Now here’s a blast from the past—The Japan Times is running an interview with former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, in which the former reform leader talks about his new avocation as a ceramist. Hosokawa seems to have found peace of mind making pottery. He talks about leading a humble life, though he also finds time to exhibit and sell his work in posh Japanese department stores and museums and show his creations in a Paris gallery. The interview features some interesting stories about his pottery career and the people he studied with. It also reminded me of an incident in a bar soon after he left office that shed some unpleasant light on Japanese politics, and perhaps politics everywhere.

Considering Hosokawa’s place in postwar Japanese history, it’s odd that he is almost never mentioned in the Japanese media today. A former journalist, upper house MP, and governor of Kumamoto Prefecture, Hosokawa quit the Liberal-Democratic Party and formed the Japan New Party in May 1992 when public dissatisfaction with the ruling LDP’s handling of national affairs was beginning to crest. After the Lower House Diet election in the summer of 1993, Hosokawa became the first non-LDP prime minister in nearly 40 years by cobbling together a seven-party coalition that took the reigns of government from August 1993 to April 1994. This marked the first significant break from Japan’s postwar democracy, based on a “developing nation” mindset, into a more modern democracy in a process that continues to this day.

As was widely reported at the time, Hosokawa came from political and noble stock: his grandfather was Fumimaro Konoe, a hereditary prince who served twice as Japan’s prime minister and who resigned six weeks before Pearl Harbor to be replaced by Hideki Tojo. Konoe was an important politician who was a key figure in encouraging the alliance with Germany and Italy and formulating the policy that became the basis for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. He briefly served as a minister in Japan’s first postwar cabinet, working to reform the Japanese constitution, but committed suicide in December 1945 after being indicted as a Class A war criminal. Both Hosokawa and Konoe are direct descendants of the Fujiwara family, which dates from the 7th century and is perhaps Japan’s most influential political family outside of the Imperial family. (Their genealogical tree fills a large page in Kodansha’s encyclopedia.)

Not much has been heard about Hosokawa since he resigned over questions of his handling of finances in the 1980s and his fatigue from job-related stress—a large part of which was a result of the LDP willing to do anything to topple him and regain control of the government. But entirely by accident, I caught a glimpse of his post-PM activities that has made me wonder about politicians since then.

I was sitting in a bar, more to talk to my friend the proprietor than to drink. As any foreigners who have been in a bar in Japan (and probably the rest of East Asia) know, their presence will attract all sorts of people wishing to strike up a conversation. Some of these meetings can be wonderful; others can make you wish you had stayed at home rearranging your sock drawer. This meeting was one of the latter.

A middle-aged man came over and started talking in a weird mixture of Japanese and English. It soon became clear that that his primary interest was impressing me and using me to show off to his friends. It wasn’t too long before he started talking about his line of work, which was recruiting women from the former Soviet Union to work in Japanese nightclubs. In fact, he claimed to be married to a Russian woman. He showed me her picture—though judging from the expression on her face, she seemed none too happy about her choice of mates.

I cannot say for certain that this man was a member of organized crime in Japan, but he was openly boasting about performing a job that is largely controlled by mobsters. All of his fingers were intact, for one thing. But it was very clear from the people in his entourage and the photos he showed me that his profession was shuttling women back and forth between Russia and Japan. Birds of a feather.

Then he pulled out a different set of photos taken at a gathering he had recently attended at a private home in Japan. One of the photos was of the host, an older man dressed in a formal kimono. He was obviously someone important, but just as obviously had done some dirty work in his youth, judging from the large scar running from below his eye to his jawline. The expression on his face was that of a man who has seen and done many unpleasant things in his lifetime. The other guests in the photos seemed to be the sort of people that the host would associate with in his line of work.

With a flourish, my new buddy showed me the photos of the guest of honor at the house party, who had been invited to give a little talk. The guest, dressed in a business suit and with an expression that betrayed his discomfort at being photographed in such company, was former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa.

Why would the scion of one of Japan’s most prestigious families and a former crusading prime minister even be inside the house of such a man, much less be the guest of honor at a reception? I’ve thought about it occasionally in the years since then, and have never come up with a satisfactory answer.