Japan Times Community Page on issues of dual citizenship: “Japan loses, rest of the world gains from ‘one citizenship fits all’ policy”

Posted on December 9, 2010December 9, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Thoughtful letter on a serious issue in the Japan Times Community Page again this week (Tuesday’s paper is always worth the cover price). Speaking of identity and possibilities of a “Rainbow Society” (which has become a discussion on issues of being “haafu” in Japan in the Comments Section of a recent blog post), one essential issue is the acknowledgement of “doubles” in terms of legal status: Dual Nationality. Excerpting from this week’s Hotline to Nagatacho. Arudou Debito

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The Japan Times Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010
HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Japan loses, rest of the world gains from ‘one citizenship fits all’ policy
(excerpt)

…What does Japan gain by, in effect, rejecting my children and thousands of other young dual citizens living in Japan and around the world, at the very moment when they come of age and are at last able to become productive members of society?

Best as I can figure, the only virtue of the “one citizenship fits all” rule is simplicity.

What does Japan lose by rejecting dual citizenship?

My daughters, for one thing (and that’s a big loss; I know, I know: oyabaka), along with many other repudiated young people whose capacity and willingness to contribute their talents, creativity, fluency in English and other languages, international experience, energy and human and financial capital to Japan as full-fledged members of society are suppressed, or snuffed out altogether, by continuing a short-sighted, anachronistic policy.

In an era of increasing global competition, a shrinking, aging and insular Japan needs all hands on deck. Japan should be actively recruiting these talented young people to come to Japan and lay down roots, not turning them away.

Some may contend that my daughters and others like them are still free to come to Japan as foreigners, procure visas and remain for as long as they like (or at least as long as they have a visa-qualifying job). But that’s a far cry from “being Japanese.”

It’s not just about avoiding the legal limits on what foreigners may do and how long they may stay in Japan. Citizens are more likely to be motivated to make the sacrifices, and take the risks necessary to improve society, such as through public service and entrepreneurial activity. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has often said, in a different context, that “no one in the history of the world has ever washed a rented car.” The same holds true here. Japan cannot repossess the title to the car — citizenship — from some of its people and fairly expect that those same people will still care enough to do what it takes to keep the car — Japan — in good working order or, better yet, to add some chrome and polish.

It is a well-known secret that the Japanese government does not actively enforce the citizenship selection rule. I was even told once — by a Japanese government official no less — that my kids should simply hold on to their Japanese passports after they reach 22 and renew them when they expire, without ever making an affirmative citizenship selection. Many people do just this. It’s the dual citizenship equivalent of the U.S. armed forces’ fading “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

This is a very Japanese approach, but it’s not a solution. It places all “shadow” dual citizens at risk of losing their Japanese nationality any time the Japanese government decides to change its current policy of benign neglect, or if a dual citizen trips up by presenting the wrong passport to the wrong immigration official at the wrong time. Long-term planning and commitment are impossible under these circumstances.

But, more importantly, this “winks and nods” policy of lax or non-enforcement sends precisely the wrong message. Instead of laying out the welcome mat, these young people are told to sneak in through the back door (and hope it’s not locked). Many won’t even try.

One wonders if the existing policy of denying permanent dual citizenship to people who possessed the status as children is motivated by a concern that altering it would lead to dual citizenship demands by others, such as ethnic Korean residents of Japan or Brazilians of Japanese descent. Rather than risk facing such demands, government officials might have concluded that it is “better to leave well enough alone.” However, allowing people who already have Japanese citizenship to keep it will not inevitably lead to more far-reaching changes to Japan’s Nationality Law.

Given its dire demographic outlook, perhaps Japan should open a dialogue on radical changes to its Nationality Law, such as a U.S.-style “birthright” giving citizenship to all people born on Japanese soil, an Israeli-style “Law of Return” allowing the ingathering of all ethnic Japanese everywhere in their ancestral homeland, or an Irish-style “Grandparent Rule” granting citizenship to anyone who can document having one Japanese grandparent. But even if Japan is not willing to open its door that widely, it should at least stop slamming the door on some of its own citizens shortly after they reach adulthood…

Full article at
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20101207hn.html
ENDS

Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column 34, Dec 7, 2010: “MOFA gets E for effort in ‘with or without U’ farce”

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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JUST BE CAUSE
The Japan Times: Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010
MOFA gets E for effort in ‘with or without U’ farce [not my title]
By ARUDOU DEBITO
Column 34 for Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE
Courtesy http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20101207ad.html

My Japanese passport expired last month, meaning I’ve been a citizen here for a full decade now. Hooray.

This should have occasioned thoughts on what’s changed in Japan for the better. Instead I got to see how inflexible Japan’s bureaucracy remains. Consider what happened when I visited Sapporo’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs branch to get that passport renewed.

I walked in with all the necessary documentation and filled out the forms. The friendly clerk gave everything a once-over (very professionally; no double-takes at a Caucasian applicant), and all was going smoothly . . . until he got to the rendering of my name in Japanese.

Clerk: “Er, about your last name. You wrote ‘Arudou’ on the form. Officially we only accept Hepburn-style Romanization, so you have to write it as ‘Arudo’ or ‘Arudoh.’ “

I sighed, and said, ” ‘Arudou’ is how it is spelled. My expiring Japanese passport also had it rendered as ‘Arudou.’ Clearly that was acceptable then and should be acceptable now.”

Clerk: “Yes, you can write ‘Arudou’ on the back of your application to indicate how you would like your name rendered on the passport itself. But for our bookkeeping purposes, you must render it as ‘Arudo’ on the front. We can only take Hepburn. Please remove that superfluous ‘U.’ “

I said I could do that, but then that person would not be me.

“The name is ‘Arudou.’ That is how I render it in my native language.”

We went back and forth for quite some time. Clerk cited precedent, I cited individual choice. By naturalizing, I had been given a rare opportunity to choose my own name and identity, and no damned “bookkeeping purposes” were going to change that.

Finally, Clerk patiently asked, “Why is this so important to you?”

“Well, um . . . it is my name, the most important thing a person can have. But I can think of three more reasons.

“First, my experience with a foreign name here before naturalization. Bureaucrats converted my former surname, Aldwinckle, from Roman letters to katakana at their whim. My name wound up in so many different versions that we had trouble tracking down my nenkin pension contributions from different jobs. This time, I want control over my public identity, including spelling.

“Second, the latent arrogance. On other official forms, I’ve even been admonished by bureaucrats how to write an Arabic number 5 ‘properly.’ ” (Straight line first, then cedilla as second stroke — as opposed to my education of writing it all as one stroke.)

“You want to tell me the stroke order of go (five) in kanji, fine. But you will not tell me how to write letters and numbers in my native language.

“The worst thing is your flawed version of Hepburn, without diacritics, which means — for your sacred ‘bookkeeping purposes’ — you are forcing Japanese names through a system that can make things less comprehensible to native readers.

“For example, names like Honma and Monma become the inaccurate ‘Homma’ and ‘Momma.’ What about a name like ‘Big Hill’ (ō-oka), which becomes ‘Ooka’ or ‘Ohoka’? Let’s have some sensitivity here, if not accuracy.”

Clerk nodded, and went to a back room for a long powwow with his bosses. He came back with a longer face.

“I regret to inform you that unless you cross that ‘U,’ I will have no choice but to refuse your passport application.”

I gave him an icy stare. “You would deny me my right to travel abroad because of a single letter? Who do you think you are?

“Look, how do you think I got ‘Arudou’ rendered as such on my expiring passport? Because I had this discussion with you in 2000 when I first applied, and again in 2006 when my name changed after a divorce. When your bosses realized I was not going to budge on this, they had me write out and sign a moshitatesho (a kind of affidavit) stating that if anything were to go wrong due to the spelling of my name, the responsibility would be mine alone.

“So check your records. If you find one document where I rendered my name as ‘Arudo’ before, then I will do it again. But you won’t. You accepted my application before — twice. Find that moshitatesho and abide by it.”

Some time later, Clerk came back, offered a deep bow, said he had found my moshitatesho, and that forthwith my application would be accepted with the “U” intact. It only took two hours in total this time.

“Thanks,” I said. “Now, will I have to go through this every 10 years?” Clerk said he didn’t know. “I’d put in a good word for you, but I think I’ll be retired by then. As you can see, my hair’s pretty gray.”

“Yes, and I’m sure people like me only make it grayer.”

We shared a laugh, and he said he would pass my case up through MOFA channels as feedback for reforms.

I appreciate that. But even after 10 years as a Japanese and two Mexican standoffs, I still had to face the same old bureaucratic idiosyncrasies — those that arise when our government decides that things within the domain of the individual are instead privileges granted at the whim of The State. To name a few: middle names and different last names after marriage (forbidden by the family registry system), minority names with alternate spellings (e.g., Ainu and Ryukyuan names) — and, in more extreme examples, parental rights to child access during marital breakdowns (Zeit Gist, Feb. 2) and even to the contents of a mother’s uterus (as the old saying goes, “The womb is a borrowed thing” (hara wa karimono)).
Source: Hara wa karimono is from Kittredge Cherry, WOMANSWORD, pg 87-8.

No matter how complicated and diverse Japanese society becomes, bureaucrats will still assert old prerogatives. In my case, they even threatened to take away my fundamental rights just for refusing to abide by a system designed basically for bureaucrats’ convenience.

Nertz to that. A name fundamentally defines a person’s identity. I will Romanize it as I please, thank you.

Time for Japan’s bureaucrats to allow for more diversity and learn to have more respect for individual dignity. MOFA, this means U.

Debito ArudoU coauthored the “Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants and Immigrants.” Twitter arudoudebito. Just Be Cause appears on the first Community Page of the month. Send comments on this issue to community@japantimes.co.jp

ENDS

McNeill in Mainichi on how Japan Inc. needs to loosen up to women and NJ executives

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. In between speeches today, and a quick visit to the Diet as well, so let me just put this article up for commentary. Another insightful one from David McNeill. Arudou Debito

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PERSPECTIVES
David McNeill
Japan Inc. needs to loosen up
(Mainichi Japan) November 27, 2010, courtesy JK

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/news/20101127p2a00m0na002000c.html

I’ve talked about Japan’s reluctance to embrace mass immigration in this column before. Here’s something else to consider: Japan’s boardrooms are still almost completely devoid of foreigners — and females.

Women make up just 1.2 percent of top Japanese executives, according to business publisher Toyo Keizai; gaijin board members on Japan’s roughly 4,000 listed companies are as rare as hens’ teeth.

The exception is a handful of troubled giants, notably Sony Corp., which made Welshman Howard Stringer its chairman and CEO in 2005, and Nissan Motor Co., where Brazilian Carlos Ghosn has been in charge for over a decade.

That lack of diversity worries some bosses. Last year the Japan Association of Corporate Executives published the results of a two-year survey that called on its members to revolutionize boardroom practices.

“Japanese firms are terribly behind in accepting diversity,” said association vice chairman Hasegawa Yasuchika. “They should radically transform their corporate culture to provide the same opportunities to employees all around the world.”

Easier said than done, perhaps. Ever since Japan’s corporations began moving overseas in the 1970s, they have followed a tried and tested formula: Whatever happens in transplants and local operations abroad, control stays in the iron grip of the all-Japanese boardroom back home.

That’s partly for understandable reasons: I just watched a ridiculous CNN interview with U.S. bosses, who all said the key to the future is sacking thousands of workers. Japan rightly fears that foreign managers will bring that sort of slash-and-burn model of American capitalism to this country.

But the fact is that, in the view of many, the control-freakery of large Japanese firms is damaging their own interests.

“A lot of big companies like Toyota have to deal with very complex problems, involving foreign governments, legal processes and consumers,” says T. W. Kang, a South Korean national and one of the few foreigners to serve on a Japanese board.

“To think these problems can just be tackled with insiders is a mistake. An external director forces you to listen to external issues.”

Would Toyota have handled its recent recall problems better if it had a few non-Japanese on its board? — It’s worth thinking about.

And here’s more food for thought: What about the dearth of women? One reason why Japan still lags far behind in childcare and help for working women is that there are so few female bosses or policymakers.

Most Japanese politicians and bosses are married to someone who isn’t working. As one of my recent interviewees said, “They’re not seeing the problem because they’re not experiencing it.”

I know many conservatives here are against empowering foreigners with voting because of the changes that might bring. Empowering women is even more transformational.

Perhaps that’s why it hasn’t been tried …

(Profile)

David McNeill writes for The Independent and Irish Times newspapers and the weekly Chronicle of Higher Education. He has been in Japan since 2000 and previously spent two years here, from 1993-95 working on a doctoral thesis. He was raised in Ireland.
ENDS

Japan Times Amy Savoie on int’l child abductions and the manufacturing of consent for it within Japan

Posted on November 16, 2010November 16, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Thoughtful letter to the editor in the Japan Times on the International Child Abductions Issue. Excerpting the most interesting part for me — the rhetoric the media uses to keep the public unconsciously supporting the “home team” as their apparent members keep kidnapping kids to Japan with impunity. Well taken. More on the issue at the Children’s Rights Network Japan site. Arudou Debito

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The Japan Times Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2010
HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Japan must end the scourge of parental child abduction
AMY SAVOIE, Tennessee
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20101109hn.html

(Dr. Amy Savoie is the wife of Christopher Savoie. In August 2009, Savoie’s children were abducted from the U.S. to Japan by his ex-wife. A few weeks later, he was arrested while trying to reclaim his children. Last month marked the one-year anniversary of his release from Yanagawa prison in Fukuoka Prefecture. Send submissions of between 500 and 600 words to community@japantimes.co.jp)

To the government of Japan:

…For years, the Japanese government refused to acknowledge that parental child abduction was even a problem, but this issue has finally become too big to ignore. In September, Virginia Rep. Jim Moran warned Japan that Congress “is watching and expecting action.” Now the Japanese authorities are, at long last, talking about child abduction to the media and to foreign governments, although they are unfortunately doing so in a highly guarded and disingenuous manner, often with the complicity of the Japanese press, who use “quotes” when discussing “abduction” in order to minimize the “issue.”…

• Excuse #4: These are not really abductions. The parents are merely coming home to Japan.

Perhaps Japan was the abducting parent’s original home (where the abductor grew up), but “home” for the children was the country where custody had already been decided, i.e. where the children had been living at the time of the abduction. So this “coming home” argument is specious and hypocritical.

The government tries to convey that it is justifiable for Japanese parents to “take kids home to Japan” (tsure-kaeri or tsurete-kikoku), but when a foreign parent takes the children to another country (that parent’s home country), the Japanese call it kidnapping (tsure-sari) or abduction (rachi). The Japanese government and media behave duplicitously every time they pretend these unilateral relocations (relocating without permission from the other parent) are not the same thing.

Instead of describing both situations only as tsure-sari (or only as tsure-kaeri), the Japanese government cleverly (and intentionally) uses different sets of words that convey two totally different meanings depending on who the kidnapper is…

Rest of the letter at

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20101109hn.html

UK Guardian compares South Korea’s relatively open-minded future with Japan’s possible “Second Edo Period” of insulation

Posted on November 14, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Here is a thoughtful essay alleging that Japan will lose out to South Korea due to the latter’s relative openness. If true, that bodes ill for those of us making a life on this side. I’ll put this article up for discussion for people who know enough about both countries to make a comparison. Arudou Debito

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Japan’s dangerous deglobalised dream
South Korea’s economy has gone from strength to strength, while Japan’s stagnation may turn into a ‘New Edo’ era
Guy Sorman, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 November 2010, courtesy of TK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/09/japan-dangerous-deglobalised-dream

In mid-November, all eyes will shift to Seoul when G20 leaders convene for the first time in the South Korean capital. The choice is long overdue, as South Korea is a remarkable success story: in one generation – the South Koreans, formerly pummelled by civil war, under constant threat from their northern communist brethren, long mired in poverty, and ruled by military dictators for 40 years – have built the world’s 13th largest economy and Asia’s most vibrant democracy.

Historically squeezed between its two giant neighbours, China and Japan, South Korea had long been perceived as an underdog with a fuzzy cultural identity. In Asia, however, Japan’s leaders are not waiting for the Seoul summit to take a closer look at South Korea. South Korea was formerly a Japanese colony (1910-1945) and the natives were treated like an inferior race. Today, South Korean’s economy has been growing annually by 5% on average for 10 years, whereas Japan grew by 0.42% per year during the same period.

One could argue that South Korea is not yet a mature economy and is only catching up with a more advanced Japan. This was the case in the 1970s, but no more. Whereas China’s growth is fuelled by low-cost labour as millions of peasants enter the industrial economy, this is not the South Korean recipe for success, which has been driven by private entrepreneurship, innovation and quality products: Samsung and Hyundai, not cheap wages, are South Korea’s growth engines.

Another key to South Korea’s success story is the well-balanced relationship between stable governments and the private sector. This was clearly demonstrated late last year when a South Korean consortium won a contract to build four nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirates late last year, beating out the French.

The Japanese knew how to co-ordinate state and private-sector goals in the 1970s, but then lost their way. “We should now emulate the South Koreans,” says Eisuke Sakakibara, a leading Japanese economist, who was one of the architects of the Japanese “miracle” of the 1980s. Japanese in search of a miracle now travel to Seoul.

“In Japan, 1990 to 2000 was called the ‘lost decade,'” says the free-market economist Fumio Hayashi. Now Japan is completing its second lost decade. Hayashi and Sakakibara – indeed, most Japanese economists – more or less agree on the fundamental reason for such spectacular stagnation: the Japanese have stopped working hard. Fewer hours worked, longer vacations, and a declining population (since 2005) have, predictably, undermined Japanese growth. To turn this situation around, says Sakakibara, “the Japanese should work more, have more children, and allow immigration.” But the incentives to make any of this happen are just not there.

The Japanese still live comfortably, better by one-third than the South Koreans, thanks to their past investments. Japanese companies abroad remain profitable and Japan is still the global leader in high-tech niches like electronics or carbon fibres. For example, Apple’s iPhone and Boeing’s latest aeroplane rely heavily on Japanese-patented innovations. These comparative advantages may keep Japan above water for a while, but only until China or South Korea catch up.

One would thus expect Japan to be anxiety-ridden, but it is not. True, new forms of poverty and unemployment are rising, but they remain well hidden behind family solidarity or corporate customs. Companies reduce their superfluous employees’ annual bonuses, but do not get rid of them. Young Japanese tend not to work before their 30s, and married women stay at home.

Political parties that rely on an ageing constituency are not tempted to call for change. The sort of shaky short-term political coalitions that rule Japan nowadays prefer to buy time through so-called public stimulus, or to preserve inefficient companies with subsidies. Twenty years of such shortsighted policies, whatever the party in power, have fuelled government debt, hindering private investment.

More strikingly, stagnation has found its promoters in Japan itself. A leading public intellectual Naoki Inose, who is also Tokyo’s vice governor, has declared that “the era of growth is over.” When Japan was threatened by western imperialism, he says, the country had to open up (in 1868) and modernise. This process has been completed. Japan is now ready to reconnect with its own tradition of social harmony and zero growth.

Referring to the 1600-1868 period, Inose calls this future the New Edo era: “A smaller population will enjoy the sufficient wealth that has been accumulated, and, from now on, it will invest its creativity in refining the culture.” The first Edo collapsed when the United States navy opened up the Japanese market with the arrival of Commodore Perry’s “black ships” in 1853. Will the second Edo be able to resist Chinese ambitions? “The New Edo era needs a strong Japanese army,” admits Inose.

This second Edo era may sound like a poetic utopia, but it has some influence: Sakakibara observes that Japanese students do not study abroad anymore and that “nobody learns English”. At a time when South Koreans are becoming more globalised, learning English, and welcoming a growing number of immigrants, Japan is entering a “deglobalisation process”.

That is a worrying trend, and not only for Japan: South Korea can hardly stand alone as the lone Asian democracy. If the Japanese do not wake up from their Edo dream, Asia might very well become a Chinese empire.

Will this be debated at the G20? Not openly, but certainly in the corridors.
ENDS

Weekend Tangent: Fun and Games at MOFA Passport Renewal — almost denied a passport because of one letter

Posted on November 6, 2010November 6, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. This will no doubt be put into the “shake your head in disbelief at Debito’s stubbornness” file by some, but here goes:

Last Tuesday my Japanese passport expired. Yes, it’s been more than ten years since I became a Japanese citizen. What that means to me is a topic for another blog entry someday. But what happens every time I go in to the Foreign Ministry’s Passport Renewal Office happened again like clockwork — it’s becoming a MOFA tradition.

So I went in on Tuesday and filled out my application as per normal (answer all the “you better say no” questions, mostly along the line of “are you a terrorist or criminal?”, correctly), and got all checked as normal: current passport (MOFA will later give it back cancelled, unlike, for example, international driver licenses issued in Japan), juuminhyou, koseki touhon (these were actually not necessary if the passport is still valid, which it was, darn it), and mug shot.

But as is traditional, we got into a dispute about how to spell my name.

Clerk: “You have to spell it in Hepburn Style. That means ARUDO or ARUDOH, not ARUDOU.”

I pointed to the passport and said that ARUDOU is how it has always been spelled. “And if you check your records, you will see we have had this discussion before, both in 2000 when you first issued me a passport, and in 2007 when my name was changed legally to ARUDOU DEBITO after my divorce.”

She flipped over the application to the back where I had filled out a new special section (once a separate sheet, now as of June 2009 part of the application form) for irregular and foreign spellings/renderings. “Here it is spelled as you want it. ARUDOU DEBITO. But on the obverse of this application you must spell it ARUDO. That’s Hepburn Style. For our records. That is how we officially convert Japanese script into Romaji.” She pointed to the list of complete official transliterations for every set of kana possible in Japanese.

Me: “I don’t think you know just how flawed the Hepburn System can be, ma’am. You still have old spellings like Honma rendered as HOMMA. That will not be read “hon-ma” by anyone who does not understand Japanese. I had a friend by the name of Monma who was constantly annoyed because Customs read her name MOMMA. I think you ought to consider allowing more flexibility in Romajinization. That would include me.”

She reiterated that these were the rules and would I not just cross out the U on my last name for the MOFA’s recordkeeping purposes?

“That’s fine,” I said, “but I don’t care about your records. My name is spelled ARUDOU. Always has been. I will determine my own identity, thank you very much.”

She called over someone more senior who handled me for the rest of the day, a very friendly but persistent old man who reiterated the drill about how names were supposed to be spelled.

I told him I wasn’t going to be told how to spell my own name. Especially when it’s in my own native language. “I’ve had bureaucrats try to correct me on the stroke order of how I write a number 5. That’s pretty arrogant. I know how to write a number 5. I learned it as a native in my schooldays. If you want to correct my stroke order of a 五 in kanji, then fine. But I will not allow bureaucratic cultural insensitivity and arrogance to dictate how I should use the Roman alphabet to alphabetize my own name.”

Mr. Senior said, “But you see, it will come out as you want on the passport thanks to the way you wrote it on the back. ARUDOU. Is there any possible damage that could be done just by deleting that U at the end having it entered in our records properly as ARUDO?”

“Yes. ARUDO is not me. ARUDOU is. I have had many years of dealing with alternate katakanizations of my original names ARUDOUINKURU DEBITTO — so much so that it was difficult to track my nenkin records down. No thanks. It is ARUDOU on my passport now, and I will always have it rendered as ARUDOU in any records of me as such.

“I don’t think you understand just how critical this is to my identity. Unlike most people, I chose my name. It is me. My choice was after a lot of time spent living in Japan, qualifying to be a citizen, and going through a rigorous test to become Japanese. A name is the most important possession a person can have. I will not bend on this. I didn’t in 2000 or 2007. I won’t now.”

Mr. Senior went back behind the counter and shortly thereafter came out with a frown. He said:

“If you don’t cross this U off your name, I regret to inform you that we will not be able to accept or process your application.”

I gave him the stare I gave the camera for my passport picture (which does not allow smiles).

Only without the Mona Lisa upturned corners of the mouth. And held it. For quite some time. And said, “You would deny me my right to travel overseas just because of a letter U? Who do you think you are?

“You accepted my spelling as ARUDOU twice before. Now you will again. Check your records. Back in 2000, I went into the back room with one of your supervisors and handwrote a moushitatesho, which said that if there were any problems arising from the extra U on my name, that I would take full responsibility. Go on. Check.

“If you can find any document where I wrote my name as ARUDO in the past, then I will oblige. Otherwise you will. Because you did before. Now check.”

He did.

About a half hour later (I played a lot of Bejewelled on my iPod), he came back and offered me a deep bow.

“We found your moushitatesho in our records. It is as you say. We will accept your application as is. And we apologize for the delay and hassle.”

“I understand. But don’t you think it’s time for you to relax your rules now that there are more international and multicultural Japanese citizens with more individual name spellings? Would it really break your computer to render us as we would like to be rendered, within reason?”

Mr. Senior: “I will pass your case onto the relevant authorities for consideration.”

“Thanks very much. But will I have to go through this every ten years?”

“Hopefully not. But in a decade I’m not sure I’ll still be here. I’m getting grey, as you can see.”

“I’m sure customers like me aren’t helping with the grey hairs.”

We shared a laugh and eventually parted on very good terms. Me especially, because I like being listened to (and I like winning arguments, of course). But I really feel as though he finally came round to understanding why I was being so goddamn stubborn. It only took about two hours.

I still think it’s about time for the GOJ to loosen its top button a bit and allow for some flexibility in names. We’ve finally gotten some degree of breathing space in what constitutes a “Japanese name” after naturalization. We’ve even gotten some flexibility in how a name is rendered on a passport. Now let’s hope that we can at least have some wriggle room regarding the almighty Hepburn System. The Monmas of the world who don’t like to be made into mothers (not to mention the 大岡s, who have to live with OOKA (ooka ooka ooka shaka, hooked on a feeling!) or OHOKA (おまえ、アホか？）) I think would sincerely appreciate that. What’s the point of forcing people to render their names into a system that people can’t read properly? ArudoU Debito

ENDS

Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column Nov 2, 2010: ‘Homogeneous,’ ‘unique’ myths stunt discourse in Japan Studies

Posted on November 3, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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‘Homogeneous,’ ‘unique’ myths stunt discourse
The Japan Times: Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010
By DEBITO ARUDOU
Courtesy http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20101102ad.html

Last month I attended an international lecture by one of Japanology’s senior scholars. I’ll call him Dr. Frink. Decorated by the Japanese government for his contributions to the field, he talked about Japan as a “unique” state that never really changes, even as it slips to third place behind China’s economy.

One reason he gave for this was that “Japan is still the most homogeneous society in the world.” He defined homogeneity by citing Japan’s tiny percentage of resident foreigners.

That was easily disputed after a quick Google search (the lecture hall had Internet; welcome to the 21st century). I raised my hand afterwards and pointed out that some 60 countries were technically “more homogeneous” than Japan, as they have smaller percentages of foreigners, foreign-born residents and immigrants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant_population

According to the United Nations, as of 2005, Japan’s percentage (listed at 1.6 percent, which means that the zainichi, or Japan-born foreigners, are also included) was still larger than Kenya’s (1 percent), Nigeria’s (0.7 percent), India’s (0.5 percent) and China’s (excluding Hong Kong and Macau, 0.3 percent). Of course, given the boom in international migration this decade, many countries are net exporters of immigrants. But herein lies the flaw in linking monoculturality to an absence of foreigners: Don’t all these allegedly “homogeneous” countries (including Japan) also acknowledge ethnic minorities within their borders?

However, this column will focus on a much deeper problem in Dr. Frink’s school of scholarly discourse: The fixation on Japan’s “uniqueness,” and how a cult of Japanese homogeneity interferes with good social science.

Search academic databases for publications in Japan Studies. Quite a few of them (some with Japanese authors espousing their own uniqueness) toe the line of “Japan behaves this way because it is homogeneous, etc.” Scholar Harumi Befu has written books on how this has crystallized into a pseudoscience called Nihonjinron, affecting debate worldwide.

http://tinyurl.com/2c93xbx

There is a political dimension to all this: the politics of maintaining the status quo.

The Japanese government funds chairs and departments (especially in Japan) to influence the direction of Japan Studies, and is nowadays attracting students to focus on “soft power,” “cool Japan” cultural exotica.

http://www.studyjapan.go.jp/en/

http://www.studyinjapan.org.my/

http://www.jasso.go.jp/study_j/scholarships_e.html

http://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/mono_info_service/creative_industries/creative_industries.html

The point is, ruling elites in Japan are perfectly happy with Japan being portrayed as preternaturally intransigent — due to historical, cultural, geographical or whatever reasons — because they like Japan as it is.

However, for the rest of the people living in Japan, this status quo is sending us down a road of obsolescence.

It is clear that Japan is in a deflationary spiral with a crushing national debt and an aging workforce. Paradigm shifts are necessary, and ideas should also be welcome from knowledgeable people overseas. But some advice, bound or blinded by the cult of uniqueness, becomes muted, veers off-target or is never even offered in the first place.

This doesn’t happen everywhere. Boffins have little reservation in telling, for example, Russia what to do about its economy. Why not Japan? Because of ingrained fears about being insensitive or culturally imperialistic towards this modern-day Galapagos.

It hardly bears saying, but societies of living beings are not preserved in amber. There are constant economic, political and demographic pressures requiring changes in thought and direction. In Japan’s case, the aging society will probably lead to increased immigration and a niche-market economy, where certain things are done well, but no longer on the scale of a world power. People both inside and outside Japan will have to come to terms with that.

Yet some data sets relevant to this transition are not open to scholarship. I mentioned here last year (JBC, Nov. 3, 2009) how Japan’s demographic scientists are not including a fundamental numerator in their equations (i.e., inflows) by refusing to even discuss immigration. I also argued last month (JBC, Oct. 5) that Japan’s census, which only surveys for nationality, not ethnicity, is ignoring the possibility that there might be multiethnic Japanese here already. This is despite all the racial intermarriage, multiethnic Japanese children, naturalized citizens, and the fact there are more permanent-resident foreigners here than ever before.

Scholars should be demanding more official data on this. Instead, we are getting the Dr. Frinks of the world spouting spurious claims based on the false premise that the absence of information indicates homogeneity.

Let’s have more sophistication in the discourse. Japanology now offers the world an excellent opportunity to study how a modern, developed and educated society learns to cope with a fluctuating place in the world. Nihonjinron should be seen and dismissed for what it is: a static ideology, existing for a nostalgic public looking for a comfortable self-identity, a ruling elite unwilling to face a fundamentally different future, or an overseas audience craving exotica over science.

This means we should have a moratorium on superlatives, such as linking the “U-word” with Japan. All societies have their singular aspects, to be sure, but we should never lose sight of the fact that we’re all one big human family with more communalities than differences. To belabor the obvious, no society is “uniquely unique.”

Fixating on Japan’s illusory “uniqueness and homogeneity” takes energies away from studying the very real problems that Japan, like any other country, will be facing this century. Let’s demand better scholarship and help Japan cope with — if not get out of — this mess.

Debito Arudou coauthored the “Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants and Immigrants.” Twitter arudoudebito. Just Be Cause appears on the first Community Page of the month. Send comments on this issue to community@japantimes.co.jp
ENDS

Yomiuri: Tokyo bathhouses scrub up to lure NJ visitors. My, how the worm turns. Why couldn’t they have done this ten years ago?

Posted on October 23, 2010October 23, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. My, my, how the worm turns. Check out how the International Terminal at Haneda Airport has gotten Tokyo bathhouses all abuzz about profit. All those customary fears about foreigners and their troublemaking ways (cf. the Otaru Onsens Case) simply evaporate when there’s the whiff of a tidal wave of tourist money to be had.

Come back foreigners, all is forgiven! Never mind about all the hand-wringing ten plus years ago, or about actually protecting them with any laws against potential refusals nationwide. This at places with owners who aren’t quite so magnanimous (or open-minded) at restaurants, hotels, etc. No doubt if there are any problems or outright xenophobia, it’ll be depicted as the foreigners’ fault all over again. Arudou Debito

//////////////////////////////////

Tokyo bathhouses scrub up to lure visitors
Yomiuri Shinbun, Oct. 22, 2010 Shinji Hijikata / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer, Courtesy of JK
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T101021004174.htm

Public bathhouses in Ota Ward, Tokyo, are bubbling with excitement at the prospect of a flood of foreign visitors the new-look Haneda Airport will bring.

Thursday’s opening of a new runway and terminal at Haneda make the airport an international hub, an opportunity the bathhouses hope will stop their business going down the drain.

The Ota public bathhouse association has made posters in four foreign languages, which explain local bathing manners, such as entering the bathtub after washing your body. It also plans to visit local public baths with foreign residents on Oct. 31–the day when regular international flights go operational at Haneda.

Factories and public bathhouses mushroomed in the ward during the postwar economic growth period. Although the number of public baths has declined to less than one-third of its peak, Ota Ward is home to 57 bathhouses–the most among Tokyo’s 23 wards.

Ota and its neighboring area have been known for the “kuroyu” hot spring, which has distinctive brown-black or topaz water. Ota also boasts of the most hot springs of the capital’s 23 wards, the majority of which are being tapped by public bathhouses.

Ota’s abundance of public baths and proximity to Haneda have given the association plenty of scope to target foreign customers. The illustrated posters will be put up at bathhouses in the ward to help foreign customers who are not familiar with Japanese bathing manners. Its member bathhouses have upgraded their Web sites to offer information in four foreign languages.

This month, the association started a stamp rally in which people who visit 20 of the ward’s bathhouses receive special furoshiki cloths with an illustration of Haneda and other gifts. On Oct. 31, 30 foreign residents of Ota Ward will join a walking tour that will take in public baths and other noted locations in the ward. The association hopes the foreign participants will pass on word of Ota’s bathhouses to people in their native countries.

Kazuyuki Kondo, chairman of the association and owner of Hasunuma Onsen, believes the increase in early-morning and late-night flights at Haneda could be just what the doctor ordered for bathhouses in the ward. Kondo said one man who recently planned to take an international flight came to his bathhouse late one night, saying, “I wanted to soak in a hot spring before my departure.”

Kondo, 59, said, “I want people to come to nearby hot springs and public baths instead of waiting [for their flights] at the airport.”
ENDS

/////////////////////////////////////////////////

元々日本語の記事

銭湯 世界へ羽ばたけ…羽田国際化目前の大田区

ポスター、イベント…外国客にＰＲ自分がデザインした特製風呂敷を手にする近藤さん。国際化を控えた羽田空港も描かれている　２１日の羽田空港国際化を目前に控え、地元・大田区内の銭湯が、外国人客の誘致に

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/e-japan/tokyo23/news/20101020-OYT8T00096.htm – 2010/10/20 00:00 – 別ウィンドウ表示

はこの記事となった。なぜかは不明だ。

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

にぎわいのテークオフ
羽田空港に新ターミナル
（2010年10月22日読売新聞）
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/e-japan/tokyo23/news/20101020-OYT8T00096.htm

羽田沖を遊覧する屋形船（２１日）
新国際線旅客ターミナルがオープンした羽田空港は２１日、午前５時過ぎに１番機が到着し、夜明け前から本格稼働した。始発電車から続々と訪れる渡航者や見物客の対応のため、航空会社や空港関係者も暗いうちから慌ただしく動き回り、「２４時間空港」らしい門出となった。（土方慎二）

早朝に記念行事　次々と行われた記念行事の第１号は、ターミナルに新駅を開業した京急電鉄。午前５時半前に車両前部を花であしらった記念電車が到着し、航空ファンならぬ鉄道ファンらが新駅オープンを祝った。目黒区の会社員、山崎幸太さん（３３）は「これまで鉄道一筋だったけど、今度は海外も行こうかな」と笑顔を見せた。

大きな旅行かばんを持った人が目立ち始めた６時過ぎ、３階出発ロビーでターミナルの開業セレモニーが始まった。旅行客らが見守る中で倉富隆・空港長らがテープカット。出発１番機となる韓国・金浦(キムポ)行きの日本航空機に乗り込んだ千葉県富里市の会社役員、細井卓さん（５９）は、「偶然仕事が重なった。まさか１番機に当たるとは」と幸運を喜びながら、「海外客を呼ぶ時に羽田は便利なので好都合。さらに便利になってほしい」と期待を寄せた。

江戸期の街並みをイメージしたショッピング街「江戸小路」。和食店や和雑貨屋などの店舗が朝から営業を始め、ターミナル一のにぎわいを見せた。甘味喫茶店「京はやしや」の原敬之さん（３１）は、「定期便が就航する３１日からが本当の勝負。外国人が多いと思うが、うちの味を変えることなく、和の味を堪能してほしい」と意気込んだ。

屋形船から見物　羽田沖ではこの日午後、地元の観光協会に招待された地元住民ら約４００人が屋形船に乗り込み、海上から運用開始された新滑走路（Ｄ滑走路）を眺めた。あいにくの雨で滑走路の姿はおぼろげだったが、品川区の松永紀昭さん（７０）は、「雨もまた一興。新滑走路は次の楽しみにとっておきたい」と話した。

ENDS

NHK 7AM this morning: Offer coupons at Narita Airport to NJ with “preferential exchange rates”. The catch is…

Posted on October 19, 2010October 28, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Something came on NHK News this morning at 7AM that nearly induced reverse peristalsis on my corn flakes due to excessive laughter. Deep breath:

The exchange rate this morning was 81 yen and change to the dollar. The (well-grounded) complaint is that this is discouraging tourism to Japan and purchases from NJ tourists, due to things being make more expensive upon exchange.

So NHK was breathlessly reporting (live) from Narita Airport this morning how authorities had come up with a great wheeze to stimulate spending!

Ready for it?

“PREFERENTIAL RATE COUPONS!!”

Meaning that if you hold one of these coupons (they provided a graphic with a big-nosed (of course) gaijin clutching this precious slip of paper), you would get a discount on your exchange from dollars (or whatever) into yen.

And that preferential rate would be?

Ready for it?

(Rips the Post-It off the graphic…)

30 SEN!!

Yes, 0.3 OF A YEN discount off your yen exchange rate!!

They even conveniently calculated with a couple more graphic Post-Its how much you would save. Tourists, if they could see beyond their proboscis to spending some 2300 USD or so, the amount saved would be…

Ready for it?

(Rips the Post-It off the graphic…)

EIGHT DOLLARS!!

My god, I’m surprised people aren’t lining up! The main NHK announcers also found this decidedly uncooworthy.

They also gave a rupo afterwards (with some token NJ tourists praising Japanese food) at a Narita cafeteria that was also taking drastic (and I mean DRASTIC!) measures to encourage consumption of their meals, by dropping some prices a few hundred yen. Some fried chicken had been reduced from 700 to 500 yen! (Albeit this price was arguably overpriced in the first place; a captive-market airport economy tends to do that.) We had some grateful NJ tourists praising the move, and closeups of one slurping noodles with a big grin.

For all the money they saved from the preferential coupons (provided they carry a few thousand dollars in cash on them during their stay), they could get one free entree from this cafeteria AND a can of Coke from a vending machine — and still have a few yen change!! Roll up! Roll up!

File under cluelessness.

Seacrest Out!

NYT on Japan’s deflation: “Japan, Once Dynamic, Is Disheartened by Decline”

Posted on October 17, 2010October 18, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. In yesterday’s blog entry, Doug gave us a comment referencing a NYT article on the effects of a long recession, deflation, and overall economic slippage in world rankings on Japanese society. The bit that resonated with me came at the very end:

////////////////////////////////////////////////
Japan, Once Dynamic, Is Disheartened by Decline
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published in the New York Times October 16, 2010

…Deflation has also affected businesspeople by forcing them to invent new ways to survive in an economy where prices and profits only go down, not up.

Yoshinori Kaiami was a real estate agent in Osaka, where, like the rest of Japan, land prices have been falling for most of the past 19 years. Mr. Kaiami said business was tough. There were few buyers in a market that was virtually guaranteed to produce losses, and few sellers, because most homeowners were saddled with loans that were worth more than their homes.

Some years ago, he came up with an idea to break the gridlock. He created a company that guides homeowners through an elaborate legal subterfuge in which they erase the original loan by declaring personal bankruptcy, but continue to live in their home by “selling” it to a relative, who takes out a smaller loan to pay its greatly reduced price.

“If we only had inflation again, this sort of business would not be necessary,” said Mr. Kaiami, referring to the rising prices that are the opposite of deflation. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for 20 years for inflation to come back.”

One of his customers was Masato, the small-business owner, who sold his four-bedroom condo to a relative for about $185,000, 15 years after buying it for a bit more than $500,000. He said he was still deliberating about whether to expunge the $110,000 he still owed his bank by declaring personal bankruptcy.

Economists said one reason deflation became self-perpetuating was that it pushed companies and people like Masato to survive by cutting costs and selling what they already owned, instead of buying new goods or investing.

“Deflation destroys the risk-taking that capitalist economies need in order to grow,” said Shumpei Takemori, an economist at Keio University in Tokyo. “Creative destruction is replaced with what is just destructive destruction.”
////////////////////////////////////////////////

Whole article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/world/asia/17japan.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

COMMENT: The homey explanation of complex economics aside (which few can comment on with certainty due to the unusualness of a deflationary economy), the reason why this passage resonated with me:

As a friend of mine’s brother (who works for a major US insurance company) said to me the other night, I am “upside down” in terms of my house loan.

I recently had my house (a 49.5-tsubo structure on 169 tsubo of land), purchased in 1997, appraised. Under current market prices, I was told that I could get 65,000 yen in monthly rent should I ever try to rent it out.

However, I am paying around 115,000 yen PER MONTH in terms of mortgage, plus three months of rent out of my Bonus twice a year. Not to mention property taxes per annum of about 102,000 yen (down slightly from two years ago), and some insurance of about 60,000 yen per year. All told under current exchange rates, I have to make more than USD 25,000 per year just to feed the home front.

And if heaven forfend I were to sell the house, the market for second-hand homes is such that the house itself is basically worthless. Essentially only the land is worth something. The plot was purchased for 12,000,000 yen back in ’97. The next-door plot, of equal size and back then of equal price, is now being signposted as going for 4,500,000 yen. Event then, the plot is still unsold. So I don’t fancy my chances for recouping much of anything should I try to unload my property. Then I would still be saddled with a vestigial loan balance with nothing to gain from it.

Of course, it was understood back then when I bought the house that it was not an investment in terms of money, but rather a chance for me to carve out a world of my own design within Japan — with a house designed to my family’s specifications with enough space to grow and be comfortable. A place of our own. With a lawn to cut.

It was meant to be a “Happily Ever After” scenario. But then again few of those fairy-tale scenarios withstand the Test of Time. I didn’t count on my asking for a divorce, on no longer living under that roof, or on my salary going down by about a quarter as the loan premiums went up. As frequent readers of Debito.org know, my ex and kids are still living there (I didn’t want to boot my kids out of the house they were growing up in) and I’m covering everything except utilities. Hence my “Upside Down Mortgage” is going from financial Albatross to increasingly unsustainable. Something’s gotta give, sooner or later. I just hope it won’t be personal bankruptcy.

As one of Debito.org’s goals is to cover the life of one person living in Japan as a form of case study (so people can avoid and learn from my mistakes), I’ll keep you advised someday on what happens next.

When I came to Japan I said I wanted to live like other Japanese. According to the NYT article above, it seems I’m doing just that. Arudou Debito

JT’s Philip Brasor analyzes J media claims of bias towards Ichiro’s and Hakuho’s sports records

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Here’s a very interesting and nuanced article about differing treatment of sports figures in the media: Ichiro in the US vs. Hakuho in Japan. Excerpt follows. Worth a read during the holidays. Debito back in Sapporo

The Japan Times Sunday, Oct. 3, 2010
MEDIA MIX by Philip Brasor
Media racism: How unsportsmanlike
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20101003pb.html

Local favoritism is built into organized sports. At the macro level you have whole countries rooting for national teams at the Olympics or the World Cup. At the micro level you have fans cheering a hometown boy who plays for a team far away. By the same token, nationalistic fans denigrate opposing countries’ players in international tournaments, while athletes from outside a locality may not receive the same level of local enthusiasm as those who grew up there.

In its Sept. 30 issue, Shukan Shincho attempted to build a story on two recent events: Hakuho’s breaking of Chiyonofuji’s record for consecutive sumo victories, and Ichiro Suzuki’s milestone 3,500th hit as a professional baseball player. That these events occurred within 24 hours of each other was irresistible, and Shincho wanted to connect them in a way that was guaranteed to attract attention. The headline of the article was, “Ichiro’s and Hakuho’s racism problem.”

Both athletes are strangers in foreign lands; or, at least, they started that way. Ichiro has been an outfielder for the Seattle Mariners in the United States since he entered the Major Leagues in 2001 after nine years playing in Japan’s Pacific League, and he has consistently been one of the game’s best hitters in both countries. Hakuho was born and raised in Mongolia, and is now the sole yokozuna (grand champion) in what is an ancient and traditional Japanese sport. Shincho’s point is that because both are “foreigners,” they do not receive the same attention and respect from the media and the public in their respective countries as native athletes, despite the enormity of their achievements.

Shincho claims that Ichiro’s 3,500th hit, a landmark that very few players in the history of the major leagues have reached, was virtually ignored by the American press. The reason, according to the magazine, is that Ichiro compiled this record in two countries, and Americans don’t take Japanese baseball seriously. To support this theory, the reporter quotes Japanese sports writers and baseball players who make the case that Ichiro’s talent is superior to that of the vast majority of currently active American baseball players.

As proof that Americans don’t evaluate Japanese players equally, the opinion of retired major leaguer Pete Rose is cited…

Rest at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20101003pb.html

Discussion: Oguri Saori’s “Darling wa Gaikokujin” manga series: Does it help NJ assimilate?

Posted on September 23, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. We’ve recently had a decent discussion come up in my previous blog entry, and it’s good enough to warrant its own entry.

The topic was Oguri Saori’s “Daarin Wa Gaikokujin” (My Darling is a Foreigner), a best-selling series of manga depicting the life of a quirky bilingual foreigner by the name of “Tony” who marries a Japanese woman. The manga chronicles the different personalities of the husband and wife as they deal with issues in Japan, create a life and a family together, travel from one place to another, and generally try to get inside “Tony’s mind”. There are several books under Oguri’s authorship (at least one with real-life husband Tony Laszlo’s co-billing — his “Guide to Happiness”), and even a movie earlier this year, not to mention an English translation, subway and train PSAs, and an ANA advertising deal. It’s a very influential economic juggernaut that has spawned imitators (there are other “Darling”-types of books connected with different nationalities), and now with “DWG with baby” on board the epic is anticipated to continue for some years to come.

The question for Debito.org Readers: Is the DWG manga series really working in NJs best interests? As in, as far as Debito.org is concerned, helping NJ to assimilate, be treated as equals and moreover residents of Japan?

I came out in my last blog entry and said I wasn’t sure it is. Let me give my standpoint and open the floor up for discussion:

First a disclaimer: I knew Oguri Saori personally, stayed with Laszlo and Saori for many days during trips to Tokyo, and even helped Saori with some grunt work (as in erasing pencil lines) in earlier non-DWG works. We were quite close. I have immense respect for her as an illustrator (as I too like to draw) and a storyteller. I think she has earned every bit of her success after developing her talent and investing years of hard work in her craft. Bully for her. May she earn millions more.

But the problem I have had with the DWG series (and I’ve come to this conclusion after many years of watching how DWG appeals to people) is that it is selling “foreigner” as “exotic” and “different” all over again. A friend of mine concurs, seeing the appeal of DWG as “making foreigners into things, even accessories, for collection and display”. I won’t go quite that far. But watching what kind of audience the DWG media machine generally seeks to appeal to (young to middle-aged women who might want to date a foreigner — or are dating/married to a foreigner), I see that they are being encouraged to view DWG as a guide to “foreigners’ minds”. This might be an overstatement, but the title itself (“Gaikokujin”) already sets Tony-chan apart as something perpetually different, moreover something to be studied (and there is enough bad social science in Japan treating NJ as cultural representatives, worthy of petri-dish examination). Regardless of how Saori originally intended, the marketing of these books plays right into this. Tony-chan is cute, sure. Eccentric and interesting, sure. Representative of anything? No.

Imagine if we were to publish a book, “My Darling is a Japanese”, and we had this quirky Japanese man who spoke geeky English and studied all sorts of [insert country here] cultural norms and had all sorts of eccentric tics? Then imagine a publisher pushing it as having insight into how Japanese men (or for that matter, any kind of Asian man) behave within this cultural context? We’d have people buying it if it were funny, sure. But I bet there would be a little more care against pushing it as something representative of anything. Even Borat, for example, was sold as performance art, not fodder for the study of Kazakhstan or foreigners in general.

In sum, I initially liked the idea of DWG as an eye-opener and a softener. But subsequent mutations of the phenomenon have turned it into simply more of the same: Quirky foreigner comes here and still is seen as quirky because he is foreign. Not because he is a quirky person. And people lap it up because they think it offers insights. Doubt that? Read this.

I don’t see it furthering the cause of helping NJ assimilate and being treated as equals and residents, not foreigners. DWG has been a wasted opportunity.

Now let’s open up the floor to discussion. I ask respondents to please try to leave Laszlo’s and my personal relationship out of this (because it’s irrelevant, and the DWG books are not Laszlo’s anyway). Please critique the DWG phenomenon on its own merits. I seriously look forward to seeing what people (especially fans) say. Arudou Debito in Radium Hot Springs, BC

Tangent: American Soap Operas vs. Japanese Houmu Dorama

Posted on September 19, 2010September 19, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Completely self-indulgent tangent, but I will relate it back to Japan, never fear.

I watched on a complete whim the very last episode of American soap opera “As the World Turns”. It’s been going on for 54 years, with some characters apparently going on (according to Entertainment Weekly; it’s not as if I watch this stuff) for nearly forty. It has even been parodied by the Carol Burnett Show as “As the Stomach Turns” (god I miss Carol’s comedy; what happened to her?); the soap opera has, however, outlasted her. Until now.

I watched it and felt that the parody was appropriate. Fascinating was that every scene (this was a final tie-up all the relationships, making them all “happy ever after”, no drama necessary) ended with a hug if not a hug and a kiss. Every scene, seriously. As if all conflict, inner or outer, was healed by the power of hugs. In general, I find the more lower-market (as in, shooting for a larger, “average” audience, real or imagined) the American programs aimed for, the higher the hug frequency. And the mantra of the ATWT’s last show was that “we all lead normal lives”, real or imagined. Ewg. (The commercials, aiming for a female audience of course, stressed family security and warmth of the hearth; it added to this different world of “normalness” I’ve never really been a party to.) The last scene (there was no retrospective, no cast bows at the end saying goodbye like on some American farewell stage shows) showed the anchoring-character of the doctor leaving his office for retirement, switching off his light, and leaving a spotlight on this cheesy globe (out of place in the dark-panelled room) doing, you guessed it, a long spin… Just in case you lack comprehension of metaphor.

Contrast that with the “home dramas” of Japan that I’ve managed to sit through. Wataru Sekai ni Oni Bakari, a couple of Matsuda Seiko throwaway vehicles, and the second Fuyuhiko (Dare ni mo Ienai), which I actually kinda liked. I haven’t tried the grandmaster of all dramas, Fuyu no Sonata, but that’s Korean (even if it’s probably a bigger hit in Japan). My point is, if you can get past the interminably loooooong pauses for dramatic effect, Japanese dramas seem to me to have more fighting and less (in fact, NO) hugging, sappy music (especially in Wataru Sekai, my ex-wife’s favorite) to cover up the nastiness of the fight. I feel there’s a nastier edge, of people never forgiving and alway collecting resentments and slights (sometimes making those slights incredibly contrived!) until somebody blows up like a grenade, and makes unretractable declarations in front of a whole family or crowd of onlookers. It seems that drama without reconciliation (in such as self-avowedly “conflict-free society”; bullpucky) makes for better “dorama” in Japan. Don’t know how they end the long-running ones for good (William Penn of the Yomiuri, feel free to comment), ‘cos I never last that long, but I have the feeling there might be a higher body count.

Anyhoo, I find this genre on either side of the Pacific to be pretty unwatchable (which is why my comments above are probably half-baked, apologies; feedback welcome) if only because they’re so cheesy and seem to claim that they’re not. The only dramas I can watch with any semblance of self-mockery seem to be the Mexican ones (I can’t understand a word, but the over-the-top spitfire diction is hilarious; plus the people in it are way hotter than you get in the well-scrubbed, relatively averagely-beautiful faces found on American soaps). Oh, and pro wrestling. Vince McMahon, you are shameless, and we love to hate you.

Hey, this blog is about writing what’s on my mind, and at the moment, that’s it. End tangent. Arudou Debito in Calgary

Transit Tangent: Hell to pay at LAX

Posted on September 16, 2010September 16, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Now in Calgary after one day (more than that, actually) flying from Narita to Los Angeles, then transferring to San Francisco and finally here. Redeeming air miles gets you some pretty circuitous flights.

One of the most frequent questions I get is, “Now that you’ve given up your American citizenship for Japanese, what kind of reaction do you get from US Customs with a Japan passport?”

Well, actually, up to now, not all that bad. First time I went back was in 2005 (I never left Japan once between 2000 and 2005; boy that’s hard core), and that was Newark on the way back to Japan after getting to Montego Bay via the Peace Boat. (The Jamaicans, btw, were so amused by my passport that they took it to the back room for a quick guffaw amongst themselves before letting me pass.) US Customs gave me a look, asked me what I did in Japan, how long I would stay, and that was it. I thanked him for the painlessness of the procedure, and spent the night drinking with Rutgers law school grads Curzon and friends.

Second time was more interesting. Went to San Jose with my university students in 2006, and the African-American gentleman manning Customs did do a double take, then talked to me in Japanese about where I was going and how long I was staying. No altercations, no incidents with my students (who didn’t speak much English and were happy to meet that Customs officer), easy peasy.

Other times also, no real issues. Taking the train from Vancouver to Seattle in October 2006 (I always wonder why American Customs is allowed to have their border check IN VANCOUVER STATION itself — the Americans certainly wouldn’t allow another nation to plant their Customs flags on US soil), the officer actually talked to me for about ten minutes about potential places to eat and see in Japan (he was going there with his Korean wife in a few weeks); had to break off conversation because the train was about to depart. Other visits in 2007 and 2008 also passed by without interrogation.

But this time was different. Landing at LAX yesterday, a buff tattooed officer did more than just a few double takes, and, in addition to the regular questions about how long, birthplace, and what I did for a living, wanted to know why I was coming in on a Japanese passport instead of an American one. “Japan does not allow dual nationality,” I explained. “So you have no other nationalities?” No. “Wait a minute, I’m going to have to talk to my supervisor. I can’t let you in on this passport if you still are an American by birth.” I let him check, but I’m not sure if he’d get the concept of an American actually renouncing. He came back and gave me a smile (rare for these people, as you know), and said, “Anyway, welcome back. Enjoy your stay.”

It was a nice welcome after all that, especially given the inauspicious beginning of this trip at Narita. Let me back up a few hours: When I first checked in at NRT, the ticket clerk asked, “Have you checked in with ESTA?” What’s that? “The Electronic System for Traffic Authorization. Every non-citizen going to America has to check their passports in with the US Government before departure.” Oh oh. Er, no. But I’m only transiting to Canada. “Doesn’t matter. Okay, go to the internet terminals down at the end of the hall and check in online. Should be pretty quick. You’ve got three hours.”

So we unpacked my computer, got a day pass for online use, and went to the ESTA site. It requires name, address, passport, date of departure, airline (hell, there are lot of them, and United was far down the alphabetized list) and flight number, a list of questions you should answer “no” to, the address you will be staying at in the US (no option for people transiting). And oh, fourteen USD for those who qualify for the visa waiver program. Credit cards accepted. Humph. How convenient, for them.

I typed in all the info with middle finger raised and got a screen which said, “AUTHORIZATION PENDING: …A determination will be available within 72 hours. Please return to this web site…” That’s where I began to get pretty antsy. My passport still has my previous surname (Sugawara) on it, and four pages later an official amendment indicating that my surname is now Arudou. But when we tried to use the automatic check in, “Sugawara” came up in the scanner, with a button to press saying “Is this the same as the name on your ticket?” (It wasn’t.) The MOFA hadn’t gotten around to updating their records after four years, I guess. Maybe that was what snagged me with ESTA.

I took my computer screen back to the ticket clerk, where he said, “Hm, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. Let me try to see… Oh, look, it’s just come up. You’re cleared. Here are your boarding passes. Enjoy your near-heart-attack.” Okay, I made that last one up.

So if the ticket clerk was Charon piloting me over the River Styx, the tattooed Customs officer at LAX was Cerebus at the gates of Hell. And LAX was indeed a reasonable facsimile of it. Consider this: We have to get our baggage, of course, but they came to a different carousel than the one announced on the plane (and there was no sineage saying that the emerging bags were from our flight). Then I saw a sign saying “Connecting Flights”, waited twenty minutes in line, and found out that it was actually lost baggage claims. “No no, you go dere, dat line”, said the clerk. “But that’s not what your sign says.” “You go dere, dat line,” was the automated response. So I joined everyone else in an enormous line to hand in the tickets that say, “We are not bringing in any fruits or vegetables or whatever into the US”, which required an individual passport check again with only two people on duty (took about another 45 minutes). Then I followed the signs to Connecting Flights, got into another line, and was told after another fifteen minutes that I just needed to hand my bags to “dat guy over dere”, since they were already tagged through to YYC (then why the hell did I have to collect them myself, then?).

Bags stowed, I followed the CF (no longer “Connecting Flights”; more like “Cluster F*ck”) signs, and felt like I had been Barnumed (“Come see the Egress”), as I found myself out on the street! Some friendly guy came up and asked if I was looking for CFs and directed me down the street and up the stairs. Then he asked me for a donation (as an Official Airport Volunteer, with embossed name tag) to his orphanage. I begged off and got upstairs, only to be told by another TSA officer to get into another 45-minute long line to go through Security scanning again! Finally through that, I was back in the transit zone. But the LAX lounges looked in a state of permanent decomposition, and the TSA people acted as if they were defending a fortress, and we would be damn lucky if we were let into their compound. No thanks for our cooperation, no pleases when requesting. Just, “We’re protecting you, so be grateful. Or else.”

And what was the Or Else? I got a glimpse of it when talking to my Calgarian seat neighbor on the last leg of my flights. I was noticing how Canadian Customs forms for “Are you bringing any fruits in?” allow for families to write their names on one tag (no individual tags lengthening the line), and don’t even require a passport number! He said, “Yes, my wife and I have separate surnames, and once we got to the head of the line the US Customs guy said we had to have separate tags. So he crossed her name off and said, ‘Fill this out and get back at the back of the line.’ I reacted and said, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding.’ He didn’t like that. ‘You sassing me?’, he said. I tried to take it back, but he called for an officer to escort me to an interrogation room where I sat alone. I couldn’t go anywhere — he had confiscated my passport! So after twenty minutes or so he came in and asked me the standard questions again about where and how long, then let me go to find my wife on the other side. I don’t say anything beyond ‘Yes sir’ and ‘No sir’ to these people anymore.” Wow, way to put travelers in their place.

Not ten hours out of Japan, and I was already missing it. Customs people (not to mention Narita Cops and their random racial profiling) there can be pretty surly too, but at least things are signposted, and somebody is making an effort to be clear about where you’re supposed to go and what you’re supposed to do. And the transit lounges, although Spartan, are still clean and reasonably airy. LAX was, in a word, a shithole.

I’ve seen it before at other decrepit airports in the US (try JFK), but what a great impression to leave upon visitors to the US — one of decay. Enough people have complained about Japanese airports (particularly Narita), and there have been improvements (Haneda, Chitose, Centrair, and KIX are all decent if not downright nice, and even Narita has have gotten better). Japan takes very seriously its impression overseas and works on it. America just doesn’t seem to care — hey, you’re lucky if we let you into our fortress. I’m sure Ellis Island too was a shithole. But at least you only had to go through it once — it’s not a major international hub for citizens too. What kind of place takes more than two hours to allow people just to get on a connecting flight, and charges them for the privilege? One that doesn’t deserve my ever going there again. I got to YYC, got my bags, and was outside and all done within fifteen minutes. Oh Canada!

Other American airport horror stories welcome. Seems like the American airline industry is on a race to the bottom for standards of customer service. Some airports have already essentially become bus stations. I look forward to getting back to Japanese standards. Arudou Debito in Calgary

Tangents in Transit: Visited DisneySea and tried not to enjoy myself, unsuccessfully

Posted on September 14, 2010September 15, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. I’m currently writing you from LAX from the United Airlines lounge, and am pretty zoned out at the moment what with the jetlag. Today I’ll write something a little more off-topic and talk about something more cultural: DisneySea.

I’m not generally one for theme parks. I’ve been to the occasional traveling show (cue Cher song), visited a neighborhood place a couple of times called Roseland in Canandaigua, NY (with Roaring Twenties/WWII equivalents of video games — “The Feather Dance” and “Shoot Down the Zero!”, anyone?), enjoyed the Santa Cruz Boardwalk (highlights — seeing Eighties bands doing nostalgia tours, and enjoying the video arcade with the crowded corner offering video games like Pac-Man, Gorf, Tron, and Asteroids to the post-Pong generation), gone to Six Flags in a couple of places, and been to Disneys in Anaheim and Orlando. I find the nickle-and-diming of concessions and the dodginess of the Carny booths kinda get to me.

And when I said to some drinking buddies on Saturday that I would be going to DisneySea with a friend (this would be my first time to go to Tokyo Disneyland), all the guys groaned and said, “Jeez, that’s a place for couples, all sappy’n’shit!”, while their girlfriends all gave a collective sigh of “ii naaa…” It’s the Happiest Place on the Planet(TM), they kept saying.

But I checked my machismo at the door and went anyway…

… and I have to admit that I enjoyed myself, despite my initial trepidation.

The first thing that began to tickle was Scrooge McDuck’s store (I’m a big fan of Uncle Scrooge, and own the complete set of his comics). I just had to get some paraphernalia, and a helpful clerk tracked me down a nicknack — the only one on the Disney lot remaining, she said, for me to buy. For half-price too. That was indeed within character. Will treasure it like Scrooge’s Lucky Dime.

Then after a few standard rides (the Tower of Terror is vastly overrated, but the other roller coaster/flight simulators are quite satisfactory), I began to giggle uncontrollably at the groupies crowding around the Disney characters (the actors representing Princess Jasmine and Aladdin were gorgeous human beings) for photo ops. One twentysomething girl, who dangled more Minnie Mouse dolls from her MM outfit than I have shirts, was in tears of joy meeting a live-costumed Minnie. As if she was finally meeting her hero at long, long last. She wouldn’t let go of her. I wondered if she’d feel quite as starstruck if she was ushered into the costume room to see a whole row of empty Minnie suits, but hell, why burst her bubble? All the person inside the Minnie costume has to do is go behind a door and shuck the garb, then she won’t be followed home by any stalkers. I’m sure the staff deals with obsessive people all the time.

But what I really enjoyed about DisneySea — and I find this is true of many places with Japanese on vacation — is that people were really trying hard to have fun. I noticed this when I was on Peace Boat too, but when Japanese feel they have a license to party (hell, they’ve paid for the privilege), they really party and try not to spoil it for everyone else. They maintain a pleasant atmosphere as best they can, for after all, when might they have this much fun again?

And that’s how we went from a sticky day to a lovely evening around the Italian-themed lagoon, with all the lights and gondola music winking and couples comingling. Plus two fireworks shows (impeccably timed with music and sound). And lots of time to shop, meander, and just enjoy oneself before a nice late closing. Glad to have experienced it.

Now, as I said, I’m writing to you from LAX, two hours through Customs and Immigration later. I think it’s the polar opposite of Disneyland. I’ll write more on that no doubt from Calgary tomorrow morning with my jetlag.

Arudou Debito in Los Angeles

Weekend Tangent: “If you could change one thing about a society…”

Posted on September 12, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. In one of my nights out here in Tokyo (we have a lot of deep conversations), friend HippieChris brought up an interesting question:

“If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about a society, what would that be?”

I thought I’d pose that to the blog. Rules are: What one thing would you change about Japan, and what one thing would you change about your society of origin, if different? Two places. (It’s a useful exercise. It’s actually surprisingly difficult to find something fundamentally changeworthy about your society of origin, since it’s hard for a fish to see the water in the fishbowl until s/he’s been out of it for awhile.)

I’ll start:

The one thing I’d change about Japan would be the lack of “Do Unto Others…” Not enough people see a problem as something that warrants attention because it doesn’t affect them. “Hey, that’s your problem, not mine, so why create more bother for myself by considering it or asking for it to stop?” The lack of a universal, “this hurts people, so stoppit” has created numerous issues for me in my calls for “Japanese Only” signs to come down, for example. A common attitude: “Well, it doesn’t affect me”, meaning they’re not going to be stopped by the sign, has let countless apathetics off the hook of caring. Even if we try to say, “Well, what if you went overseas and it happened to you?” doesn’t always work either: They just say, “Well, I’m not going overseas.” For all the trappings of the “Omoi Yari” society, people here are surprisingly diffident about the plights of others, not walking a mile in their shoes. Magic-wanding that away would take care of a lot of social ills that affect people who aren’t in the majority.

The one thing I’d change about the United States would be the arrogance. It’s amazing how much ignorance the “We’re Number One” attitude breeds, shutting Americans off to so many cultural influences. Worse yet, a common assumption that everyone wants to be American, and that every society is eventually going to be (or want to be) like America, makes people blind to alternative ways of life (not a good thing when you’re trying to promote democracy as a system overseas; that ultimately puts more Americans in harm’s way). A sobering belief that other people might be happy in their “foreign lifestyles”, even might find objectionable the things that Americans take for granted without much reflection (e.g., food as fuel, judging value in terms of money, seeing success as how rich you are, etc.), might open a few doors to a more self-examined life.

These aren’t all that different, actually. The undercurrent is the need to understand the values and life choices of others, and treat them with the respect they deserve. But that’s my magic wand. How about other Debito.org Readers? I’d rather people offer their visions rather than take apart mine (participate in the exercise rather than be a critic, please). Go for it. Arudou Debito in Tokyo

Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column: ‘Don’t blame JET for Japan’s bad English”

Posted on September 8, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Here it is, for discussion. I’ll be on the road from today for the next month, but will try to be online as much as possible to approve your comments. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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The Japan Times Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2010
JUST BE CAUSE
Don’t blame JET for Japan’s poor English
By DEBITO ARUDOU
Courtesy http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20100907ad.html

The Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, touted as the world’s largest cultural exchange scheme, has brought thousands of non-Japanese into the country to teach at local boards of education. These days, with many government programs being told to justify their existence, a debate is raging over whether JET should be left as is, cut or abolished entirely.

Essentially, the two main camps argue: a) keep JET, because it gives outback schools more contact with “foreign culture” (moreover, it gives Japan a means of projecting “soft power” abroad); versus b) cut or abolish JET — it’s wasteful, bringing over generally untrained and sometimes unprofessional kids, and offers no measurable benefit (see Japan’s bottom-feeding TOEFL test scores in Asia).
http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/71943_web.pdf (see page 10)

The debate, however, needs to consider: 1) JET’s misconstrued mandate, and 2) Japan’s psychotic — yes, psychotic — system of language teaching.

First, when critics point to Japan’s bad English, bear in mind that ESL (English as a Second Language) instruction was not JET’s foremost aim. According to JET’s official goals in both English and Japanese:

“The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme aims to promote grass roots internationalisation at the local level by inviting young overseas graduates to assist in international exchange and foreign language education in local governments, boards of education and elementary, junior and senior high schools throughout Japan. It seeks to foster ties between Japanese citizens (mainly youth) and JET participants at the person-to-person level.”
http://www.jetprogramme.org/e/introduction/goals.html
(Same in Japanese: JETプログラムは主に海外の青年を招致することによって、地方自治体、教育委員会、及び日本全国の小・中・高等学校で、国際交流と外国語教育を支援し、地域レベルでの草の根の国際化を推進することを目的としています。個人レベルでの日本人（主に若者）とJET参加者の国際交流の場を提供しています。http://www.jetprogramme.org/j/introduction/goals.html)

Thus the “E” in JET does not stand for “English”; it stands for “exchange.” So when the goal is more “fostering ties,” we get into squidgy issues of “soft power.” Like “art appreciation” (view an artwork, exclaim “I appreciate it” and you pass the class), just putting people together — regardless of whether there is any measurable outcome (e.g., test scores, pen pals, babies) — is an “exchange.” Seat youths next to each other and watch them stare. Goal accomplished.

Under a mandate this vague, what are JET teachers here to do? Teach a language? The majority of JETs aren’t formally trained to be language teachers, and even if they were, it’s unclear what they should be doing in class because — and I quote JET officials — “every situation is different.” Exchange culture? Uhh . . . where to start?

But the bigger point is that Japan’s low English level is not the JET program’s fault. So whose fault is it? Well, after more than two decades’ experience in the industry, I posit that language teaching in Japan suffers from a severe case of group psychosis.

Start with the typical Japanese eigo classroom environment: Sensei clacks away at the chalkboard teaching English as if it were Latin. You get some pronunciation help, but mostly tutelage is in grammar, grammar, grammar — since that is the aspect most easily measurable through tests.

Now add the back-beat of Japan’s crappy social science: Sensei and textbooks reinforce an image that speaking to foreigners is like a) speaking to a separate breed of human or animal, where “everything is different from us” and “we must study people as things,” or b) attending an international summit, where both sides are cultural emissaries introducing allegedly unique aspects of their societies. This puts enormous pressure on students to represent something and perform as if on a stage (instead of seeing communication as a simple interaction like, say, passing the salt).

Moreover, thanks to the tendency here towards rote-learning perfectionism, mistakes are greeted with ridicule and shame. Yet mistakes are inevitable. It hardly needs saying, but communication is not algebra, with people behaving like numbers generating correct answers. Languages are illogical, have dialects and embellishments, and evolve to the point where grammatical structures that were once incorrect (such as making “gift” and “friend” into verbs) are no longer such. Just when, by George, you think you’ve got it, up pop exceptions — and Charlie Brown gets laughed back to his desk.

Then consider all the pressure on the Japanese teacher, who’s grown from scared student to scarred Sensei. The obvious problem with him teaching English like Latin comes when an actual Roman shows up (in this case thanks to JET) and speaks at variance with Sensei, giving students a snickering revenge as a defensive Sensei flubs his lines. So the incentive becomes “make sure native speakers only work within the qualification (and comfort) level of Sensei” — meaning that instead of teaching content, genki JETs provide comic relief and make the class “fun.” Once the fun is over, however, we wheel the human tape recorder out of the classroom and get back to passing tests.

Ah, well. Sensei went through the eigo boot camp of belittlement and embarrassment. So did his sensei. So that’s what gets used on the next crop of gakusei. Then the system becomes generational.

And pathological. What kind of school subject involves hectoring its students? Obviously one improperly taught. If you teach adults, take a survey of your own class (I do every year) and you’ll find that a majority of students fear, if not loathe, English. Many would be perfectly happy never again dealing with the language — or the people who might speak it. Thus eigo as an educational practice is actually fostering antisocial behavior.

Now bring in the vicious circle: “We Japanese can’t speak English.” Many Japanese do survive eigo boot camp, enjoy English, and get good at it. They pop up occasionally as NHK anchors doing overseas interviews, or as celebrities with overseas experience. Yet where are the mentors, the templates, who can make English proficiency look possible? Stifled. Ever notice how the Japanese media keeps voicing over Japanese when they speak English proficiently, or picking apart their performance for comic value? Because eigo is not supposed to be easy — so throw up some hurdles if there’s any threat of it appearing so.

Conclusion: Better to remain shy and meekly say that learning a foreign language is too difficult, so everyone feels less inadequate. The eikaiwa schools love it, making a mint out of the unconfident who, convinced they’ll never overcome the barriers, settle for being “permanent beginners.”

The point is, JET cannot fix — in fact, was never entrusted with fixing — Japan’s fundamental mindset toward language study: the dysfunctional dynamic that forces people to hate learning a language, then exonerates them by saying nobody can learn it anyway. Untangling that would be a tall order even for trained professionals. But force that upon a JET, who comes here with an unclear mandate, has no control over class, and has a contract of only a few years before experience deepens? TOEFL scores will not budge.

For the record, this columnist (who was never a JET) is still a fan of the program. For all its flaws, JET has indeed done something important: helped Japanese “get used to” foreigners. (This shouldn’t be necessary, but again, given the state of social science in Japan, blatantly fueled by stereotypes, it was probably inevitable.)

Compared to 25 years ago — and I know this because I have lived the duration in backwater Japan — there are significantly fewer stares and fingers pointed at foreigners than before. Good. Get rid of JET, however, and the eigo psychosis will force things back to the way it was, with cries of “Gaijin da!” from behind garden fences.

In sum, keep the JET program, even if it involves some cuts and tweaks. Calling for its abolition is counterproductive. Demanding that it work magic — by making Japanese enjoy learning English — is sadly beyond anyone’s mandate.

Economist: Japan as number three, watching China’s economy whizz by

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Here’s the better of the latest Western-press articles, from The Economist London, showing China overtaking Japan to become the world’s number two economy.

Now, the reason why this is a Debito.org issue: The economic malaise that has affected this society for two decades and counting has had two cantilevering effects: 1) The need to bring in cheap labor from overseas to lower labor costs and increase export productivity; and 2) the jealousy and xenophobia that will rise towards those NJ brought here as a natural consequence — of seeing an economic rival usurp the position of Asia’s leader — and how a society seeing itself in decline may in fact become even more insular and closed-minded.

That’s where I’d like to see the discussion head here regarding this topic. Never mind disputing the economics in specific (that can be done elsewhere). Just assume that China will overtake Japan. What do people think that will do to Japan as a society vis-a-vis its treatment of NJ?

NB: I will be on the road for the next week or so, checking my blog only sporadically. So please be patient about having blog comments approved. I will put up a blog poll so people can voice their opinions in macro. Arudou Debito on holiday

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Japan as number three
Watching China whizz by
Japan is now the world’s third-largest economy. Can its firms cope?
The Economist London, Aug 19th 2010 | TOKYO
Article plus two interesting charts at http://economist.com/node/16847828

FIVE years ago China’s economy was half as big as Japan’s. This year it will probably be bigger (see chart 1). Quarterly figures announced this week showed that China had overtaken its ancient rival. It had previously done so only in the quarter before Christmas, when Chinese GDP is always seasonally high.

Since China’s population is ten times greater than Japan’s, this moment always seemed destined to arrive. But it is surprising how quickly it came. For Japan, which only two decades ago aspired to be number one, the slip to third place is a gloomy milestone. Yet worse may follow.

Many of the features of Japanese capitalism that contributed to its long malaise still persist: the country is lucky if its economy grows by 1% a year. Although Japan has made substantial reforms in corporate governance, financial openness and deregulation, they are far from enough. Unless dramatic changes take place, Japan may suffer a third lost decade.

Of course, Japan still boasts some of the world’s most innovative firms. Carmakers such as Toyota and electronics firms such as Toshiba are in a class of their own. Japanese firms hold more than a 70% market share in 30 industries worth more than $1 billion in annual sales, from digital cameras to car-navigation devices, according to 2008 data. Whatever the brand on a digital gadget’s case, Japanese wares are stuffed inside or are essential for producing it.

Yet the success of Japan’s best firms masks wider weaknesses. Yoko Ishikura, a business professor at Hitotsubashi University, believes that Japanese bosses are complacent. “They are either too afraid to face the reality of the power shift,” she says, “or [they] want to stick to old, familiar models.” Yet the core problem is that Japan suffers from a gross misallocation of resources, both financial and human.

Japan has long kept the cost of capital low, to boost investment or help stragglers. Since the financial crisis began, bureaucratic organs such as the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan and the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation have been handed $25 billion to revitalise ailing companies. Among the latter agency’s first acts was to assist a dying wireless operator that bet on archaic technology.

Food for zombies

The system almost guarantees that fresh capital goes to the losers of yesteryear. Because struggling companies rarely die, new ones do not form. Japan’s bankruptcy rate is half of America’s; the rate at which it creates new firms is only a third as high. Japanese venture capitalists are few and far between. Japan’s bureaucratic allocation of credit seldom spurs animal spirits. Rather, it nourishes zombies.

Japan has also lost its knack for getting the best out of its human capital. Its people are superbly literate and numerate, but certain cultural traits are holding businesses back. Respect for seniority means that promotions go to the older, not the most able. Young executives with good ideas refrain from speaking up. Retiring presidents are kept on as chairmen or advisers, making it awkward for the new guy to undo his predecessor’s mistakes. A rising executive at a big trading house says he was counselled by his seniors to keep his views hidden if he wanted to get on.

Japanese salarymen, who were once regarded as modern-day samurai, are today known as soshoku-danshi (wussy, unambitious “grass-eating men”). Since 2003, the proportion of young Japanese entering the labour force who want to be entrepreneurs has halved, to 14%, while those who seek lifetime employment has nearly doubled, to 57% (see chart 2). Bosses grouse that the young eschew overseas posts; even a foreign-ministry official confides that Japanese diplomats prefer to stay at home.

The herbivores are markedly less “globalised” than their elders. Since 2000 the number of Chinese and Indians studying in America has doubled, whereas the number of Japanese has dropped by a third, to a fraction of the other Asian countries’ total. And despite years of mandatory English-language classes in secondary school, the Japanese score lowest among rich countries on English tests. This needn’t be a problem, except that as an export-dependent economy, Japan’s lifeblood is its relations with other countries, frets Takatoshi Ito, an economist at the University of Tokyo.

Half the nation’s talent is squandered. Only 8% of managers are female, compared with around 40% in America and about 20% in China. There are more women on corporate boards in Kuwait than Tokyo. Women are paid 60-70% as much as their male counterparts. A manager at one of Japan’s biggest conglomerates says that 70% of qualified job applicants are women, but fewer than 10% of new hires are, since the work may entail visits to factories or mines, where they might perspire in an unladylike way. Kirin, a brewer, seeks to double the number of its female managers by 2015—to a mere 6% of the total.

To get the economy moving, Japan Inc took a page from its industrial-policy playbook of yore. In June the trade ministry released a sweeping new “growth strategy” that identifies a score of vibrant sectors meriting government assistance, from overseas construction to attracting medical tourists. The project calls for hundreds of reforms, big and small. But the bureaucrats most intimately involved were shunted to other jobs in July, so who knows whether any will be implemented. Once again, the practices of old Japan scuttle the new. Richard Katz, editor of the Oriental Economist (no relation to us), believes Japan has trouble tackling its problems because they are all inter-related. “It is hard to fix one without fixing the others,” he says.

The local news media have played down Japan’s slip to third place. Alarmists fear that South Korea—which has a much smaller population—may overtake Japan, too. Is Japan willing to fight to keep its bronze medal for as long as possible?

Supporters say that the country always seems to shuffle its feet but then snaps into action when faced with a crisis. It did so in the 19th century, adopting modern ways to avoid being colonised, and again after the second world war. Japan was the world’s second-largest economy for 40 years. But the traits that made it an economic powerhouse in the 20th century—easy capital, big companies, rote learning, management by mandarins and stable jobs for male breadwinners—are ill-suited to the 21st. Today, Japan’s biggest obstacle is itself. Without dramatic reform, it will slip swiftly to number four, number five and beyond.

ENDS

“The Cove” Taiji Dolphin protesters cancel local demo due to potential Rightist violence

Posted on August 22, 2010August 22, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. I got the following from the organizers of demonstrations against dolphin slaughters in Taiji, Wakayama (subject of documentary “The Cove”). Comment follows:

//////////////////////////////////////

Posted By: Fonda Berosini
To: Members in “The Cove” – Save Japan Dolphins
UPDATE: Sept.1 Taiji events cancelled
Received August 20, 2010

For several important reasons, we have decided to cancel our plans in Taiji, Japan for Sept. 1st (the first day of the annual dolphin slaughter.)

Most importantly, we received word that an extreme nationalist group known to be violent is set to confront us in Taiji. Our work in Japan has never been about physical confrontation. Since “The Cove” premiered in theaters earlier this Summer, we believe we are making progress by bringing the truth to the people of Japan about the dolphin slaughter and about mercury-poisoned dolphin meat in markets. We will not play the game that the nationalist groups want us to play – we will not have it become “us versus them.”

“We” are now more than 1.6 million people from 153 countries, including Japan. The militant nationalist groups may gather as they like in Taiji; we will be elsewhere in Japan, talking to the media, explaining the problem, and making sure the public understands that we are not there to fight, but to work together.

I know some will be disappointed, but I really think we can do better elsewhere at this time. Please know that I’m not concerned about my own safety, however many supporters – some from this Cause – are planning to join us, and I won’t risk their well being.

We will not abandon the dolphins in trouble in Taiji and other fishing villages. In fact, moving the event will allow us to show the full scope of the problem. Several other communities along the coast of Japan have dolphin kills, although most have abandoned the drive fishery that was depicted in The Cove. And there is also the broader issue of captivity. We would like to discuss these issues in a neutral, conflict-free environment.

Thanks for your understanding. To follow our next steps in Japan, I invite you to check my blog:

http://www.savejapandolphins.org/blog.html

Ric O’Barry
Campaign Director
Save Japan Dolphins
Earth Island Institute
ENDS
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COMMENT: Debito.org is following this case with interest because it offers one template for activism in Japan (a society that in my view eschews activism of this sort because historically it has been associated with extremism). The outcome of this case, with so much time, effort, and publicity invested, will of course affect the efficacy of future grassroots protests in Japan.

The development above has stirred mixed feelings in me because:

1) The decision to cancel and move elsewhere the demonstration is understandable because we don’t want violence to mar the demos (and I think some of the groups will make good on their threat of violence — the Japanese police have a habit of not stopping public violence if it’s inflicted by the Right Wing: examples here, here, here, and within the movie Yasukuni). Only a violence-free demo will reassure an already tetchy Japanese public that not all demonstrators are extremists. One would need the non-violence discipline and training of MLK’s followers in places like Birmingham and Selma; when faced with biting police dogs and fire hoses, they managed to keep cool heads and evoke public sympathy. Thanks to the media, of course, who published photographs showing who the one-sided perpetrators of violence were. There is no guarantee of that in the Japanese media (no doubt there would be plenty of domestic outlets either trying to create faux balance by finding fault with both sides, or just saying that the intruders were there making trouble).

but

2) In principle, giving in to bullies only makes them stronger, and if the Rightists are able to deter demos in Taiji by threatening violence, then what’s to stop them from threatening the same elsewhere, especially given the anti-Leftist/anti-intruder police and media sympathies I mentioned above? Whenever any group is able to successfully hold public safety hostage, violence (or the threat of it) will in fact be more encouraged. Where the demo lines can be drawn, especially in a society that needs police and community permission to even hold a public rally outdoors, will be perpetually gray. So why not draw them in Taiji?

This is just an internal debate I have going on inside of me. What do others think? It’s been one hot summer this year, let’s hope cooler heads prevail and nobody gets hurt. Arudou Debito on vacation.

PS: I’ve put this question up as a blog poll, in the right-hand column of any blog page. Let us know what you think.

TIP Shibuya presents: “Greater Tuna”, two free tickets to this play for Debito.org Readers

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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MEDIA RELEASE / Free Use

“Greater Tuna” Press Release

TOKYO INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS SECOND STAGE
PRESENTS “GREATER TUNA”

Written by Joe Sears, Jaston Williams and Ed Howard
Directed by Andrew Martinez
Starring Bob Werley and Charlie Lent

Greater Tuna premiered in 1982 and quickly became one of the most widely-produced plays in the United States. An uproarious satire on rural American mores, the play is set in Texas’ third-smallest town — where the Lion’s Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies. The wacky backwater characters, who number twenty in total, are portrayed on the stage by just two actors, making this quick-change comedy even more fascinating and funny. Greater Tuna has to be seen to be believed!

Last year, TIP Second Stage produced Greater Tuna in its intimate, black box space to tremendous audience response. This encore production features Bob Werley reprising his roles, joined by TIP veteran Charlie Lent. Andrew Martinez is returning as director. You don’t want to miss it the second time around!

Andrew Martinez (Director): “Greater Tuna is such a hilarious show I felt Tokyoites deserved another chance to see it. This time around I cast the show as it was originally performed, with two males playing 10 roles each. It adds another dimension with a more diversified chemistry. Hope y’all can come on down and see the show!”

September 3, 4, 5 & 10, 11, 12 at Our Space Theater:

All shows 7 pm Reserved tickets cost 2,000 yen, tickets at the door are 2,500 yen. Admission includes one free drink.

Reservations can be made by sending an e-mail to amartinez@tokyoplayers.org with date of the show and number of tickets required. Visit the Greater Tuna Facebook page: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=109937582394177

The venue, Our Space, is located off the north side of Koshu Kaido street, a three-minute walk from Hatagaya Station, or a five-minute taxi from Shinjuku Station’s south exit.

Our Space
Toei Shopping Center 101
Hatagaya 2-1-1 #101
Shibuya-ku
Map: http://www.tokyoplayers.org/?lang=1&page=16

Our Space has a limited capacity, and so reservations are strongly recommended.

Now in its 114th season, TIP is Japan’s oldest English-language community theater group.

***For more information, or to arrange photographs or interviews, the media contact
is Andrew Martinez: 090-2643-5919; amartinez@tokyoplayers.org***

FREEBIE

Tokyo International Players Second Stage is giving away a free pair of tickets to Debito.org readers to see GREATER TUNA. To enter, send an e- mail to greatertunatokyo@gmail.com with “GREATER TUNA” in the “subject” line. Deadline Thursday, September 2nd at 6pm. Please include your name and telephone number in the body of the message, and specify that you got this information through Debito.org. Entrants must be over 16 yrs of age. Please specify what performance date you want; winners will be notified by e-mail.

Note from Debito: I will be attending too. Arudou Debito on holiday

Summer Tangent: DailyFinance.com on Japan’s generation-long economic stagnation leading to a lost generation of youth

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Yet another Summer Tangent linked with yesterday’s post on Amakudari foiling reforms. Here we have a reporter connecting the dots of Japan’s economic decline with more than just a whiff of Schadenfreude: Holding up Japan as a laboratory experiment example of a society going down the tubes. Well, points taken, especially about the sense of “Why bother?” for workers in a deflationary economy, but I’m not sure there are lessons that really apply anywhere else but here (and as a nitpick: I don’t see “grass-eating men” as people who lack workplace competitiveness: to me it’s more a fashion statement for men who have been brought up in a society where the ideal of beauty has long been far more feminine than masculine). But anyway, food for thought. Comments? Debito

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Japan’s Economic Stagnation Is Creating a Nation of Lost Youths

DailyFinance.com By CHARLES HUGH SMITH
Posted 7:00 AM 08/06/10, Courtesy of CJ

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/careers/japans-economic-stagnation-is-creating-a-nation-of-lost-youths/19580780/

What happens to a generation of young people when:

They are told to work hard and go to college, yet after graduating they find few permanent job opportunities?
Many of the jobs that are available are part-time, temporary or contract labor?
These insecure jobs pay one-third of what their fathers earned?
The low pay makes living at home the only viable option?
Poor economic conditions persist for 10, 15 and 20 years in a row?

For an answer, turn to Japan. The world’s second-largest economy has stagnated in just this fashion for almost 20 years, and the consequences for the “lost generations” that have come of age in the “lost decades” have been dire. In many ways, Japan’s social conventions are fraying under the relentless pressure of an economy in seemingly permanent decline.

While the world sees Japan as the home of consumer technology juggernauts such as Sony and Toshiba and high-tech “bullet trains” (shinkansen), beneath the bright lights of Tokyo and the evident wealth generated by decades of hard work and Japan Inc.’s massive global export machine lies a different reality: increasing poverty and decreasing opportunity for the nation’s youth.

Suddenly, It’s Haves and Have Nots

The gap between extremes of income at the top and bottom of society — measured by the Gini coefficient — has been growing in Japan for years. To the surprise of many outsiders, once-egalitarian Japan is becoming a nation of haves and have-nots.

The media in Japan have popularized the phrase “kakusa shakai,” literally meaning “gap society.” As the elite slice prospers and younger workers are increasingly marginalized, the media has focused on the shrinking middle class. For example, a best-selling book offers tips on how to get by on an annual income of less than 3 million yen ($34,800). Two million yen ($23,000) has become the de-facto poverty line for millions of Japanese, especially outside high-cost Tokyo.

More than one-third of the workforce is part-time as companies have shed the famed Japanese lifetime employment system, nudged along by government legislation that abolished restrictions on flexible hiring a few years ago. Temp agencies have expanded to fill the need for contract jobs as permanent job opportunities have dwindled.

Many fear that as the generation of salaried baby boomers dies out, the country’s economic slide might accelerate. Japan’s share of the global economy has fallen below 10% from a peak of 18% in 1994. Were this decline to continue, income disparities would widen and threaten to pull this once-stable society apart.

Downsized Expectations, Opting Out

The Japanese term ”freeter” is a hybrid word that originated in the late 1980s, just as Japan’s property and stock market bubbles reached their zenith. It combines the English ”free” and the German ”arbeiter,” or worker, and describes a lifestyle that’s radically different from the buttoned-down rigidity of the permanent-employment economy: freedom to move between jobs. This absence of loyalty to a company is totally alien to previous generations of driven Japanese “salarymen” who were expected to uncomplainingly turn in 70-hour work weeks at the same company for decades, all in exchange for lifetime employment.

Many young people have come to mistrust big corporations, having seen their fathers or uncles eased out of ”lifetime” jobs in the relentless downsizing of the past 20 years. From the point of view of the younger generations, the loyalty their parents unstintingly gave to companies was wasted.

The freeters have also come to see diminishing value in the grueling study and tortuous examinations required to compete for the elite jobs in academia, industry and government. With opportunities fading, long years of study are perceived as pointless. In contrast, the freeter lifestyle is one of hopping between short-term jobs and devoting energy and time to foreign travel, hobbies or other interests.

As long ago as 2001, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare estimated that 50% of high school graduates and 30% of college graduates quit their jobs within three years of leaving school. The downside is permanently shrunken income and prospects. These trends have led to an ironic moniker for the freeter lifestyle: dame-ren (no good people). The dame-ren get by on odd jobs, low-cost living and drastically diminished expectations.

Changed Men

The decline of permanent employment has also led to the unraveling of social mores and conventions. The young men who reject their fathers’ macho work ethic are derisively called “herbivores” or “grass-eaters” because they’re uncompetitive and uncommitted to work.

Take the bestselling book The Herbivorous Ladylike Men Who Are Changing Japan, by Megumi Ushikubo, president of Infinity, a Tokyo marketing firm. Ushikubo claims that about two-thirds of all Japanese men aged 20-34 are now partial or total “grass-eaters.” “People who grew up in the bubble era [of the 1980s] really feel like they were let down. They worked so hard and it all came to nothing,” says Ushikubo. “So the men who came after them have changed.”

This has spawned a disconnect between genders so pervasive that Japan is experiencing a “social recession” in marriage, births and even sex, all of which are declining.

With a wealth and income divide widening along generational lines, many young Japanese are attaching themselves to their parents. Surveys indicate that roughly two-thirds of freeters live at home. Freeters ”who have no children, no dreams, hope or job skills could become a major burden on society, as they contribute to the decline in the birthrate and in social insurance contributions,” Masahiro Yamada, a sociology professor wrote in a magazine essay titled, ”Parasite Singles Feed on Family System.”

Take My Son, Please

“Parasite singles” is yet another harsh term for some Japanese youths. It refers to those who never leave home, sparking an almost tragicomical countertrend of Japanese parents who actively seek mates to marry off their “parasite single” offspring as the only way to get them out of the house.

Even more extreme is hikikomori, or “acute social withdrawal,” a condition in which the young live-at-home person nearly walls himself off from the world by never leaving his room. Though acute social withdrawal in Japan affect both genders, impossibly high expectations for males from middle- and upper-middle-class families has led many sons, typically the eldest, to refuse to leave home. The trigger for this complete withdrawal from social interaction is often one or more traumatic episodes of social or academic failure. That is, the inability to meet standards of conduct and success that can no longer be met in diminished-opportunity Japan.

The unraveling of Japan’s social fabric as a result of eroding economic conditions for young people offers Americans a troubling glimpse of the high costs of long-term economic stagnation.
ENDS

Japan will apologize for Korean Annexation 100 years ago and give back some war spoils. Bravo.

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. In another big piece of news, Japan is taking another step closer to healing the wounds around Asia of a cruel colonial past by saying sorry to South Korea. Good. Bravo. Sad that it took a century for the apologies and return of some war spoils, but better now than never. Let’s hope it further buries the ahistorical revisionist arguments that basically run, “We were invited to Korea, and did them a favor by taking them over.” — arguments that help nobody get over the past or help with neighborly Asian cooperation. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Japan To Voice Remorse Tues. Over Annexation of Korea 100 Years Ago
Kyodo World Service in English 1211 GMT 09 Aug 10 2010, courtesy Club of 99.
http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=516523

Tokyo, Aug. 9 Kyodo — Prime Minister Naoto Kan is scheduled to release a statement for South Korea on Tuesday regarding the centenary later this month of Japan’s annexation of the Korean Peninsula, ruling party lawmakers said Monday.

The statement will include a phrase expressing deep remorse and apologizing for Japan’s colonial rule, stating also that Japan will return cultural artifacts taken from the peninsula that South Korea has been demanding, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The expressions used closely follow those of past prime ministerial statements — one by Tomiichi Murayama in August 1995 and another by Junichiro Koizumi in August 2005, the sources said.

The government told the Democratic Party of Japan that Kan is planning to release a statement in connection with the centenary after securing approval from the Cabinet on Tuesday, Goshi Hosono, acting secretary general of the DPJ, told reporters after attending a ruling party meeting.

While apologizing for the annexation, the statement will also be aimed at deepening future-oriented ties with South Korea, the sources said.

Kan is hoping to turn the page on bilateral historical issues, while enhancing cooperation with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak’s government in addressing challenges related to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and its past abduction of foreign nationals, the sources said.

On the transfer of cultural artifacts, the items in question are believed to be held by the Imperial Household Agency, including the Joseon Wangsil Uigwe, a meticulous record of Korean royal ceremonies and rituals.

The statement to be released Tuesday will only be directed at South Korea, whereas the Murayama statement apologized to Asian victims of Japan’s past aggression, the sources said.

The statement does not refer to Japan-North Korea relations, the sources said.

The release will take place before Aug. 15, when South Korea celebrates its liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

Kan’s Cabinet had been considering releasing the statement either before Aug.15 or Aug. 29, the day the annexation treaty was proclaimed 100 years ago.

Kan is slated to hold a news conference on Tuesday afternoon and is expected to explain his reason for issuing the statement.

Opposition to releasing such a document remains among conservative lawmakers within and outside the DPJ, with some expressing concern over renewed claims for financial compensation for the suffering inflicted during Japan’s colonial rule in some Asian countries.

DPJ Secretary General Yukio Edano said at a news conference that the party did not make any special request regarding the release.

Edano also said he has no concerns about reigniting the issue of compensation in Asia because of the release.

ENDS

AP and JT on “Soft Power” of JET Programme, projecting Japan’s influence abroad.

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Here are two articles talking about inter alia what I brought up yesterday, Japan’s “soft power”, and how the JET Programme is an example of that. First one delves into the history and goals, the other making the case for and against it, with input from former students under JETs’ tutelage.

We’ve talked extensively about JET cuts/possible abolition here already on Debito.org (archives here), and raised doubts about the efficacy of the program as a means to teach Japanese people a foreign language and “get people used to NJ” (which I agree based upon personal experience has been effective, as Anthony says below). I guess the angle to talk about this time, what with all the international networking and alumni associations, is the efficacy of the program as a means of projecting Japan’s “soft power”, if not “cool”, abroad.

I have already said that I am a fan of JET not for the projection of power abroad, but rather because the alternative, no JET, would not be less desirable. Otherwise, in this discussion, I haven’t any real angle to push (for a change), so let’s have a discussion. Give us some good arguments on how effective JET is abroad (discuss how effective JET is in Japan at a different blog entry here, please read comments before commenting to avoid retreads) Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Does Japan still need 23-yr-old exchange program?

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA
Associated Press: Jul 28, 2010, courtesy of AR
http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15818/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=srUD04pJ

PHOTO CAPTION: In this photo taken on Wednesday, July 21, 2010, Steven Horowitz, a JET alumni who is now on the board of the JET alumni association, poses for a picture in New York. The Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, known as JET, is now among the biggest international exchange programs in the world. More than 52,000 people, mostly American, have taken part and supporters proclaim it as Japan’s most successful soft power initiative since World War II. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

TOKYO (AP) – Every year for the past two decades, legions of young Americans have descended upon Japan to teach English. This government-sponsored charm offensive was launched to counter anti-Japan sentiment in the United States and has since grown into one of the country’s most successful displays of soft power.

But faced with stagnant growth and a massive public debt, lawmakers are aggressively looking for ways to rein in spending. One of their targets is the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program, or JET.

Versions of the JET program can be found in other countries. French Embassies around the world help to recruit young people to teach their languages in France for a year. The U.S. Fulbright program, run by the State Department, works in both directions: American graduates are sent abroad to study and teach, and foreigners are brought to the U.S. to do the same.

But JET’s origins and historical context make it unique. Having long pursued policies of isolation – with short bursts of imperialism – Japan was looking for a new way to engage with the world in 1987, at the height of its economic rise.

The country’s newfound wealth was viewed as a threat in the U.S., where anti-Japanese sentiment ran high. At the same time, Tokyo wanted to match its economic power with political clout. JET emerged as one high-profile solution to ease trade friction, teach foreigners about Japan and open the country to the world.

Under the program, young people from English-speaking countries – mostly Americans – work in schools and communities to teach their language and foster cultural exchange. They receive an after-tax salary of about 3.6 million yen ($41,400), roundtrip airfare to Japan and help with living arrangements. More than 90 percent of this year’s incoming class of 4,334 will work as assistant language teachers.

Word about possible cuts began filtering through JET alumni networks several weeks ago, and members of the New York group mobilized quickly, starting an online signature campaign. Former JET – as the alums are known – Steven Horowitz, now living in Brooklyn, is devoting his website jetwit.com to rally support. Another alumnus in Florida launched a Facebook page.

Their message to Tokyo is that Japan’s return on investment in the program is priceless. Japan, they say, cannot afford to lose this key link to the world, especially as its global relevance wanes in the shadow of China. And the program, they argue, not only teaches the world about Japan but also teaches Japan about the world.

“There has been a benefit from the program that you can’t measure,” said New York native Anthony Bianchi. “People used to freak out when they’d see a foreigner. Just the fact that that doesn’t happen anymore is a big benefit.”

Bianchi’s experience shows the power of the program to create cultural ties. After working as a teacher for two years in Aichi prefecture in central Japan, he landed a job with the mayor in Inuyama City, an old castle town in the area. He eventually adopted Japanese citizenship and ran for city council. Now in his second term, the 51-year-old is working to convince Diet members that JET is worth saving.

Bianchi is not alone. Of the more than 52,000 people who have taken part, many are moving into leadership at companies, government offices and non-profits that make decisions affecting Japan, said David McConnell, an anthropology professor at The College of Wooster in Ohio and author of a book about JET.

“The JET Program is, simply put, very smart foreign policy,” he said.

James Gannon, executive director for the nonprofit Japan Center for International Exchange in New York, describes JET as a pillar of the U.S.-Japan relationship and the “best public diplomacy program that any country has run” in recent decades.

But many taxpayers are asking if the program is worth the price – and criticism of JET has become part of a larger political showdown about how much government Japan can afford.

The organization that oversees JET, the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, has drawn the ire of lawmakers as a destination where senior bureaucrats retire to plush jobs. The practice, known as “amakudari,” or “descent from heaven,” is viewed as a source of corruption and waste.

Motoyuki Odachi, head of a budget review panel that examined JET, said taxpayers are getting ripped off.

“There’s a problem with the organization itself,” said Odachi, an upper house member from central Japan. “This program has continued in order to maintain ‘amakudari.'”

JET’s administrators tried to defend themselves at a public hearing in late May and submitted planned reforms, including a 15 percent slimmer budget this fiscal year. The council has allocated about $10 million for the program, which includes airfare, orientation costs and counseling services. Teachers’ salaries are paid by the towns and cities that hire them. Several government ministries cover other JET-related costs, such as overseas recruitment.

Odachi expects his panel’s recommendations will be adopted as formal policy later this year.

“Whether that means zero (money) or half, we don’t know yet,” he said. “But our opinion has been issued, so (JET) will probably shrink.”

Kumiko Torikai, dean of Rikkyo University’s Graduate School of Intercultural Communication and the author of several books on English education in Japan, says JET has outgrown its usefulness and needs an overhaul.

“Bringing thousands of JETs to Japan is not a good investment for the country’s taxpayers in this day and age of an already globalized world,” Torikai said.

ENDS

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Japan Times Tuesday, July 27, 2010
THE ZEIT GIST
Ex-students don’t want JET grounded
Eric Johnston and Kanako Nakamura ask ‘children of JET’ whether the program deserves to be on the chopping block
By Eric Johnston and Kanako Nakamura (excerpt)

The case for JET
The JET program is one of — perhaps the only — project carried out by the Japanese government during the bubble-economy years of the late 1980s and early 1990s to promote kokusaika (internationalization) that actually had some success.

Since its inception, over 50,000 young foreigners have come to Japan to teach English and share their cultures with young Japanese who would otherwise not likely have been able to speak directly with a foreign teacher. These young people have also benefited local education by improving the abilities of Japanese teachers of English.

Upon return to their home countries, they act as unofficial goodwill ambassadors for Japan, and their experience as a JET is looked upon favorably by employers such as the U.S. State Department. For a relatively small investment on the part of taxpayers, the JET program has created huge returns, welcoming generations of non-Japanese who have, and will, go on to promote better relations between Japan and their own country and expose Japanese to the outside world in unprecedented ways.

The case against
The JET program is a relic of the go-go days of the bubble-economy years, when any half-baked idea could get government funding if it had the word “kokusaika” attached to it. Since its inception, over 50,000 young foreigners with few, if any, teaching credentials have come to Japan and partied for a year at taxpayer expense. They have usually enjoyed their stay, but their effectiveness in improving the English language ability of their students was never quantitatively measured and, given Japanese students’ performances on international English tests, is questionable at best.

Because most JET teachers are from North America, Europe or Australasia, the program promotes an “Anglo-Saxon” view of the world that disregards the importance of other cultures.

A JET’s presence in the classroom with Japanese teachers can actually be disruptive to classroom discipline, while the need for their colleagues to assist them with personal matters due to the language barrier places extra burdens on school staff.

Upon return to their countries, they land the same jobs others who were in Japan get, and it’s naive to think most JETs will be goodwill ambassadors.

At a time of fiscal austerity and when thousands of native English-speakers — many with teaching qualifications, Japanese language ability and a much better understanding of Japanese culture — can be hired as contract workers from private firms depending on local needs and at lower cost, why should Japanese taxpayers continue to subsidize the JET program?

The ex-students’ view…

Rest at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20100727zg.html

Asahi: South Korea, China overtaking Japan in ‘cool’ culture battle, whatever that means

Posted on July 30, 2010July 30, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Here are two articles about an economic phenom I’ve never quite gotten the hang of: the “coolness” of a country. The Asahi frets that Japan is losing out to other Asian countries in “coolness”, whatever that means. There is an actual department within METI dealing with “cool”, BTW, and an article below talks about “Japan’s Gross National Cool”, again, whatever that means. Sounds like a means for former PMs like Aso to create manga museums and bureaucrats to get a line-item budget for officially studying “soft power”. Ka-ching.

But in all fairness, it’s not only Japan. Brazil is doing something similar with its quest for “soft power” (but more as an understated tangent to its economic growth, according to The Economist London). And of course, PM Blair had “Cool Brittania”. So this may be just an extension of trying to measure the value of services as well as hard material goods, or a hybrid thereof. It’s just that with “soft power” comes the potential for some equally soft-focus science — how can you be “losing” to other countries in something so hard to measure? Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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South Korea, China overtaking Japan in ‘cool’ culture battle
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN 2010/07/26
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201007250293.html

In industry as well as sports, Japan has found itself trailing in the footsteps of China and South Korea.

Those two neighbors are now threatening Japan’s place in the cultural realm as well.

Between July 1 and 4, the Japan Expo in Paris attracted manga and anime fans from around Europe. In recent years, about 150,000 people have taken part.

In one section of the event, however, signs were displayed for manhwa, the Korean term for manga.

For the first time in the 11-year history of the expo, the manhwa sign was displayed through the efforts of the Korea Creative Content Agency, a South Korean government agency.

Tetsuya Watanabe, the official in charge of the Cool Japan section at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, could not hide his shock at the strides being made by South Korea.

“There may come the day when this event is overwhelmed by manhwa,” Watanabe said.

South Korea has been stressing the fostering of its cultural industry from the 1990s and the Korea Creative Content Agency plays an important role in that effort.

The agency operates mainly through about 180 billion won (about 13.3 billion yen or $152.1 million) in government subsidies. Among its main roles are drawing up a strategy to move into foreign markets as well as to develop individuals in the cultural industry.

Agency President Lee Jae-woong said, “In the 21st century, the cultural industry will lead all industries. That is the recognition of the South Korean government.”

In addition to manga, South Korea is also making major efforts in film, even as Japanese directors such as Hayao Miyazaki and Takeshi Kitano have received international acclaim.

A new base for South Korean cinema is now under construction at the Haeundae seaside resort area in Busan.

A roof measuring about 1.5 times the size of a soccer pitch is supported by what looks like tree limbs.

The site will eventually become the main venue for the Pusan International Film Festival.

The film center is scheduled for completion in September 2011 and the South Korean and Busan city governments have invested a total of 162.4 billion won.

An area of about 60,000 square meters, including the film center, will also eventually house facilities to train animators. Two years from now, government agencies in charge of the film industry will move to Busan from Seoul.

South Korean government officials want to turn the area into an Asian film hub.

In the background lies the success of the Pusan International Film Festival which began in 1996.

The scale of the festival expanded with the aggressive backing provided by the national and local governments.

From 1998, a new project was begun to bring together movie producers and investors from various Asian nations.

From 2005, a program was begun to have movie directors and others give lectures to individuals aspiring to careers in the movie industry.

Such efforts rapidly improved international recognition of the film festival.

One result is that the number of world premieres offered at the Pusan International Film Festival reached 98 last year, far outpacing the 26 presented at the Tokyo International Film Festival, which has an older history, having begun in 1985.

This year’s Pusan International Film Festival, to be held in October, will have a budget of about 10 billion won (700 million yen), about 4.5 times the budget of the first festival. Three-quarters of the budget is being covered by the central and city governments.

The Korea Creative Content Agency’s Lee said, “When moving into global economic markets, efforts should also be made to improve the level of cultural industry. Improving culture will improve the image of a nation and heighten the product value of manufactured goods. The South Korean government is well aware of that connection.”

China is also making efforts to improve its cultural industry. In 2007, the Communist Party convention placed cultural soft power as a major national policy.

In addition to movies and publishing, China has in recent years emphasized anime. Anime industrial bases have been constructed in about 20 locations in China, including Dalian, Tianjin and Changsha.

A number of anime companies with more than 1,000 employees have since emerged.

Those efforts were evident at the Tokyo International Anime Fair held in March in the Ariake district of Tokyo.

Of the 59 companies from abroad, 38 were from China, while only 16 were from South Korea.

The Chinese city of Chongqing held meetings at a Tokyo hotel during the fair that brought together anime companies based in Chongqing with Japanese companies.

Wu Jiangbo, deputy director of the Cultural Market Department of China’s Culture Ministry, said, “The anime fair is an important platform to publicize China’s works and companies.”

The central government has a heavy hand in developing China’s anime industry.

A high-ranking Culture Ministry official said, “The market has grown to 100 billion yuan (1.3 trillion yen), about six times the Japanese market.”

However, Chinese officials are not satisfied with the current situation.

Wu said, “Although there are now about 5,000 anime companies in China, there is no company recognized around the world. We want to foster a first-class company on a global scale.”

In the past, Chinese companies were nothing more than subcontractors for the Japanese anime industry.

Now, there is more equality in the relationships.

In June, a news conference was held in Shanghai to announce the start of production of a Chinese-language anime movie based on a Japanese TV anime, “Ikkyu-san,” that was popular during the 1980s in China.

The movie version will be jointly produced by Toei Animation Co. of Tokyo and the Shanghai Media Group.

Hidenori Oyama, senior director at Toei Animation, said of the project, “It will be a first step to move into the Asian market.”

However, those on the Chinese side have bigger plans in mind.

They are targeting the generation that grew up watching Ikkyu-san, an anime about a Buddhist monk, as well as their children.

Wang Lei, a vice president with the Shanghai Media Group, said, “If this succeeds in China, we want to sell it in Southeast Asia.”

Chinese Cultural Minister Cai Wu said, “We have learned a lot about cultural policy from Japan and South Korea. In particular, the policy of South Korea has been wise because even though it is a small nation it has achieved economic development and has exported many aspects of South Korean culture.”

Trying to keep up, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry established the section for Cool Japan in June.

One official said, “We want to heighten Japan’s brand image through a strategic overseas marketing move in such areas as anime, design and fashion, and tie that into economic growth.”

ENDS

日本政府は先月１８日、新成長戦略を発表し、海外で人気が高い日本のアニメやマンガなどのコンテンツ「クール・ジャパン」の輸出促進を重点的な成長分野に位置付けた。国営新華社通信が伝えた。

文化産業大国である日本の文化コンテンツは世界で人気を集めている。日本のファッションはアジアひいては世界の流行を長年リードしており、日本のアニメも世界のアニメ市場において揺るぎない地位を獲得している。観光業も世界市場でトップクラスにある。

日本の文化産業は強い競争力を持つ。米政治アナリスト、ダグラス・マグレイ（Ｄｏｕｇｌａｓ　ＭｃＧｒａｙ）氏が米外交専門誌「外交（Ｆｏｒｅｉｇｎ　Ｐｏｌｉｃｙ）」に「日本の国民総クール度（Ｊａｐａｎ’ｓ　Ｇｒｏｓｓ　Ｎａｔｉｏｎａｌ　Ｃｏｏｌ）」と題する小論を発表し、日本のアニメや音楽、テレビゲーム、家電製品、ファッション、グルメなど日本のポップカルチャーが持つ国際的影響力を高く評価した。その後「クール・ジャパン」が魅力溢れる日本のポップカルチャーを指す代名詞として使われるようになった。見方を変えれば、「クール・ジャパン」は日本のソフトパワーを象徴するものと言える。

日本のソフトパワーの強さは、コンテンツ産業を長年重視してきた日本の政策とかかわりがある。日本は『著作権法』『文化芸術振興基本法』『コンテンツの創造、保護および活用の促進に関する法律』など関連の法律を実施してきた。麻生太郎氏が外相と首相を務めていた時期には、「マンガ外交」を打ち出した。デジタル技術の普及後も、日本は知的財産権の保護やコピー防止に関する技術の開発に努め、インターネット時代にあってもコンテンツの著作権をしっかりと保護してきた。

日本は最近、文化産業に関する新たな措置を打ち出した。経済産業省はアニメ商品の輸出を促進するため、世界戦略拠点を北京に開設した。さらに同省の製造産業局（ＭＥＴＩ）が「クール・ジャパン室」を設置、デザインやアニメ、ファッション、映画の輸出を含む文化産業の促進のほか、海外市場の開拓や人材育成などの企画立案、支援推進策の政府横断的実施に乗り出している。「クール・ジャパン」を軸として、文化産業の輸出促進に向けた官民一体の取り組みが進められている。

６月中旬に日本政府が発表した新成長戦略でも「クール・ジャパン」の海外展開が新成長戦略の重点に位置付けられた。海外の番組枠の買い取りやデジタル配信の強化、海外コンテンツの流通規制の緩和・撤廃、海賊版の防止などの措置を通じて、民間企業を中心としたクール・ジャパンの海外展開をはかる。新成長戦略では、２０２０までにアジアにおけるコンテンツ収入１兆円を実現することを目標として掲げている。

日本の産業は転換期にある。文化産業を新成長戦略の重要な分野に位置付けていることは、産業転換の重要な現れだ。政府の後押しを背景として、文化産業は日本経済成長をけん引する重要な柱と成長していくだろう。

Toyota QC and “culture” again, says it will increase safety by dealing with mechanical and cultural defects, with Japanese-only review panel

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. As an update to the whole Toyota and safety issues (with people blaming them on cultural differences), now we have news that Toyota is actually going to “review defect measures” and “beef up quality controls” using “outsiders” for “independent scrutiny”.

I myself am not all that optimistic. Toyota is, as the article says below, essentially “keeping it in the family”. After previously penalizing an American QC expert for his scrutiny, they’ve anointed a blue-ribbon panel of experts who are Japanese only. Yeah, that’ll learn ’em about “cultural differences”, all right. Especially since the article below once again quotes Toyota as still trying to “bridge a cultural gap”. As if culture is any factor here in making unsafe cars safe. Enforced cluelessness.

Meanwhile, a US federal grand jury is subpoenaing Toyota to make sure the documentation doesn’t also continue to “stay in the family”. That article and video below too. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Toyota to study quality panel’s recommendations
By YURI KAGEYAMA (AP) – July 13, 2010 Courtesy of MD
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jTG7SuUsayqE6bO9GPluAfU5blewD9GTVER00

TOKYO — Toyota will start studying an assessment of the company’s quality control conducted by four outside experts to help beef up quality controls at the recall-battered automaker under a program that began in March to review defect measures.

Toyota Motor Corp. said Monday it was tackling a number of improvements, including analyzing each accident and consumer complaint more thoroughly and boosting communication with journalists and other outsiders to be better at ensuring quality.

Toyota, the world’s top automaker, has seen its once sterling image for quality plunge since October after recalling more than 8.5 million vehicles around the world with defective gas pedals, faulty floor mats, software glitches and other problems.

Despite vowing to improve quality, the automaker has in some cases discouraged independent scrutiny. Electronic messages obtained by The Associated Press in the U.S. show Toyota was frustrated with Southern Illinois University Professor David Gilbert, whose research indicated that electronics might be to blame for unintended acceleration problems in Toyota cars.

The messages show Toyota not only tried to cast doubt on his findings but also made clear it was displeased. One Toyota employee questioned whether he should be employed by the university, which has long been a recipient of company donations.

In steps disclosed Monday as under way, Toyota said it is boosting collaboration between Toyota’s quality-related divisions and its legal division, beefing up training among employees to get a better grasp of customers’ views on vehicle troubles, and trying to obtain more input from third-party experts.

Toyota has added four academic and consumer experts, who were recommended by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers, which is not directly affiliated with Toyota. They are Hiroshi Osada, professor of management at the Tokyo Institute of Technology; Noriaki Kano, honorary professor at Tokyo University of Science; Yasuo Kusakabe, chairman of the Automobile Journalist Association of Japan and Yoshiko Miura, general manager at the Japan Consumer’s Association.

“Especially pressing is the need for establishing guidelines to steer crisis-management activity by the president and other members of senior management,” the panel said in a summary of their report. “Also pressing is the need for bridging the culture gap between Japan and other nations in public relations activities.”
ENDS

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SEC and Federal Grand Jury Are Investigating Toyota
Toyota Subpoenaed Over Sudden Acceleration Cases
By MATTHEW JAFFE and MARK SCHONE
ABC NEWS Feb. 22, 2010

A federal grand jury in New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission are looking into sudden acceleration in Toyotas.

VIDEO: Koua Fong Lee, in prison for vehicular homicide, says Camry’s brakes didn’t work
Article and video at http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyota-subpoena-sec-federal-grand-jury-toyota-acceleration-investigation/story?id=9910971

The grand jury in the Southern District of New York issued a subpoena on February 8 asking Toyota and its subsidiaries to “produce certain documents related to unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles and the braking system of the Prius.”

According to documents filed with the SEC, Toyota also received a voluntary request and a subpoena from the Los Angeles office of the SEC on February 19 asking for production of “certain documents including those related to unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles and the company’s disclosure policies and practices.”
ENDS

Sunday Tangent: Japan Times columnist CW Nicol (a whaling supporter) on why “The Cove’s” Taiji dolphin culls bother him

Posted on July 18, 2010July 18, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. As another angle to the subject of the documentary The Cove, here we have Japan Times naturalist columnist (and fellow naturalized citizen) C.W. Nicol offering his view on what’s going on in Taiji. What’s interesting is his take on the matter of animal cruelty. Although he supports whaling as an issue and has no truck with tradition involving hunting of wild animals, what gets him is what the hunt does to the people in the neighborhood. I’m reminded of what goes on at Pitcairn Island (you get a society removed enough long enough from the authorities, they’ll invent their own rules, even if at variance with permissible conduct in society at large, and claim it as tradition). It was another reason for me personally to feel the conduct at Taiji is reprehensible.

The problem is that although Taiji is a small community, once it’s claimed to be “Japanese tradition”, you get one of the world’s most powerful economies behind it. Then all manner of issues (Japan bashing, economics, a general dislike at the national level of having outsiders telling Japan what to do, fear of right-wing repercussions, and corruption of culturally-tolerant debate arenas overseas) adhere and make the debate murky. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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The Japan Times Sunday, July 4, 2010
OLD NIC’S NOTEBOOK
A meeting of minds (excerpt)
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fe20100704cw.html
Last month, dolphin-welfare campaigner Ric O’Barry visited me in the Nagano hills, where we discussed the Taiji dolphin cull and what’s happening to marine mammals worldwide
By C.W. NICOL

In 1958, just before my 18th birthday, I went along on an Inuit hunt for seals in the Canadian Arctic. That was the first time I tasted that rich, dark red — almost black — meat, and it was like nothing else I had eaten before. I loved it.

Inuit hunters still used kayaks back then (and so did I) and I felt nothing but admiration for those men who went out into icy waters in such a flimsy craft, risking their lives to bring back food, fuel and the raw material for boots and clothing. In the many trips I have made to the Arctic since then, that feeling has never changed.

Then, in 1966, I first sailed aboard a whale-catcher, with a mixed Canadian and Japanese crew, hunting for sei and sperm whales off the west coast of Canada. Whale meat was on sale in pretty well every fish shop in Tokyo in the early 1960s when I first came to this country, so I had already come to appreciate its taste. Since then I have been on many marine mammal hunts — for seals, beluga, walrus and whales — and I retain enormous respect for the courage, skill and seamanship of those who take food from the sea.

That, however, is a stance that has made me unpopular with many antiwhaling folk around the world.

Nonetheless, in October 1978 I went to Taiji in Wakayama Prefecture to live in the town for a year and research the history and culture of Japanese whaling for a book I aimed to write — a book that turned out to be my novel, “Harpoon.” The anti-whaling movement was beginning to display some nasty anti-Japanese tendencies just then, and I thought it might be mollified by some understanding, through my book, of the whalers’ long background…

What horrified me in Taiji was that the dolphins were not harpooned, and thus secured to be quickly dispatched. Instead, the hunters were simply throwing spears into a melee of the animals swimming in a small inlet they had sealed off from the sea, hitting them here and there. Then they’d retrieve the spear by hauling in a rope tied to it and hurl it again or use it close up to stab with. This was a far cry from the efficiency — and respect for life, and death — of an Inuit hunter or a whaler at sea.

That first time I witnessed the Taiji killings, I saw a dolphin take 25 minutes to die, while on another hunt I saw one that thrashed and bled for a horrible 45 minutes before it succumbed to its wounds. Killing, if justified and necessary, should surely be merciful and quick — yet I even saw an old grandmother laughing at a dolphin’s death throes and pointing out the animal to the small child with her as if it was some kind of joke. That really hurt and shook my belief in people.

In addition to this catalog of horrors, though, as a former marine mammal research technician in Canada, it shocked me that all those dolphins were being captured and killed with no government inspector or fisheries biologist on hand to take data and monitor the kill. I protested about what was going on to the fishermen, and to Town Hall officials in Taiji. I even went to Tokyo and protested to a senior official in the Fisheries Agency, but he just sneered and said, “What does it matter, they die anyway.”…

Rest of the article at
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fe20100704cw.html

Sunday Tangent: “A Growing Love for ‘Cool Japan'” by Gaijin Handler Akira Yamada (of MOFA)

Posted on July 11, 2010July 11, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. As a Sunday Tangent, here we have an essay from a GOJ gaijin handler doing what I call “turning a frown upside down” (I know — I do it myself enough.) He makes the case that a waning Japan is not so waning. It’s emerging as a carrier of “cool”, as in culturally-based “soft power”. Funny to see this screed appearing before a bunch of academics in an academic network, making all manner of hopeful assertions not grounded in much reliable evidence. It’s just trying to tell us how much the world in fact still “loves” Japan. Well, clearly the author does. Enjoy. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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From: H-Japan Editor
Date: July 7, 2010 12:44:35 PM MDT
To: H-JAPAN@H-NET.MSU.EDU
Subject: H-JAPAN (E): AJISS-Commentary on “Cool Japan” by Akira Yamada
Reply-To: H-NET/KIAPS List for Japanese History
Courtesy of Peach

H-JAPAN
July 7, 2010

From: Japan Institute of International Affairs

Editor: Akio Watanabe
Editorial Board: Masashi Nishihara, Naoko Saiki, and Taizo Yakushiji
Online Publisher: Yoshiji Nogami

AJISS-Commentary No. 95
“A Growing Love for “Cool Japan”” by Akira Yamada

[Akira Yamada is Deputy Director General of International Cooperation Bureau & African Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan.The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and should not be attributed to The Association of Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies.]

http://www.jiia.or.jp/en_commentary/201007/07-1.html

Japan may appear defensive on the economic and political fronts. Has the world lost interest in an aging Japan whose economy will fall to third largest? There is, however, a side of Japan that is the object of ever stronger and deeper affection around the globe: Japanese popular culture, particularly anime (Japanese animation) and manga.

It will be no exaggeration to say that the world’s interest in and admiration for Japanese pop culture has grown dramatically in the first decade of the 21st century, thanks partly to the global spread of the Internet. This fact, however, is not well known around the world, even in Japan. Not many of the readers of the AJISS-Commentary, either Japanese or non-Japanese, likely have a clear understanding of the whole picture.

Although the exact number is unknown, there may be well over 100 events annually organized around the world featuring Japanese pop culture, anime and manga in particular, and attracting more than 10,000 participants. If events with several hundred or thousand participants are included, the number would be countless. Events focusing on Japanese pop culture are growing continuously both in numbers and in size. The largest event of this kind, “Japan Expo” held annually in Paris since 2000, brought in a record 164,000 participants in 2009. It is said that Brazil had several events with more than 100,000 participants.

These events feature not only pop culture such as anime, manga and fashion, but almost all aspects of Japanese culture, including traditional culture. They are basically organized and attended by local people alone with no Japanese involvement. When asked, these young participants will happily tell you about their passion for and keen interest in the excellent manga works and unique fashion produced in Japan. They are devoted Japanophiles who express their wish to visit Japan and their passion to learn and disseminate the Japanese language and culture. Their interest in Japan goes far beyond the scope of pop culture. There is no doubt that the largest factor motivating foreigners to learn the Japanese language today is the appeal of Japanese anime and manga. It should also be added that there is an ever growing interest in Japanese girls’ fashion, which revolves around the keyword kawaii (cute).

Such keen interest in Japanese pop culture is being exhibited not just in developed or neighboring countries, in which we can assume people have easy access to relevant information. Young people expressing their love for Japanese anime and manga are growing in number in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East as well as in the Mekong region, including Myanmar and Laos.

Why do Japanese anime and manga attract so many young people around the world? This is a difficult question, but one possible answer is their diversity and universality. Born out of long and fierce competition, the work of Japanese pop culture artists has acquired an appeal not only for children but also for full-grown adults.

The popularity of Japanese anime and manga goes far beyond what one might imagine. There was one occasion on which a Japanese expert was set aback when he gave a lecture in Italy. When he asked the audience whether they liked Japanese anime, a student from Rome responded in a matter-of-fact way, “Professor, we have grown up with Japanese anime!” In the world of the Internet, you can sense that people around the world are connected via their love and passion for Japanese pop culture. A country that moves and excites young people around the world with its continuous production of high-quality anime, manga and fashion – that is what Cool Japan is.

****************
AJISS-Commentary is an occasional op-ed type publication of The Association of Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies (AJISS) consisting of three leading Japanese think tanks: Institute for International Policy Studies (IIPS), The Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), and Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS).

http://www.jiia.or.jp/en/commentary/

ENDS

Saturday Tangent: How the US deals with Arizona racial profiling: Federal lawsuits and Jon Stewart humor

Posted on July 10, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. We’ve recently been discussing racial profiling on this blog, comparing what’s happening in Arizona with new immigration laws vs what goes on as SOP in Japanese police law enforcement and gaijin harassment.

What’s interesting for me is how the US deals with it: They actually discuss it. First watch this Jon Stewart Daily Show excerpt (courtesy of Dave Spector) on the subject and then we’ll woolgather:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

Latino 911!

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

So let’s recount the important differences apparent in this video:

1) In the US, they have not only a presidential administration making clear statements against racial profiling, but also a judiciary filing federal suit against errant state policy that would condone that. Imagine either of those happening in Japan.

2) In the US, the voices of minorities are actually being heard — and listened to — somewhere. Imagine THAT happening in Japan!

3) In the US, police training materials and the actual text of law enforcement are coming under scrutiny! Imagine… oh you get the idea.

4) In the US, they have things such as satire and sarcasm to enable people to take this apart with the very powerful tool of humor, and an investigative media that can hold people accountable for what they say and do! (God bless the Daily Show!)

These are some things that societies with healthier civil societies have at their disposal for analysis and debate. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

JET Programme on GOJ chopping block: Appeal from JQ Magazine and JETAA in NYC

Posted on July 8, 2010July 9, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Forwarding with permission. Comment from me below.

================================

From: magazine@jetaany.org
Subject: URGENT: JET Programme in Danger – An Impassioned Request for your Help
Date: July 6, 2010 4:59:39 AM JST
To: debito@debito.org

Dear Mr. Arudou:

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Justin Tedaldi, and I am the editor of JQ Magazine New York, a publication of the JET Programme Alumni Association of America’s New York Chapter. I also write about Japanese culture in New York for Examiner.com. I lived in Kobe City for about two years, and my first work experience out of school was as a coordinator for international relations with the JET Programme.

I’m a longtime follower of your site (over ten years), and I would like to ask your help on behalf of all the JETs worldwide. As part of Japan’s efforts to grapple with its massive public debt, the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Program may be cut. Soon after coming into power, the new government launched a high profile effort to expose and cut wasteful spending. In May 2010, the JET Program and CLAIR came up for review, and during the course of an hourlong hearing, the 11-member panel criticized JET, ruling unanimously that a comprehensive examination should be undertaken to see if it should be pared back or eliminated altogether. The number of JET participants has already been cut back by almost 30 percent from the peak in 2002, but this is the most direct threat that the program has faced in its 23-year history.

We are asking JET Program participants past and present, as well as other friends of the program to speak out and petition the Japanese government to reconsider the cuts. Please sign this petition in support of the grassroots cultural exchange the JET Program has fostered and write directly to the Japanese government explaining the positive impact the Program has made in your life and that of your adopted Japanese community.

http://www.change.org/petitions/view/save_the_jet_program

Any effort you can make to pass along the petition link below or include as a posting on your site would be most appreciated. I am also open to e-mail interviews for the Examiner if you would like to discuss this further.

Thank you for your attention, and please let me know if you have any other questions.

Best regards,

Justin Tedaldi
Editor
JQ Magazine New York
http://jetaany.org/magazine

==================================

To: uschapters@yahoogroups.com; aadelegates@yahoogroups.com
From: president@jetaany.org
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2010 12:21:09 -0700
Subject: [uschapters] Save JET and JETAA – Sign the Petition

Mina-sama:

As you recently were notified, the JET Program and JETAA are on the chopping block. More detail can be found at the link below.

In addition to sending your anecdotes and JET Return On Investment stories/videos to Steven Horowitz at stevenwaseda@jetwit.com, please sign the petition below to demonstrate your support. This is for anyone to sign, so please forward to your friends and family to demonstrate the hundreds of thousands of people that have been positively impacted by these meaningful programs. Thank you for your support.

http://www.change.org/petitions/view/save_the_jet_program

Sincerely,
Megan Miller Yoo
President, JETAANY

APPEAL ENDS

///////////////////////////////

COMMENT: I have of course written about JET in the past:
https://www.debito.org/?p=294
And here:
https://www.debito.org/HAJETspeech.html

In sum, although I have never been a JET myself, I am a fan of the JET Programme. The program has its flaws, but overall its aim, of ameliorating insular tendencies within Japanese society, is an earnest and genuine one. I would be sad to see JET go, as its loss would be a detriment to Japan’s inevitable future as a multicultural society.

Sign the online petition if you want. I have. What are other people’s thoughts and experiences about JET? Is it fat to be cut from the budget, or an indispensable part of Japanese intercultural education? Arudou Debito in Sapporo

UPDATE: I just remembered, I did a paper on JET’s goals way back when. You can read the full text of it here.

研究ノート

INTERNATIONALIZATION THROUGH TRANSPLANT EDUCATORS:
THE JET PROGRAMME PART ONE
By David C. Aldwinckle, Assistant Professor
Faculty of Liberal Arts, Hokkaido Information University
Hokkaido Jouhou Daigaku Kiyou
Vol 11, Issue 1, September, 1999

Keywords: Internationalization, Public Policy in Japanese Education, The JET Programme

SUMMARY

Internationalization, or kokusaika, has become a buzzword in Japan through its attempts to become an outward-looking, “normal” country in international circles. To this end, the Japanese government over the past ten years has sponsored the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, which offers educational internships of one to three years for young college graduates from English-speaking countries. These teachers, acting as assistants to native Japanese English teachers in Japan’s smaller-town junior and senior high schools, have been expressly charged with increasing Japanese contact with foreign countries at the local level. As the first in a series, this research paper will seek to outline the structure of JET, critique its goals, and briefly focus upon its operations in one locale, Hokkaido, as a means of case study.
https://www.debito.org/JETjohodaikiyo999.html

Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column July 6, 2010: “Japan’s hostile hosteling industry”: how government agencies want NJ tourists yet are accessories to excluding them

Posted on July 7, 2010October 28, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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The Japan Times, Tuesday, July 6, 2010
JUST BE CAUSE
Japan’s hostile hosteling industry
By DEBITO ARUDOU
Draft eleven with links to sources and alternate conclusion
Online version at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20100706ad.html

As you may know, Japan has no national civil or criminal legislation outlawing and punishing racial discrimination, meaning businesses with “Japanese only” signs aren’t doing anything illegal.

Problem is, I’m not sure it would matter if such a law existed.

To illustrate, consider one business sector that — technically — cannot exclude customers by race or nationality: hotels. Article 5 of Japan’s Hotel Management Law (ryokan gyoho, or HML) says that licensed accommodations cannot refuse service unless 1) rooms are full, 2) there is a threat of contagious disease, or 3) there is a issue of “public morals” (as in shooting porno movies there, etc.).

SOURCE: https://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#refusedhotel

However, as discussed here last week (“No need to know the law, but you must obey it,” Zeit Gist, June 29), the law in Japan can be a mere technicality.

The HML is frequently ignored. Quick online searches (try Rakuten or Jalan) soon uncover hotels either outright refusing non-Japanese (NJ) lodgers, or, more circumspectly, those that say, “We don’t take reservations from NJ without addresses in Japan” (which is still unlawful).

SOURCE: Jalan: (recently amended to say “NJ without domestic contact addresses” refused)

Rakuten: (now amended to say “no bookings from overseas”)

Still excluding: http://travel.rakuten.co.jp/HOTEL/18497/18497_std.html

When I call these hotels and ask why they feel the need to exclude (it’s my hobby), their justifications range from the unprofessional to the cowardly.

Most claim they can’t provide sufficient service in English (as if that’s all that NJ can speak), so naturally it follows that they won’t provide NJ with any service at all. Or they say they have no Western-style beds (I wonder if they worry about people using chopsticks too?).

More clever managers claim “safety” (the trump card in Japanese culture), as in: “In case of an emergency, how can we communicate with NJ effectively to get them out of a burning building?” (When I ask how they would deal with blind or deaf Japanese customers, they become markedly less clever.)

The nasty managers hiss that NJ steal hotel goods or cause trouble for other guests, thus making it a crime issue. (After all, Japanese guests never get drunk and rowdy, or “permanently borrow” hotel amenities themselves, right?)

This attitude in Japanese hotels is surprisingly widespread. According to a 2008 government survey, 27 percent of them said they didn’t want any NJ customers at all.

SOURCE: https://www.debito.org/?p=1940

Some might claim this is no big deal. After all, you could go someplace else, and why stay at a place that doesn’t want you there anyway? At least one columnist might claim that culturally insensitive NJ deserve to be excluded because some of them have been bad guests.

Fortunately, these apologist fringe opinions do limited damage. However, when a government agency allows — even promotes — the systematic exclusion of NJ clients, we have a real problem with the rule of law in Japan.

Consider the curious case of the Fukushima Prefectural Tourist Association ( www.tif.ne.jp ). In September 2007, I was notified that their English site was offering member hotels two preset options for “acceptance of foreigners” and “admittance of foreigners” (whatever that difference may be). Of the 142 hotels then listed, 35 chose not to accept or admit NJ customers.

SOURCE: https://www.debito.org/?p=1941

I contacted FPTA and asked about the unlawfulness. A month later their reply was they had advised all 35 hotels that they really, really oughta stop that — although not all of them would. For its part, FPTA said it would remove the site’s “confusing” preset options, but it could not force hotels to repeal their exclusionary rules — FPTA is not a law enforcement agency, y’know. I asked if FPTA would at least delist those hotels, and got the standard “we’ll take it under advisement.”

Case closed. Or so I thought. I was doing some followup research last December and discovered that even after two years, FPTA still had the option to exclude on their Japanese Web site. And now nine times more hotels — 318 — were advertised as refusing NJ (gaikokujin no ukeire: fuka).

SOURCE: https://www.debito.org/?p=5619

I put the issue up on Debito.org, and several concerned readers immediately contacted FPTA to advise them their wording was offensive and unlawful. Within hours, FPTA amended it to “no foreign language service available” (gaikokugo taio: fuka).

This sounds like progress, but the mystery remains: Why didn’t FPTA come up with this wording in Japanese on its own?

Moreover, unlike the Japanese site, FPTA’s English site had stopped advertising that NJ were being refused at all. So instead of fixing the problem, FPTA made it invisible for NJ who can’t read Japanese.

Furthermore, when researching this article last month, I discovered FPTA had revamped its site to make it more multilingual (with Korean and two Chinese dialects, as well as English). However, the multilingual site buttons for searching accommodations led to dead links (the Japanese links, however, worked just fine).

On May 24, a Mr. Azuma, head of FPTA’s Tourism Department, told me it was taking a while to reword things properly. I asked if the past two years plus six months was insufficient. Miraculously, in time for this article, the foreign-language links are now fixed, and no more excluders can be found on the site.

However, the underlying problem has still not been fixed. Another NJ recently alerted me to the fact that the only hotel in Futaba town, Fukushima Prefecture, refused him entry on May 2. He had made the mistake of going up alone to the front desk and asking in Japanese if he could have a room. Management claimed none were available.

Suspicious, he walked outside and had his Japanese wife phone the hotel from the parking lot. Presto! A twin room was procured. She walked in, got the key, and all was sparkly.

When I phoned the hotel myself to confirm this story, the manager claimed that a room had just happened to open up right after my friend left. Amazing what coincidences happen, especially when this hotel — also featured on the FPTA Web site — advertises that they “can’t offer services in foreign languages” (or, it seems, even if a foreigner speaks a nonforeign language).

SOURCES: here and here

Let’s connect some dots: We have public policies working at cross-purposes. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism wants more NJ to visit and pump money into our economy, with Japan relaxing visa requirements for mainland Chinese tourists as of July 1. Yet the Ministry of Justice and other law enforcement agencies just want to keep policing NJ, and that includes deputizing hotels. This is why since 2005 they’ve been demanding hotels photocopy all NJ passports at check-in — again, unlawful (Zeit Gists, Mar. 8 and Oct. 18, 2005).

Of course, this assumes that anyone pays attention to the laws at all.

Japan’s lack of legal support for hapless NJ tourists (not to mention residents) — who face unfettered exclusionism precisely where the HML says they shouldn’t — are thus finding local government bodies conspiring against them.

SOURCES: https://www.debito.org/japantimes030805.html
https://www.debito.org/japantimes101805.html

Brains cooked yet? Now get a load of this:

As of June 1, the Toyoko Inn chain, already saddled with a history of poor treatment of NJ and handicapped customers, opened up a “Chinese only” hotel in Sapporo. When I called there to confirm, the cheery clerk said yes, only Chinese could stay there. Other NJ — and even Japanese — would be refused reservations!

I asked if this wasn’t of questionable legality. She laughed and said, “It probably is.” But she wasn’t calling it out. Nor was anyone else. Several articles appeared in the Japanese media about this “exclusively Chinese hotel,” and none of them raised any qualms about the legal precedents being set.

SOURCES: Toyoko’s history: https://www.debito.org/olafongaijincarding.html
and https://www.debito.org/?p=797
and http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060128a1.html
Sapporo Chinese Only: https://www.debito.org/?p=6864

So what’s next? More hotels segregated by nationality? Separate floors within hotels reserved for Chinese, Japanese and garden-variety gaijin? What happens to guests with international marriages and multiethnic families? Are we witnessing the Balkanization of Japan’s hosteling industry?

SOURCE: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hbo1xSifyRFYI3LW95Zfu_4u-drwD9GKOE8G0

Folks, it’s not difficult to resolve this situation. Follow the rule of law. You find a hotel violating the HML, you suspend its operating license until they stop, like the Kumamoto prefectural government did in 2004 to a hotel excluding former Hansen’s disease patients.

SOURCE: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20040217a3.html

Oh wait — the ex-Hansen’s patients were Japanese, so they deserve to have their legal rights protected. It sucks to be NJ: The laws, such as they are, don’t apply to you anyway — if they are applied at all. Yokoso Japan.

ALTERNATIVE CONCLUSION (not chosen):

Oh wait — the ex-Hansen’s patients were Japanese, so they deserve to have their legal rights protected.

Sucks to be NJ: Let NJ in our orderly society, and they cause so much confusion that people don’t even feel the need to obey the law anymore. Now that even Japanese are being excluded, no doubt NJ will be blamed for disrupting the “wa” once again. Yōkoso Japan.

Sunday Tangent: CNN: Activist Junichi Sato on International Whaling Commission corruption and GOJ/NPA collusion

Posted on July 4, 2010July 4, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. For a Sunday Tangent, here is a hard-hitting article (thanks CNN) showing how activism against a corrupt but entrenched system gets treated: Detention and interrogation of activists, possible sentencing under criminal law, and international bodies turning a blind eye to their own mandate. Lucky for the author (and us) he is out on bail so he could write this. He wouldn’t be bailed if he were NJ. More on the IWC’s corruption in documentary The Cove — yet another reason why the bully boys who target people’s families (yet don’t get arrested for their “activism”) don’t want you to see it. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

///////////////////////////////////////////////

IWC’s shame: Japan’s whale slaughter
By Junichi Sato, Special to CNN
CNN.com June 25, 2010 courtesy of SS
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/06/24/sato.iwc.whales/?fbid=c0Tcz4-EM8-

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Junichi Sato, colleague face charges after finding corruption in Japan’s whaling industry
Sato: He and Toru Suzuki were held, questioned, often taped to chairs, for 23 days
Sato says Japan uses guise of “scientific research” to slaughter whales
Sato: As IWC does nothing, Iceland, Norway and Japan kill 30,000 whales
Editor’s note: Junichi Sato is the Greenpeace Japan program director, overseeing advocacy efforts for the international environmental organization’s Japanese branch.

(CNN) — After just two days of closed-door negotiations, the leaders who had gathered at the International Whaling Commission in Agadir, Morocco, announced no agreement was reached on the IWC chair’s proposal to improve whale conservation.

Greenpeace did not support the proposal, but we had hoped governments would change it to become an agreement to end whaling, not a recipe for continuing it.

It is particularly disappointing to me, because my professional commitment to end the whale hunt in my country of Japan — which led to the exposure of an embezzlement scandal at the heart of the whaling industry — has come at significant personal cost.

The investigation I conducted with my colleague, Toru Suzuki, led to our arrests in front of banks of media outlets who had been told about it in advance.

The homes of Greenpeace office and staff members were raided. Seventy-five police officers were deployed to handcuff two peaceful activists. We were held without charge for 23 days; questioned for up to 10 hours a day while tied to chairs and without a lawyer present. We are now out on bail awaiting verdict and sentencing, expected in early September.

If I can risk my future to bring the fraudulent Japanese hunt to an end, if whaling whistle-blowers are prepared to risk their lives to expose the corruption, how can it be that the IWC has yet again failed to take the political risk to pressure my government to end the scientific whaling sham?

Since the IWC’s moratorium on commercial whaling came into force in 1986, Japan has continued to hunt whales under the guise of “scientific research,” making a mockery of the moratorium. By claiming that slaughtering thousands of whales, in waters designated a whale sanctuary no less, is a scientific experiment needed to understand whales, Japan has violated the spirit and intention of the moratorium as well as the Southern Ocean Whaling Sanctuary.

Iceland and Norway have simply ignored the moratorium. Those two nations, together with Japan, have killed more than 30,000 whales since then. I have always opposed my country’s hunt, which is why I decided to join Greenpeace. While it may be an emotionally charged political issue outside Japan, domestically it barely causes a political ripple. In 2006, Greenpeace decided to focus the bulk of its anti-whaling campaign in Japan to bring the issue home.

Wholly funded by Japanese taxpayers, the whaling program has produced no peer-reviewed scientific research and has been repeatedly told by the IWC that the so-called research is not needed or wanted. All it has produced is a massive bill for the taxpayers and tons of surplus whale meat that the Japanese public does not want to eat. It has also produced endless rumors and allegations of corruption and mismanagement.

Two years ago, following a tip from three former whalers turned whistle-blowers, my colleagues at Greenpeace Japan and I began a public interest investigation and discovered that indeed, corruption runs deep.

All three whalers claimed that whale meat was routinely embezzled, with the full knowledge of government and whaling fleet operator officials. Greenpeace eventually intercepted one of nearly 100 suspicious boxes coming off the ships.

Although its contents were labeled as cardboard, 23.5 kilograms of prime whale meat were inside, destined for a private address.

On May 15, 2008, we handed over the box to the authorities, with additional evidence of the crime. Initially the Tokyo district prosecutor began to investigate. But we were eventually charged with trespass and theft of the whale meat, valued at nearly 60,000 yen (about $550 at the time). We face from 18 months up to 10 years in jail for exposing the truth behind an industry that is financially, morally and scientifically bankrupt.

The U.N.’s Human Rights Council on Arbitary Detention has ruled that our human rights have been breached and the prosecution is politically motivated. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed her concern about our case. Amnesty International, Transparency International, two Nobel Peace Prize laureates, countless international legal experts, politicians and more than half a million individuals have raised their voices in opposition to the prosecution.

We will be tried and sentenced in September, more than two years after we first exposed the corruption. But the scandal does not end there. Just last week, more allegations emerged that Japan engages in vote-buying and bribery to keep its whaling fleet in the water.
But the truth is that Japan’s whaling program relies on secrecy and corruption to stay afloat.

And yet, the IWC continues to close its doors and ears to the reality of Japan’s commercial whaling. I came to Morocco in the hope that this, the International Year of Biodiversity, could mean an end to all commercial whaling, but I leave knowing that governments are only interested in taking strong public positions on whales but not in taking action to save them, not even behind closed doors.

Mine and Toru’s political prosecution is a clear sign that Japan has no intention of easily letting go of its debt-ridden whaling program. There are too many vested interests inside the government. That is not surprising. What is more disappointing is that those vested interests have gone unchallenged by the IWC, the body set up to conserve whales.

It may be surprising that in this day and age, and given the huge public interest in the issue, conversations about saving whales are held in secret. But the truth is that Japan’s whaling program relies on secrecy and corruption to stay afloat.

After two years of negotiations, this year’s meeting could have been an opportunity for the IWC to actually move forward and end the status quo. But its collective failure means that 24 years after the establishment of the moratorium on commercial whaling, Japan, Iceland and Norway will continue again to hunt whales with impunity.

I challenge the commission to throw open its doors and shine a spotlight on the corruption that is so evident, investigate all the allegations affecting the IWC that have been laid clearly before it on numerous occasions and realize that it is not only Japan’s international reputation that has been tainted by the failure in Agadir.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Junichi Sato.

ENDS

Canada spending even more than Japan this time on G8/G20 summits. However, controversy ensues.

Posted on June 22, 2010June 22, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Let’s see how a vetting media works. Investigating journalists uncover money being wasted and tell the public about it. Few apparent fears in the domestic media about spoiling the party for our international guests. And no apparent trampling on civil liberties.

Should happen in Japan too, as we have freedom of the press. But no, check out what happened the last two times Japan hosted G8 Summits (here and here).

I think it’s about time we stopped this corrupt nonsense in the guise of international summetry. It’s like holding an Olympics every year in a sparkling new venue, except nobody can attend but government elites. Pigs at the trough. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Canadian summitry
A loonie boondoggle
Ostentation in a time of austerity
Jun 17th 2010 | OTTAWA
http://www.economist.com/node/16377317

FOR all his gifts as a political tactician, Stephen Harper, Canada’s Conservative prime minister, may have miscalculated how much Canadians want to pay to host the G8 and G20 summits from June 25th to 27th. As the government struggles to close a large budget deficit, it is spending C$1.2 billion ($1.2 billion) to host the world’s leaders—60% more than Japan, the previous record holder, coughed up for the G8 gathering in Okinawa in 2000.

Mr Harper points out that Canada is holding back-to-back summits—doubling the cost, he says. The government also notes that it can hardly be blamed for providing airtight security. It has built a steel fence around the woodland cottage resort at Muskoka that will receive the G8, and deployed special forces on overtime to lurk in the water and surrounding forest.

But critics counter that Mr Harper could have saved money by inviting the G20 to Muskoka as well, rather than receiving them separately in Toronto, 200 km (125 miles) to the south. Moreover, they note that much of the budget has gone on items of dubious utility and taste. The prime minister has become the butt of jokes for commissioning an artificial lake, complete with mock canoes and recordings of the call of the loon, for the G20 summit’s media centre—which sits just yards from the real Lake Ontario. In Muskoka taxpayers are on the hook for a refurbished steamboat that won’t even float until the summit is over, and new outdoor toilets 20km from the meeting site. So much for small government.

ENDS

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Auditor ready to look at G20 security tab
Sun May 30, 9:45 PM
By The Canadian Press, Courtesy of MMT
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100530/national/g20_security_audit

OTTAWA – Auditor General Sheila Fraser is ready to look at the huge security costs for the G8 and G20 summit meetings next month.

”Once the events have occurred and the spending has occurred we can look to see if it was done appropriately,” she told CTV’s Question Period on Sunday.

The billion-dollar tab for security prompted angry clashes in the House of Commons last week, with Public Safety Minister Vic Toews staunchly defending the costs.

”It certainly seems like a lot of money,” Fraser said. ”I think we have to understand better what is it for.”

She said the audit would be routine.

”Given the amount of spending, it is something that we would normally look at in our financial work,” she said.

”I would expect that there are a lot of people involved in this,” she said. ”The costs of housing and overtime and equipment I’m sure are going to be substantial.

”We would have to look at what planning has gone on and was the spending really just for these events or not.”

Toews says he’s fine with an audit.

The G8 is slated for Huntsville, Ont. June 25-26 followed immediately by the G20 in Toronto.

Fraser also said she hasn’t heard formally that MPs and senators have changed their minds about letting her audit the half-billion parliamentary budget.

”I’ve had no communication from them since their letter indicating that they were refusing our request.”

The politicians, though, are saying she’s welcome to come in for an audit. They changed their tune after the public reacted angrily to the news they had turned down Fraser’s request to look at Parliament’s annual half-billion-dollar budget.

Fraser says if she does get a formal invitation, she won’t focus on the expenses of individual MPs and senators.

”What we had proposed was never an audit of MP expenses alone,” she said. ”That would have been part of a financial management audit, but we would also look potentially at issues like human resource management or security on the Hill, contracting, those sort of broader management issues.”

Her auditors would be more interested in procedures and policies.

”We would look to see what kind of rules and procedures and controls are in place,” she said.

”We would expect the House of Commons and the Senator to have good policies and procedures, that they be comprehensive and that they be communicated well. If that is the case, we would do spot checks to make sure that those policies are actually being followed.”

She said such an audit normally takes about a year, so if the invitation comes soon, she could have a report by the middle of 2011.

ENDS

Asahi has whiny article on how Chinese tourists don’t spend properly

Posted on June 19, 2010October 28, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Here’s something to kick the weekend off: A whiny article by the Asahi picking on Chinese tourist spending habits. It’s not that they don’t spend, oh no; it’s more that they don’t spend PROPERLY. They spend too much of their time SHOPPING! Heavens to Murgatroyd! I think Japan’s media in this economic climate should be happy that rich Chinese are coming here to spend at all (and not staying on to trouble Japanese society through illegal overstays); they’re already being sequestered in some places. But no, we’ll get the grumbles that they’re not getting out enough anyway. What would be the perfect tourist in Japanese media eyes, I wonder? What would be the perfect consumer, period? Dare anyone criticize the Japanese public for their underconsumption, then? Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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China tourists stingy in some areas
BY ETSUSHI TSURU THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
2010/06/16 Courtesy of Peach
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201006150338.html

Japanese businesses and local governments that have gone all out to win over the throngs of Chinese tourists are finding that their guests can be a frugal bunch at times.

The Chinese tourists have shown a tendency to scrimp on accommodations and meals and bypass tourist attractions for the main purpose of their trips–buying electronic appliances and designer brand clothing and accessories.

Industry officials said if Japan wants to truly capitalize on the roughly 480,000 Chinese who visit Japan each year, it will have to do much more to convince the tourists that there is more to Japan than just shopping.

“Many of the points of interest, meals and souvenirs that Japanese are promoting are of little interest to Chinese,” said Ke Yue, president of public relations company Japan-China Communication Co.

Ke said Japan’s strategy should include nurturing human resources to specialize in the needs of Chinese tourists, whose numbers show no signs of slowing down.

A fierce price war has erupted over tours to Japan, with the price of a five-night, six-day packaged trip being offered for as little as 4,000 yuan (about 53,000 yen or $577) to 5,000 yuan.

According to an executive at a Chinese tourist agency, companies are eking out profits by cutting costs for meals and accommodations.

As a result, 90 percent of the packaged group tours are handled by Chinese, Hong Kong or Taiwanese businesses because few Japanese tourist companies would be able to generate a profit.

In Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture, located at one end of the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line highway that spans Tokyo Bay, the number of Chinese who stayed overnight soared thirteenfold from 2,089 in 2005 to 26,162 in 2009.

The rise was attributed largely to the change in management at the Tokyo Bay Plaza Hotel in the city in 2006, when the current owner, a Japanese national originally from China, took over.

But the influx of tourists has not led to increased income for local businesses in the area.

According to Tokyo Bay Plaza Hotel staff, most Chinese simply use the hotel as a launch pad to travel across the bay and spend their money at stores in the Ginza and Akihabara districts of Tokyo.

The tourists’ shopping priorities are also reflected at the Taiyoro restaurant on the 47th floor of the Apa Hotel & Resort Tokyo Bay Makuhari in Chiba, which is usually packed with Chinese tourists on weekends.

“Ninety-five percent of our customers are group customers. Of them, 70 percent are Chinese,” said Akiharu Taiyoro, operator of the Taiyoro chain of restaurants. Taiyoro, a Shanghai native who became a naturalized Japanese in 2006, operates 10 restaurants in such tourist destinations as Tokyo and Osaka.

In 2009, more than 1.18 million people dined at Taiyoro’s buffet-style restaurants, which offer all-you-can-eat lunches for 1,500 yen, and dinners for 2,000 yen, plus free soft drinks, for two hours.

Tour groups accompanied by guides can receive a 30-percent discount.

Taiyoro said he visits China every other month to negotiate with travel agencies there.

“Chinese tourists come to Japan to shop, so they like to finish their meals quickly. The average tour group will spend about 45 minutes eating at our restaurant before a new group comes in. So it is a low-margin, high-turnover business, but it’s profitable,” he said.

In Fukuoka, where 66 cruise ships from China are scheduled to call port this year, city officials have estimated an economic windfall of 2.89 billion yen from the Chinese visitors.

But according to a travel agency official in the city, the cruise ships moor in Fukuoka for only about 10 hours, and most tourists are more interested in shopping than taking in the sights.

The central government has eased visa requirements for individual tourists and increased promotion campaigns to lure more Chinese tourists to Japan.

But experts say this may not be enough to spread the wealth.

“Japan must rush to create an environment that allows visitors to freely enjoy their visit,” said Du Guoqing, an associate professor of tourism at Rikkyo University.

Du, for example, pointed out that the inability to use Chinese driver’s licenses in Japan deprives the tourists of a chance to see much of the country.
ENDS

Asahi poll: Japan would rather be poorer as a nation than accept immigration

Posted on June 14, 2010June 14, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

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Hi Blog. This was brought up as a blog comment a few days ago, but let’s talk about it as its own blog entry. The Asahi did an extensive poll on what people see as Japan’s future in relative economic decline. Results indicate that people are distressed about China overtaking Japan, but they apparently aren’t ready to change much to change that. Most germane to Debito.org is the question:

“On accepting immigrants to maintain economic vitality, only 26 percent supported such a move, while 65 percent opposed.”

◆将来、少子化が続いて人口が減り、経済の規模を維持できなくなった場合、外国からの移民を幅広く受け入れることに賛成ですか。反対ですか。

賛成　　　　　　２６　反対　　　　　　　６５
http://www.asahi.com/politics/update/0610/TKY201006100494_03.html

Meaning that people polled apparently would rather be poorer as a nation than accept immigrants.

Of course, no immigrant without citizenship was polled (if even then), so ah well.

That said, we had the good point, raised within the blog comments on this the other day, that it just might be better for organic acceptance of immigrants over time than to bring in huge numbers and force them on the populace (although I don’t see events over this past decade helping matters much, including the unfettered hate speech towards NJ during the PR Suffrage debates, political leaders publicly doubting the “true Japaneseness” of naturalized Japanese or Japanese with NJ roots, and other elements of officialdom blaming NJ for social problems such as crime, terrorism, and infectious diseases).

Then again, a friend of mine also raised an even more pertinent point: “What’s the point of asking that question at all? We still haven’t had a good debate on immigration and why Japan needs it. Nobody’s explained the merits of immigration to the Japanese public all that well. [In fact, discussion of it is even taboo.]. So no wonder people are negatively predisposed. Why change things when we don’t understand why?”

Touche. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

//////////////////////////////////////////////

Poll: 95% fear for Japan’s future
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN 2010/06/12, courtesy of John in Yokohama
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201006110455.html

With China poised to replace Japan as the world’s No. 2 economy, Japanese are increasingly taking a more critical look at their country, once referred to as a nation of “economic animals” and known as Japan Inc.

According to an Asahi Shimbun survey, about 95 percent of Japanese are worried about Japan’s future, while 62 percent say the nation is being rapidly overtaken by other countries.

And while acknowledging that Japan’s economy–once the envy of much of the world–may no longer be a main source of pride, more than half of the respondents said Japan does not need to strive to become a major global power.

According to the survey, 75 percent of Japanese have pride in their country, but only 34 percent said they had pride in Japan’s economy.

Sixty-five percent of the respondents said the economy was not a source of pride.

For the multiple-choice question on what aspects of Japan they are proud of, 94 percent cited the nation’s technological prowess, while 92 percent pointed to its traditional culture.

Ninety percent of respondents in their 20s and 80 percent of those in their 30s said they felt pride in Japan’s “soft power,” or edge in creating anime and computer games.

Toshiki Sato, a University of Tokyo professor of sociology, said the survey results reflect a society that has lost its identity.

“If a nation has technological prowess, it would translate into economic strength. The fact that people express pride in technology (while holding a low evaluation of the economy) resembles the grumblings of a manager of an ailing company. It’s a reflection of a lack of confidence,” Sato said.

Questionnaires were sent to 3,000 randomly chosen eligible voters nationwide in late April, and 2,347 valid responses were received by the May 25 deadline.

Asked about their future vision for Japan, 51 percent said they hope to see a society that promotes economic wealth through hard work, while 43 percent said Japanese society should be one that achieves a relatively comfortable level of wealth without working too hard.

Seventy-three percent said they preferred a nation that is “not so affluent but has a smaller income disparity,” against 17 percent who chose “an affluent society but with a large disparity.”

Fifty-eight percent favored a large government offering full administrative services, such as social security, even at the cost of higher taxes, while 32 percent preferred a small government.

As for Japan’s role in the world, 39 percent said Japan should be a major player with more clout and obligations, while 55 percent said they did not think Japan should be a global power.

On accepting immigrants to maintain economic vitality, only 26 percent supported such a move, while 65 percent opposed.

Along with 78 percent of respondents who said environmental protection should be prioritized even at the cost of stunting economic growth, the figures suggest that Japanese are clearly breaking away from the mind-set of their country being an economic giant.

Sato said the survey showed that Japanese people were taking a hard, cool-headed look at their nation.

“Since the Meiji Restoration (of the 19th century), Japanese have tended to bring about the worst consequences by developing unfounded confidence and pride, as with the defeat in World War II, rapid economic growth and massive pollution, and the economic bubble,” Sato said.

“You don’t want to lose too much confidence, but the ability to be humble is a virtue. The survey results should be seen in a positive light,” he said.
ENDS

/////////////////////////////////////////

「日本は自信を失っている」７４％　朝日新聞世論調査
2010年6月10日22時44分
http://www.asahi.com/special/08003/TKY201006100468.html

朝日新聞社が「日本のいまとこれから」をテーマに郵送方式による全国世論調査を実施したところ、「いまの日本は自信を失っている」とみる人が７４％に達し、９割以上の人がこれからの日本に不安を感じていることがわかった。一方で、回復する底力があるとみる人が半数以上おり、日本の将来のあり方としては、経済的豊かさよりも「格差が小さい国」を求める意見が７割を占めた。

これからの日本への不安感を４択で尋ねると、「大いに感じる」５０％、「ある程度感じる」４５％で、強い不安を抱く人が多かった。「あまり感じない」は４％、「まったく感じない」は０％。

現状を「勤勉さが報われない社会」と考える人が６９％、「日本人は精神的に豊かな生活を送れていると思わない」人が７３％いる。「政治、経済、社会の仕組みを大幅に改革することが必要」という意見が５７％で「いまの制度を維持しながら改良」の４０％を上回る。自信を回復する底力があるとみる人は５６％。また、全体で７５％が「日本に誇りをもっている」と答えた。

日本の経済力を「誇れる」との意見は３４％しかおらず、「そうは思わない」６５％が大きく上回る。今後の日本の進み方については「一生懸命がんばって経済的豊かさを向上させていく」が５１％、「ほどほどのがんばりで、ある程度の豊かさを得られればよい」が４３％と見方が分かれた。

一方、「経済的に豊かだが格差が大きい国」と「豊かさはさほどでないが格差の小さい国」のどちらを目指すかでは「格差が小さい国」７３％が「豊かな国」１７％を圧倒。

調査は全国の有権者３千人を対象に４月下旬から５月下旬にかけて実施した。有効回収率は７８％。（吉野園子）

Not reported in the Japanese but reported in the English version was this question:

◆将来、少子化が続いて人口が減り、経済の規模を維持できなくなった場合、外国からの移民を幅広く受け入れることに賛成ですか。反対ですか。

賛成　　　　　　２６　反対　　　　　　　６５
http://www.asahi.com/politics/update/0610/TKY201006100494_03.html

/////////////////////////////////////////

FULL TEXT OF THE POLL
世論調査—質問と回答〈４・５月実施〉
http://www.asahi.com/politics/update/0610/TKY201006100494.html
2010年6月10日23時56分

（数字は％。小数点以下は四捨五入。質問文と回答は一部省略。◆は全員への質問。◇は枝分かれ質問で該当する回答者の中での比率。＜　＞内の数字は全体に対する比率。特に断りがない限り、回答は選択肢から一つ選ぶ方式。調査期間は鳩山内閣の時期にあたる）

「日本は自信を失っている」７４％　朝日新聞世論調査
◆いま、どの政党を支持していますか。

民主党２１▽自民党１４▽公明党４▽共産党２▽社民党１▽みんなの党７▽国民新党０▽たちあがれ日本１▽新党改革（改革クラブ）０▽新党日本０▽その他の政党１▽支持政党なし４６▽答えない・わからない３

◆いまの生活にどの程度満足していますか。

大いに満足している　２

ある程度満足している　４６

あまり満足していない　３８

まったく満足していない　１３

◆これからの日本にどの程度不安を感じていますか。

大いに不安を感じている　５０

ある程度不安を感じている　４５

あまり不安を感じていない　４

まったく不安を感じていない　０

◆日本に誇りをもっていますか。誇りをもっていませんか。

誇りをもっている　７５

誇りをもっていない　１９

◆日本の（１）「経済力」（２）「技術力」（３）「教育水準」（４）「伝統文化」（５）「アニメやゲーム」（６）「平和憲法」について、誇れることだと思いますか。そうは思いませんか。

（１）　（２）　（３）　（４）　（５）　（６）

誇れることだ　　　３４　９４　３３　９２　６８　６７

そうは思わない　　６５　６　６６　５　２９　２９

◆いまの日本がおかれた状況を「登山」にたとえると、次の四つのうち一番近いイメージはどれだと思いますか。

快調に登っている　１

急な坂を懸命に登っている　１５

息が切れて、後続の人に追い抜かれていく　６２

足を痛めて先に進めない　１８

◆いまの日本は自信を失っていると思いますか。そうは思いませんか。

自信を失っている　７４　そうは思わない　２２

◇（自信を失っていると答えた７４％の人に）自信を失っている主な理由は何だと思いますか。（選択肢から二つまで選ぶ）

経済の行き詰まり　３６＜２６＞

政治の停滞　４９＜３６＞

国の財政の悪化　４４＜３３＞

国際的地位の低下　１７＜１３＞

少子高齢化　２２＜１６＞

伝統的価値観の衰退　６＜５＞

◆日本は自信を回復するだけの底力があると思いますか。そうは思いませんか。

底力がある　　　５６　そうは思わない　　２８

◆日本の国内総生産は昨年までアメリカに次いで世界２位ですが、今年は中国に抜かれて３位となる見込みです。日本の国内総生産が３位に下がることは、重大な問題だと思いますか。そうは思いませんか。

重大な問題だ　　５０　そうは思わない　　４６

◆（１）「勤勉である」（２）「協調性がある」（３）「礼儀正しい」（４）「器用である」（５）「自立心がある」（６）「独創性がある」（７）「国際性がある」については、いまの日本人に当てはまると思いますか。当てはまらないと思いますか。

（１）　（２）　（３）　（４）　（５）　（６）　（７）

当てはまる　　４６　４５　４５　７７　２０　３５　２６

当てはまらない５０　５１　５２　２０　７６　６１　７０

◆次の中で、これからの日本人がとくに大切にしなければならないものは何だと思いますか。（選択肢から二つまで選ぶ）

勤勉さ２３▽協調性２１▽礼儀正しさ２４▽器用さ６▽自立心３６▽独創性２７▽国際性４６

◆日本人は、全体として、精神的に豊かな生活を送れていると思いますか。そうは思いませんか。

精神的に豊かな生活を送れている　２３

そうは思わない　７３

◆いまの日本は勤勉さが報われる社会だと思いますか。勤勉さが報われない社会だと思いますか。

報われる社会だ　２５

報われない社会だ　６９

◆仕事と個人の生活のバランスを考えた場合、これからの日本人は、仕事を優先した方がよいと思いますか。個人の生活を優先した方がよいと思いますか。

仕事を優先した方がよい　３６

個人の生活を優先した方がよい　４８

◆これからの日本は、一生懸命がんばって、経済的豊かさを向上させていくのがよいと思いますか。ほどほどのがんばりで、ある程度の豊かさを得られればよいと思いますか。

一生懸命がんばって、豊かさを向上　５１

ほどほどのがんばりで、ある程度の豊かさ４３

◆これからの日本を考えたとき、政治、経済、社会の仕組みを大幅に改革することが必要だと思いますか。いまの制度を維持しながら改良していくのがよいと思いますか。

仕組みを大幅に改革することが必要　５７

いまの制度を維持しながら改良　４０

◆これからの日本は、全体として経済的には豊かだが格差が大きい国と、経済的豊かさはそれほどないが格差が小さい国とでは、どちらを目指すべきだと思いますか。

豊かだが格差が大きい国　１７

豊かさはそれほどないが格差が小さい国　７３

◆これからの日本は、経済成長を妨げるおそれがあるとしても、環境への配慮を優先した社会を目指すべきだと思いますか。経済成長を妨げるおそれがあるなら、環境への配慮はほどほどでよいと思いますか。

経済成長を妨げるおそれがあるとしても、環境への配慮を優先した社会を目指すべきだ　７８

経済成長を妨げるおそれがあるなら、環境への配慮はほどほどでよい　１５

経済の主役が、ものづくりから、金融やＩＴといった業種へと移りかわっていくことは、好ましいと思いますか。好ましくないと思いますか。

好ましい　　　　１４　好ましくない　　　７７

◆地方を中心に、土木・建設業などから福祉産業や農業への転換の動きがあります。このような転換に期待しますか。期待しませんか。

期待する　　　　７８　期待しない　　　　１７

◆将来、少子化が続いて人口が減り、経済の規模を維持できなくなった場合、外国からの移民を幅広く受け入れることに賛成ですか。反対ですか。

賛成　　　　　　２６　反対　　　　　　　６５

◆これからの日本は、次の二つのうち、どちらを目指すべきだと思いますか。税負担が重いが、社会保障などの行政サービスが手厚い「大きな政府」ですか。税負担は軽いが行政にはあまり頼れず、自己責任が求められる「小さな政府」ですか。

大きな政府　　　５８　小さな政府　　　　３２

◆これからの日本は、アメリカとの関係を深める方がよいと思いますか。アメリカとは距離をおく方がよいと思いますか。

関係を深める方がよい　５２

距離をおく方がよい　３４

◆これからの日本は、中国との関係を深める方がよいと思いますか。中国とは距離をおく方がよいと思いますか。

関係を深める方がよい　４８

距離をおく方がよい　４２

◆いまの日本は、国際的な議論をリードする力を持った国だと思いますか。そうは思いませんか。

思う　　　　　　１２　思わない　　　　　８５

◆これからの日本は、国際社会で発言力がある一方、責任や負担も大きい「大国」であるのがよいと思いますか。大国である必要はないと思いますか。

大国であるのがよい　３９

大国である必要はない　５５

◆戦後、日本は、大きな防衛力は持たず、そのかわり、アメリカの軍事力や核兵器に頼るという政策をとってきました。日本はこれまで通りアメリカの軍事力に頼るべきだと思いますか。アメリカに頼らず、独自の防衛体制を作り上げるべきだと思いますか。

アメリカの軍事力に頼るべきだ　３８

独自の防衛体制を作り上げるべきだ　４８

◆お金には換算できない、国民の暮らしの質や満足度を数字に表して政策の指標とする「幸福度」という考え方があります。幸福度という考え方を政策の指標として導入することに期待しますか。期待しませんか。

期待する　　　　４５　期待しない　　　　５１

◇

〈調査方法〉　全国の有権者から３千人を選び、郵送法で実施した。

対象者の選び方は、層化無作為２段抽出法。全国の縮図になるように３３９の投票区を選び、各投票区の選挙人名簿から平均９人を選んだ。４月２０日に調査票を発送し、５月２５日までに届いた返送総数は２３９２。無記入の多いものや対象者以外の人が回答したと明記されたものを除いた有効回答は２３４７で、回収率は７８％。

有効回答の男女比は男４６％、女５４％。年代別では２０代１１％、３０代１７％、４０代１５％、５０代１８％、６０代２０％、７０代１２％、８０歳以上７％。
ENDS

Saturday Tangent: Kyodo: GOJ survey indicates 70% of J disabled feel discriminated against. Nice they, unlike NJ, even got asked.

Posted on June 12, 2010June 12, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

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Hi Blog. As a Saturday tangent, let me take up an interesting case of how a different minority that feels discriminated against in Japan gets surveyed and reported upon — positively, because they happen to be Japanese.

Consider this:

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Japan Times, Friday, June 11, 2010
Discrimination felt by 70% of disabled: report
Kyodo News, Courtesy of RC

Nearly seven out of every 10 people with disabilities said they have faced discrimination or biased treatment, an annual government report showed Friday.

The fiscal 2010 white paper on measures for disabled people, released by the Cabinet Office, says 68.0 percent of those surveyed said they have experienced discrimination or biased treatment because of their disabilities.

The office surveyed 2,178 people with disabilities between December 2009 and January 2010.

The report also says 11.4 percent of the respondents always feel they are discriminated against and 50.9 percent feel discrimination occurs sometimes.

The findings indicate many disabled people continue to be discriminated against at a time when Japan is considering ratifying the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, officials said…

Rest of the article at:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100611x3.html

/////////////////////////////////////////////

COMMENT: Okay, I’m sure many if not most people with disabilities feel disadvantaged and discriminated against in Japan. Fine. This is not to minimize that.

However, look at how much positive spin they are given both in terms of survey and media coverage.

For example, look at the last sentence of the Kyodo excerpt above:

“The findings indicate many disabled people continue to be discriminated against at a time when Japan is considering ratifying the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, officials said…”

No, the findings indicate many disabled people FEEL they continue to be discriminated against. Not that this indicates something factual, that they ARE. That is an important semantic distinction, but “officials” are citing this as a reason to ratify a treaty to protect them.

Fine. I’m all for it. But they’d never do that for NJ. The GOJ won’t even survey NJ in specific, or phrase the questions as if they are being discriminated against at all. Citing an article I wrote about two and a half years ago:

/////////////////////////////////////////

Japan Times Community Page October 23, 2007

Human rights survey stinks
Government effort riddled with bias, bad science (excerpt)

… [Consider] how the remaining questions are phrased against foreigners.

For example, Q5 asked, “Which of the following human rights issues are you concerned about?”

Discrimination against “foreigners” came in 14th at 12.5%, behind “handicapped”, “elderly”, “children”, “Internet abuse victims”, “North Korean kidnap victims”, “women”, “crime victims”, “HIV sufferers”, “leprosy victims”, “homeless”, “Burakumin”, “ex-convicts”, and “human trafficking”.

Worthy causes in themselves, of course. But foreigners enjoying such low regard is unsurprising. The next series of questions deliberately diminish their stature in society and their right to equal treatment.

Q6 through Q19 asked for comment about “human rights problems”. Each question covered specific sectors of society, with conveniently leading options to choose from:

Women (choices of “human rights violations” included porno and scantily-clad women in advertising), children (including adults being overopinionated about their children’s activities), elderly (including lack of respect for their opinions), handicapped (including being stared at), Burakumin, HIV patients, crime victims, Internet victims, homeless, homosexuals, and Ainu.

Nice for the government to acknowledge (even overdo) several examples of discrimination. But in its two questions about discrimination against foreigners, no conveniently leading options are provided.

Instead, Q12 says, “It is said [sic] that foreigners living in Japan face discrimination in their daily lives”. Then asks if they deserve the same rights as Japanese.

Er… is there doubt about the existence of discrimination against foreigners in Japan? Even our courts have officially acknowledged it in several lawsuits–the Ana Bortz and the Otaru Onsens cases being but two famous examples.

And no similar question of doubt or qualification is raised towards any other group.

Q13 even kindly proffers possible justifications for foreigners’ “disadvantageous treatment”. Out of six choices, half say “nothing can be done” to improve things because a) “foreigners have trouble getting used to Japanese situations”, b) “differences in customs, culture, and economic standing” (which got the most votes, 33.7%). And–better sit down for this one–the tautological c) “because they are foreigners, they get disadvantageous treatment”.

When a human rights survey from even the highest levels of government allows for the possibility of human rights being optional (or worse yet, justifiably deniable based on nationality), we have a deep and profound problem.

Full article at https://www.debito.org/japantimes102307.html

/////////////////////////////////////

In sum, this to me is another example of the GOJ manufacturing consent to sway the public to accept a policy position. Fortunately, it’s for protecting people, not hurting them. But wouldn’t it be nice if the GOJ had somehow stepped in during all the nasty debates re NJ PR suffrage and curbed the hate speech, or even ask NJ sometime in a Cabinet Survey if THEY feel discriminated against? After all, we’ve already signed a Convention designed to protect them — nearly fifteen years ago in 1996, so there should be no disinclination. But no, NJ don’t deserve the same attention. After all, they aren’t Japanese. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Reuters: Showings of Oscar-winning documentary The Cove cancelled in Japan due to threat of protest

Posted on June 8, 2010June 8, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

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Hi Blog. Here we go again. Something critical of Japan becomes derided as “anti-Japanese” and is threatened if it gets shown in Japan. This society has to learn that criticism of Japan is actually good for Japan, and that bully boys who want to suppress healthy debate about an issue should be ignored or criticized themselves as unhealthy and unconstitutional. Yet protests by The Left go ignored because they probably won’t get violent, while protests by The Right just might, and the police won’t prosecute if they do. Hence the incentive to become violent is there for the bullies, and they get even more power through intimidation. Canceling showings of a controversial movie like this just strengthens the bullies and helps them proliferate. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

PS: Do what another Debito.org Reader suggested yesterday: Get a copy of The Cove and show it to your friends and students. Amazon.co.jp has had no problem selling right-wing and racist literature in Japanese, so why not? (Now, if only they would get around to putting up a version in Japanese. Here’s information on The Cove in Japanese from the directors.)

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Dolphin hunt film screenings cancelled in Tokyo

Scientific American/Reuters June 5, 2010 Courtesy of Ken’ichi

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dolphin-hunt-film-screenings

TOKYO (Reuters) – Tokyo screenings of “The Cove,” an Oscar-winning documentary about a grisly annual dolphin hunt have been canceled over planned protests by conservatives who say the film is anti-Japanese, the distributor said on Saturday.

The film, which picked up an Oscar for best documentary feature this year, follows a group of activists who struggle with Japanese police and fishermen to gain access to a secluded cove in Taiji, southern Japan, where dolphins are hunted.

Directed by former National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos and featuring Ric O’Barry, a former dolphin trainer from the “Flipper” television series, “The Cove” has prompted activists to threaten street demonstrations.

Planned showings of the film at two cinemas in Tokyo this month have been canceled because of fears the protests might inconvenience movie-goers and others, according to Unplugged, the Japan distributor.

Screenings at one Osaka theater have also been called off, but Unplugged is still in negotiations to show the movie at 23 venues around the country this summer, said a spokeswoman for the company, who asked not to be named.

Unplugged has received threatening phone calls and protesters have gathered outside its offices, she said.

“‘The Cove’ is absolutely not an anti-Japanese film,” Takeshi Kato of Unplugged said in a faxed statement. “I believe a deep and constructive debate is needed about the content of the film.”

O’Barry, who is set to visit Japan from June 8, said Japanese film-goers should be allowed to see the documentary.

“It’s not right that a small minority of extremists could take this right away from them,” he said in a statement. “To do so is a clear threat to democracy.”

The film was shown at the Tokyo International Film Festival last year, but has yet to be made widely available to the public.

Japan’s government says the hunting of dolphins and whales is an important cultural tradition.

New Zealander Pete Bethune is currently on trial in Tokyo for boarding a Japanese vessel in an attempt to stop the annual whale hunt in the Antarctic.

(Writing by Isabel Reynolds; editing by Ron Popeski)
ENDS

Yomiuri: Nouveau riche Chinese buying up Japan, Niseko

Posted on June 6, 2010October 28, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. As a somewhat Sundayish Tangent, here we have the Yomiuri talking about Chinese investing in Japan, both as consumers and businesspeople. Of note to me is the Yomiuri’s claim that the Chinese are displacing Australian investment in Niseko, Hokkaido. Fine with me. Hokkaido could use the investment. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Mega-China Changing Japan-China relations / A piste of the action: Chinese take to skiing and shops
The Yomiuri Shimbun May. 25, 2010, Courtesy of Peach
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/T100524003379.htm

China’s rapid rise is causing ever-widening repercussions in its relationship with Japan. This is the second installment in a series of articles examining new currents in bilateral relations.

At 9 a.m. most days, the majority of shops are yet to open in Akihabara, Tokyo’s electronics shopping district.

Yet two sightseeing buses are parked in front of bulk electrical appliance chain Laox Co.’s flagship store. Emerging from the buses, about 100 Chinese stream into the shop. Laox is open for business.

The electrical cooking appliance section on the fourth floor proves particularly popular. A Laox employee, a Chinese national flag sticker worn on his chest, begins explaining the products on display. Sun Renmei, 61, of Shanghai, points at a stack of boxes containing rice cookers. She buys four: for herself, her children and a friend.

“I’ve been looking forward to buying high-tech Japanese rice cookers,” she says with a smile before hurriedly boarding one of the buses.

At the height of its prosperity, Laox boasted 149 outlets nationwide. In summer last year, however, following years of poor performance amid intensified domestic competition, Laox was bought out by Suning Appliance Co., the owner of China’s largest bulk home electrical appliance chain.

Its president now a Chinese, Laox has repositioned its customer base as international, an extension of previous measures taken to improve the company’s ability to deal with customers in foreign languages.

The flagship store has been renovated as a duty-free mecca that sells not only electrical appliances but also daily goods and souvenirs from Japan. Information about each product is provided in three languages–Japanese, English and Chinese. Twenty-three languages are spoken in the duty-free shop, including Tagalog.

While it usually opens at 10 a.m., management displays flexibility and moves forward opening hours on behalf of group tours, if their timetables so require.

Today, overseas visitors account for 60 percent to 70 percent of the flagship duty-free store’s customer base, a 10 percent increase since the Suning Appliance capital tie-up. Proceeds from sales to foreign customers have increased 70 percent.

In June, Laox is scheduled to open a variety store in Shanghai selling Japan-related products and services. This will be followed by an ambitious plan to increase the international Laox outlets to 100 over a three-year period.

Once a rarity, Chinese-owned shops serving Chinese customers in Japan–or overseas–are increasingly common nowadays.

China has also replaced Australia as the main foreign player in tourism and investment in and around Niseko, a southwestern Hokkaido town recently popular among foreign visitors as a ski resort.

“Australia was once the chief player in tourism and investment here. Since the [global] financial crisis, however, there has been an increase in the number of Chinese companies [conducting such activities],” Tomokazu Aoki, a senior official of Niseko Promotion Board Co.’s secretariat, said.

Founded in 1897, Niseko’s Yamada Onsen Hotel is renowned as the first resort to be built in the area. However, sold to a Chinese corporation this year, the hotel will reportedly be rebuilt as a villa-style accomodation.

A relative newcomer, the Hanazono ski resort has also been acquired by a foreign buyer, a Hong Kong-based communications company.

All this means progress and the go-ahead for further resort development in Niseko.

In April, The Times, a British newspaper, carried an article that read: “Chinese visitors to Niseko used to take a simple view of apres-ski: head to the nearest izakaya and scoff as much Hokkaido crab as possible. Nowadays, after the last run of the day, they scramble for the nearest real estate agent…The Chinese who come to this resort generally have money, are hungry for luxury and find a Japan that, increasingly, is for sale at knockdown prices.”

A local real estate agent said, “Most villas here are priced between 50 million yen and 100 million yen. Few Japanese can purchase such property, but there are Chinese paying cash to buy them.”

The business-savvy Chinese view the resorts as moneymaking assets and rent the villas out to tourists except when they themselves wish to stay there. This can earn them annual profits equivalent to about 5 percent of the villas’ original purchase price.

It is a trend that is set to continue. Teikoku Databank Ltd. estimates more than 300 Japanese corporations are currently funded by Chinese capital. Honma Golf Co., a major golf equipment manufacturer, is one of the latest–it became a Chinese subsidiary this year.
ENDS

Japan Times satirical piece on Gunma Isesaki bureaucrat beard ban

Posted on June 4, 2010June 4, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Here’s an excerpt of a satirical piece that appeared in the Japan Times Community Page earlier this week. On the Gunma-ken Isesaki City Bureaucrat Beard Ban. Thought it very funny. Especially when it brings up the nationality of my own beard! Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Tuesday, June 1, 2010
THE ZEIT GIST
Gunma city does battle with beards
Local government’s hairy-chin ban sets example for nation
By JAY KLAPHAKE
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20100601zg.html

I would like to draw readers’ attention to the outstanding work of the municipal government of Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture. After receiving complaints that citizens find bearded men unpleasant, Isesaki — just as all levels of Japanese government often do — took decisive action to address an important public concern: The city announced a ban on beards for municipal workers.

Isesaki deserves our thanks for recognizing that allowing beards is the first step along a slippery slope. If we let government workers get away with improper grooming, the next thing you know they will start being creative and ask inappropriate questions like, “If we are actually trying to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, maybe we shouldn’t make expressways toll-free?” or, “Why don’t we budget more to ease the national shortage of child-care facilities instead of giving parents a per-child payout every month?”…

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara has been quick to point to surveys that show government workers with beards are more likely to be supporters of voting rights for non-Japanese residents than clean-shaven employees. Excessive facial hair could even be used to mask an individual’s foreign roots, meaning that many of the hirsute could be naturalized citizens or children of naturalized citizens…

A legal defense committee led by human-rights advocate Debito Arudou (of course he has a beard) and law professor Colin P. A. Jones is looking into whether Isesaki used off-budget secret funds to operate a barbershop in the basement of City Hall and provided free haircuts and shaves to public employees. Arudou reportedly tried to enter the barbershop but was refused access because his beard didn’t look Japanese, even though he insisted that his beard did, in fact, become Japanese several years ago.

Professor Jones has apparently filed a freedom of information request for documents detailing whether, and how much of, taxpayers’ money was used for the secret project. In response, the city said that no such documents could be found, no such barbershop exists, and furthermore it would be a violation of the privacy of the barber to say anything more…

Rest of the article at
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20100601zg.html
ENDS

Mark in Yayoi comments on Futenma affair: grant Okinawa its independence from Japan!

Posted on June 3, 2010June 3, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. After yesterday’s events, I feel my column on former PM Hatoyama and Okinawa Futenma was probably the best-timed one I’ve ever done, unfortunately. That said, I left a big stone unturned in it (happens when you have less than 1000 words): How Okinawa has been abused by both sides — Japanese and American — and how they deserve their independence from forced dependence. Mark in Yayoi, a scholar of Okinawan languages and dying/extinct cultures, offered an excellent perspective this morning that shouldn’t be buried within another post. So here it is for independent discussion. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Mark In Yayoi Says:
June 2nd, 2010 at 11:56 pm
In context at https://www.debito.org/?p=6820#comment-196385

Debito, when reading your essay, I was surprised to find that I agreed with you, but for almost totally opposite reasons. I’m sure I’ll be torn to shreds by other posters, and again by the nationalist anti-Debito crowd on other blogs who might be reading this, but it needs to be said.

The American occupation of Okinawa, unjust as it might be, is a net benefit to the mainland Tokyo government, which gets protection while simultaneously pretending that it’s “Japan” bearing the burden when in fact it’s Okinawa that suffers — they’re the people putting up with the loud airplanes and unruly soldiers. And these people bearing the cost of the protection were never seen as equals by Tokyo — they were used as human shields in a hopeless defense of Japan in 1945, and used as tax-paying slaves in the decades before that.

The US bases need to leave, and Okinawa needs to be free. Not free from the US, and not free to be Japan’s 47th prefecture (both chronologically and on the status totem pole), but free to be its own independent nation.

Exactly what “sovereignty” can the Tokyo government legitimately claim over the people of Okinawa, if we’re trying to redress past wrongs?

In 1609, the Satsuma clan invaded Okinawa, forced the Shuri king to sign humiliating treaties, and taxed the people (first lightly, then very, very onerously) to the point that they were virtual slaves. By the 19th century, ordinary people in the Yaeyamas were forced to labor to the point where 86% of their productivity was siphoned off by the Satsuma, and local authorities were forcing pregnant women to abort their babies so that there would be fewer mouths to feed.

(See Toshiichi Sudo’s 1944 book 南島覚書 Nantou Oboegaki for exact figures on the taxes, and, if you don’t mind slogging through archaic Japanese, 南島探検 Nantou Tanken by Gisuke Sasamori 笹森儀助 for more info on the impoverished lives of Meiji-era Okinawans.)

The “head tax” continued until 1903 and monuments commemmorating its abolition still stand today.

The mainland rulers also treated Okinawans’ language with disrespect. Americans who refuse to learn the culture or language? They’re not half as bad as the mainlanders who came to Okinawa to administer the island before the war. Did they learn to speak Shuri (or any other Okinawan language)? Certainly not, and they even punished Okinawan children who had the audacity to speak their own languages rather than Japanese by making them wear big wooden “dialect tags” (hougen-fuda) around their necks.

And the Tokyo overlords did such a good job of eradicating the Okinawan languages that today you’re hard-pressed to find people who can still speak them.

So when it comes to oppressing Okinawans, the US military has nothing on the mainland Japanese.

Now, we can insist that the treatment of Okinawans by the mainland government before WWII is less relevant than how Tokyo has treated them since the reversion in 1972, and obviously the murderous taxes of rice and fabric and livestock have been dialed down quite a bit.

Still, the mainland government’s “have their cake and eat it too” position — whine about America being the big bad bully for domestic consumption while simultaneously accepting American protection from worse aggressors — needs to be addressed. As does the issue of what will happen with the bases when the US leaves. Surely Hatoyama wasn’t planning to just move the JSDF into all those fully-operational, ready-made installations, now was he?

I know that thia is pie-in-the-sky idealism, but what I really want to see is an independent Okinawa, with free-trade and free-entry agreements with Japan (and whatever countries they choose to deal with), and no national or consumption taxes paid to Tokyo whatsoever. At the very least, some kind of Hong Kong or Taiwan-like partial autonomy. I fervently hope that a solution can come about that respects not just the desires of residents near the bases, but also all those elderly folks who have been putting up with other disrespects and abuses since long before the first US base was built. The US is using those people, sure, but the Tokyo government has an even worse track record. An autonomous Okinawa is the only way.

ENDS

Tangent: Japan Times exposes dissent amidst scientist claims that eating dolphin is not dangerous

Posted on May 29, 2010May 30, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Putting this up because it’s an important story, and where else are you going to find an expose like this of something so politically hot within the domestic press? Good investigative journalism in the Japan Times regarding the Taiji dolphin culls (the subject of the award-winning movie The Cove), questioning the science behind the public policy of letting people eat unsafe food for political reasons.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen GOJ/public pressure interfere with the scientific community in Japan. Two examples come to mind: 1) Japan‘s Demographic Science making “Immigration” a Taboo Topic, and 2) Apple Imports and the Tanii Suicide Case. Excerpt follows, courtesy of Kevin. Arudou Debito in Sapporo.

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The Japan Times Sunday, May 23, 2010
Experts fear Taiji mercury tests are fatally flawed (excerpt)
By BOYD HARNELL
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fe20100523a1.html

PHOTO CAPTION: Award-winning U.S. neurologist Dr. David Permutter: “Serving dolphin meat is tantamount to poisoning people; they may as well serve them arsenic …”

PHOTO CAPTION: Dr. Pal Wiehe, Chief Physician, Dept. of Occupational Medicine, Public Health in the Faroe Islands: “Without doubt, (Taiji dolphin meat) is dangerous to consumers …”

On May 10, in a front-page lead story headlined “Taiji locals test high for mercury,” The Japan Times reported the results of tests by the National Institute of Minamata Disease (NIMD) that found “extremely high methyl-mercury (MeHg) concentrations in the hair of some residents of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, where people have a tradition of eating whale and dolphin.”

Specifically, the tests of 1,137 Taiji residents last year revealed that average MeHg levels were 11.00 parts per million (ppm) for men and 6.63 ppm for women — compared with an average of 2.47 ppm for men and 1,64 ppm for women at 14 other locations in Japan.

However, the May 10 report stated that “experts were at a loss to explain why none of Taiji’s residents have mercury-related health problems” and that the NIMD would “continue to research” why no symptoms were observed, according to NMID Director General Koji Okamoto.

Such continuing research will perhaps intensify in light of further tests by Masaaki Nakamura, chief of the NIMD’s Clinical Medicine Section, on 182 surveyed Taiji residents having the highest mercury levels. Dr. Nakamura’s results found that 43 residents tested above 50 ppm of MeHg, with one showing a level of 139 ppm.

Nonetheless, all those tested were declared healthy at an NIMD-sponsored press conference in Taiji on May 9, at which the institute didn’t give the 43 residents any dietary advice, with Okamoto noting, according to media reports, that, “It’s important that they decide what they should eat.”…

Meanwhile, commenting on Okamoto’s advice for Taiji residents that it is “important that they decide what they should eat,” Dr. Pal Wiehe, chief physician in the Department of Occupational Medicine, Public Health in the Danish-controlled Faroe Islands, said, “This is inappropriate advice . . . We have seen over a period of time that there were negative impacts at all levels in our neurological, physiological and psychological tests that were irreversible.”…

Commenting on the high concentration of mercury in Taiji dolphin meat in 10 certified lab tests conducted on different dolphin species, which found the highest level, at 14.3 ppm, was almost 36 times over Japan’s advisory level of 0.4 ppm, Wiehe said, ” That to me, without any doubt, is dangerous to consumers’ health . . . our average concentration (in pilot whales, which are oceanic dolphins) is 2 ppm.”

He added, “We don’t consider pilot whale meat proper human food.” In fact, despite some harsh local opposition, on Dec. 1, 2008 Wiehe successfully recommended to the government of the Faroe Islands that residents discontinue the consumption of pilot whale meat…

Just as the researcher said that fears of intimidation (and the withdrawal of research funding) prompted him to request his name be withheld, the Taiji dolphin-cull story and the toxic meat it produces is mostly ignored in Japan’s vernacular media. Indeed, this writer has repeatedly been told by editors that the whole subject is “too sensitive” for them to cover.

Whatever the attempts in Japan to ignore questions surrounding the NIMD’s approval for Japanese citizens to continue eating toxic dolphin, however, one of America’s leading neurologists, Florida-based Dr. David Permutter — a recipient of the prestigious Linus Pauling Functional Medicine Award for his research into brain disease — was far less inhibited….

“These levels (of MeHg) are dramatically elevated. This practice of serving dolphin meat is tantamount to poisoning people; they may as well serve them arsenic, it would be no less harmful! What they’re doing is wrong on every count; it’s the wrong thing to do for the people and the wrong thing to do for the dolphins. No matter how you look at this, it’s perverse — it’s a tragedy and it should be condemned. If the role of government is to protect the people, then they’re failing miserably in their role.”

Full article at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fe20100523a1.html
ENDS

Singapore Straits Times: Lee Kwan Yew advises Japan not to accept immigrants who don’t look Japanese

Posted on May 23, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Nothing breeds arrogance quite like success. It must be nice to have created a rich city-state in your image, so you think you can claim enough legitimacy to bald-facedly tell other countries to do as you say, not as you do. We have elder statesman Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore offering his opinions earlier this week to the GOJ about how to deal with immigration — where he advocates a “homogeneous Japan” solution that chooses people based upon their thoroughbredness. Well on behalf of all of us non-thoroughbred Japanese citizens: nuts to you Lee Kwan Yew.

It’s a pity, since he does offer a number of good points, meaning that age doesn’t necessarily mean people turn into bigoted curmudgeons like Tokyo Governor Ishihara. Here is a scan of the full article (an online excerpt available at http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_529528.html). Courtesy of Steve in Tokyo. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

PS: I wonder if Lee believes his fellow Chinese fall into the category of being “from the high end”? Many of his fellow “homogeneous Japan” proponents in Japan would not think so.

Matthew Apple on how to take child care leave in Japan. Yes, even in Japan. Sanctioned by the GOJ.

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. I just received this informative essay yesterday from Matthew Apple, who is currently on leave from his school, subsidized by the GOJ, to raise his child. Called Ikuji Kyuugyou, Child Care Leave is possible in Japan, and he kindly offers his insights on how to do it. I suggest expectant and new parents look into this. It might make a difference between a well-balanced or an isolated latchkey kid in future. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Taking Leave: How I Successfully Applied for Child Care Leave in Japan

By Matthew Apple, Special to Debito.org. Received May 20, 2010.

The other day while playing with my one year old daughter at a local child support center, I was asked by a group of mothers if I had taken one or two months of child care leave. “No, a full year,” I responded.

Stunned expressions of disbelief followed. But I’ve gotten used to that—even though I recently became one of the few men in Japan (less than 2% annually) to take child care leave. Ah, of any kind.

My child care leave officially started on April 1, 2010, but the process of applying for leave started about half a year prior to that. Technically, I was required to give about one month’s notice before applying for leave, according to the Act on the Welfare of Workers Who Take Care of Children or Other Family Members Including Child Care and Family Care Leave (one of the longest names on record, perhaps?). However, I was asked in November, 2009, by the General Affairs Office of my school to check with my department head for “permission” to take child care leave.

Said permission notwithstanding, the General Affairs Chief promised me at the time that, in the event the Department Head refused or evaded, he was prepared to support me in my claim as to the legality of taking child care leave. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that, and I was given permission to apply for the leave.

The conditions for applying for Child Care Leave were a bit complicated, but the forms were fairly simple. Essentially, because my wife or other close family relative (i.e., grandparents) was unable to care for my infant daughter, I was allowed by law to take child care leave. This is called “ikuji-kyuugyou,” or 育児休業 in Japanese. Recently I checked the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare’s homepage and discovered that the English version (http://www.mhlw.go.jp/general/seido/koyou/ryouritu/index.html) states that the leave can only be taken until the child is one year old, or in some cases up to 18 months old.

(For more information and links to child care leave documents, please visit “Applying for Child Care Leave in Japan,” at http://takingleaveinjapan.wordpress.com/leave-links.)

Yet I was told by the General Affairs Chief that I could take leave until my daughter was 3 years old. Since the original law was promulgated in 1991, it seems to have been revised several times. On the web the most recent revision was listed as 2005; however, since the vast majority of information available is in Japanese (including the links to the English version of the law) it may be that the information online is outdated already.

At any rate, the conditions of the leave were that I had to be already employed for over 12 months, that I had to be able to continue working at the same company after the leave ended, and that I would not be paid at all during the leave. The last condition hurt; I was even told that not being paid during leave would additionally impact on my retirement pay from the school as well as national pension. Moreover, I still had to pay income tax, since income tax in Japan is based on the previous year’s income. But in this case, the means justified the ends. My daughter’s welfare was more important to me than a year’s salary. At least I won’t have to pay any income tax at all next year.

Last week, I was further informed that I could receive some financial support from the government to help care for my daughter. The official form is administered by Hello Work (surprisingly), and all funds come from unemployment insurance. Basically, I get 30% of my base salary until my daughter turns one year old, and then six months after I go back to work, I get an additional 20% as a bonus (for going back to work, I suppose). Theoretically, it’s possible to extend the benefits until my daughter is the age of 18 months, but I would have to apply and be rejected from an officially-approved day care facility after my daughter’s birthday. Seems a bit besides the point, since I’ve already taken the year leave, and since she was already rejected in February.

As I said, I was given permission to take child care leave, which to my knowledge is the first time a male employee at my school has ever done so. One person in my department tried to convince me otherwise, saying that he and his wife had left both their children at day care when they were four and five months old. However, other male colleagues encouraged me and even congratulated me for taking the leave. Several privately confided that it was too bad the law wasn’t in effect when their own children were born. On the other hand, one female colleague told me that her husband not only didn’t bother taking leave a few years ago, but furthermore refused to lift a finger around the house at all. She lamented the fact that “Japanese men” expected their wives to do all the child-raising in addition to working a full-time job.

Not being a Japanese man, I can’t say whether this accusation is true or not. I only know two things: The first is that Japan has the world’s lowest rate of childbirth, in addition to the world’s lowest rate of fathers taking child care leave. These seem logically connected.

The second is that, as a teacher, I am expected to care for my students. If that’s the case, then, how can I take care of other people’s children before learning how to care for my own child?

(You can read more about my “adventures” during my year of leave at my blog, Taking Leave in Japan at http://takingleaveinjapan.wordpress.com. )

ENDS

Japan Times: Housing glut resulting in more assistance for NJ renters, e.g., Japan Property Management Association

Posted on May 20, 2010May 20, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Debito.org Reader Kevin submitted this Japan Times article (thanks!) on how The Japan Property Management Association, which covers more than a thousand real estate agencies, is offering information to NJ renters and recourse to fearful landlords. They’re even suggesting hiring NJ to bridge communication gaps! Bravo. If you’re in the market for new digs, check this association out and give them your business.

After all, one of the first nasty things a NJ experiences is the pretty ubiquitous housing discrimination in Japan — where a renter can be refused by the mere whim of a landlord, and tough titties if that landlord has a “thing” about foreigners (due to, say, envisioned phobias about “differing customs”, “communication troubles”, or just plain visceral xenophobia). Sadly, there is no way, outside of a courtroom (which will probably, experience and word-of-mouth dictates, not rule in the NJ’s favor unless the landlord changes his or her mind AFTER a rental contract is signed). ‘Cos, as y’all know so well, there ain’t no law against racial discrimination in this part of the world.

One more thing, and this is a tangent but I’m feeling chatty today: Before we get all Pollyanna and flout any economic theories that “the marketplace will correct all if left to its own devices” (i.e. Japan’s housing glut is forcing the buyer’s market to find ways to be more accommodating to NJ), remember that there is no way economics is going to “fix” illogical or irrational behavior, such as fear and hatred of foreigners or other races that exist in every society. If anything, as seen in the course of the Otaru Onsens Case, bathhouse managers (and apologist bigots like Gregory Clark) have even made economic arguments to justify the status quo (“our customers don’t want to take baths with foreigners, so we have to give them what they demand”; some even created flawed surveys of customers to “prove” it, which got widely reported by an unanalytical Japanese media (page down to “False Summits Dec 1999“). In any case, the market CAN break down (in classic cases like farmers dumping surplus crops in the ocean to keep the market price up), and needs laws to govern it. In this case, laws against the effects of the dread mental disease that is xenophobia.

Anyway, again, bravo Japan Property Management Association. JT article about them follows. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Housing glut opens door to foreign tenants
By MIZUHO AOKI Staff writer
The Japan Times: Saturday, May 15, 2010 (excerpt)
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100515f2.html

As the country’s foreign population keeps growing and the declining birthrate and oversupply of housing result in more and more vacancies, it is time for real estate agents to create a more welcoming environment for foreign customers, according to people who work in the business.

“Housing discrimination against foreigners still remains in Japan today. . . . We have a lot of vacant housing that needs to be filled. And there are many (foreigners) who want to rent housing in the country,” Noriaki Shiomi, vice deputy chairman of the Japan Property Management Association, told a forum in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, on Tuesday. “What we must try now is to gain knowhow to smoothly accept foreign customers.”

Efforts to provide foreigners access to rental housing have become increasingly important amid the surge in vacancies in recent years due to oversupply and the shrinking population, according to the association…

According to a survey conducted by the association in 2003 on 275 landlords nationwide, over 60 percent of landlords said they worried about dealing with foreign customers when there is a problem because of difficulties in communicating. Over 50 percent of landlords also said they were concerned about differences in customs relating to living.

“What landowners want to know is that when something happens, they will have support from real estate agencies,” said Ogino. “In other words, if the owners know that the agencies will deal with foreigners when they have trouble, many are willing to rent out their properties to foreigners.”…

The Japan Property Management Association provides printed guidebooks and DVDs in Japanese, English, Korean, Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese designed to help foreigners gain basic knowledge of searching for and renting housing. They can be found at the association’s member real estate agents.

The guidebooks explain step-by-step procedures for renting apartments, including tips in visiting real estate agencies, explanations of contracts and the rules of everyday life.

In addition to the booklets and DVDs, the association said another key for the industry to become more accessible for foreign customers is to hire foreigners.

Full article at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100515f2.html

ENDS

Meat67 on “City of Urayasu Globalization Guidelines” Survey

Posted on May 10, 2010May 11, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. What follows is a report from Meat67 (sorry for the delay) on a citywide survey of NJ carried out by Urayasu, Chiba-ken, across the river from Tokyo proper. Scans enclosed below. Compare this with an excellent one from Sapporo City that came out in 2008. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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From: meat67
Date: February 26, 2010

I received the following survey in the mail from the City of Urayasu (see below). While I have many friends and acquaintances in Japan and Urayasu, I sometimes feel alienated from “official” Japan, so I was pleased to see that the city wanted my opinion on their “City of Urayasu Globalization Guidelines”. Like most things from governments there are good and bad things about this survey

The first nice thing about the survey was the option of doing it in English and Japanese. For those people whose Japanese is at a low level the option of doing it in English is nice, while the option of Japanese acknowledges that many immigrants, can, in fact, read and write Japanese. That being said, just from my own personal observation from living in Urayasu for the past seven years, the inclusion of Chinese and Tagalog versions as well would have made it even better.

I think there are a good variety of questions on the survey, from the general to the specific. They ask about general life in Japan and dealing with Japanese people. They also ask about specific groups sponsored by the local government. Many of the general questions have an “other” option, which is great. They probably received many responses they were not expecting or had thought of .

I liked question 3 about the resident’s association. I have never been asked to join in all the time I have lived here. However, I never went out of my to find out about it either, so when I move next month I will try to find out more about the one in my new area.

Unfortunately, the most general question, 14, has such a tiny box that I had to write really small to fit in what I wanted to say. I mentioned the racism of the police, which, I don’t think, the city can do much about. I also told them that the cyclists and drivers here drive me crazy because they don’t stop at stop signs, sometimes not even for red lights, drive the wrong way down one way streets, don’t look when they cut from the sidewalk to the road, etc…. This, more than anything else, affects my daily life, since I ride my bicycle somewhere almost everyday. I often arrive at work pissed off. It’s so bad that a couple of months ago I actually mentioned to a co-worker how surprised I was that for three or four days in a row no one had annoyed me. I have gone so far as to change the route I take to work a few times to see if that would make a difference. My morning commute is more often than not the most stressful 10 minutes of the day.

Like any survey, some of the questions can be open to interpretation. Question 7-1, for example, asks if you have experienced difficulty at work. I circled 2 because I do not always receive all the information I need. However, I don’t think this is always because I am not Japanese, but because I am in the part-time teachers room. Even many of the Japanese part-time teachers don’t always know what’s going on, since they don’t attend the morning teachers meetings either.

Question 12 is a little problematic. Even though I am “2. Somewhat satisfied” and so went on to question 12-1, I would have liked to answer 12-2 also. I am dissatisfied with some things as well and would have liked to say what they are. I’m just more satisfied than not.

I would have changed some of the language. Just one example is “foreign nationals （外国人居住者）”. Again, from my experience of living here for seven years, the vast majority of foreign nationals I meet are immigrants, so why not call us that? The use of “immigrants” would make me feel much more accepted as a contributing member society rather than just a “guest”.

Finally, I have to ask, why do people think it’s so hard to separate garbage? The city hall offers a chart with pictures and descriptions of the various types of garbage. Garbage bags have their purpose written in both Japanese and English. I really for the life of me cannot figure out where this “Oh my god, foreigners cannot figure out the super complex garbage rules of Japan” idea comes from. When my girlfriend, who has lived in Japan all her life, moved in with me she spent the first month or two asking me questions about the garbage.

All in all, I am happy with the city government’s initiative. I was happy to answer the questions on the survey. In fact, I would be more than happy talk with someone from city hall to answer more questions if they wanted to. I look forward to seeing the results on the city’s website.

Meat67 in Urayasu

ENDS

Saturday Tangent: Tokyo Shinbun: Fussa City bureaucrat blames NJ residents for more children’s cavities!

Posted on April 24, 2010July 24, 2018 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. It’s been pretty knee-jerk this past decade to blame NJ (or just plain multiculturalism) for anything that’s allegedly going askew in Japan. Things I’ve seen blamed on NJ and their “cultural differences” (no doubt you know most of these): Bathhouse altercations, crime, terrorism, infectious diseases, unemployment, neighborhood deterioration, bad smells in both neighborhoods and schools, divorces, DV, drugs, guns, prostitution, unpaid bills (including phone and restaurant), AIDs, youth crime, irregularly colored hair, improper garbage disposal, low J crews on Japanese ships, sports uncompetitiveness, lack of Olympic medals, uncertified sushi, Japan’s low English ability, national security in the SDF, and the potential carving up of Japan as a nation. More on the NJ Blame Game here.

But I gotta admit, I’ve never seen oral hygiene — as in more cavities — pinned on NJ before! Read on. What’s next: Traffic lights staying red for too long? Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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KYA writes:
I saw this on the TV news today, it’s not really a legal issue or anything but it’s a little bit ridiculous and a little bit offensive:

【社会】
３歳児の虫歯激減　都内、歯磨き習慣定着
東京新聞　2010年4月21日 07時17分
http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/s/article/2010042190071508.html
東京都内に住む三歳児の虫歯の罹患（りかん）率が、十年前のおよそ三人に一人から、二〇〇八年度で六人に一人まで減っていることが、都のまとめで分かった。四十年前に十人中七人に虫歯があったのに比べ大幅な減少。ただ、地域的にはまだばらつきがあり、都は「歯の健康」に関心を持つよう呼び掛ける。
〇〇年に策定した都の歯科保健目標が最終年度にあたることから、〇八年度の三歳児歯科検診を分析。その結果、虫歯がある三歳児は１７％にとどまり、一九九八年度の３０％から大幅に減っていた。
都福祉保健局によると、七一年度には虫歯がある三歳児は７１％もいたが、歯磨き習慣の定着や虫歯予防のフッ化物塗布の広がりなどで年々減少。八五年度に初めて五割を切り、その後も全区市町村でなだらかな減少傾向が続いていた。都の担当者は「数の減少だけでなく、症状も軽くなっている」という。
一方、自治体別にみた場合、最も良い千代田区が９％だったのに対し、対象人数が少ない町村を除くと福生市が最悪の２８％。区内では唯一、足立区が二割を超え２２％だった。
福生市の担当者は「在住外国人が比較的多く、ジュースを日常的に飲むなどの食習慣が影響しているのでは」とし、足立区の担当者は「理由ははっきり分からないが、多くの親子に、歯科衛生の学習会への参加を促したい」としている。
二〇〇八年度で首都圏の虫歯がある三歳児の割合は、神奈川が２０％、埼玉が２４％、千葉が２６％だった。
（東京新聞）

Fussa’s got the highest percentage of 3 year olds with cavities in Tokyo, and the “person in charge” has decided to blame that on the fact that there are a lot of NJ residents in Fussa who “give their kids juice on a daily basis.”

Given the proximity of Fussa to the Yokota base, however, I’d be willing to bet that a lot of those NJ in Fussa that they’re talking about are American… and American children tend to have MUCH better teeth than their Japanese counterparts. Many Americans are almost paranoid about dental health these days… and on the other hand, Fussa is also one of the less expensive areas of Tokyo, I’d bet that a lot of those cavities can be ascribed to lower-income families who just can’t or won’t spend the money on dental visits and fluoride treatments, etc.

I’m not sure whether to laugh at this or be offended by it… since the terrible teeth of Japanese children are quite the popular conversation topic among the American eikaiwa teachers that I’ve known, it seems ironic at the least. ENDS

Sunday Tangent: NJ and Abandoned Konketsuji Negishi Cemetery in Yokohama; photos included

Posted on April 18, 2010April 18, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Most of us long-termers have heard about (if not visited) Aoyama Gaijin Bochi (as still written on the signs) foreign cemetery in downtown Tokyo (see here and here). Debito.org CF writes about a less-known pair of NY cemeteries in Yokohama — Negishi and Hodogaya — that might be worth a look for history preservers. His photos are included below.

First, some background. The Japan Times (bless ’em, again!) has an article on Negishi from 1999. Excerpting:

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Headstones mark Yokohama haunt for the unknown
By MICK CORLISS Staff writer (excerpt)
The Japan Times: Wednesday, Aug. 25, 1999
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn19990825a9.html

Welcome to Yokohama Negishi Gaikokujin Bochi, also known as the Negishi Foreign Cemetery. Only a few hundred meters from Yokohama’s Yamate Station on the JR Keihin Tohoku Line, its obscure location and ambiguous past have helped keep it out of the spotlight.

While its diminutive size and inconvenient location have relegated this burial ground to near anonymity, its simple appearance, scattered headstones and wooden crosses belie a complicated past.

More than a 1,000 people are buried here and most are foreigners (“gaikokujin”) and infants.

Negishi was the poor foreigner’s cemetery. “Those who died of infectious diseases, sailors and those without money were mostly buried here. Of course there are some famous people, but it is basically a cemetery for poor people,” said Yasuji Tamura, a local teacher who has studied the cemetery for more than 15 years.

This continued until the end of World War II — when the graveyard’s most controversial residents were buried. After the war, Tamura and others believe that more than 800 infants were buried here.

“It is said that 824 babies, some the offspring of American soldiers who became close with Japanese women, were buried here,” Tamura said. “But there are no documents.”

“After the war there were many children born between Japanese women and soldiers stationed here,” Sawabe said. “There were no abortion facilities so women would have the babies and then abandon them.”

Rest at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn19990825a9.html
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That article from a decade ago talks about a revival of Negishi as a historical site. Doesn’t look like it happened. (Even the above-linked Wikipedia entry in E or J doesn’t mention the babies.) As Debito.org Reader CF, who submitted the photos below, writes:

================
Debito: Here are some more places of interest I have found in Yokohama. One is a cemetery in Negishi used by Japanese women after WW2 who had affairs with American solders and were ashamed of the outcome and buried them here, so it is told. Over 800 babies buried here supposedly but the place is in disarray, most of the markers gone. The Japanese police at that time asked no questions I guess. You don’t see one American flag or upkeep from anybody and there is a base right up the street there in Negishi. Same deal with the cemetery in Hodogaya.

Also, the British commonwealth cemetery, in Yokohama. Very interesting place, maintained by the British I guess. Some Americans in a urn are there as well, killed by the Japanese. CF

================

Thanks. Here are some photos, thanks CF. Click on an image to expand in browser. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

ENDS

Mutantfrog on Death of Yokoso Japan, plus birth of Welcome to Tokyo

Posted on April 16, 2010October 28, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Japan is rebooting its image for international tourists. According to Adamu at Mutantfrog:

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April 7, 2010
The Japanese government has announced a new international tourism slogan:

“Japan. Endless Discovery.“

Great, at least this time it’s in English! It’s similar to many other simple catch phrases used by other countries: “Malaysia, truly Asia,” “Seoul’s got Soul,” and so on. The Japanese-language slogan is more of more of a mouthful and literally translates as “Japan, a country where you will encounter endless discovery.” There’s also a new logo with a stylish but classy combo of cherry blossoms and the Japanese Rising Sun.

I like “Endless Discovery” because it has a message that happens to be true. As a foreigner living in Japan most days there’s something new to discover. This message could help put new visitors in the right frame of mind to enjoy themselves. Japan’s not a country like Thailand where you can head straight to the resort and not worry about foreign customs. It’s an adventure in many respects – new food, few English speakers, complicated train system, etc. (and the area outside of Tokyo is even harder to navigate), so why not put a positive face on what Japan’s got to offer?

I’d like to give Maehara and his people some credit for picking a slogan that actually makes sense. It’s comforting to think the people in power might actually understand the outside world a little bit. It’s one big, noticeable difference between the parties.

This will replace the old slogan Yokoso! Japan, announced in 2003 to much confusion by most people who had no idea yokoso means “welcome” in Japanese. Well-known Japan commentator Alex Kerr was especially critical, saying it might as well be “blah blah blah Japan.” It’s been a favorite target of mockery among many in the gaijin community and can currently be seen on taxis, buses, posters, and even transport minister Maehara’s lapel pin. You’ll be missed! The “Visit Japan Campaign 2010” site is still up, so you can soak up some of the goodness before it closes. There’s other questionable language on the site, like “Yokoso Bazar” and “Revalue Nippon.”

Rest at http://www.mutantfrog.com/2010/04/07/sayonara-yokoso-japan/

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That’s one thing of interest. Now how about Tokyo’s very expensive reboot? Courtesy of BD:

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April 8, 2010
Debito: Wanted to call your attention to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s new “Welcome to Tokyo” tourism website which features a short anime which [according to the Tokyo Shinbun Dec 20, 2009, link now dead] reportedly cost 50M Yen. That’s my tax dollars at work trying to lure foreigners to a city who’s governor is historically renown for his anti-foreigner rhetoric. Wonder if there’s anything that can be done to call out the points made by UN Rep Bustamante with regards to this site’s obvious ruse.

http://www.tourism.metro.tokyo.jp/english/welcome/

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COMMENT: About the Tokyo promo: Watch the “Honey Anime” in particular. A lot of bald-facedness going on there. I don’t personally watch much Anime (so it might be an issue of genre or style), but I find its eight-year-old-child attitudes towards life a bit cloying, and inappropriate for regular tourists. And you just gotta grimace at the bit where Tokyo-to’s oceanic territory is depicted as a haven for happy whales (never mind the Red Tides or, you know what…). As flash and expensive as the site is, I find the promotion campaign a bit “terrarium in a fishbowl”, with little apparent knowhow of how to appeal to outsiders and what they want after a very expensive plane trip plus hotels (oooh, Tokyo’s got a ZOO!!). And let’s not mention our xenophobic governor…

Charming for some, no doubt. But for me, just weird, and not terribly appealing, having been to Tokyo as a tourist (and guest speaker) my entire life in Japan (that’s right; I’ve never lived in Tokyo). Come to Tokyo and see how clean-line it really isn’t. Like seeing the waxwork dish of lunch outside the restaurant, and coming in to see it’s not at all what it was advertised. But that’s only my impression. What do others think? Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Japan Times on “Little Black Sambo” controversy, cites Debito.org’s parody “Little Yellow Jap”

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. The Japan Times this week published a very nicely-considered article on something brought up on Debito.org in February: The Little Black Sambo controversy, and how it was being taught without any racial sensitivity or historical/cultural context, to Japanese pre-schoolers, regardless of concerns raised about its appropriateness.

For the record, I believe LBS is a work of history and as such should not be “banned”. It should, however, whenever used always be placed in historical context, and seen as materiel to enlighten people about the prejudices of the day. I have never seen it done so in Japan. In fact, the republisher Zuiunsha — which appears to have just appropriated the book from the previous Japanese publisher and republished it for fun and profit — doesn’t even offer a disclaimer or a foreword in the book explaining why this book has been problematic; existentially, it’s just a book they can get rich off of. Who cares if some people might be adversely affected by it?

Hence my attempt, mentioned below, of providing not historical context, but through parody putting the shoe on the other foot for empathy, as “Little Yellow Jap”. That has occasioned cries of “racism” by the noncognizant. But the Japan Times essayist below gets it. Excerpt of article follows. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Japan Times illustration (tiff file, click on squares if not visible in your browser):

THE ZEIT GIST
‘Sambo’ racism row reignites over kids’ play
The 1899 book still making waves in 21st-century Japan
The Japan Times, April 13, 2010 (excerpt)
By MATTHEW CHOZICK

“Little Black Sambo, Sambo, Sambo/His face and hands are completely black/Even his butt is completely black.”

Word of nursery-schoolers in Saitama Prefecture chanting a “Little Black Sambo” song — “akin to what might be taught by a white supremacist group” — spread online recently, prompting 21st century-style activism: Facebook postings, blogosphere commotion, an online petition, CCed e-mails to Tokorozawa City Hall. In a phone call, a Midori Hoikuen nursery school employee admitted to having read and then re-enacted — with toddlers — the best-selling children’s book “Little Black Sambo” (known here as “Chibikuro Sanbo”). The re-enactment’s song lyrics, as printed above, were allegedly translated by a biracial child’s concerned parent and then uploaded onto Facebook.

Since the first, Victorian-era printing of “Little Black Sambo,” its pejorative title and caricature illustrations — pitch-black faces with bulging red lips, white balloon eyes — have been a perennial bone of contention for civil-rights proponents in the U.S. and, later, Japan. Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes described the text in 1932 as “amusing undoubtedly to the white child, but like an unkind word to one who has known too many hurts to enjoy the additional pain of being laughed at.”…

Activist and Japan Times columnist Debito Arudou uploaded a parody onto his Web site, debito.org, titled “Little Yellow Jap” (“Chibi Kiiro Jappu”). Arudou asks, “What if your race was depicted in the same way as in this book?”

Redolent of Audrey Hepburn’s bucktoothed Japanese neighbor played by Mickey Rooney in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Arudou’s characters have enormous eyeglasses, exaggeratedly yellow skin and big front incisors. In Arudou’s parody, the original’s tigers become monkeys, butter is miso, one character is garbed in sumo getup and another in a Hello Kitty apron.

Arudou’s artwork succeeds, like the book it lampoons, in being both somewhat offensive and also kind of cute. This conflation is important because cuteness directs feelings of fondness and intimacy toward items of all kinds, not just puppies. Indeed, throughout “Little Black Sambo” there are numerous physical characteristics that humans are biologically programmed to find cute. According to Austrian Nobel Laureate Konrad Lorenz, these include “predominance of the brain capsule, large and low-lying eyes, bulging cheek region.”…

Whether or not this book is innocent of bigotry will continue to be debated, but in the meantime it may be a good idea to foster a critical atmosphere in which “Little Black Sambo,” held in the hands of a competent teacher, can educate children while charming their imaginations. If you teach, get a debate rolling. Bring a copy of “Little Black Sambo” to class along with Arudou’s illustrations. Let’s not be hasty in making pre-Amazon.com kindling out of a potentially valuable pedagogic tool…

Full article at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20100413zg.html

The parody, “Little Yellow Jap”, is downloadable from
https://www.debito.org/chibikurosanbo.html
ENDS

Congratulations to Oguri Saori for her successful opening of “Darling wa Gaikokujin” movie

Posted on April 11, 2010April 11, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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Hi Blog. Just a word of congratulations on apparently one of the more important intercultural events of the year — the successful movie release of Oguri Saori’s hit manga series “Darling wa Gaikokujin” (My Darling is a Foreigner).

Officially released yesterday with balloons and girly frills, the movie is feted to make a splash with all the Japanese women jonesing to date foreign men (even though about three-quarters of all J-NJ marriages are J men to NJ women).

Good for Saori. I’ve known her for years (even stayed at the couple’s apartment for many days back in the ‘Nineties), and know her to be a person of great talent.

Here are some photos from the grand opening party, courtesy of MS: