Seven or eight minutes before 5 p.m., the silver Toyota Crown car had almost arrived at its destination.

In the southeast of Ota-ku, Tokyo, there is a commercial street facing a broad road lined with several "pachinko" shops, prize redemption shops and consumer loan companies.

In Japan, there are currently more than 10,000 "Pachinko" shops, and more than 70% of them are run by Koreans and Koreans in Japan.

So anyone who knows a little bit about this area will see that this is a place that uses pachinko machine entertainment to attract customers and engage in disguised gambling.

You should know that they have already reached the territory of the Koreans in Japan or the Koreans in Japan.

This is almost common sense in living in Japan.

However, the car did not stop here. After passing "Pachinko", it turned into a side alley.

Immediately, a row of shops with signboards in both Japanese and Korean came into Ning Weimin's eyes.

On this street, the characteristics of the Korean nation are even more obvious.

The shop signs are either "Pyongyang" or "Panmunjeom", or "Myeongdong" or "Blue House".

But this place is not like the commercial street outside, with a unified archway and street lights. The dilapidated and old buildings seem to have never been repaired.

Dozens of small restaurants are crowded together, many sharing a bathroom.

In broad daylight, drunken Korean singing accompanied by the smell of boiled pig intestines could be heard coming from small restaurants on the roadside.

The narrow, winding and extremely irregular streets can often only be passed by one person, and garbage can be seen everywhere behind the dilapidated iron houses.

In short, it looks like a "shantytown" where the poor at the bottom live.

The overall lack of planning, narrow roads, messy layout has become a congenital disease, and public facilities are also seriously insufficient.

All of this makes it hard to believe that you are in Japan, a unique country within a country.

This is the only remaining part of what was once called "Koreatun" by local residents in the past, and it is also the only remaining Korean settlement in Ota District today.

On the way here, Matsumoto Keiko had revealed her identity as a Korean expatriate to Ning Weimin.

She also told him that the restaurant she went to today was very close to her childhood home and school.

So after finally parking the car, Matsumoto Keiko took the initiative to continue to act as a tour guide as an aborigine and introduced the situation here to Ning Weimin in detail, which became natural.

According to Keiko Matsumoto, in 1959, the number of Korean and Korean expatriates in Japan reached 590,000.

By 1985, including the Koreans who became Japanese citizens, the total number would exceed three million.

Compared with the few hundred thousand Chinese expatriates in Japan at this time, the total number and proportion of Korean and Korean expatriates in Japan were much higher.

Therefore, compared with the only two Chinatowns in Yokohama and Kobe where Chinese people in Japan are relatively concentrated, the areas where Korean and Korean expatriates live are dotted all over the place.

Inhabited areas like this exist in various forms in almost all larger cities in Japan.

There is also a Spicy Cabbage Yokocho Street in Ueno, Tokyo, which is also an area where North Koreans gather.

The earliest residents of "Koreatun" were actually a group of Koreans and Koreans who came to Japan to work as laborers.

Around 1948, they were unwilling to return to the country and were driven here. The government tacitly allowed them to build their own houses and live together.

Over the years, the Korean and Korean people living here have not only obtained land and house ownership, but also obtained permanent residence status.

But he always maintained his own lifestyle.

Through the self-governing associations, Korean schools and other institutions in their residential areas, they reflect their obvious national characteristics.

Although many people living here only speak Japanese, they still have a strong sense of belonging to the governments of South Korea and North Korea.

But people here are also very concerned about "originality".

Although North and South Korea coexist peacefully, they never interact too much.

Matsumoto Keiko also taught Ning Weimin a way to identify North Korean restaurants and Korean restaurants.

It is said that the barbecue restaurants here are unique. A small number of the shops are run by "Korean people in Japan" and the rest are owned by "Korean people in Japan".

If the shop sign says "Korean Cuisine", the shop owner should be from Korea.

If these four words are not written, they are all from North Korea.

She even secretly told Ning Weimin a secret unknown to outsiders.

It is said that a branch of the legendary organization "Chongryon" in Japan is located behind the small supermarket on this street.

Since this is a place that the Japanese are unwilling to set foot in, only the Koreans and Koreans living here have known about it for many years.

To be honest, Ning Weimin didn't really care about this matter.

He is neither Japanese nor a spy ordered to lurk, so why is he bothering to think about such political matters?

On the contrary, I didn't want to get into trouble because of this, and completely gave up the idea of ​​going to the small supermarket to buy a pack of cigarettes.

What he was really worried about was that the two of them were incompatible with the noisy and chaotic environment here, and whether there would be any safety concerns.

You know, this is a poor place where fish and dragons are mixed together, filled with smoke and alcohol.

At first glance, the people who hang out here are mainly blue-collar workers and small traders, and there are also many people who make money from side jobs.

The fact that they parked their car here was enough to attract a lot of attention.

Not to mention that Matsumoto Keiko is still wearing such elegant clothes and looks so beautiful.

Today, she was holding a silver Prada handbag, a silk scarf on her head, and sunglasses. She looked even more eye-catching after stepping out of the car.

Not only did the two young men and women who had been whispering at the door of the cold food shop suddenly fell silent.

The three stevedores sitting in the back of the truck waiting to work also stopped talking.

Especially at the door of a massage parlor, there were two men who looked like Yakuza who had just come out.

When they saw Matsumoto Keiko, they were like dogs seeing meat and bones.

He couldn't help but take the cigarette butt from his mouth, spit on the ground, put his hands on his shiny back, and followed directly.

Ning Weimin was really worried about what trouble he would cause.

With his body and bones, he has no chance of being a hero here.

But I didn't expect that he was actually worrying about things in vain.

Because after all, Matsumoto Keiko is also of Korean descent and is a part of the people who once lived here.

She soon began to greet people in the surrounding shops in fluent Korean.

The people she talked to were all permanent residents here, and when they saw her, they all smiled and greeted her.

At first glance, he looked like an acquaintance.

Even the two Yakuza who were following the two thieves were stopped by an old woman who was collecting garbage at the entrance of the store, raised a broom, and then chased them away with a squawk.

The fierce look on his face probably gave them a stern warning not to make bad plans or get close to Matsumoto Keiko.

So Ning Weimin breathed a sigh of relief.

According to his understanding, Keiko Matsumoto's status here is probably similar to that of himself in Shan'er Hutong.

Even if a criminal gang came to kidnap someone, it would be useless.

For example, if he were in Shan'er Alley, he could scream out loud in the whole alley.

Don't even talk about getting started at that point.

Just a few hundred people, using broomsticks, dirty soil basins and tractor boards under their feet, can crush a group of people to death in an alley.

This is the benefit of being at home, the advantage of home court.

Ning Weimin followed Matsumoto Keiko silently, looking at her slender back that showed off her feminine charm, and was thinking like this.

Suddenly, Matsumoto Keiko turned around, smiled at Ning Weimin, and then pointed to the street corner on the right.

Matsumoto Keiko had a child-like expression on her face. Following the direction of her finger, Ning Weimin saw a barbecue restaurant called "Jin's House".

The red and blue lanterns "Korean Cuisine" hung in the store really showed the boss's background.

The store's facade is not too big, so you can walk by it accidentally, but the space inside the store is okay.

A few tables were set up at the door.

Go inside, go down a few steps, and you'll find a larger space with more than a dozen tables.

Because there was still some time before the actual meal, there were only a few guests.

The shopkeepers and his wife are also acquaintances of Keiko Matsumoto, a diligent and capable couple in their fifties.

In particular, the landlady was so kind when she saw Keiko Matsuzaka, and even addressed her differently. She told the boss in surprise.

"Master, come here quickly and see who is here? It's Han Qingzi."

This made Ning Weimin suddenly realize that this was probably Matsumoto Keiko's real name.

What is a bit surprising is that there are private rooms in the store.

The shop owner asked his wife to take them directly to a small room at the end.

This is the only room with a ventilated window for better smoke exhaust.

The warm yellow light cast a faint oily sheen on the large wooden table that could seat six people.
To be continued...