it over with. So it seemed that John might not be charged with rape.
Eventually the officers wound down their questions, they would file a report and asked if Ai was willing to prosecute. She said yes, but she would have to come back to Hawaii, so that John could face his accuser. We then turned our attention to Ai's immigration status. She wouldn't be able to get a flight out until the next day at the earliest, her 90 pass would end at midnight. I called my contact at Immigration and discovered that for Ai there were serious problems. Since the 90 visa waiver was not a visa it could not be renewed or extended. At midnight Ai be in violation of the visa waiver and would not be able to return to the US easily due to overstaying her welcome. No matter that she did so against her will--that would be something a lawyer would need to take up. In fact it would be another year and a half before Ai could return to the US.
Away from Ai, the officers told me that they knew John and knew he was a bad dude--but since John and his ilk knew that their victims were either unwilling or unable press charges and/or return for the court date, these predators continued to poach on girls who never imagined a vacation fling would turn into a nightmare. They would pick John up and hold him over the weekend, but on Monday he would get bail and since it was unlikely that Ai would be able to return for the court date--he would go free.
At this point, it was getting late, my office assistant had a family to get home to. So at six o'clock, Ai and I went to the hospital for the rape kit--a full 24 hours after her ordeal had begun. I never imagined the clinically impersonal stripping away of dignity that going through the rape kit process actually is. With Ai's permission, I called a male teacher proficient in gynocological medical Japanese as he wife had recently given birth. I was concerned that he would be privy to Ai's intimate details but she said it was OK. I think at this point, any shame she might have felt was blunted by the numbness of it all. At 9:00, everything was completed, Ai left with the morning after pill, antibiotics and something else to help prevent SDTs. We delivered her into the arms of her shaken friends. The next day she returned to Japan, broken and humiliated.
Monday morning, the detective in charge of Ai's case called me for a follow --John had posted bail. Monday afternoon a livid John called me ranting and raving. He threatened to make me pay. I called the detective and he said he would send officers over to let John know he should leave me alone. I thought that this tragic episode had come to an end, I put John and his sordid machinations out of my mind. But a few months later, Emi came to me. She told me she had been dating John for the past few months and now she was having problems. I was aghast. Didn't she know what Ai went through? She had been a new student when it happened--everyone at the school knew. Yes, she told me, she knew about Ai's story. But she thought that it had been exaggerated, perhaps Ai deserved what she got, and she believed that John really cared for her and would never do something like that. I then realized that we are our own worst enemies. No wonder these guys can keep preying on victims--this is how Harvey Weinstein was able to victimize women for decades.
OK, I took a deep breath in, no need to berate her for what was done. She had the courage to come to me and that would have to be enough. I called the detective in charge of Ai's case to let him know of the new developments. He said he was on his way to the school. While we were waiting, Emi told me that John had talked a lot about the bitch director of her school and how much he hated me. I asked if she had a photo of him. He had been described but I had no idea what he looked like. I could have passed him on the street a hundred times and never have known otherwise. She pulled a photo up on her phone. He was good looking in a dissipated surfer short of way. What really drew my attention was the Playboy Bunny tattoo on his forearm. I asked her if that might have clued her in about his character. She looked at me blankly. I then realized that this was a cultural cue that I could use but she couldn't. I remember seeing little girls wearing Playboy rabbit t-shirts or carrying logo-ed pencil cases when I was in Japan. To most Japanese, it is simply a cute symbol. The detective arrived to take Emi's statement, there was little variation from Ai's story. One detail of her story really struck me. Emi said that one night she went to John's apartment and saw six inch stacks of $100 on the table. I asked her if she thought that was unusual and she said no. Japan is a cash based society so it isn't uncommon to see large amounts of money. Yes, I agreed, but went on to say that in the US, large amounts of cash on the coffee table usually meant either drug or sex trafficking. Her eyes widened in understanding.
Emi however, was not raped, she came to me when John said that on Friday night, he was going to have her have sex with another guy. He said that if she loved him, she would do this for him. At that point, she realized that Ai was not exaggerating, Ai did not deserved what happened to her and that Emi was on her way to becoming John's prostitute. The detective let me know, he would go talk to John but suggested that Emi get a Temporary Restraining Order on John. And so I learned how to file a TRO.
Once again, John faded from my attention for a few more months, that was until Hiromi came to me one afternoon. Hiromi was not one to become a victim. She realized John was targeting girls from my school and he admitted to her that he looked out for my students and he still had some extremely unpleasant things to say about me. When Hiromi came to me, she asked if we could call the detective and set a trap for John. So, one afternoon over coffee at the Moana Surf Rider, Hiromi and the detective worked out a sting operation on John as I bore witness. Although John was never held accountable as a sex predator, he was arrested for possession with intent to sell. Hiromi is the real hero of this story. She had the strength and foresight to make a difference for other women. If women were more like Hiromi and less like Emi, perhaps we would have fewer Johns and Harvey Weinsteins in the world.