Traditions and miscellaneous terms1.
Jingi - In Japanese (DC, in the case of Battletech) culture, this is the practice of social recognition of superiority. Literally taught to citizens and members from birth in the most traditional communities, this practice is all about showing those above you the proper respect and ensuring that all subordinates do the same for you.
NOTE: This is not simply meant for your direct superiors in your career, but your societal betters and elders. This complex web of etiquette is at the heart of the Yakuza, delving into complicated and near incomprehensible relationships to outsiders. While one
kumi-in is effectively equal to a given
hisho, that
hisho may very well have an extremely important boss. This means that the
kumi-in had best be showing the proper respect to this non-combatant, as the status of the secretary's boss also reflects on him/her. It even extends to dress and behavior that reflects on the
kumi as a whole. A
kumi-in may dress loudly or act rude in public to civilians, but had better show proper decorum at a formal Yakuza function. He may certainly contribute to the syndicate's feared reputation with violence, but wanton destruction will quickly earn you some major hits on your reputation (and by extension, the reputation of your syndicate). It's all about keeping up appearances. Even though the yakuza may (in reality) be nothing more than gangsters, they often hold to the conceit (and appearance) that they are protectors of the citizens and society. They are the shadow enforcement arm, a place people can turn to when the government and police can't or won't help them. In terms of more info on this...good luck. This is a concept found deep at the heart of Japanese culture. Find a native, an expert, or a really high quality book about Japanese culture, I guess. I've never heard of any kind of close analogue in Western or European culture (to be fair, I'm not exactly well-traveled).
2.
Giri - Another near impossible concept to explain to a
gaijin (of which I am most certainly one); this very roughly translates to duty. It goes far beyond that though. This is far beyond gratitude. We're talking about life-or-death expectations to return any favor in kind, no matter the cost. To not do so (whomever the person who helped may be) is an incredible stain on your personal honor and that of your family (criminal or otherwise). Alongside
jingi and ninjo, this is one of the main motivations and guiding forces behind the Yakuza. Like the previous tradition...good luck with finding more info. Look at cinematic examples of this, and guess a whole lot.
3.
Ninjo - Somewhere between empathy and sympathy, this tradition is a bit of sleight-of-hand (to this Westerner's perception). Ostensibly, it means the responsibility held by the Yakuza to protect the people and keep
outside influences and criminal elements from harming the community. Pay close attention to that last part, and note the emphasis on
outside criminal elements. It is another concept that can fluctuate greatly between the New and Old Way, to both extremes. Some New Way may feel this is more important and restrict their own criminal activities to keep their harmful impact on the people to a minimum. Conversely, they may very well say "Screw the people, we run this turf." The same is true for the Old Way, possibly being either extremely hypocritical, extremely helpful and tradition bound, or anywhere in between. An individual
kumi's implementation of
ninjo will tell you an awful lot about the syndicate as a whole. Technically, this tradition means they will not target civilians. In reality, it means they'll try to keep destruction limited. They'll still break your arm for being late on your loan, but they do not practice the widespread violence against innocent bystanders that other syndicates use as methods of control and tools of fear. But even that conceit can be nothing more than lip service in some cases.
4.
Irezumi - Ritual tattooing, for a simple definition. In reality, this is incredibly complex works of art done very often done with traditional, non-mechanical methods. It takes a great deal of time, a great deal of money, and typically, the more ink you have, the more important you are to the syndicate. Members are only approved to get tattoos as the higher ups feel they have done something worthy of recognition. If you see a thug sporting an entire body suit of ornate Japanese inspired ink...tread very carefully. Again, New Way and Old Way can vary on this, but not having any tattooing done in a syndicate is still rather rare.
5.
Renaming - An uncommon practice that some syndicates undertake to further bind members into the surrogate family mentality. A member of the Yakida-
kumi for example, would be renamed Yakida Kenno (from their previous name of Kurita Kenno).
6.
Sakasuki - Roughly equating to an oath of loyalty, this complex ritual of sharing sake has its basis in Shinto traditions. Any sort of major diplomatic event (weddings, truces, alliances, new membership, etc.) will involve such a ceremony. This is where members will swear allegiance to their officer and the officer swear allegiance to the head honcho. I'm sure you can find more on this online, so I'm not going to delve into it too much.
7.
Yabitsume - Ritual finger-cutting is a traditional punishment for failure or screw-ups. The worse the offense, the more of your finger that you have to cut off yourself. In the BT setting (and the age of regrown limbs and prostheses), I imagine some big variations on this tradition between New and Old Way. The oyabun or other ranking officer will attend such ceremonies, and many traditional syndicates will punish members who hide their mark of shame (with a fake joint or regrown digit) severely. So, yes, in some cases, if your dinner partner is missing some parts of his digits and has a whole lot of ink...be really polite. But if he isn't showing either? Be really polite anyway. You never know.
Final notes: I'm going to do up a post at some point regarding traditional markets/activities and operations, but that will take a whole lot longer. What applies today isn't necessarily accurate for BT, so there's a lot more thinking to be done there. That won't probably come for a few more days. Full disclosure time though. A lot of this information is cribbed from Shadowrun material, with liberal amounts of real-world material thrown in from my own crime book and article collection. I used Shadowrun (one, it's a basis I'm familiar with) because it has a number of the same issues that would be found in BT syndicates. Great distances separating syndicates, changes that lead to modern versus traditional conflicts (New/Old Way), etc. Even though the split in philosophy for SR comes from the Awakening, many of the same issues arise in BT with the explosion of colonies from Terra. Once the syndicates are exported to the stars, it is very difficult to not have substantial changes namely, the allowance of female members known as
o-nee-san (elder sister) and o-nee-sama (revered elder sister) and moving away from strictly Japanese and Korean membership (as found today) and moving more towards Combine citizenship or elements of a former Combine community. If you want more information on a cinematic view of the Yakuza (and most other syndicates), pick up the PDFs of
Vice and
Underworld Sourcebook found under the SR section of Battlecorps or DTRPG. They really are useful views of crime for usage in just about any post-modern setting, with a bit of reworking.
Last thing, Takiro. Did you want similar write ups for the Vor, Mafia, and Tongs/Triads? I can do so, but obviously it'll take time. I don't imagine many of the other ethnic syndicates would survive, as I'd imagine a great deal of the ethnic mobs would subsumed under a greater whole of the Mafia (sort of a super-organization of all non-Asian ethnic syndicates). Well, at least, that's what I would do for cinematic reasons. It makes the Mafia a whole lot more interesting and diverse than it is currently.
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Topic: Modern Yakuzas (Read 18730 times)