(Agence France-Presse)
By Cal Widdall
In an almost satirical exaggeration of the ‘naive Japanese tourist’ stereotype, a Japanese trucker has been spotted wandering around the front lines of the Syrian civil war dressed in military fatigues.
Fujimoto, who describes himself as a mixture of “samurai and kamikaze”, claims it’s safe for him to stroll through warzones without a helmet or flakjacket. “I’m not a target for snipers because I’m a tourist,” he declared before amusingly adding, “Not like you journalists.”
We’d like this story to be about a reckless tourist, wandering around Syria pointing his big gun-like camera at the soldiers simply because he’s bored, but as his interview with Agence France-Presse reveals, Fujimoto is actually a borderline-suicidal victim of Japan’s simplistic, heart-breaking attitude towards the children of divorced parents:
Fujimoto is divorced, and says “I have no family, no friends, no girl friend. I am alone in life.”
But he does have three daughters, whom he hasn’t seen for five years, “not even on Facebook or the Internet, nothing. And that saddens me deeply,” he said as he wiped away a tear.
So he’s bought a life insurance policy, and “I pray every day that, if something happens to me, my girls might collect the insurance money and be able to live comfortably.”
We recommend he reads the fine print of his insurance policy and comes home.
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