Security Guards
Daily activity
by Amelie
In every job there is always a routine; teachers preparing materials in the morning before class, restaurant owners stocking up food before they open, police officers patrolling on the same time of the day, etc. Even for security guard, there is a pattern that they repeat every day. To identify this daily practice was vital for this project since it reflects the whole concept of the occupation. By learning their routine, us observers would be able to take a glimpse of their task, which would help us to understand their culture. This also provides us information about the place, item, and events, that they are involved with. Thus, this section of the web page will discuss and identify the routine that they share as a security guard in Kabukicho.
However, before diving into their routine, the sight and hot spots of where the security people are usually around must be addressed. First, the Chuodori, which is probably the most iconic and crowded road in Kabukicho, is where you can find many of the security guards. From the entrance of the road up to TOHO Cinema, the security people would walk around to prevent catch and scouts from approaching a target. Which leads to the second spot, TOHO Cinema mae. Although the security people usually only walk pass by this area from other hot spots, they can be seen a lot in this spot as well. The third spot is Toyoko Hiroba. This hiroba is located right next to the TOHO Cinema, thus the name. From afternoon to night, a lot of Toyoko kids, who are most of the times junior high to high school students, and their supporters would come out and drink liquor, smoke, make a disturbance, and other actions that do not follow the normal norm in society. Most of the times you would be able to see about 2 to 4 security guards depending on the day and time. The fourth spot would be the famous Ichibangai. Though there are many catches just like Chuodori, the security guards, however, do not patrol this street as much as they do for Chuodori. And last but not least, the office that they use was on Seibu Shinjuku Ekimae Dori, in a building right next to the new Tokyu Kabukicho Tower, which is currently under construction. This is apparently where they go to change into their uniforms and prepare for the job, as well as to take breaks.
A security guard interfering between a catch and two salary-men. At the end of the video, he tells the salary-men to ignore the catch and leave.
As it was observed in the field research, the security guards start their patrol from Chuodori, once their shift starts and leave the Jimusho. On this street, their focus is one thing, to prevent pedestrians from following scouts and/or catches. Yes, their job is to restrict and restrain these violaters of the ordinance; however, since they are not directly hired by the government nor are public officers, it is impossible for them to give out tickets or even order them to stop what they are doing. Which is why as a private security group, the solution to this was to alert and advocate the passerby. In order to do this, they take several steps. First, they would take a glance and walk around the area that they are in charge of to identify who the catches are, and scouts are. The second step would be to stare at these catches and/or scouts once they make an action. Third, if the catch or scout would not stop, they will use their handy speaker to talk to the passerby from a distance to ignore the catch. The phrases that they use in the field was, “そこの通行人キャッチの言うことは聞かないでください。” or “キャッチは無視してください”, which translates to “please ignore the catch”. Most of the times, their interaction with the pedestrians ends here. However, in some cases, such as when the catch is importunate or when they continue to hit up to a lot of pedestrians, the security guards deal with the matter differently. They would approach the catch and their target and stand near or in between them, as well as prompt the walker to ignore them and leave the sight. In such cases, the catch/scouts would be furious that the security let go of their pray. But the security would simply tell them to stop hunting for potential clients and leave. In fact, one time in the field, a security guard was trying to admonish an izakaya catch by telling him to stop over and over again. Finally, the catch started to yell at them saying “Don’t only tell me to stop, if all these other people can still catch. Don’t tell me and say that to my boss.” At the end, since the security people were walking him somewhere, it could be easily imagined that no one was caught by him that night.
So why do the security people take such long steps to end one catch/scout activity? One of the reasons is to make the catch and scouts feel uncomfortable to the situation.
As explained by Karp, the blasé reaction is unconsciously put into effect once people in the metropolitan area encounters another human being in a public space. This is why people tend to be uncomfortable being stared at by an unknown person or being approached by someone they do not know. The security guards, however, use this human instinct as an underhanded way to prevent catch and scout incidents. Of course, this also would work for the pedestrians as well. For example, one of the scenes that was observed in the field was when a young woman was approached by a catch working for a host club. She chatted with him and were about to head to one of the host clubs, when the security guard intervened in their conversation, and she suddenly walked away. Although their big physique and uniform also might have been a key factor for her to run away, it was probably because she did not expected them to be looking at her, since her shoulder seemed to have gotten stiff after getting talked to by the security guard. In a place like Kabukicho, where different genres of people gather and is somewhat chaotic, the people around you usually do not care about you which is why it is easy to disobey norms. Yet, by having security people there, the sense of worrying about what others may think about you comes back.
Insofar as the intense stimulation of the metropolis and the prominence of its money economy promote the intellectuality of the urban person, they also cultivate in one a characteristically blasé reaction to events. The incessant bombardment of incompatible stimuli upon individuals ultimately exhausts their mental energies and renders them incapable of response to every new occurrence. (Karp, 2015)
A security guard telling one of the Toyoko kids to throw away trash properly.
This strategy can also be seen in Toyoko Hiroba which is the next destination for the security guards. Once the security people are there, they start walking in a circle and looking around to see what type of people are gathering in this space. Here, however, rather than using a speaker, they directly walk towards whoever is unfollowing the social norm. For example, one time in field research, one of the Toyoko kids were smoking and littering the bud of the cigarette. Once the security noticed her action, he immediately approached her and prompted her to pick it up and throw it in a garbage can. The interaction was very short, but the girl picked the cigarette up and threw it in the trash bag. She even bowed to the security as if she was saying “sorry about that” or “thank you for pointing it out”. Either way, as Karp has mentioned, since people in public space purposely do not recognize strangers, the security, who is most likely a stranger to the people in the neighborhood, approaching and pointing out their action probably is surprising, uncomfortable, and reminds them to follow ordinance.
A security guard walking around the sight to make sure if everything is normal.
Although they do not necessarily have authority or power like the police do, the security guards already have a well calculated method to protect public order as well as the norms of Kabukicho. The security guards, of course, cannot give out tickets or ask suspicious people to accompany them to the Koban. However, they take a somewhat uncomfortable way to handle each individual situation, which is useful since Japanese tend to worry about what others think. In a area like Kabukicho where people from different community gather and socialize, though it seems as if they do not care what people think, These routines might not be effective in other urban cities like New York, Osaka, or even as close as Shibuya, but since Kabukicho has some kind of rule among the workers there; as you can observe by how the catch would go back to the space after following around a target. The security’s purpose of being there is to guide and discipline these people that have stepped out of line.
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