Elder Chen (born 1914) was a Chinese crime boss and community leader who served as the de facto leader of the Little Asia ethnic enclave in Kabukicho, Tokyo, Japan during the late 20th century.
Biography[]
Born in China in 1914, Chen emigrated to Japan at an unspecified point and settled in Kabukicho, Tokyo, joining the large Chinese community there. He became the head of the local triads and became a well-respected community leader in Kabukicho's Little Asia, overseeing the community's affairs from his restaurant. Chen's triad used to be able to compete with the local yakuza organizations until the Tojo-kai lieutenants Sohei Dojima and Shintaro Kazama waged war on the triads in the 1970s, leading to the deaths of many innocent women and children in a violent turf war which drove the triads underground and forced them back into the squalid, tightly-packed ghetto of Little Asia. This experience left Chen with a lifelong hatred of the yakuza and a distrust of Japanese people, and he partnered with the half-Chinese Tetsu Tachibana and his Tachibana Real Estate operation to fight against the yakuza. Chen, as one of the three elders of the Chinese expatriate community in Japan, controlled a powerful information network which was crucial to Tachibana Real Estate's operations. On 15–16 December 1988, he allowed Tachibana and his half-Chinese lieutenant Jun Oda to take refuge in Little Asia during the Dojima-gumi's crackdown on Tachibana Real Estate, although he refused to let their ex-yakuza associate Kazuma Kiryu stay in Little Asia, as his hatred of the yakuza, combined with his reluctance to risk the police and yakuza cracking down on Little Asia, led to Chen deciding to refuse Kiryu safe haven in Little Asia. On the evening of 18 December, however, he oversaw the treatment of Kiryu's wounds after Kiryu was injured while trying to prevent Tachibana's kidnapping by Lao Gui, and he then had Kiryu serve as his boots on the ground for a mission to rescue Tachibana. He deduced that Oda must have betrayed Tachibana to the Dojima-gumi, and he used his information network to track down Tachibana to the Crescendo Building near the Empty Lot. Kiryu would succeed in finding Tachibana, although Tachibana had already been mortally wounded and died shortly after.