Yuki Shinohara's entire life fits in a room the size of three tatami mats. His dingy apartment holds a small TV, fridge, mini gas stove, packages of instant noodles and a single futon to sleep on. At 70 years old, he's a typical example of the elderly former day laborers eking out an existence in a down-at-the-heels district of Yokohama called Kotobukicho.
"I remember back when this town was very lively," Shinohara recalls. "Work was plentiful. You could easily get a job for the day in construction or on the docks. The streets would be full of people drinking after their shifts were done. There was a party atmosphere and sometimes it got violent."
Shinohara knows that fact all too well. He was literally blindsided by an attacker decades ago in the same children's park he likes to sit in today, leaving him blind in his left eye. A fixture in Kotobukicho, he came here for work at age 18 and has been a resident for 52 years.
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