The Extreme Path

For a country with one of the lowest crime rates in the world, Japan has an unusual cultural export: the yakuza, members of transnational crime syndicates that can trace their origins to the Tokugawa shogunate of the early 1600s.

作为世界上犯罪率最低的国家之一，日本有一种不同寻常的文化输出：黑帮，这是跨国犯罪集团的成员，其起源可以追溯到 1600 年代初的德川幕府。

“At one time or another, the yakuza have penetrated almost every industry in Japan,” writes Andrew Rankin, “from fish markets to geisha agencies, pachinko parlors, garbage collecting, sumo wrestling, speedboat racing, property development, and pornography.” These gangland figures get their English-language due in his new book, Yakuza: A 400-Year History of the Japanese Underworld .

安德鲁·兰金写道：“黑帮曾一度渗透到日本的几乎所有行业，从鱼市到艺伎经纪公司、弹珠机店、垃圾收集、相扑、快艇竞赛、房地产开发和色情制品。”这些黑帮人物在他的新书《如龙：日本黑社会 400 年历史》中得到了应有的英语表达。

Despite the violence (and finger-chopping) that made them such meaty fodder for folk myths and the film industry, the yakuza are equally known for tales of chivalry and codes of honor even as they are increasingly targeted by the government, which has just as often collaborated with them.

尽管暴力（和砍手指）使他们成为民间神话和电影业的素材，但黑帮同样以骑士故事和荣誉准则而闻名，尽管他们越来越成为政府的攻击目标，而政府也经常与他们合作。

As Rankin writes, “It is not inconceivable that the organizations that ruled the Japanese underworld for the last few centuries will recede and vanish from sight altogether.

正如兰金所写，“过去几个世纪统治日本黑社会的组织将逐渐消失并完全从人们的视线中消失，这并非不可想象。

But it would probably be rash to write them off just yet.”

但现在就注销它们可能有些草率。”

Andrew Rankin studied and worked in Tokyo for 20 years before earning a doctorate in Japanese literature from Cambridge University.

安德鲁·兰金 (Andrew Rankin) 在东京学习和工作了 20 年，之后获得剑桥大学日本文学博士学位。

He is the author of Seppuku: A History of Samurai Suicide and Mishima, Aesthetic Terrorist: An Intellectual Portrait.

他是《切腹：武士自杀史》和《三岛美岛：审美恐怖分子：知识分子肖像》的作者。

Some of our host’s favorite yakuza films include:

我们的主持人最喜欢的一些黑帮电影包括：

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每隔一周收听一次对文学、艺术、科学、历史和公共事务领域最活跃声音的采访；关于正在进行的前沿工作的报告；长篇叙述；以及新书中引人注目的摘录。

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由斯蒂芬妮·巴斯泰克主持。

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