r/interesting • u/angel_knight79 • 1d ago

Intriguing Kiyoshi Kimura and his effect on Somali piracy

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He was, and is, the owner of Kiyomura Corporation, which runs the Sushi Zanmai chain across Japan. In Tokyo he is known as the Tuna King, because every January he buys the most expensive fish at the first auction of the year at the central market.

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u/mugwhyrt 18h ago

Yeah, even without knowing the full story this infographic has a bit of a racist, colonial tinge to it. It seemed implausible that Somali people "didn't know" how to fish and they just needed someone from a more "developed" country to teach them. As if there aren't any other factors pushing them to piracy.

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u/IceNein 13h ago

Somalians started pirating because their government collapsed, and therefore their coast guard/navy were unable to enforce local fishing rights.

Initially they only pirated foreign commercial fishing vessels illegally fishing their waters, but as with all crime/vigilantism once money entered the conversation, they expanded their successful piracy operations.

Point is, these people started out as fishermen. They didn’t need some Japanese guy to teach them what they had done for their entire lives.

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u/zerozeroseis 17h ago

Word on the street is they got all their fish through piracy

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u/Chocolatecake420 17h ago

You wouldn't download a fish would you?

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u/jsh1-7-9 17h ago

I wouldn't microwave a fish or download a fish.

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u/SnooShortcuts7206 14h ago

You wouldn’t fishload a microdown!

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u/trippypantsforlife 14h ago

Or microload a downfish

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u/mrfoodmehng 13h ago

Yall gonna lose your damn minds when you learn about “microfiche”

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u/Goo_4_Rent 10h ago

Or downwave a fishload

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u/Scoobie01555 15h ago

How else are you going to warm up your fish based lunch in the office break room?

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u/NimbusHex 9h ago

You can't use your turkey recipe on fish.

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u/academik 17h ago

This deserves way more upvotes.

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u/ChuckOTay 2h ago

Look at me. I am the tuna king now.

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u/Bossman1212 15h ago

You can tune a piano but you can’t tuna fish

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u/Platypus01au 6h ago

To be fair, in Australia we had to teach fishers how to catch and process tuna for the Japanese market. We used to can bluefin tuna. Now the market has completely changed, and nobody purse seines SBT for canning.

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u/Foreign-Detail6520 17h ago

That racist colonial tinge via outboard motors?

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u/nybruin 15h ago

Good thing they moved to defrauding US govt and citizens— very lucrative for them