Kambayashi Column: Self-censoring media abets incompetent politicians.

Posted on May 4, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. In concert with yesterday’s blog posting on politicians hijacking events for their own ends, here’s Takehiko Kambayashi on how the media lets them hijack their airwaves and printing presses without sufficient critique, letting the incompetent drift to the top. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Self-censoring media abets incompetent politicians.
THE DIPLOMAT
By Takehiko Kambayashi 30-Apr-2009
http://www.the-diplomat.com/article.aspx?aeid=13420
Courtesy of the author.

Media outlets here have been heralding an apparent jump in the approval ratings of Prime Minister Taro Aso’s Cabinet, with a recent poll by major daily The Sankei Shimbun and the Fuji News Network suggesting that 28.2 percent of Japanese approve of the government’s performance, up from 20.8 percent in late March. But what the media doesn’t want to talk about is the 60 percent of those surveyed who still disapprove of the Cabinet.

Aso continues to struggle to win over the rest of the Japanese public because of his lack of leadership and because of his predilection for embarrassing himself. But this begs the question: why was such a weak and controversial politician able to climb to the top of the political heap in the first place?

Putting his foot in his mouth is hardly a recent problem for Aso. As a candidate in the 2001 Liberal Democratic Party presidential elections, for example, he suggested to reporters at the Foreign Correspondent Club in Tokyo that the best country would be one “where the richest Jewish people would want to live.”

He later apologized. But he hardly needed to, because the Japanese media ignored this blatant example of bigotry from the then-economics minister of the world’s second largest economy – a man who went on to serve as the country’s top diplomat under two prime ministers. Fortunately for Aso, the media in Japan censors itself even when politicians err blatantly.

A prime example of this kid-glove approach with Aso came in July 2006, when prominent journalist Ryuichi Teshima, a former Washington bureau chief for state broadcaster NHK, praised Aso for his “steadiness” as foreign minister in a “time of crisis,” following an attempted North Korean missile launch earlier that month.

Nonsense. A string of gaffes convincingly demonstrate Aso’s tin ear for diplomacy and international affairs, not least when dealing with Japan’s supposed allies. For instance, Aso has argued that U.S. diplomats in the Middle East can’t solve the region’s problems because of their “blue eyes and blond hair.” He said the Japanese would be more likely to be trusted because they have “yellow faces.” Yet this stunning display of ignorance elicited barely a murmur from the mainstream Japanese media. And sadly, this is hardly an isolated case. Every news outlet scrambles to follow LDP politicians around, and the LDP in turn loves the attention its lawmakers get. This is especially true during elections for the party leadership, when its candidates often get a free ride in newspapers and on television, with the pervasive coverage serving to boost the LDP’s popularity even though the vast majority of the public do not even have a say in choosing the party’s leader.

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is a case in point. He took office in 2006 with great fanfare and approval ratings that hovered around 65 percent. But his treatment during the LDP leadership contest was telling. During an “NHK Special” aired before the race, reporter Akiko Iwata bragged about her interview with Abe, saying as she sat on his couch that such media access was almost impossible to get. Yet Iwata, who ostensibly became a journalist because she wanted to work for “social justice,” proceeded to lob softball questions for the entire interview.

Why doesn’t the media do its job? One reason is that it is common knowledge that, in the quirky world of Japanese journalism, when a politician is awarded an influential post, the reporter covering that politician earns a promotion.

Yasushi Kawasaki, himself a former political reporter for NHK, told me that many political reporters become politicians of a sort themselves, seeking to bolster their backroom influence. Major news organizations are “in collusion with those in power.”

Kawasaki is a refreshingly honest voice on the cozy relationship between the Japanese media and politicians. Unfortunately, it is also a very lonely voice.
ENDS

Thoughts on May Day 2009 in Odori Park, Sapporo

Posted on May 3, 2009May 3, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. A little post for the holidays:

I was cycling on my way to work on May 1 and going through Odori Park, where the 80th Annual Hokkaido May Day labor union rallies were taking place. They’re fun affairs (you get the pretentious lefties spouting off about protecting human rights, but then with no sense of irony whatsoever refuse to give me a flyer as I’m walking past…), and it’s always interesting to see who’s speaking.

I had just missed Hokkaido Governor Takahashi Harumi’s speech (but I saw her in the speaker gallery — she’s a tiny little person!), but Sapporo Mayor Ueda Fumio gave a short and well-tailored speech designed for the workers: about how Hokkaido’s in the job market toilet and we have to keep it from getting worse; and we’d better make sure that no more companies go bankrupt (I raised an eyebrow at that; that doesn’t sound all that populist anymore).

But then came the rabbit out of the hat. DPJ leader Ozawa Ichiro (yes, THAT Ozawa) gave a ten-minuter about how the LDP was about to lose power and how the DPJ and associated allies were going to kick butt in the next unavoidable election. I snickered a bit, about how the worm had turned (given Ozawa’s history as a LDP kingpin dealing within the smoke-filled rooms of Kanemaru and PM Takeshita), and renewed my distrust of him. He’ll say anything to get into power, which might indeed be the job description of any politician, but I still felt after he left the podium that he lacked any personal convictions except getting his own back on the LDP.

But he was soon overshadowed two speakers later. After the vice-prez of Shamintou gave the proper address about unemployed workers, the Japanese Constitution, and various other leftie issues that I agreed with to the core but noticed how smoothly they were served up, out came the person that should be banished from any public event with crucifixes: Suzuki Muneo. Yes, another former LDP kingpin, now twice-convicted for corruption (and in office only because his case is on appeal in the Supreme Court, and because Hokkaido people can be pretty stupid), up at the podium protesting his innocence yet again. Yes, no kidding, in between the pat statements that Hokkaido is underrepresented and kept poor by the mainland (I agree, but I wouldn’t want Muneo to be the representer), he talked about how the police are going after people like Ozawa and himself unfairly because the latter are challenging the ruling class. And how he looked forward to being part of the new ruling DPJ even if his one-person party has only elected him (played that one for laughs; it worked). The shikai who came on after that noted how suddenly May Day had taken on a different tone. No wonder. The politicians had hijacked it for their own purposes, not for the promotion of worker rights.

Anyway, back to Muneo. He had clearly hitched his wagon to the left. At about 150 decibels, he was the most attention-getting speaker of the day (I admit he’s an incredible speaker; even if you don’t trust him, you’ll be boxed about the ears by his high-volume convictions). He walked off with more applause than anyone (Ozawa got some desultory claps; he’s a by-the-numbers speaker because he believes in very little fervently; Muneo, a performance artist like Iggy Pop, would cut his chest on stage if he got your support — he certainly shredded his vocal cords) and probably garnered a few more votes from desperate Dosanko. Sigh.

I resumed my trek to work after that. As always, I’m fascinated by Japanese politics, because I like to see what appeals. Very little of it is as well-thought-out or as inspiring as a single Obama speech. That’s one reason that Obama’s speeches are best-sellers in Japan. The Japanese electorate is thirsting for someone to show some impressive leadership. All the left got today in Sapporo, however, were Ichiro and Muneo. And they are hardly leftists.

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Terrie’s Take on Golden Week (2008 and 2009)

Posted on May 2, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog and Happy Start of Golden Week. I have a new blog poll up on the right-hand side of every blog page, and here’s some background information on the issue. Two Terrie’s Takes, one from last week, one from last year (which is a bit of a time capsule as it’s pre-economic crisis). Enjoy. Debito in Sapporo, who is not traveling.

* * * * * * * * * T E R R I E ‘S T A K E * * * * * * *
A weekly roundup of news & information from Terrie Lloyd.
(http://www.terrie.com)

General Edition Sunday, Apr 26, 2009 Issue No. 515
-> Possible holiday reform

The central government is reportedly looking at modifying
the dates of some public holidays, so as to ensure that
they fall on days that allow 3-day weekends and thus
encourage employees to take time off work and travel with
their families. To ensure that Dads actually do take off
their extra days of leave — which currently they don’t 50%
of the time, the government is also considering changing
accounting rules so that any unused employee leave will
have to be accounted for as a liability, and be financially
provisioned for in company accounts. ***Ed: This is a great
idea, and will certainly make companies more interested in
having their staff actually take time off.** (Source: TT
commentary from nikkei.co.jp, Apr 21, 2009)

http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/e/fr/tnks/Nni20090421DA1J4211.htm

* * * * * * * * * T E R R I E ‘S T A K E * * * * * * *

General Edition Sunday, April 27, 2008 Issue No. 467
www.terrie.com

Here we are at the start of what normally for many is one of their longest holiday breaks — Golden Week (“Renkyu”). But not this year — as neither of the two weeks that the holidays occur in provides workers more than 2 days off. Normally, the 4 days: Showa Day, Constitution Day, Greenery Day, and Children’s Day would generate a string of holidays up to 7 or 8 days long, but because this year two of the days fall on the weekend, we only get a single compensation day on Tuesday, May 6th. Next year is better, we get 5 consecutive days.

This hasn’t deterred a number of traditional companies from going ahead and giving their employees some extra time off — so next week it will be hard to order anything from factories or service companies. We know because we just tried to get a new TV installed. No way Jose, we’ll have to wait until at least May 7th or 8th — ten days from now.

But while some lucky workers are getting a couple of bonus days off, most are not. This is apparently the main reason why the number of tourists expected to travel overseas this Golden Week is likely to fall almost 15% from last year, to 458,000 people. This is the biggest drop since 2003, when SARs scared everyone into staying home. SARs of course is just a faded memory (other than the government which has a stock pile of 35m doses of Tamiflu), and this year, 269,000 people will still make the pilgramage to Hong Kong, South Korea, and/or China.

But it seems that there are other factors besides the scattered nature of the holidays which are keeping the Japanese at home during Golden Week, 2008.

As far as Asia is concerned, the Japanese are a relatively peripatetic nation, with around 17m people making overseas trips and 22m taking domestic holidays in 2007. This is equivalent to 32% of all its citizens taking a holiday away from home at least once a year. Golden Week is a particularly important travel period economically. Destinations like Hawaii receive about 458,000 Japanese tourists a year, and about 1/3 of them travel during Golden Week, spending an average US$269 a day, almost double the US$169 Americans from the mainland spend.

Those who don’t go overseas instead journey to Tokyo and other major centers to shop. Last year 1.5m people visited the then-new Mitsui Midtown shopping/office complex in Roppongi. Department stores such as Daimaru saw shopper numbers rise by around 12%. Taxi company Nihon Kotsu had its fare earnings increase by JPY1,300 per cab, due to customers making round trips to Haneda airport and the city. In Osaka, sales at the Namba Parks entertainment complex soared 170%.

Some of the reasons that JTB, Japan’s largest travel agency, is giving for the international tourist drop-off this year include the higher fuel surcharges, adding up to 10% to ticket prices; the Chinese gyoza food scare; and just the simple lack of holiday budget by families and younger people who have historically flocked to Hawaii and other international destinations.

This last point is in our minds probably the biggest factor affecting travel statistics in general — not just international travel. Although one would think that the 13% revaluation of the yen versus the dollar would make Hawaii and similar dollar-tied destinations a lot more attractive, it seems that the cloud of pessimism which has been hanging over the Japanese economy since the subprime news started breaking last summer, is still very much affecting the moods of both employers and workers alike.

As polls are showing, the average Japanese appears to be very concerned about their overall future — the Cabinet Office’s March consumer confidence poll showed that just 36.5% of households in the period January-March were confident about the future, the lowest level of confidence since June 2003, when it was 36.1%. A reading of less than 50% indicates a general mood of pessimism in the nation. So, perhaps it is natural that people are less likely than ever to want to lay out thousands of dollars on a trip when doing so might create a shortfall in their budget if the prices continue to rise.

And this is not a new trend. Overseas travel has dropped each year over the last two years, and has only just barely retraced the levels of pre-SARs 2002. However, whereas in previous years falling international travel was offset by local visits to onsen and tourist spots around the country, this year JTB is also forecasting a slight drop in domestic tourists, to 21.44m people. Gunma reckons its visitor numbers to onsen this year will be down around 5%.

The feeling of pessimism (or realism?) is nowhere more pronounced than amongst young adults in their 20’s. While in 1996, around 4.63m people in this age group traveled overseas, in 2006, only 2.98m did — a fall of 35.7%. This huge drop can be explained by simple economics. Although the job market is tight, companies are not opening their purse strings to employees — they’re scared too, and thus real income for workers in their 20’s has dropped almost yearly since 2001. Recent inflation is speeding up this deficit. JTB says the average Japanese tourist spends about JPY214,000 on an overseas trip, and that is several thousand dollars more than a worried single is prepared to pay. Indeed, the Statistics Bureau gives the average 2006 disposable income of under-34’s, who have their own apartment as being just barely more than JPY20,000 (US$200) per month — hardly enough to do any travel on.

As a result, not just travel, but other forms of youth spending such as autos and alcohol have also dropped. According to a recent Nikkei article, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association says that the ratio of cars owned by young men in their 20s dropped from 81% in 1995 to 74% in 2005. Another survey found that single males 34 years or younger were last year spending 26% less on alcohol then they did in 2002.

So is there a silver lining to a slow golden holiday period? It seems there is. In 2002, the number of people killed in Golden Week accidents was 224, while last year, just five years later, 119 died this way. More notable was the fact that only 12 people died through drunk-driving accidents versus 29 in 2007.

Japan’s youth appear to becoming a generation of worried, sober bicycle and train riders, who stay at home or meet friends during Golden Week…
ENDS

Sunday Tangent: Economist on Japan buying LNG from Sakhalin (finally!) and Hokkaido’s missed opportunities

Posted on April 26, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I spotted this recent Economist article (I have a paper subscription; call me retro) over lunch last week, and was surprised to see that Japanese industry, after decades of wait (see article below), has finally bought Russian fuel. About time.

Living in Hokkaido for more than twenty years now has given me a number of insights by osmosis regarding our extremely proximate Russian neighbor (in three places — Wakkanai, Nemuro, and Rausu — mere kilometers away), and how that affects business.

First, Japanese and Russians tend not to get along. We still have no peace treaty (merely an armistice) with Russia after the 1945 seizure of the Northern Territories (and the big loss of southern Sakhalin, still called by its prewar name “Karafuto” by not a few Hokkaidoites). We also get occasional articles in the Hokkaido Shinbun reminding the public of pre-surrender Soviet submarine raids off Rumoi, and the impending invasion of northern and eastern Hokkaido before McArthur stepped in. Old people still remember postwar Russian concentration camps and forced repatriations from lands they feel they rightfully settled. And even today, the rough-and-tumble nature of the Russian that Hokkaidoites most frequently come in contact with (the sailor) was at the heart of the exclusionism behind the Otaru Onsens Case. The Japanese military, excuse me, “Self Defense Forces” still have a very strong presence up here (even building our snow sculptures) to ward off possible Soviet invasions, and keep us from getting too friendly with (or receive too many Aeroflot flights from) the Rosuke.

Second, Hokkaido has for years been unable to take advantage of the goldmine just off their shores. Potential deals with Sakhalin have not only been stymied by foot-dragging government bureaucrats (and the occasional businessman who, according to business contact Simon Jackson of North Point Network KK, cite business deals gone sour with the Soviets around three or four decades ago!). The most ludicrous example was where overseas energy interests were considering opening offices in Sapporo in the early 1990s (for Sapporo’s standard of living was far higher than that of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk). But they took one look at the toolshed that was essentially the Hokkaido International School back then and decided their relocated families needed better educational opportunities. The Hokkaido Government has since rectified that with a much nicer building for HIS, but it remains in the annals of bungled policy and opportunities. Thus Sapporo missed out on all the gobs of riches that oil money provides anywhere (viz. Edmonton or Calgary) as the end of the era of cheap petroleum makes exploration and development economically feasible just about anywhere.

Third, as the article demonstrates below, Tokyo seems to be skipping over Hokkaido again with its first LNG deal. If we had set up the infrastructure when we had the chance, we could be getting some of that value-added. Granted, doing business in Russia (what with the shady elements posing as dealers and administrators) is pretty risky. But it seems in keeping with the historical gormlessness of Hokkaido (what with all the crowding out of entrepreneurial industry through a century of public works), and the maintenance of our island as a resource colony of the mainland. See an essay I wrote on this way back in 1996, and tell me if much has changed.

In fact, it seems the only reason Japan has come round to dealing with Sakhalin at all is because increasingly mighty China is squeezing them out of the market, according to The Economist below.

Enough comment from me. Here’s the article. It reflects none of the background I give above, sadly. Hokkaido’s perpetual non-player status means we’re skipped over again. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Energy in Japan
Raising the stakes

Apr 8th 2009 | TOKYO
From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13447453

Low prices and a strong yen give Japanese firms an opportunity to buy abroad

WHEN Energy Frontier, an enormous tanker, glided into Tokyo Bay on April 6th from Sakhalin Island, she was not just carrying the first shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from a problematic Russian venture, under a deal signed 15 years ago. She was also bearing the symbolic weight of Japan’s aspirations to greater energy security. Lacking natural resources, Japan imports more than 95% of its energy. Almost all its oil and a quarter of its LNG come from the Middle East. To reach Japan ships must travel for 20 days, passing near pirate-infested waters. Sakhalin, by contrast, is just three days away.

In 2006 the Japanese government called on industry to increase its ownership of foreign energy projects to cover 40% of Japan’s energy needs, up from 15% at the time. The idea was to make the country less dependent on the spot market in case of trouble by taking stakes in various energy projects around the world. But as prices soared and China became a keen buyer, slow-moving Japanese firms found themselves being shut out of deals.

Today, however, many energy projects are starved of capital because of the credit crunch, energy prices are low and the yen is strong. Since mid-2008 the price of crude oil has fallen by two-thirds and the yen had at one point appreciated by as much as 20% against the dollar. This has given Japanese energy firms a window of opportunity to make foreign acquisitions.

In January Nippon Oil bought rights to oilfields in Papua New Guinea. Inpex, Japan’s largest oil-development company, has acquired rights to oil in South America and Australia. A consortium that includes Nippon Oil and Inpex is vying for rights to a project in southern Iraq. And this month Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, visited Tokyo to sign energy deals.

“We have been very quietly shifting the gravity of our strategy from exploration and ‘greenfield’ projects to acquisitions and exchange deals,” says Tadashi Maeda of the Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC), a state-backed lender for foreign projects. Deals rather than digging lets Japan obtain resources faster, he says. JBIC can put around $12 billion a year towards energy acquisitions.

The Japanese government’s 40% target is immaterial, Mr Maeda asserts. Instead, JBIC’s aim is to ensure that the market functions smoothly and that the fuel can be transported to Japan if necessary. A stake in an oilfield does not always entitle the owner to a share of its output, rather than a share of the revenue when the oil is sold on the open market. But ownership helps absorb the shock of sudden price increases or tight supply. And some contracts do specify that in the event of a crisis, output is reserved for the owners.

So far the Japanese firms’ deals have been small, raising concerns that they may be missing their chance to buy at a favourable time, says David Hewitt of CLSA, a broker. Yet the hesitation is understandable. Lower energy prices means certain projects are no longer viable. Some firms, including Mitsubishi and Mitsui, are expected to have to write off portions of recent investments, making them wary of new deals. Even when capital is available, taking on debt can jeopardise a firm’s credit rating. And the recession has reduced Japan’s energy use by 10-20%.

Japanese executives also complain that Chinese firms, which have plenty of capital from state-run banks and face less pressure to show profits, are overpaying and driving up prices. JBIC encourages Japanese firms to form consortiums to increase their heft. In February Toshiba, Tokyo Power and JBIC took a joint 20% stake in Uranium One of Canada—a deal that suits everybody’s interests but which no party could have achieved on its own.

The shipment of LNG that arrived in Tokyo this month came from the giant Sakhalin II project, set up in the 1990s by Royal Dutch Shell, an Anglo-Dutch oil giant, in partnership with Mitsubishi, Mitsui and other Western firms. At the time it was the only big energy project in Russia that did not involve a local partner. That changed in late 2006 when Shell and its Japanese partners reluctantly agreed to sell a 50% stake to Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled gas giant. This highlighted the political risks involved in the pursuit of energy security—and why having the government represented, via a state-backed lender like JBIC, is not a bad idea.

The Sakhalin II project will produce as much as 9.6m tonnes of LNG a year, 60% of which will go to Japan, accounting for about 7% of its LNG imports. For Japan, the project’s proximity is its main appeal. Parts of Sakhalin were Japanese territory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and were ceded after Japan’s defeat in the second world war. Today’s commercial battles are less bloody, but no less intense.

ENDS

Economist: First mention of Japan’s “two lost decades”: Calls into question efficacy of “Japan Inc” business model

Posted on April 13, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. A tangent in a sense, but macroeconomics affect us all, and it’s harder to keep our eye on loftier goals like human rights when people’s pocketbooks are emptying. This is the first mention I’ve seen in the press about Japan’s “TWO lost decades”. And I’m afraid I agree that this is not an overstatement. To me, it’s symbolic of the self-damaging “seesawing self-image” Japan tends to have of itself.

That is to say, when times are going well, really well (like say 1960 to 1990), popular sentiment begins to tend towards a superiority complex, in that “We Japanese are harder workers and have an exceptional, unique society that is designed to grow and enrich itself perpetually” (unlike the hybrid mutt multicultural societies, whose factory workers are lazy and less intelligent, according to Japan’s contemporary premier politicians). Then follows the arrogance and self-convincing which justifies staying the course: After all, it’s “The Japanese Way”, after all. Of course, there ‘s little mention of other possible root causes for Japan’s phenomenal success, such as a lack of post-WWII war reparations, or preferential trade agreements, or markets overseas opened to nurture export-led countries away from the temptation of warmaking economies. And once Japan had (through hard work and perseverance) matured and reached its due, one might argue it has done quite poorly, compared to fellow mature economies in The Economist’s graphs below. For after all, if there’s no business model except a slavish following of “The Japanese Way”, what’s next for people sitting tight and waiting for the next ideological auto-pilot to take over?

After now nearly two decades of bumbling about (and fortunately losing a lot of that unhealthy superiority complex, except perhaps towards the foreigners who decide to come here that it can pick on), one begins to wonder whether the “Japan Inc.” model of business was actually all that stand-alone successful. There are plenty of other rich economies that are relatively resource poor (as in, probably most of the Western Europeans’ economies) yet still are outperforming Japan, so let’s not fall back on the shimaguni excuses. I think the evidence is mounting that using the Americans as a economic crutch was the key to Japan’s postwar growth. Fine. But if Japan wants to stick to the same “crutch economy” to power itself, it had better shut its uyoku up and get friendlier with China, because China is probably going to be the export purchaser of the future. Otherwise, consider the consumer-led economy being proposed by The Economist below.

Sorry, random brain farts after a gloriously sunny week. Omatase: Here’s the more substantial Economist article, already. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Japan

The incredible shrinking economy

Apr 2nd 2009 | TOKYO
From The Economist print edition

http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13415153
Japan is in danger of suffering not one but two lost decades

Illustration by S. Kambayash

TO LOSE one decade may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness. Japan’s economy stagnated in the 1990s after its stockmarket and property bubbles burst, but its more recent economic performance looks even more troubling. Industrial production plunged by 38% in the year to February, to its lowest level since 1983. Real GDP fell at an annualised rate of 12% in the fourth quarter of 2008, and may have declined even faster in the first three months of this year. The OECD forecasts that Japan’s GDP will shrink by 6.6% in 2009 as a whole, wiping out all the gains from the previous five years of recovery.

If that turns out to be true, Japan’s economy will have grown at an average of 0.6% a year since it first stumbled in 1991 (see top chart). Thanks to deflation as well, the value of GDP in nominal terms in the first quarter of this year probably fell back to where it was in 1993. For 16 years the economy has, in effect, gone nowhere.

Was Japan’s seemingly strong recovery of 2003-07 an illusion? And why has the global crisis hit Japan much harder than other rich economies? Popular wisdom has it that Japan is overly dependent on exports, but the truth is a little more complicated. The share of exports in Japan’s GDP is much smaller than in Germany or China and until recently was on a par with that in America. During the ten years to 2001, net exports contributed nothing to Japan’s GDP growth. Then exports did surge, from 11% of GDP to 17% last year. If exporters’ capital spending is included, net exports accounted for almost half of Japan’s total GDP growth in the five years to 2007.

Exports boomed on the back of a super-cheap yen and America’s consumer binge. Japan did not have housing or credit bubbles, but the undervalued yen encouraged a bubble of a different sort. Japanese exporters expanded capacity in the belief that the yen would stay low and global demand remain strong, resulting in a huge misallocation of resources.

As foreign demand collapsed and the yen soared last year, Japan’s export “bubble” burst. Total exports have fallen by almost half in the past year. Japan’s high-value products, such as cars and consumer electronics, are the first things people stop buying when the economy sours.

Richard Jerram, an economist at Macquarie Securities, argues that the worst may soon be over for industrial production. This year, output and exports have fallen by much more than the drop in demand, because firms have temporarily closed plants in order to slash excess stocks. For instance, Japan’s vehicle production in the first two months of 2009 was 50% lower than a year before, but global car sales fell by only 25%.

Mr Jerram reckons that the inventory rundown is coming to an end, which will lead to a short-term bounce in output as factories reopen. If so, car output in June could be around 50% higher than in March (but still down by 25% on a year earlier). This means that GDP growth might turn positive in the second quarter even if foreign demand remains weak.

Unfortunately, the economy is likely to totter again as the second-round effects of tumbling profits and rising unemployment squeeze investment and consumer spending. According to the latest Tankan survey of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), in March business sentiment among big manufacturing firms was the gloomiest since the poll began in 1974. Manufacturers say they plan to cut investment by 20% this year. They are also trimming jobs and wages. The seemingly modest unemployment rate of 4.4% in February understates the pain. The ratio of job offers to applicants has declined to only 0.59, from around one at the start of 2008, and average hours worked have also fallen sharply. Average wages (including bonuses and overtime pay) went down by 2.7% in the 12 months to February. Household spending fell by 3.5% in real terms over the same period; department store sales plunged by 11.5%.

The weakening domestic economy has prompted the government to man the fiscal pumps. A stimulus of 1.4% of GDP is already in the pipeline for 2009, and a further boost of perhaps 2% of GDP is expected to be unveiled in mid-April. The package is likely to include measures to strengthen the safety net for the unemployed and so ease concerns about job security. There will also be new infrastructure spending. Much of the expenditure on public works in the 1990s is now considered wasteful, so this time the focus is meant to be on projects that boost productivity, such as an expansion of Tokyo’s Haneda airport. Better crafted stimulus measures which raise long-run growth are also less likely to spook bond markets concerned about the government’s vast debt.

So long as the extra measures are not delayed by an early election (which must be called by September), Japan’s total fiscal stimulus in 2009 could be the largest among the G7 economies. But it would not be enough to prevent a sharp widening of the output gap (the difference between actual GDP and what the economy could produce at full capacity). This had already risen to 4% of GDP in the fourth quarter of 2008, and it is likely to approach 10% by the end of 2009, twice as much as in the 1990s downturn (see bottom chart, above).

This gaping economic hole is again putting downward pressure on prices. By late summer consumer prices could be more than 2% lower than a year before—a faster decline than during Japan’s previous bout of deflation. The risk is that deflation will squeeze profits and hence jobs, thereby further depressing demand and prices. The BOJ cut interest rates to 0.1% in December and it has introduced several measures to keep credit flowing, such as buying commercial paper and corporate bonds, as well as shares held by banks, which boosts their capital ratios. In contrast to the 1990s, bank lending is still growing.

The BOJ has also stepped up its purchases of government bonds, but after its experience in 2001-06, the bank remains sceptical that such “quantitative easing” can lift inflationary expectations and spur demand. One big difference is that the previous episode of quantitative easing coincided with stringent budget-tightening under Junichiro Koizumi, the then prime minister. The budget deficit was reduced from 8% of GDP in 2002 to 1.4% in 2006 (which partly explains why domestic demand was weak). The combination of fiscal expansion and government-bond purchases by the BOJ should work better.

The OECD predicts that public-sector debt will approach 200% of GDP in 2010, so the scope for further fiscal stimulus will be limited. Nor can Japan rely on exports for future growth; to the extent that it had enjoyed an export bubble, foreign demand will not return to its previous level. Japan needs to spur domestic spending.

One possible option, which the government is exploring, is to unlock the vast financial assets of the elderly. Japanese households’ stash of savings is equivalent to more than five times their disposable income, the highest of any G7 economy, and three-fifths of it is held by people over 60 years old. Gifts to children are taxed like ordinary income, but if this tax were reduced, increased transfers could boost consumption and housing investment since the young have a much higher propensity to consume. In theory, this could give a much bigger boost to the economy than any likely fiscal stimulus.

Of course, one reason why the elderly are cautious about running down their assets is concern about the mismanaged pension system and future nursing care. Services for the elderly should be among Japan’s fastest growing industries and create lots of new jobs, but they are held back by regulations which restrict competition and supply. Deregulation of services would not only help to improve the living standards of an ageing population, but by helping to unlock savings might also drag the economy out of deep recession.

Japan’s second lost decade holds worrying lessons for other rich economies. Its large fiscal stimulus succeeded in preventing a depression in the 1990s after its bubble burst—and others are surely correct to follow today. But Japan’s failure to spur a strong domestic recovery a decade later suggests that America and Europe may also have a long, hard journey ahead.

ENDS

Sunday Tangent: NPR interview with late scholar John Hope Franklin: feel the parallels

Posted on April 12, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s Sunday’s tangent. On March 27, 2009, NPR replayed a 1990 interview with the late John Hope Franklin, historian of racism within the United States. He died at age 94 on March 25. The Economist ran this as part of their obituary on April 2:

…Academia offered no shelter. He excelled from high school onwards, eventually earning a doctorate at Harvard and becoming, in 1956, the first black head of an all-white history department at a mostly white university, Brooklyn College. Later, the University of Chicago recruited him. But in Montgomery, Louisiana, the archivist called him a “Harvard nigger” to his face. In the state archives in Raleigh, North Carolina, he was confined to a tiny separate room and allowed free run of the stacks because the white assistants would not serve him. At Duke in 1943, a university to which he returned 40 years later as a teaching professor, he could not use the library cafeteria or the washrooms.

Whites, he noted, had no qualms about “undervaluing an entire race”. Blacks were excluded both from their histories, and from their understanding of how America had been made. Mr Franklin’s intention was to weave the black experience back into the national story. Unlike many after him, he did not see “black history” as an independent discipline, and never taught a formal course in it. What he was doing was revising American history as a whole. His books, especially “From Slavery to Freedom” (1947), offered Americans their first complete view of themselves…

http://www.economist.com/obituary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13403067

Now read this excerpt from the NPR interview, which I transcribed, and see if you get what I did from it:

Terry Gross: In some of your essays in your new book, you talk about some of the obstacles that you faced as a Black scholar, and you wrote that you faced discrimination that goes beyond any discrimination you faced in the field itself. For example, when you were chairman of history at Brooklyn College [New York City, in 1956], one of the problems you had was finding an apartment you wanted to live in, because a lot of neighborhoods refused to sell to you.

JHF: That’s right. I spent more than a year trying to find a place I wanted to purchase. My appointment was so spectacular that news of it with my picture was on the front page of the New York Times. But when I set out to find a house near my college — I hoped to be able to walk to work — almost none of the real estate dealers in the area would show me any of the houses that they were widely advertising. And when I finally found one being sold by the owner, I then had the problem of trying to find the money so I could purchase the house. And that was another round of excruciating experiences. I finally found it, but I could have spent this time so much better.

TG: Let me ask you kind of a stupid question. Did you ever take that New York Times article around to the real estate agents and say to them, “Look, don’t you know who I am?”

JHF: No, I don’t believe in that. I’m a human being, and that ought to be enough. I’m well-mannered, I think I’m well-dressed, and I think that my conduct is above reproach. I think that that should commend me. And if it doesn’t, well, then I think they’re not interested in hearing anything about who I am. I have no doubt that many of these people knew who I was. And yet, I was still rejected.

COMMENT: These sorts of things are mostly seen nowadays as unpleasant historical anachronisms, approached and reflected upon with the attitude of “How could people do this sort of thing? What were we thinking back then?” And rightly so.

However, just try to rent as a foreigner in Japan, and get credit as a foreigner in Japan. Bonne chance. You simply are not going to resolve these situations until you make what happened to JHF illegal.

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

WWII war flag with signatures: Looking for people they belong to

Posted on April 6, 2009April 6, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. A rather unusual request from overseas today. I received word from some Americans that have a Japanese World War II artifact they would like to repatriate. Here’s their communique, forwarded with permission, altered for privacy. Debito

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

Hello Mr. Arudou:

Allow us to introduce ourselves. We are friends of LA Times reporter Leslie Helm from the time we all lived in Yokohama, Japan.

He recommended you as a person who can help with a flag that belonged to a Japanese soldier who died in the Philippines during WW2.

Briefly, here is the story:

A colleague’s father died recently and among his belongings was a flag he had found in the battlefield in Luzon during WW2. We were asked to read the writing on the flag (attached herewith).

It belonged to a Japanese soldier named Niimi Atsuyuki. The signatures of many well-wishers are on the flag, among them the Chief of the Otaru Municipal Hospital at that time. Mr. Niimi was a staff member of this hospital when he was drafted and sent to the Philippines.

As I mentioned, the flag belongs to my colleague. When his father died, the flag was brought to their home for safe keeping. Julie and I were asked to translate the writing on the flag (with the help of Julie’s Japanese friends), during which time we had the honor of keeping the flag in my home for a few days. Julie’s Japanese friends knelt in front of the flag and prayed for the repose of the soldier, while I played a Japanese KOMORI UTA on my flute. The moment had a profound impact on all of us.

When I related this scene to my colleague and her boyfriend, they agreed with me that the right thing to do would be to return the flag to the soldier’s family.

We contacted kokusai-koryu@city.otaru.hokkaido.jp (a stab in the dark) where a very helpful staff member, Mr. Hoshina Eiji, researched and located two living descendants of the WW2 soldier: Mrs. XXXXX (wife of the soldier’s brother, now 84 years old, and XXXX-san’s daughter, Mrs. XXXX (niece of the soldier). Their address is [deleted].

The colleague will ultimately return the flag to the soldier’s family, but he also hopes that the publicity you create in Otaru may bring forward the descendants of the people whose well-wishes and signatures are on the flag. The colleague’s wish is to make an impact, in honor of the WW2 soldier, on the descendants of all the people who were in his brief life of only 22 years before he died.

Mr. Arudou, would you publicize this story in honor of two WW2 soldiers, one an American in whose safekeeping this flag survived all these years, and one a Japanese whose life and medical career were cut short?

Thank you in advance for your help. Julie and Tyler

ENDS

Tangent: 1940 Herblock cartoon on inaction towards Hitler

Posted on April 4, 2009April 4, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Little tangent on a Saturday. My travel reading was HERBLOCK: A CARTOONIST’S LIFE, by Herbert Block. He’s that cartoonist who caricatured presidential administrations from Hoover to Clinton. I loved his work for its prescience and insight.

My favorite cartoon out of the 200 in the book was one about Hitler in 1940. Have a gander:

herblockcartoon001

The reason I love this so much is because it demonstrates that inaction towards the inevitable, justified by self-convincing sophistries, is timeless. We learned this history in retrospect, where Americans apparently took up arms promptly against a clearly evil foe, came to Europe’s aid, vanquished the Axis Powers and saved the world. Not so. As this cartoon illustrates brilliantly, it took nearly a decade of dithering (practically until 1945 before people even believed Nazi Germany had extermination camps!) before people finally did what they had to do. Meanwhile, they came up with all sorts of intelligent-sounding arguments to justify doing nothing.

How does this relate to Debito.org? Because we get the same sort of arguments for doing nothing, say, against the evil of clear and present racial discrimination in Japan. We say it’s some kind of misunderstanding, language, or cultural barrier. Or that foreigners brought it upon themselves. Or that Japan’s unique culture or long history of being a closed island society makes it special or blind to the issue. Or that once the older generation dies out or people travel more or get used to foreigners things will change. Or that fundamental attitudes won’t change even if we make a racial discrimination law illegal. Or that Japan actually is a fundamentally thoroughbred pure society and should be kept pristine. Or that people are imposing outsider values on the poor put-upon Japanese people. Or that international treaty is not binding enough to justify a law when we have an adequate judiciary…

There, that’s eight intelligent-sounding pseudo-scientific arguments, just like in the cartoon above.

But they’re all bullshit. There is no getting around the fact we need a law against racial discrimination. Now.

But people, as history shows, will even make arguments for doing nothing against Hitler.

They are on the wrong side of history.

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Mainichi: Tourism to Japan plunges by over 40% compared to last year

Posted on March 30, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Quick tangent for today. We have tourism to Japan plunging, the second-highest drop in history. Of course, the high yen and less disposable income to go around worldwide doesn’t help, but the Yokoso Japan campaign to bring 10 million tourists to Japan is definitely not succeeding. Not helping are some inhospitable, even xenophobic Japanese hotels, or the fingerprinting campaign at the border (which does not only affect “tourists”) grounded upon anti-terror, anti-crime, and anti-contageous-disease policy goals. Sorry, Japan, must do better. Get rid of the NJ fingerprinting campaign, for starters. Debito in Okayama
——————————————-

Number of foreign tourists visiting Japan plunges

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20090326p2a00m0na002000c.html

(Mainichi Japan) March 26, 2009, Courtesy of Jeff K

The number of foreign tourists to Japan in February declined by more than 40 percent, the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) has announced.

The JNTO said Wednesday that 408,800 foreigners visited Japan in February, a 41.3 percent decrease from the same month the previous year. The rate of decline was the second largest since statistics were first kept in 1961, after a 41.8 percent reduction in August 1971, the year following the Osaka Expo.

The plunge in the number of foreign visitors to Japan is thought to have been caused mainly by the global recession. It is also believed attributable to last year’s leap year and the Lunar New Year holidays in January this year, which were in February last year.

ends

———————————-

訪日外国人：過去２番目の減少率　２月４１．３％減

http://mainichi.jp/select/wadai/news/20090326k0000m040062000c.html

日本政府観光局（ＪＮＴＯ）が２５日発表した２月の訪日外国人旅行者数は、前年同月比４１．３％減の４０万８８００人と大きく落ち込んだ。大阪万博の反動で減少した１９７１年８月（４１．８％減）に次いで、統計を取り始めた６１年以降で２番目の減少率となった。

世界的な景気後退が主因で、昨年がうるう年だったことや、昨年は２月だったアジアの旧正月の休暇が今年は１月だったことも影響した。

主要１２カ国・地域すべてで訪日客が減少した。ウォン安が続く韓国が５４．５％減と大幅に減ったのをはじめ、旧正月の要因が大きい中国、台湾、香港もそれぞれ２５．９％、４８．０％、６０．４％の減少だった。【位川一郎】

ends

Tangent: Debito.org has citations in 37 books, according to Amazon

Posted on March 20, 2009March 20, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I’m going to be on the road from tomorrow showing documentary SOUR STRAWBERRIES across Japan, so indulge me this evening as I talk about something that impressed me today about the power of the Internet.

It started during a search on Amazon.com this evening, when I found an amazing avenue for researching insides of books for excerpts. Check it out (click “Excerpt”).

I realized I could go through and see just how often Debito.org is being cited as a resource in respectable print publications. I soon found myself busy: 37 books refer in some way to me by name or things archived here. I cite them all below from most recent publication on down.

Amazing. Debito.org as a domain has been going strong since 1997, and it’s taken some time to establish a degree of credibility. But judging by the concentration of citations in recent years, the cred seems to be compounding.

So tonight I’m realizing the reach of the Internet into print media, and the power of an online archive. Mukashi mukashi, you young whippersnappers, it was truly time-consuming to find stuff in places like microfiche and Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature. Now we can find what we need in seconds online. Likewise, damn those who destroy history by deleting online archives — as you can see in book citations below regarding “Issho Kikaku”).

The following is tonight’s update to part of Debito.org’s PUBLICATIONS PAGE. Have a look at the other stuff up there if you’re interested. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

CITATIONS OF DEBITO.ORG IN ACADEMIC AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Haffner, John; Klett, Tomas Casas i; Lehmann, Jean-Pierre. “JAPAN’S OPEN FUTURE: An Agenda for Global Citizenship“. Anthem Press March 2009, pg 194, regarding Gaijin Hanzai Magazine. Also cited in bibliography is Arudou Debito’s Japan Focus article of March 2008 on “Gaijin Hanzai Magazine and Hate Speech in Japan.” ISBN 978-1-84331-311-3.
Johnson, David T., and Zimring, Franklin E, “Next Frontier: National Development, Political Change, and the Death Penalty in Asia (Studies in Crime and Public Policy)” February 2009. Bibiography page 456, citing Arudou Debito, “The Myopic State We’re In“, Japan Times December 18, 2007. ISBN 978-0195337402.
Graf, Arndt, “Cities in Asia and Europe (Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia)”, Routledge, January 2009. Bibliography page 154, citing Otaru Onsens Case Sapporo District Court testimony. ISBN 978-0710311832.
Minear, Richard H., “THROUGH JAPANESE EYES“, junior high/high school textbook on Japanese society. Apex Press, Fourth Edition, July 2008. Pp 285-288 cites a rewrite of Arudou Debito’s Japan Focus article 176. ISBN: 0-938960-53-9.
Winterdyk, John, and Georgios Antonopoulos, “Racist Victimization“. Ashgate, July 2008. Citation of Debito.org as “helpful website” on page 183. ISBN 978-0754673200.
Sorensen, André: “Livable Communities in Japan?” Japan Focus February 1, 2008.
Chan, Jennifer, “Another Japan Is Possible: New Social Movements and Global Citizenship Education“. Reference section page 289 (in chapter dealing with nonexistent “NGO” ISSHO Kikaku) and bibliographical references page 368 cite Arudou Debito’s book “‘JAPANESE ONLY‘: The Otaru Hot Springs Case and Racial Discrimination in Japan”. ISBN 978-0804757829.
Ertl, John, Tierney, R. Kenji, “Multiculturalism in the New Japan: Crossing the Boundaries Within (Asian Anthropologies)”. Berghahn Books, November, 2007. Introduction page 25 cites Arudou Debito’s book “‘JAPANESE ONLY‘: The Otaru Hot Springs Case and Racial Discrimination in Japan” as reference. ISBN 978-1845452261.
単行本「グローバル時代の日本社会と国籍」、李洙任と田中宏　著。明石書店２００７年５月１０日発行、ISBN 978-4-7503-2531-6, pg 45-47.
Willis, David Blake; Murphy-Shigematsu, Stephen, Eds., “Transcultural Japan (Asia’s Transformations)” Routledge, January 2008. Page 34 bibliography cites Arudou Debito’s Japan Focus article “Japan’s Coming Internationalization: Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?” (2006). ISBN 978-0415368902.
Chapman, David, “Korean Identity and Ethnicity (Routledge Contemporary Japan Series)”. Routledge, November 2007. Cites activities of The Community promoting multicultural awareness on page 121. ISBN 978-0415426374.
Pence, Canon, “Japanese Only: Xenophobic Exclusion in Japan’s Private Sphere“. New York International Law Review, Summer, 2007, pages 1-73.
Heyden, Carmen: “Gaijin! Welcome to Japan… Japan auf dem Weg in eine mulikulturelle Gesellschaft.” PRAXIS GEOGRAPHIE (German), Preisliste Nr. 30 vom 1. April 2007. Bildungshaus Schulbuchverlage Westermann Schroedel Diesterweg Schoeningh Winklers GmbH, publishers.
Burgess, Chris: “Multicultural Japan? Discourse and the ‘Myth’ of Homogeneity“. Japan Focus March 2007.
West, Mark D, “Sex, and Spectacle: The Rules of Scandal in Japan and the United States“. University of Chicago Press, January 2007. Page 356 footnote 116, citing Arudou Debito book “‘JAPANESE ONLY‘: The Otaru Hot Springs Case and Racial Discrimination in Japan”. ISBN 978-0226894089
「英語の新しい役割：アジアを結ぶリングア・フランカ」李洙任（Lee, Soo im）著。龍谷大学経済学論集（民際学特集）２００７年記載予定。
第６回移住労働者と連帯する全国のフォーラム・北海道　報告集　第６回・北海道実行委員会２００７年１月１０日発行。４２〜４８ページ、「分科会報告：外国人の人権基本法、人種差別禁止法を制定しよう」はここでご覧下さい。
Caryl, Christian, and Kashiwagi, Akiko: “This Is the New Japan: Immigrants are Transforming a Once Insular Society“. Japan Focus October 2006.
Zielenziger, Michael, “Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created its Own Lost Generation“. Nan A Talese, September 2006. Page 316 footnote 16,on Otaru Onsens Case and Debito.org. ISBN 978-0385513036
Talmadge, Eric, “Getting Wet: Adventures in the Japanese Bath“. Kodansha International, August 2006. Interview pp 149 – 155, regarding Otaru Onsens Case and racial discrimination in Japan. ISBN 978-4770030207.
Milhaupt, Curtis J.; Ramseyer, J. Mark; and West, Mark D.: “The Japanese Legal System: Cases, Codes, and Commentary”. Foundation Press, June 2006, ISBN 1-599-41017-6. Citing Arudou Debito’s book “‘JAPANESE ONLY‘: The Otaru Hot Springs Case and Racial Discrimination in Japan” (Akashi Shoten Inc. 2006).
Gottlieb, Nanett, “Linguistic Stereotyping and Minority Groups in Japan (Contemporary Japan)”. Routledge, February 2006. Page 96 talks about Kume Hiroshi Case and his use of the word “gaijin” during a 1996 live broadcast. Back references page 142 cite Debito.org on the Kume Case, and what remains of the deleted ISSHO archives on Debito.org on page 146. ISBN 978-0415338035.
Sloss, Colin; Kawahara, Toshiaki; Grassi, Richard: “Shift the Focus“, Lesson 4: “Discrimination, or Being Japanese…?” pp 18-21, on the Otaru Onsens Case . Sanshusha Pubilshing Co., Ltd. February, 2006. ISBN: 4-384-33363-3.
Lee, Soo im; Murphy-Shigematsu, Stephen; and Befu, Harumi, eds., “JAPAN’S DIVERSITY DILEMMAS“. iUniverse Inc. 2006. ISBN 0-595-36257-5. Two citations, in Chapter 4 (Murphy-Shigematsu, “Diverse Forms of Minority National Identities in Japan’s Multicultural Society”, pp. 75-99) and Chapter 5 (Lee, “The Cultural Exclusiveness of Ethnocentrism: Japan’s Treatment of Foreign Residents”, pp. 100-125).
Hayes, Declan, “The Japanese Disease: Sex and Sleaze in Modern Japan“. iUniverse Inc., September 2005. Page 54, citing the Otaru Onsens Case, and page 311 footnote 14, with thanks for assistance. ISBN 978-0595370153.
Spiri, John, “Japanese at Work–a look a the working lives of Japanese people”, interview pp. 35-37. Japan Association for Language Teaching pubs, Special Interest Group for Materials Writers, 2005. ISBN 4-931424-20-1. More information at http://www.globalstories.net.
Philips, Cathy, Ed. “Time Out Guide to Tokyo“, 4th Edition, Time Out Publishing June 2005. Page 301, regarding the usefulness of Debito.org. ISBN 978-1904978374.
Anholt, Simon, “Brand New Justice, Second Edition: How Branding Places and Products Can Help the Developing World“. Butterworth-Heinemann, January 2005. Citing as footnote 18 on page 167 my very off-topic research paper from 1996, “New Zealand’s Economic Reforms–Were They Worth It?”, ISBN 978-0750666008.
Close, Paul, and Askew, David, “Asia Pacific And Human Rights: A Global Political Economy Perspective (The International Political Economy of New Regionalisms)”. Ashgate Publishing, December 2004. Debito.org cited as reference in bibliography. ISBN 978-0754636298.
Asakawa, Gil, “Being Japanese American: A JA Sourcebook for Nikkei, Hapa . . . and Their Friends“. Stone Bridge Press, June 2004. Citing Debito.org as a site of interest in resources, page 134. ISBN 978-1880656853.
聖学院大学　政治経済学部　政治経済学科　２００４年度　推進入学審査　小論文問題として記載：有道　出人著の朝日新聞「私の視点」欄から「『外国人お断り』人種差別撤廃へ法整備を」（SARSによるホテルの恐怖感と一律外国人客お断りの方針）。２００３年６月２日朝刊　pg14（聖学院大学の問題用紙はこちらです。引用された記事へのリンクはこちらです）（学研（株）出版）
Let’s Go Inc., “Let’s Go Japan 1st Ed“. Let’s Go Publications, December 2003. Page 690 on favorite restaurant Ebi-Ten, pp 696-697 sidebars, interview with Olaf Karthaus and Arudou Debito on Otaru Onsens Case. ISBN 978-0312320072.
Belson, Ken, and Bremner, Brian, “Hello Kitty: The Remarkable Story of Sanrio and the Billion Dollar Feline Phenomenon” Wiley, November 2003. Citation page 136 of Kyodo News March 19, 2003 article translation by Arudou Debito, regarding “Tama-Chan” protests. ISBN 978-0470820940.
Arnould, Eric J; Price, Linda; Zinkhan, George M, “Consumers ” McGraw-Hill/Irwin, March 2003. Page 76 cites Otaru Onsens Case as “Cultural Category Confusion”. ISBN 978-0072537147.
Mclelland, Mark, “Japanese Cybercultures (Asia’s Transformations)”, Routledge, February 2003. Page 171, citing Debito.org as an example of online activism. ISBN 978-0415279185.
Fujimoto, Etsuko, “Japanese-ness, Whiteness, and the ‘Other’ in Japan’s Internationalization”. Essay from book Transforming Communication About Culture (2002), edited by Mary Jane Collier. Sage Publications, Inc; 1st edition (December 15, 2001), ISBN-13: 978-0761924883.
Picardi, Richard P, “Skills of Workplace Communication: A Handbook for T&D Specialists and Their Organizations“. Quorum Books, September 2001. Pp 29-30 cites Otaru Onsens Case and Ana Bortz Case, as part of New York Times November 15, 1999 article, as cases of battles against ethnocentrism in Japan. ISBN 978-1567203622.

ENDS

Weekend tangent: Another blogger comes around, sees beyond “molehills”

Posted on March 14, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Since weekends are usually times for people to relax (and hits to this blog reflect that; most of the traffic seems to come at the beginnings of weeks, tapering off during Saturdays and Sundays, as people find better things to do than spend their lives behind computer screens), let me devote this Saturday’s entry to a pleasant afterglow I had yesterday morning.

Linking to Debito.org was a blog by a chap named Kelly Yancey. He’s going through a bit of a bad patch at the moment, it seems, and I hope he snaps out of it. (Kelly, if you’re reading this, things will get better over time — stick with it; avoid grand conspiracy theories, and do what you can to fill your world with sympathetic people and pleasant things.)

Anyway, the afterglow was from this section:

Since coming to Japan, I have come to appreciate Dave Aldwinckle’s complaints and the hard work he has been doing to try and bring the injustices in Japan into the forefront. Whenever I get worked up enough about something that I want to bitch about it on my own blog, I just need to go hit his debito.org to commiserate.

When I was sitting in the comfort of the U.S.A., Debito’s stories seem farfetched and, frankly, unbelievable. More than once I thought he was making a mountain out of a molehill. However, I now realize that he doesn’t have to go digging to find examples of racism, discrimination, injustice, and hypocrisy…it turns out there is just a lot of material to pull from here in Japan.

Unfortunately, while brave individuals like Debito are trying to recitify the situation, apologists still abound…

http://kbyanc.blogspot.com/2009/03/racism-in-japan.html

I like hearing that. There’s just no convincing some people that there are issues that need to be addressed regarding treatment of, and, yes, discrimination towards, people who are NJ or who look NJ. Especially when many of the dismissive are either unaware (which Debito.org tries to fix with as much reportage and substantiation as possible), or incredulous because they just haven’t experienced the discrimination for themselves. But when it does happen to them here in the end — and it’s systematic enough that sooner or later it probably will — then people generally react in two ways: either 1) they refuse to believe it out of spite (plenty of people don’t like to admit they were wrong; this is the wrong approach, for it will just make you bitter and eventually drive you out of Japan), or 2) they capitulate, face up to the issue constructively, and find ways to deal with their feelings that bring things to a resolution.

Like Kelly has. Thanks for coming out and saying so. It makes the years of effort creating and maintaining Debito.org feel that much more worthwhile.

Now let’s do something about resolving things. We need everyone’s help, and let’s hope even the diehard apologists come round someday. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Books recently received by Debito.org: “Japan’s Open Future”, et al.

Posted on March 8, 2009March 13, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Some very friendly people out there send me books from time to time for review, or just because they think it might be of interest to Debito.org. I’m grateful for that, and although time to read whole books is a luxury (I just got a pile of them for my own PhD thesis in two languages, anticipate a lot of bedtime reading), I thought it would be nice to at least acknowledge receipt here and offer a thumb-through review.

Last week I got a book from John Haffner, one author of ambitious book “JAPAN’S OPEN FUTURE: An Agenda for Global Citizenship” (Anthem Press 2009). The goal of the book is, in John’s words:

As our aim is ultimately to contribute to the policy debate in Japan, I’d also be grateful if you’d consider mentioning or linking to our book and/or my Huffington piece via your website or newsletter. I took the liberty of linking to debito.org on our (still embryonic) “Change Agents” page on our book website: http://www.japansopenfuture.com/?q=node/22

The Huffington Post article being referred to is here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-haffner/japan-in-a-post-american_b_171933.html

Excerpt:

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

In our book Japan’s Open Future: an Agenda for Global Citizenship, my co-authors and I contend that if Japan wishes to escape a future of decline and irrelevance, and if it wants to take meaningful steps towards a more secure, contented and prosperous future, it needs to think big. Japan really has only one sustainable option: to become a more open, dynamic, conscientious, engaged, globally integrated country. In our book we show why this is so, and we offer a set of interconnected policy prescriptions for how Japan could undertake this radical transformation. There are many things Japan could do, but especially by moving beyond a rigid and inflexible conception of its national identity, by opening up to trade and immigration, by learning to communicate more effectively, including with the English language as the global lingua franca, and by undertaking a much more spirited commitment to global development and security, Japan has the potential to make a profound contribution to domestic, regional, and global challenges.

To pursue this path, however, Japan must think beyond isolationism and the US security alliance. Japan must begin to see itself as a global citizen and as an Asian country, and it must walk the walk on both counts.

At a time when multilateralism is imperiled, the United States would also benefit from such a radical shift in Japan’s posture: it would find an expanded, wealthy market for its exports, a more secure Asian region, and a talented civil society capable of constructively contributing to global issues. President Obama understands that multilateralism is the only path forward for the world, and that its importance is even greater in dark economic times. As a grand strategy for Asia, therefore, President Obama should encourage Japan to pursue policies leading to a peaceful and integrated Asian community, one rooted in reasonably harmonious and dynamic relations between those (highly complementary) leading economies, Japan and China.

Now more than ever, the United States needs Asia to prosper, and Japan must play its part.

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

Thumbing through the book, I feel as though it adds a necessary perspective (if not a reconfirmation of Japan’s importance) to the debate, especially in these times when “Asia Leadership” in overseas policymaking circles increasingly means China. If not cautioned, the media eye may begin truly overlooking Japan as a participant in the world system (particularly, as far as I’m of course concerned, in terms of human rights). I don’t want Japan to be let off the hook as some kind of “quaint hamlet backwater of erstwhile importance, so who cares how it behaves towards outsiders?” sort of thing. How you treat foreigners inside your country is of direct correlation to how you will treat them outside. I think, on cursory examination, the book provides a reminder that Japan’s economic and political power should not be underestimated just because there are other rising stars in the neighborhood.

(And yes, the book cites Debito.org, regarding the GAIJIN HANZAI Magazine issue two years ago, on page 194. Thanks.)

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

Now for two other books I received some months ago. One is Minoru Morita, “CURING JAPAN’S AMERICA ADDICTION: How Bush & Koizumi destroyed Japan’s middle class and what we need to do about it” (Chin Music Press 2008). Rather than give you a thumbed-review, Eric Johnston offers these thoughts in the Japan Times (excerpt):

In “Curing Japan’s America Addiction,” Morita says publicly what a lot of Japanese think and say privately, in sharp contrast to whatever pleasantries they offer at cocktail parties with foreign diplomats and policy wonks, or in speeches they give abroad. For that reason, “Curing Japan’s America Addiction” deserves to be read by anybody tired of the Orwellian doublespeak coming out of Washington and Tokyo and interested in an alternative, very contrarian view on contemporary Japan, a view far more prominent among Japanese than certain policy wonks and academic specialists on Japan-U.S. relations want to admit.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20080928a1.html

The other is Sumie Kawakami, “GOODBYE MADAME BUTTERFLY: Sex, Marriage and the Modern Japanese Woman” (Chin Music Press 2007; I seem to be on their mailing list, thanks), a handsome little tome,which, according to the blurb on the back, “offers a modern twist on the tradition in Japanese literature to revel in tales of sexual exploits. Kawakami’s nonfiction update on this theme offers strands of hope for women struggling to liberate themselves from joyless, sexless relationships.”

It is that, a page-turner indeed. In the very introduction (which is as far as I got, sorry; I’m a slow reader, and reading this cover to cover wasn’t a priority), Kawakami says:

“[W]hile the sex industry maintains a high profile in Japan, the nation doesn’t seem to be having much actual sex. A case in point is the results of the Global Sex Survey by Durex (http://www.durex.com/cm/gss2005results.asp), the world’s largest condom maker. In its 2005 survey, the company interviewed 317,000 people from forty-one countries and found that Japan ranked forty-first in terms of sexual activity. The survey found that people had sex an average of 103 times a year, with men (104) having more sex than women (101). The Japanese, at the very bottom, reported having sex an average of forty-five times a year.

Japan also ranked second to last, just ahead of China, in terms of sexual contentment…” (pp. vi. – vii).

See what I mean? The book explores this, with case studies of Japanese women’s sexuality.

Thanks for the books, everyone. If others want to send their tomes to Debito.org, I’d be honored, but I can’t promise I’ll get to them (I spend eight hours a day reading and mostly writing a day already). Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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UPDATE MARCH 13, 2009

I got round to reading one of the books, GOODBYE MADAME BUTTERFLY. I generally write reviews on the back pages if and when I get through a book, something brief that fills the page (or two). Here’s what I scribbled:

Started March 10, 2009, Finished March 13, 2009, Received Gratis from publisher 2007.

REVIEW: A gossipy little book. The best, most scientific part of the book is the introduction, which introduces the point of this book as an exploration of why sex doesn’t seem to happen much in Japan, according to a Durex survey. So one plunges into some very obviously true stores that are well-charted gossip, but not case studies of any scientific caliber. If Iate-night unwinding or beach-blanket reading is what you’re after, this book is for you. If you’re after the promise of why Japanese apparently don’t have much sex, you’ll end up disappointed. The author isn’t brave enough to try and draw any conclusions from the scattering of stories. I wouldn’t have, either. But I felt lured by the promise the foreword. And left the book in the end disappointed.

The best thing about the book is, sadly, the handsome, well-designed print and cover, making the fluff a joy to look at. Just not think about.

ENDS

Tangent: Terrie’s Take on Japan going to pot

Posted on March 7, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Surveying the wave of reefer madness in Japan (from sumo wrestlers to curious celebrities; blame the foreigner wherever possible), here’s Terrie Lloyd’s Terrie’s Take from a coupla weeks ago.

Another reeferential article from the WSJ March 4, 2009:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123612257155123461.html

And I, BTW, came out on the J-side regarding national policies towards drugs, and was duly taken to task by somebody in the know. That historical article from 1996 (!) here.

https://www.debito.org/drugsinjapan.html

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

* * * * * * * * * T E R R I E ‘S T A K E * * * * * * *
A weekly roundup of news & information from Terrie Lloyd.
(http://www.terrie.com)

General Edition Sunday, February 22, 2009 Issue No. 506

If there is anything the Japanese authorities are allergic to, following perhaps foreign burglars and divorced foreigners wanting custody of their kids, it would be marijuana — the demon weed that always seems to have been “bought from a foreigner in Roppongi”. The media is having a field day with the number of arrests frequently, and clearly the police are feeding lots of juicy details as each case breaks.

The National Police Agency announced this last week that it arrested 2,778 people for marijuana offenses in 2008, 22.3% more people than in 2007. 90% of those arrested where first-time offenders — not habitual criminals, and 60% of them were under the age of 30. Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen a parade of high-profile marijuana users get busted. Entertainers, sumo wrestlers (Russian and Japanese), students at prestigious universities (e.g., Keio and Waseda), foreign rugby players, and even large portions of entire university rugby teams.

How do Japanese get a taste for marijuana? With the draconian laws over possession, it’s surprising that anyone goes anywhere near the stuff. Still, partly it’s because of the weird split personality the judiciary has over the various forms of the plant. Since the seeds do not yet contain detectable levels of THC, the active psychotropic ingredient, they are legally sold in Japan as a spice for cooking and as bird seed. Some of this product has been irradiated and can’t grow into plants, but other sources don’t go to this amount of effort. More recently seeds are also sold as curiosities and you can go online and order them from both local suppliers as well as from “coffee shops” in Amsterdam — 10 seeds for between JPY10,000 to JPY20,000. It’s only when they’ve been planted and the plants produce THC that the substance suddenly becomes illegal.

But to get to the stage of wanting to plant out your own stash, it seems that most Japanese kids, and usually it’s the richer, better educated kids who are likely to travel overseas, that get to taste the demon weed first. They will try it on the beach in Hawaii, or in universities on the U.S. mainland, in Australia, the U.K., etc. Or they’ll travel to Amsterdam to enjoy the hash experience. However it starts, they soon realize that marijuana can be a lot of fun and is essentially harmless (let’s not get into possible gene damage). When they get back to Japan, they realize that the demonization of the plant is not based on fact or logic and they talk to their friends, write about it on Japanese blogs, and basically reinforce the aura of coolness that the hemp culture has here.

There are also the wild hemp plants up north in Aomori and elsewhere, which we recall were particularly popular with surfers back in the 80’s and 90’s. Things may be a bit different these days, especially now that the authorities in Hokkaido have started issuing growing licences for varieties proven not to be a significant source of THC, but back then, in the middle of Fall, groups of guys would get in their vans and do a road trip to the areas where THC-rich wild hemp plants are still known to pop up. Indeed, there were so many people doing this that they got to be a nuisance and the police were called out to warn them to stay away.

We don’t do drugs — it’s just not worth the risk. However, researching for this column, and amusingly we found lots of information on the teacher website www.gajinpot.com, we find that the price of weed in Tokyo is as high as JPY200,000 a gram, which is about 40 times the price in Hawaii. This means that not only does the trade attract criminals out to make some big money, but it is also highly tempting for kids who otherwise might not bother to sell the stuff. After all, if you’ve been able to buy the seeds, and marijuana does grow furiously like a weed, then what better way to pay for electricity and grow lights than to sell a few bags to your friends so as to support the costs?

Unfortunately, despite the seemingly innocuous nature of marijuana, the fact remains that Japan wants none of the foreign drug taking culture here. Sentences for locals include 3-5 years in prison, while for foreigners it means prison followed by deportation. We don’t see any likelihood of attitudes changing any time soon. So the result is that otherwise law-abiding kids, who would have gone on to quietly become doctors and scientists, are instead hauled before the courts, are castigated in the newspapers, and have their lives and family reputations ruined for good.

It all seems so pointless. Heck, one of them might have even become a future Prime Minister. Since Japan likes to emulate U.S. values (it was GHQ that criminalized marijuana in 1948 in the first place), maybe they’ll take note that Barack Obama is the first U.S. president to admit youthful marijuana and cocaine use, and certainly he has the people’s trust a darned sight more than any Japanese politician of recent times.

ENDS

Economist.com on jury systems: spreading in Asia, being rolled back in the West

Posted on March 2, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. To kick this week off, here’s an interesting article from The Economist (London) about how the jury system is mutating both East and West. For all the overdone media osawagi about the upcoming jury system in Japan (I think judges here have up to now had far too much power and unaccountability in their decisions; note how they’re still not relinquishing it by including three non-lay judges in a jury), we’re having similar systems being instituted elsewhere in Asia.

My opinion about juries in Japan is: Just do it. You have to have the view of regular people (not just cloistered bookish judges) in these things. Trust people to know their public duty in a courtroom. If you can’t do that, there’s a problem with the public education system, not with the courts system. As I have experienced in four domestic civil lawsuits (here and here), and seen elsewhere here with cracked judges (here and here), leaving all the power in the hands of judges (usually just one of a set of three, by seniority) is a recipe for more noncommonsensical judicial miscarriages than it’s worth. But that’s my opinion. Fire away with yours. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Decent Japan Times FYI column here on the issue.

Legal scholar Michael H. Fox’s site, Japan Institute for the Study of Wrongful Arrests and Convictions (JISWAC) here.

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

Juries

The jury is out

Feb 12th 2009
From The Economist print edition

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13109647

European countries are restricting jury trials; Asian ones expanding them

MARK TWAIN regarded trial by jury as “the most ingenious and infallible agency for defeating justice that human wisdom could contrive”. He would presumably approve of what is happening in Russia and Britain. At the end of 2008, Russia abolished jury trials for terrorism and treason. Britain, the supposed mother of trial by jury, is seeking to scrap them for serious fraud and to ban juries from some inquests. Yet China, South Korea and Japan are moving in the opposite direction, introducing or extending trial by jury in a bid to increase the impartiality and independence of their legal systems. Perhaps what a British law lord, the late Lord Devlin, called “the lamp that shows that freedom lives” burns brighter in Asia these days.

It is often thought that juries are a peculiarity of common-law countries such as America and Britain. Not so. Twelve-member citizens’ juries are widely used in Islamic-law countries, too. Even in civil-law ones in continental Europe lay jurors sitting alongside professional judges help reach verdicts in serious criminal cases.

Where the jury system is entrenched, it may not be common. In America, where a right to trial by jury is in the constitution, the vast majority of cases result in plea-bargains (so do not go to trial) or concern minor offences, which are normally dealt with by a single judge. In Britain, only 1% of criminal cases end up before juries, which rarely deal with inquests, either.

Britain is seeking to restrict juries even further. In 2003 the government gave itself the power to abolish juries in long and complex fraud trials, arguing that judges sitting alone or accompanied by expert “assessors” would be able to reach speedier, safer and cheaper verdicts. Such was the outcry that it agreed to seek fresh parliamentary approval before using that power. Five years and three bills later, it still hasn’t succeeded. But plans to remove juries from coroners’ courts when the public interest is involved (first proposed in a counter-terrorism bill but defeated) have resurfaced in another bill that is grinding its way through Parliament.

Russia’s bid to do away with most jury trials has little to do with efficiency. Russia reintroduced jury trials in 1993 for several charges including terrorism, hostage-taking and armed insurrection to show its commitment to the rule of law. The commitment did not last. Research showing that Russian juries are nine times more likely to acquit defendants than judges sitting alone led to a decision to revert to non-jury trials for all cases save murder.

Meanwhile, three Asian countries are going the other way. Under a law that came into force in 2005, some 50,000 “people’s assessors” have been appointed in China to serve in trials for all but the most minor criminal offences. Selected on merit and appointed for five years, Chinese assessors resemble English lay magistrates, likewise appointed for several years, rather than common-law jurors, who are usually chosen at random and serve for just one trial. Still, like jurors in civil-law countries, the assessors, sitting alongside judges, are required to reach decisions on law and fact, and sometimes help with sentencing, too.

In Japan, jury trials were once available in theory but little used in practice. Starting in May, though, six lay jurors, chosen at random from among voters, will sit alongside three judges in contested cases punishable by death or life imprisonment.

South Korea has been more tentative. In a bid to modernise an opaque legal system, it introduced juries in 2008, restricted to trials for the most serious crimes. At the moment, they are advisory. Under the constitution, all defendants must be tried by a judge, so giving juries decision-making powers would require a constitutional amendment. As elsewhere, the system has led to more acquittals. It is due to be reviewed by the Supreme Court in 2012.

ENDS

Japan Times FYI column explaining Japan’s Bubble Economy

Posted on February 21, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. On this snowiest of snowy days in Hokkaido, let me send out an excellent writeup from the Japan Times regarding the Japan I first came to know: The Bubble Economy. I first arrived here in 1986 as a tourist, and came to look around for a year in 1987. It was one great, big party. By the time I came back here, married, to stay and work, in 1991, the party was winding up, and it’s been over (especially up here in Hokkaido) ever since. Surprising to hear that it only lasted about five years. Eric Johnston tells us about everything you’d ever want to know in 1500 words about how it happened, how it ended, and what its aftereffects are. If you’re stuck inside today, have a good read. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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FYI

JAPAN’S BUBBLE ECONOMY

Lessons from when the bubble burst

The Japan Times January 6, 2009

By ERIC JOHNSTON Staff writer

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090106i1.html

With the current global financial crisis, there is much talk in the international economic communities about how to prevent the kind of prolonged slump that hit Japan after the end of the bubble economy years.

Reliving the good times: Women dance on a stage at a one-day revival for Juliana’s Tokyo held at Differ Ariake in Koto Ward, Tokyo, in September.YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO

The period between roughly 1985 and 1990 was a time of unparalleled prosperity in Japan. But it was also a gilded age defined by opulence, corruption, extravagance and waste. When the bubble economy years ended, Japan entered a prolonged slump from which it has yet to fully recover.

When did the bubble economy begin and when did it end?

Economic historians usually date the beginning of the bubble economy in September 1985, when Japan and five other nations signed the Plaza Accord in New York. That agreement called for the depreciation of the dollar against the yen and was supposed to increase U.S. exports by making them cheaper.

But it also made it cheaper for Japanese companies to purchase foreign assets. And they went on an overseas buying spree, picking off properties like the Rockefeller Center in New York and golf courses in Hawaii and California.

By December 1989, the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average had reached nearly 39,000. But beginning in 1990, the stock market began a downward spiral that saw it lose more than $2 trillion by December 1990, effectively ending the bubble era.

What was the cause of the bubble economy?

The dollar became cheaper just as Japan was reaching the height of its economic prowess in manufacturing and at a time when most Japanese had huge amounts of personal savings.

The Bank of Japan had lowered interest rates from 5 percent in 1985 to 2.5 percent by early 1987.

Japanese banks, which had previously lent mostly to corporations, now had ample funds to lend at a time when their major corporate customers were flush with cash thanks to their trade surpluses and the availability of worldwide equity markets, which competed directly with Japanese banks.

So the banks began freely lending to Japanese firms and individuals, who purchased real estate, which increased the paper value of land assets. This created a vicious cycle in which land was used as collateral to obtain further loans, which were then used to speculate on the stock market or to purchase more land. This drove up the paper value of land further, while the banks continued to grant loans based on the overvalued land as collateral.

There was little questioning by either the government or the banks themselves over how the loans would be repaid or what would happen once land values started dropping.

What was Japan like during those years?

For many people, it was one big, expensive party.

The frugality and austerity that defined the country during the postwar era gave way to extravagance and conspicuous consumption. Stories of housewives in Nara sipping $500 cups of coffee sprinkled with gold dust or businessmen spending tens of thousands of dollars in Tokyo’s flashy restaurants and nightclubs were legion.

One nightclub in particular, Julianna’s Tokyo, become the symbol for the flashy, party lifestyle of the entire era.

Japan’s inflated land prices made global headlines.

The Imperial Palace was reported to be worth more than France. A ¥10,000 note dropped in Tokyo’s Ginza district was worth less than the tiny amount of ground it covered.

It was also a period of increased international travel, as Japanese went to the United States, Europe and Oceania in record numbers, shopping for Louis Vuitton and Gucci handbags, Seville Row and Armani suits, and the finest wines.

Trips were often made after dropping millions of yen at English conversation schools in posh buildings with fake Van Gogh paintings on the walls and fish tanks in the lobbies.

The bubble economy attracted Westerners by the planeload, who made fortunes at foreign banks and brokerages, or at least good money teaching English.

Changes in the immigration law in 1990 also allowed Brazilians of Japanese descent to settle in Japan and work in the factories that were facing a labor shortage as younger workers sought higher paying white-collar jobs in Tokyo or Osaka.

What happened after the party ended?

After the crash in late 1990, economic growth stalled and newspapers were filled with stories of businesses going bankrupt.

Corrupt deals involving the yakuza and senior executives at Japan’s largest, most venerable banks and brokerages came to light. Corporations essentially stopped investing and consumers curbed their spending. Housing loan corporations, known as “jusen,” started to go bankrupt, and then the larger banks were forced to merge to consolidate their mounting bad loans.

Various government-sponsored fiscal and economic stimulus measures, including trillions of yen in failed public works projects, did nothing to revive the economy. This led to what has been dubbed Japan’s lost decade, starting roughly in 1991, when the effects of the stock market crash became clear. The carnage lasted until around 2000 or 2001, after the banks had been bailed out with taxpayer funds, much corporate restructuring had taken place and the growth of the Chinese economy provided manufacturers some relief.

How is the bubble era seen today?

Nostalgically by those who remember when they had money to burn, with embarrassment by those who reflected on the attitudes and policies, or lack thereof, that led to it, and with anger by those who see the period as the moment in Japan’s history when the country abandoned it’s traditional moral, social, cultural values and became greedy in an allegedly Western or American sense.

Abroad, economists and bankers see the bubble era and its aftermath as a warning.

In the U.S. over the past few months, media and academic attention has focused on the bubble economy and how it compares with the current situation.

Much of the discussion is on how to avoid the mistakes Japan made that led to its lost decade. Economists in Japan and overseas agree the failure by the BOJ and the Finance Ministry to act quickly in the early 1990s, when it was clear the banks were in trouble, is a major reason for the lost decade.

The Weekly FYI appears Tuesdays (Wednesday in some areas). Readers are encouraged to send ideas, questions and opinions to National News Desk

The Japan Times: Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009

ENDS

NYT on “The Trolls among us” and measures against trollery

Posted on February 7, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s an excerpt of an excellent (if overlong) article from the NYT about Internet trolls, the world they inhabit, and the logical games they employ. For many, this will be a rude awakening, for if they tried to deal with trolls like this reasonably (when trolls had no intention of ever being reasonable) or (heaven forbid) empathize with them, this is what they got for their trouble. For the trolls themselves, it’ll be more like, “WTF, it’s your own fault for ever taking us seriously! What took you so long to figure us out?” It’s a good read and will convince people who care overmuch about what other people think to stop doing so if the other person is anonymous or pseudonymous. It’s about time the earnest people on the Internet took some measures against the intellectual gamers and malicious life wasters. Article courtesy of Norik. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

PS: After I indicated recently that malicious comments will not be approved on Debito.org, they have completely dried up. It works. All trolls crave is an audience and a reaction. Don’t give them one.

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New York Times August 3, 2008

The Trolls Among Us

By MATTATHIAS SCHWARTZ

Full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=3&hp&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

PHOTO CAPTION: The Trolls Among Us: Weev (not, of course, his real name) is part of a growing Internet subculture with a fluid morality and a disdain for pretty much everyone else online.

Courtesy of Norik.

One afternoon in the spring of 2006, for reasons unknown to those who knew him, Mitchell Henderson, a seventh grader from Rochester, Minn., took a .22-caliber rifle down from a shelf in his parents’ bedroom closet and shot himself in the head. The next morning, Mitchell’s school assembled in the gym to begin mourning. His classmates created a virtual memorial on MySpace and garlanded it with remembrances. One wrote that Mitchell was “an hero to take that shot, to leave us all behind. God do we wish we could take it back. . . . ” Someone e-mailed a clipping of Mitchell’s newspaper obituary to MyDeathSpace.com, a Web site that links to the MySpace pages of the dead. From MyDeathSpace, Mitchell’s page came to the attention of an Internet message board known as /b/ and the “trolls,” as they have come to be called, who dwell there.

/b/ is the designated “random” board of 4chan.org, a group of message boards that draws more than 200 million page views a month. A post consists of an image and a few lines of text. Almost everyone posts as “anonymous.” In effect, this makes /b/ a panopticon in reverse — nobody can see anybody, and everybody can claim to speak from the center. The anonymous denizens of 4chan’s other boards — devoted to travel, fitness and several genres of pornography — refer to the /b/-dwellers as “/b/tards.”

Measured in terms of depravity, insularity and traffic-driven turnover, the culture of /b/ has little precedent. /b/ reads like the inside of a high-school bathroom stall, or an obscene telephone party line, or a blog with no posts and all comments filled with slang that you are too old to understand.

Something about Mitchell Henderson struck the denizens of /b/ as funny. They were especially amused by a reference on his MySpace page to a lostiPod. Mitchell Henderson, /b/ decided, had killed himself over a lost iPod. The “an hero” meme was born. Within hours, the anonymous multitudes were wrapping the tragedy of Mitchell’s death in absurdity.

Someone hacked Henderson’s MySpace page and gave him the face of a zombie. Someone placed an iPod on Henderson’s grave, took a picture and posted it to /b/. Henderson’s face was appended to dancing iPods, spinning iPods, hardcore porn scenes. A dramatic re-enactment of Henderson’s demise appeared on YouTube, complete with shattered iPod. The phone began ringing at Mitchell’s parents’ home. “It sounded like kids,” remembers Mitchell’s father, Mark Henderson, a 44-year-old I.T. executive. “They’d say, ‘Hi, this is Mitchell, I’m at the cemetery.’ ‘Hi, I’ve got Mitchell’s iPod.’ ‘Hi, I’m Mitchell’s ghost, the front door is locked. Can you come down and let me in?’ ” He sighed. “It really got to my wife.” The calls continued for a year and a half.

In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word “troll” to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities. Early trolling was relatively innocuous, taking place inside of small, single-topic Usenet groups. The trolls employed what the M.I.T. professor Judith Donath calls a “pseudo-naïve” tactic, asking stupid questions and seeing who would rise to the bait. The game was to find out who would see through this stereotypical newbie behavior, and who would fall for it. As one guide to trolldom puts it, “If you don’t fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.”

Today the Internet is much more than esoteric discussion forums. It is a mass medium for defining who we are to ourselves and to others. Teenagers groom their MySpace profiles as intensely as their hair; escapists clock 50-hour weeks in virtual worlds, accumulating gold for their online avatars. Anyone seeking work or love can expect to be Googled. As our emotional investment in the Internet has grown, the stakes for trolling — for provoking strangers online — have risen. Trolling has evolved from ironic solo skit to vicious group hunt.

“Lulz” is how trolls keep score. A corruption of “LOL” or “laugh out loud,” “lulz” means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium. “Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh,” said one ex-troll who, like many people I contacted, refused to disclose his legal identity.

Another troll explained the lulz as a quasi-thermodynamic exchange between the sensitive and the cruel: “You look for someone who is full of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz. Rules would be simple: 1. Do whatever it takes to get lulz. 2. Make sure the lulz is widely distributed. This will allow for more lulz to be made. 3. The game is never over until all the lulz have been had.”

/b/ is not all bad. 4chan has tried (with limited success) to police itself, using moderators to purge child porn and eliminate calls to disrupt other sites. Among /b/’s more interesting spawn is Anonymous, a group of masked pranksters who organized protests at Church of Scientology branches around the world.

But the logic of lulz extends far beyond /b/ to the anonymous message boards that seem to be springing up everywhere. Two female Yale Law School students have filed a suit against pseudonymous users who posted violent fantasies about them on AutoAdmit, a college-admissions message board. In China, anonymous nationalists are posting death threats against pro-Tibet activists, along with their names and home addresses. Technology, apparently, does more than harness the wisdom of the crowd. It can intensify its hatred as well.

(snip)

Why inflict anguish on a helpless stranger? It’s tempting to blame technology, which increases the range of our communications while dehumanizing the recipients. Cases like An Hero and Megan Meier presumably wouldn’t happen if the perpetrators had to deliver their messages in person. But while technology reduces the social barriers that keep us from bedeviling strangers, it does not explain the initial trolling impulse. This seems to spring from something ugly — a destructive human urge that many feel but few act upon, the ambient misanthropy that’s a frequent ingredient of art, politics and, most of all, jokes. There’s a lot of hate out there, and a lot to hate as well.

So far, despite all this discord, the Internet’s system of civil machines has proved more resilient than anyone imagined. As early as 1994, the head of the Internet Society warned that spam “will destroy the network.” The news media continually present the online world as a Wild West infested with villainous hackers, spammers and pedophiles. And yet the Internet is doing very well for a frontier town on the brink of anarchy. Its traffic is expected to quadruple by 2012. To say that trolls pose a threat to the Internet at this point is like saying that crows pose a threat to farming.

That the Internet is now capacious enough to host an entire subculture of users who enjoy undermining its founding values is yet another symptom of its phenomenal success. It may not be a bad thing that the least-mature users have built remote ghettos of anonymity where the malice is usually intramural. But how do we deal with cases like An Hero, epilepsy hacks and the possibility of real harm being inflicted on strangers?

Several state legislators have recently proposed cyberbullying measures. At the federal level, Representative Linda Sánchez, a Democrat from California, has introduced the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, which would make it a federal crime to send any communications with intent to cause “substantial emotional distress.” In June, Lori Drew pleaded not guilty to charges that she violated federal fraud laws by creating a false identity “to torment, harass, humiliate and embarrass” another user, and by violating MySpace’s terms of service. But hardly anyone bothers to read terms of service, and millions create false identities. “While Drew’s conduct is immoral, it is a very big stretch to call it illegal,” wrote the online-privacy expert Prof. Daniel J. Solove on the blog Concurring Opinions.

Many trolling practices, like prank-calling the Hendersons and intimidating Kathy Sierra, violate existing laws against harassment and threats. The difficulty is tracking down the perpetrators. In order to prosecute, investigators must subpoena sites and Internet service providers to learn the original author’s IP address, and from there, his legal identity. Local police departments generally don’t have the means to follow this digital trail, and federal investigators have their hands full with spam, terrorism, fraud and child pornography. But even if we had the resources to aggressively prosecute trolls, would we want to? Are we ready for an Internet where law enforcement keeps watch over every vituperative blog and backbiting comments section, ready to spring at the first hint of violence? Probably not. All vigorous debates shade into trolling at the perimeter; it is next to impossible to excise the trolling without snuffing out the debate.

CONTINUES AT http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=3&hp&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Japan Today & Yomiuri: Criminal charges against Internet bullies

Posted on February 6, 2009February 6, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Further to my Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column earlier this week, here is somebody else who is finally taking action against Internet stalkers and bullies. Smiley Kikuchi, a comedian (whose name is listed in today’s Yomiuri), has finally gotten the NPA to get off their asses and actually prosecute people criminally for posting threatening messages.

Good for him. I get death threats all too frequently. The first time I got a major death threat, the police did nothing except take the threat letter, hold it for six years, and send it back with “inconclusive results”. The second time, much the same. In Smiley’s case, the messages were posted directly to his blog, by fools who didn’t realize that (unlike 2channel) their IP addresses would be visible.

Given how inept I consider the NPA to be about enforcing its own mandate, or even court decisions, I usually just delete messages to my blog that are malicious or threatening in tone. Now, thanks to Smiley, they just might be legally actionable. Thanks, Smiley. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

18 people to be prosecuted over insulting messages on comedian’s blog

Japan Today Thursday 05th February, 02:47 PM JST Courtesy of James N and Adam W

http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/18-people-to-be-prosecuted-over-insulting-messages-on-comedians-blog

TOKYO —Police plan to establish a criminal case against 18 men and women on charges of allegedly posting a number of defamatory messages on a comedian’s blog, police sources said Thursday.

In launching what is believed to be the first such move associated with mass attacks on a blog in Japan, the Metropolitan Police Department said the 18 people, aged from 17 to 45, posted defamatory messages suggesting that the 37-year-old comedian is the perpetrator in the 1988 murder of a high school girl in Tokyo.

Some of the messages included: “How can a murderer be a comedian?” and “Die, you murderer,” according to police.

Investigators, acting on a complaint filed by the comedian, have identified those who posted the messages and decided to establish a criminal case against them, the sources said.

Among the 18 are a 17-year-old high school girl from Sapporo, a 35-year-old man from Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, and a 45-year-old man from Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture.

The suspects allegedly defamed the comedian by posting malicious comments between January and April 2008, suggesting that the comedian was involved in the highly publicized murder case in Tokyo’s Adachi Ward in 1988, which resulted in prison sentences for four minors.

The comedian, whose name has been withheld, launched his career about 10 years ago, characterizing himself as ‘‘an ex-hoodlum from Adachi Ward,’’ which apparently attracted the messages connecting him to the brutal murder that came to light after the girl’s remains were found in a drum filled with concrete.

He temporarily closed his blog due to the flood of malignant messages but reopened it in January last year, only to draw the defamatory messages again.

Investigators believe dozens of people have posted several hundred vicious messages on the blog, the sources said.

This is probably the first criminal case to be built over intense online attacks on a particular blog, the National Police Agency said.

The latest move by police came amid an increasing number of ‘‘flaming’’ blogs, particularly blogs by celebrities, TV personalities and notable sports athletes.

In one case, a commentator’s blog was forced to close in 2006 due to a flood of slanderous messages, and a man was arrested and given a suspended prison term the following year for threatening the commentator on Japan’s largest anonymous electronic bulletin board ‘‘2channel.’’

ENDS

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

Papers sent on woman over flaming of comedian
The Yomiuri Shimbun Feb. 6, 2009

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20090206TDY02307.htm

Police on Thursday sent papers to prosecutors on a woman suspected of threatening to kill a well-known comedian in a message she posted on his blog after wrongly concluding he was involved in a girl’s murder in 1989.

According to the police, the 29-year-old woman, a temporary worker from Kawasaki, has admitted posting the message on the blog of Smiley Kikuchi, 37, who regularly appears on TV.

The Metropolitan Police Department also plans to send papers to prosecutors on 18 people suspecting of defaming Kikuchi by posting hundreds of malicious messages between January and April 2008.

The woman reportedly believed messages on the blog that claimed Kikuchi had been involved in the murder and “couldn’t forgive him.”

The woman sent a message from her computer on Dec. 26 to the comedian’s blog saying, “I’ll kill you,” police said.

Online bulletin boards and a blog set up by Kikuchi in January 2008 were flooded with messages suggesting he was involved in the murder of the high school girl in Adachi Ward, Tokyo. Her body was abandoned in a cement-filled drum.

Kikuchi restricted access to the blog’s message board in April and filed a complaint with the police. He lifted the restrictions on Dec. 24.

According to the police, the woman came to the conclusion that the comedian and late TV personality Ai Iijima were involved in the murder. The woman based her belief on information she found on Iijima’s Web site and several other sites after learning from media reports that Iijima had been found dead in her Shibuya Ward apartment on Dec. 24.

“I thought I could never forgive people who had been party to a crime like murder,” the woman reportedly told police.

The 18 people, aged between 17 and 45, allegedly made groundless accusations on the blog that the comedian is a murderer.

The case is an example of flaming, which refers to personal and/or defamatory attacks by users against others on Internet bulletin boards, chat rooms, Web pages and blogs over the target user’s attitude or remarks.
(Feb. 6, 2009)

ENDS

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

Update: One more from the Japan Times

NPA probes 19 over slander on comedian’s blog
The Japan Times: Friday, Feb. 6, 2009
By REIJI YOSHIDA Staff writer
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090206a2.html

In a rare Internet crackdown, police have turned over to prosecutors their case against a 29-year-old woman and plan to hand another 18 suspects over for abusive comments posted on the blog of a 37-year-old Japanese comedian, police sources said Thursday.

The 29-year-old Kawasaki woman allegedly posted a death threat on the blog of comedian Smiley Kikuchi, writing “I will kill you” in December, a police source said.

The other 18 include a 17-year-old girl and 45-year-old man, who allegedly posted messages last year claiming the comedian was involved in the murder of a high school girl in 1988, the source said.

The allegation is groundless and police are sending the cases to prosecutors on suspicion of defamation, the source said.

This case is likely the first crackdown on what is known in Internet parlance as a flame attack, or “enjo” in Japanese, as far as the National Policy Agency knows, an NPA official told The Japan Times.

Many bloggers, including well-known TV celebrities, have been flamed recently, and many have shut down their blogs because of the rumors or abusive language.

In Kikuchi’s case, anonymous Internet users have been accusing the comedian of participating in the murder of a high school girl who was encased in concrete and dumped.

Hundreds of messages denouncing him as a murderer have reportedly been posted on the blog and many other Web sites recently.

Kikuchi and his agent, Ohta Production Inc., initially declined comment out of fear of drawing further attacks on the Web. But Kikuchi released a comment later in the day saying the information in circulation contains factual errors.

“For about 10 years, I, Smiley Kikuchi, have been suffering from slanderous remarks from anonymous people all over the Internet,” he said.

“All (of the Web allegations) are groundless. . . . The attacks have escalated to the point where I myself feel my life is in danger,” he said in a written statement.

He also said that some media reports said a TV agency once marketed Kikuchi using the catchphrase “former delinquent boy,” but that the reports were all wrong.

“I express my deep appreciation to the police officers who conducted the investigation and pray that an incident like this will never happen again,” he said.
The Japan Times: Friday, Feb. 6, 2009

ENDS

Kyodo/JT: Death penalty obstructs “presumption of innocence” in Japanese justice

Posted on January 31, 2009January 31, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. This is not a “NJ issues”-specific post today (although issues of criminal justice ultimately affect everybody, except maybe bent cops). But this short article on a presentation, regarding the aftermath of the famous 1948 Teigin Bank Poisoning Incident (where a bank robber posed as a doctor, told everybody that there had been an outbreak of dysentery, and to take medicine that was actually poison; themes of Milgram’s Experiment), calls into question the use of the death penalty not as a preventive deterrent or a form of Hammurabian justice, but as a weapon during interrogation. I have brought up issues of “presumption of guilt” (where the accused has to prove his innocence, despite the Constitution) here before. This too-short article is still good food for thought about the abuses of power, especially if governing life and death. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Legal system defect makes presumed innocence a joke: gallows foe

By KEIJI HIRANO

Kyodo News/The Japan Times Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009, courtesy of JB

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090129f3.html

It’s easy to wrongfully charge innocent people under the legal system because the principle of presumed innocence is a mere slogan, according to a prominent campaigner against the death penalty.

“People sometimes admit to offenses they did not commit because if they continue to deny guilt, they will not be released on bail after their arrest and indictment,” Yoshihiro Yasuda, a Tokyo-based lawyer, told a Monday symposium in Tokyo. “And they cannot be acquitted unless their lawyers completely prove their innocence.”

The symposium was held on the 61st anniversary of the Teigin Incident, the most notorious case of mass poisoning in postwar Japan, in which the adopted son of a late death-row inmate is still seeking a retrial to clear the convicted killer’s name.

The case, in which 12 people were fatally poisoned, occurred at a Teikoku Ginko (Imperial Bank) branch in Tokyo on Jan. 26, 1948. An award-winning painter, Sadamichi Hirasawa, was sentenced to death, but died of natural causes in prison at the age of 95 in 1987 while still proclaiming his innocence.

His son, Takehiko, has filed a 19th petition for a retrial, which is pending at the Tokyo High Court. Yasuda believed this structural defect in the legal system remains, 61 years after the Teigin Incident.

“The death penalty is a ‘weapon’ for investigators. They could tell suspects, ‘You will be hanged if you do not admit to the charges,’ ” he said.

As for the Teigin case, more than 30 justice ministers refused to sign the execution order, and Yasuda told the audience of about 50, “They must have had concerns over the possible discovery of the real culprit, but they refused to release Hirasawa to save the ‘honor’ of the legal system.”

The Japan Times: Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009

ENDS

Question on Welfare Assistance (seikatsu hogo) and privacy rights

Posted on January 27, 2009January 31, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Got a question from TtoT at The Community today that deserves answering. In these days of mass layoffs and people on unemployment insurance, apparently the welfare offices are able to call up relatives and check to see if applicants really are financially as badly off as they say. As the poster points out below, there are privacy issues involved. Anyone know more about this? If so, comments section. Thanks. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

I’ll state from the outset that I am in strange waters on this one,
but an acquaintance from years back that remembers our old group and
the help we offered rang me up a few hours ago and asked me an
interesting question. It has had me poking around the Net and
thinking very hard. Now I turn to y’all.

She and her husband have applied for seikatsuhogo, or welfare
assistance. I knew nothing about this, so I went to the Ministry of
Health, Labour, and Welfare website and found this
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/seikatsuhogo/seikatuhogo.html

Okay, so far so good. But here’s why she called me. It seems that
one of the requirements for receiving this welfare is that the local
government will call relatives and ask about their ability to help
this lady’s family. This seems to be a big problem. Her husband now
seems to be shamed into not applying for help.

But the reason she called me was because she is wondering about a
government agency calling a *relative* and essentially providing
private information, which is that this family is in serious
financial trouble and asking for help from the government.

I just don’t have a clue here, but something does feel odd here.
There must be some sort of regulations related to government workers
passing along information to outsiders. I mean those outside the
immdediate family. The first thing that comes to mind is how they
define *relative*. And why I put it in special marks in the previous
paragraph.

Do any of you know anything about this? Do any of you know where I
can find the regulations pertaining to government responsibility in
maintaining private information? Oddly enough, I can’t find a
government document outlining their regulations, but I assume that’s
just because of my poor Japanese.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
ENDS

UN News on upcoming Durban human rights summit and Gitmo

Posted on January 25, 2009January 25, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Two posts from UN NEWS that are tangental but within the pale of Debito.org.

First up is news about the next big human rights summit in Durban, South Africa. The last one was at the beginning of this decade. Those interested in attending (I would, but again, no money) might want to start making plans.

Second, I was asked recently by a friend, “What do you want to see Obama do immediately after taking office?” I answered back with a question, “You mean personally, or big-picture?” Both. “Okay, personally, state publicly that the USA will not support any application by Japan to the UN Security Council until it honors its treaty promises, including passing an enforceable law against racial discrimination.” But that’s easily backburnerable. “But big-picture, I want to see Obama close Guantanamo, that running sore of human-rights abuses that is arguably doing more to encourage anti-American sentiment worldwide than anything else.”

Well, the big-picture was precisely what Obama took steps to do his first working day in office. Bravo. And the UN recognizes it as such. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

=============================
MEMBER STATES BEGIN PREPARATORY TALKS FOR UPCOMING UN ANTI-RACISM CONFERENCE
UN NEWS New York, Jan 20 2009 3:00PM
A working group made up of United Nations Member States has begun formal negotiations on a draft outcome document for the so-called Durban Review Conference later this year, which will examine the progress made worldwide since the 2001 global anti-racism summit held in the South African city.

The review conference will be held in Geneva in April to monitor and accelerate progress towards the implementation of measures adopted at the landmark 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

Members of the working group have agreed to use a 38-page draft document as the basis for their negotiations, which will take place during its formal session ending on Friday and continue afterwards in informal meetings.

The group has two further formal meetings before the Review Conference is held from 20 to 24 April, and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has launched a website dedicated to the Conference and its preparatory process.

The website is online in English at www.un.org/durbanreview2009 and will soon be available in the other official UN languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.
________________

For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news

===============================
US DECISION TO CLOSE GUANTÁNAMO BAY DETENTION CENTRE HAILED BY UN RIGHTS CHIEF
UN NEWS New York, Jan 22 2009 3:00PM
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has welcomed today’s decision by the new United States administration to close the detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, as well as the decision to ban methods of interrogation that contravene international law.

Navi Pillay also called for a review of the US approach to detaining individuals abroad, in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the practice of ‘rendition,’ in order to ensure conformity with international law.

“The fact that President [Barack] Obama has placed such a high priority on closing Guantánamo and set in motion a system to safeguard the fundamental rights of the detainees there is extremely encouraging,” she stated.

“The United States has in the past been a staunch supporter of international human rights law, and this is one of the reasons that the regime that was established in Guantánamo has been viewed as so damaging,” the High Commissioner added.

“Water-boarding and other forms of interrogation that may amount to torture, detention for prolonged periods without trial or proper judicial review, and what became known as ‘extraordinary rendition’ – these are all aberrations that should never have happened,” stated Ms. Pillay.

The UN’s human rights chief also welcomed the fact that President Obama’s Executive Order issued today sets a framework for regularizing the situation of the remaining detainees in Guantánamo.

She also raised the issue of compensation for those judged to be innocent and called for a thorough investigation into allegations of torture at the Guantánamo centre.

“Under international law, there is an absolute prohibition against torture, and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” she said. “There must be accountability for those who have ordered such practices or carried them out, and victims should receive recompense.”

Ms. Pillay saluted Mr. Obama for taking such an important step so swiftly upon taking office. “This is a good day for the rule of law,” she noted.
________________

For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news

ENDS

Google zaps Debito.org

Posted on January 20, 2009January 20, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Some Blog Biz today.

I got the following notification from Google the other day:

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

From: noreply@google.com

Subject: Removal from Google’s Index

Date: January 9, 2009 10:12:37 PM JST

Dear site owner or webmaster of debito.org,

While we were indexing your webpages, we detected that some of your pages were using techniques that are outside our quality guidelines, which can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769&hl=en. This appears to be because your site has been modified by a third party. Typically, the offending party gains access to an insecure directory that has open permissions. Many times, they will upload files or modify existing ones, which then show up as spam in our index.

We detected cloaking on your site and suspect this is the cause. For example at https://www.debito.org/ we found:

[Cloaked information deleted because if I cite it here, it will in fact be found by search spiders for real. It’s a string of words regarding medications and potions for various ills and predilections.]

For more information about what cloaking is, visit http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66355&hl=en.

In order to preserve the quality of our search engine, pages from debito.org are scheduled to be removed temporarily from our search results for at least 30 days.

We would prefer to keep your pages in Google’s index. If you wish to be reconsidered, please correct or remove all pages (may not be limited to the examples provided) that are outside our quality guidelines. One potential remedy is to contact your web host technical support for assistance. For more information about security for webmasters, see http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-sites-been-hacked-now-what.html. When such changes have been made, please visit https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/reconsideration?hl=en to learn more and submit your site for reconsideration.

Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team

Note: if you have an account in Google’s Webmaster Tools, you can verify the authenticity of this message by logging intohttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/siteoverview?hl=en and going to the Message Center.

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

Ends. I have since notified my sysadmin of the problem, but he cannot find these keywords anywhere on the site. There are apparently even ways to project these onto the site remotely to fool the search engines.

Debito.org has since been delisted from Google. I have of course notified Google of both the situation (i.e. we can’t find the text they’re talking about) and of our inability to fix the problem. I also expressed annoyance that, despite Google’s incredible reach throughout cyberspace, they are being irresponsible to say we have a problem, but not tell us on what page it’s on so we can fix it. It’s like saying that we failed a test, but teacher isn’t going to say what questions we got wrong, or what we can study next time for the makeup.

So we’re stuck, with thousands of other pages of information about how make a life in Japan (not on the blog) unsearchable. Damned unfair. And if Google keeps carrying on in this manner, a lot more places are going to be delisted unfairly; other bloggers beware.

Advice from cyberspace appreciated. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Southland Times on how New Zealand deals with restaurant exclusions

Posted on January 17, 2009January 17, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. As another template about “what to do if…” (or rather, a model for what the GOJ should be more proactive about) when you get a restaurant refusing customers on the basis of race, ethnicity, national background, etc., here’s an article on what would happen in New Zealand. Here’s a Human Rights Commission and a media that actually does some follow-up, unlike the Japanese example. Then again, I guess Old Bigoted Gregory would rail against this as some sort of violation of locals’ “rights to discriminate”. Or that it isn’t Japan, therefore not special enough to warrant exceptionalism. But I beg to disagree, and point to this as an example of how to handle this sort of situation. Anyway, courtesy of JL. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Cafe owner ‘breached ‘human rights’ kicking out Israelis

By EVAN HARDING – The Southland Times (New Zealand) | Thursday, 15 January 2009

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4818871a11.html

An Invercargill cafe owner’s refusal to serve Israelis on the basis of their nationality is a clear human rights breach, Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres says.

Sisters Natalie Bennie and Tamara Shefa were upset after being booted out of the Mevlana Cafe in Esk St yesterday by owner Mustafa Tekinkaya.

They chose to eat at Mevlana Cafe because it had a play area for Mrs Bennie’s two children, but they were told to leave before they had ordered any food, Mrs Bennie said.

“He heard us speaking Hebrew and he asked us where we were from. I said Israel and he said ‘get out, I am not serving you’. It was shocking.”

Mr Tekinkaya, who is Muslim and from Turkey, said he was making his own protest against Israel because it was killing innocent babies and women in the Gaza Strip.

“I have decided as a protest not to serve Israelis until the war stops.”

He said he had nothing against Israeli people but if any more came into his shop they would also be told to leave, and he was not concerned if he lost business.

Mr de Bres said the Human Rights Act prohibited discrimination in the provision of goods and services on the grounds of ethnic or national origin, or of political opinion.

“Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation in Palestine, it is simply against the law for providers of goods and services in New Zealand to discriminate in this way,” he said.

Mr Tekinkaya’s stance was supported by neighbouring Turkish Kebabs shop owner Ali Uzun, who said he was also refusing to serve Israelis.

Mrs Bennie said she did not disagree that Israel was committing crimes against children.

“I just don’t think I should be declined service because I am from Israel.”

She had rung the Human Rights Commission and was told the cafe owner’s actions were against the law because he was discriminating on the basis of ethnicity.

“I wouldn’t mind having a chat to him. Someone has to put him in his place,” Mrs Bennie said.

Ms Shefa is visiting Mrs Bennie at her Makarewa home, on the outskirts of Invercargill, where she lives with her New Zealand husband and two children.

Both women said they had travelled widely, and to places much more hostile than New Zealand, but had never been treated in such a way.

Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt was shocked when told of the incident.

“Oh my god, the Gaza Strip has come to Invercargill. Hell’s bells.”

He said he was bewildered.

“Generally speaking I am against all wars and I suppose people have got a right to protest. I couldn’t really deny that. It would have been upsetting for the women and I feel sympathy for them.”

PHOTOS

JOHN HAWKINS/Southland Times

SHOCKED AND HURT: Israeli nationals Natalie Bennie, left, and Tamara Shefa, with Mrs Bennie’s two children Noah, 2, and Ella, 4, were told to leave Mevlana Cafe in Invercargill because they were from Israel.

JOHN HAWKINS/Southland Times

TAKING A STAND: Mevlana Cafe owner Mustafa Tekinkaya, left, with family and friends.

ENDS

Happy New Year: Retrospective: 10 things that made me think in 2008

Posted on January 2, 2009January 9, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

TEN THINGS THAT CAUSED DEEP THOUGHTS IN 2008: A RETROSPECTIVE

Hi Blog. Happy New Year. To open 2009, here’s my annual essay where I note ten things that caused me to think quite a bit last year. Some things I partook in (books and media and whatnot) might also be interesting for you to delve into as well. For what they’re worth, and in no particular order, here goes:

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

10) IIJIMA AI’S DEATH: It’s not something that I would admit to Japanese female friends (who pretty much uniformly dislike Ai for what she represents — a porn star that somehow escaped into regular TV land — and for, I might add, her power over men), but I am a fan. Have been for most of my years here in Japan. It’s not just because I followed her from her days exposing her backside on the successor to TV show “11PM” (there’s a blast from the past for you readers here from the bubble years!), “Gilgamesh Nights”, enjoying the contrast between her and pneumatic Hosokawa Fumie (who appealed to the J-men who liked their women less spicy). It’s not just because she was to me pretty all over. I really liked her personality (yes, the singular): unafraid of men — unafraid of just about anything, apparently. I enjoyed her stints as a regular tarento on shows like “Sunday Japon” (where lucky devil Dave Spector sitting behind her got to smell her hair on a weekly basis) even after it did not involve disrobing: She had an unabashed charm that was both abrasive and funny; you never knew what she was going to say next (or write next: she had a decent blog and a surprise bestseller in “Platonic Sex”). She was somebody I would have liked to have had a conversation with. Now with her death from an apparent suicide near Xmas, that’s impossible, and I’m saddened. She was too young (36), and I doubt she found much contentment in life aside from money and media attention; I wonder if it was the wrong kind of attention that did her in in the end.

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

9) CYCLING FROM MIYAZAKI TO KURASHIKI: Every Golden Week I embark on my get-back-in-shape-after-the-long-Hokkaido-winter sojourn, where I go somewhere warm and cycle to a big airport. This year, starting from Miyazaki for the second year in a row, I jumped on my mountain bike and went up the northern shore, getting close to Oita before taking a ferry to that funny little peninsula reaching out from Shikoku, then cycled along the coast to Matsuyama, took the odd series of bridges (which have bike paths!) comprising the Shimanami Kaidou to near Hiroshima, then pedaled the odd coast of southern Okayama to Kurashiki, where showers, booze with good friends (who I think still don’t believe I really cycled from that far south), and Scrabble galore awaited. The biggest shock (for me): I cycled an average of 100 kms a day for six days. It was easy. Yes, easy. I’m about to turn 44 and as long as my kiester is properly padded, I can pedal all day. Just plug in the iPod, alternate between podcasts and pump-up music, and I feel like I can go anywhere. Let’s hope that I don’t get a heart attack on one of these trips when age finally catches up with me.

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

8) FRANCA: Stands for Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens Association (www.francajapan.org), and the idea came forth when long-term NJ residents, furious at being fingerprinted again from November 2007, asked to form a group that would represent their interests. We’ve been taking it slow over the year and building up awareness and interest, but this year I realized (with the Tohoku region in particular) after a series of speeches that I don’t need to tow this movement along (as I have with other projects I’ve taken up, such as the Kunibengodan). There is a critical mass of people here who don’t see themselves as “guests”, and are ready to stand up for themselves and claim their due as taxpayers and contributors to Japanese society. Next step: formally registering the group as an NPO with the Japanese government. Readers out there who are used to running businesses (I’m not) are welcome to step forward and help make this organization a paying job for them.

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7) TOYOKO G8 SUMMIT: Yes, it could have been a bonanza for Hokkaido. Yes, it could have put us on the map like the 1972 Olympics did. But a G8 Summit is not designed for popular participation or investment in infrastructure like an Olympics. Summits are events where Secret Service Sherpas parachute in, seal off the entire community, and make sure the riff-raff (as in the electorate, who might have something to say as part of the democratic process) don’t get in and spoil the world leaders’ elaborately-crafted dinner and publicity parties and junkets for their entourages. What was the payoff for Hokkaido? Not much: The media center they built was soon knocked down (“ecologically recycled”), and people like me couldn’t even get a job as a local-hire interpreter (the Sherpas bring their own; again, it’s a hermetic system), and by the grace of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs those allowed in (the media) stayed in officially-approved hotels (who raised their prices appreciably to gouge reporters: More on life behind the Summit walls in by reporter Eric Johnston at https://www.debito.org/?p=1812).

Worst of all was Japan’s bad habit of using international events to convert bits of Japan into a police state, spending far more money than anyone else in the G8 on policing and security. (See my Japan Times article on this at https://www.debito.org/?p=1767) And with a racial-profiling element to their “anti-terrorist” activities. I (as well as lots of other people) discovered that when walking through Chitose Airport while non-Asian. In sum, the G8 Summit inconvenienced thousands of people, and wasted millions of dollars on something that could have been done with a conference video call. Made me doubt the efficacy of world leaders meeting at all, especially when the Summit didn’t prevent the financial meltdown months later.

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6) CALIFORNIA TRIP 2008: I spent all of August and two weeks of September on tour both for business and book promotion. Not only did I get back to see what even the bluest state in America had become under 8 years of Bush II (one mixed-up place, abandoning Gov. Gray Davis for Schwartzenegger thanks to Enron; more below), I also managed to plug back into what could have been my life had I stayed a California Boy in the Bay Area. It wasn’t my choice to begin with (I was born near Berkeley, and moved to the US East Coast at age five when my mother remarried), but I’m still not sure which would have been the better life. More at https://www.debito.org/?p=1905

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5) DVDS: ENRON — THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM, and MICHAEL MOORE’S “SICKO”. These are the two most powerful movies I saw all year. ENRON doesn’t just talk about the fall of a company — it even manages to show how business gone wild through true laissez-faire (not to mention outright tolerance of lying) destroys economies and people. It is also the most interesting movie about accounting I have ever seen (just edging out Itami Juzo’s MARUSA NO ONNA movies). SICKO is the other side of that coin on a more interpersonal level, since similar unethical pricing and qualification schemes and unfettered management of inelastic demand (be it electric power or medical care) destroys lives all the same. One documentary was an excellent postmortem, the other was a harbinger, singlehandedly putting universal health care back on the US political agenda. Watch them and think about how markets and government should work.

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4) BOOKS: Francis Wheen’s KARL MARX and HOW MUMBO-JUMBO CONQUERED THE WORLD. Francis Wheen writes like the smartest kid in the class (I never thought anyone could summarize Marx’s Das Kapital in one paragraph), and makes you want to read more of anything he writes. He puts a very human face on Marx, as well as on the actors creating the Grand Illusion of free-market capitalism and equitable societal development. (The biggest dupe of the Postwar Twentieth Century: “the trickle-down effect”.) Wheen is as lucid as Bertrand Russell at times (and more amusing) as he traces the arc of economic, political, and social theory for the past forty years. It’s a wonderful debug. But don’t expect a mentoring from this author (I doubt he himself would welcome the role), for he prescribes little in return. Wheen has that veddy British tendency to whale on people by criticizing them intelligently, if not a bit cuttingly, but not offer much ideology of his own for others to criticize back. It isn’t until you get to the very end, where in a couple of succinct paragraphs he reveals his dogma: Put reason above emotion and non-science in all respects (even when he gets a bit emotional himself). He has faith that “truth is great and will prevail”. Provided that people can be educated enough to think for themselves, and not be duped by the world’s ideological snake-oil salesmen. Reading Wheen is a valuable antidote to them. I still think, in the end, Bertrand Russell did it better, but Wheen does it more accessibly and practically for today’s marketplace of ideas.

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3) JAPAN TIMES COLUMN: Last March, my JUST BE CAUSE monthly column started with a focus on human rights. So far, so good: Not running out of topics and it’s amazing just how much debate a mere 700 words can spark (viz. the “gaijin” trilogy of essays over the summer). I also felt like people looked at me differently once this column started going — not just a “blogger” anymore, but an actual pundit in a national newspaper. If that’s a complimentary status to have, I’ll try to earn readers’ respect over the next few years. I hope I’m serving well enough now. Next column out January 6.

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2) “HANDBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS, MIGRANTS, AND IMMIGRANTS”, co-authored with Akira Higuchi. This was where it all fell into place. No longer was I just being labeled a “troublemaker” who sues people at a drop of a hat, and writes books about lawsuits as some form of catharsis. No such dismissal could be made about HANDBOOK, a bilingual bestseller (in the small human-rights book market), clearly written as a means to help people make better lives here in Japan. It garnered not a single mixed or negative review. As a person who seems cause controversy just by exhaling, I’m just not used to the unqualified positive. I hope the book serves well in future too.

And at the end (again, this list was in no particular order): The Booby Prize for biggest disappointment mediawise of the year:

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1) KEN BURNS’ “THE WAR” DOCUMENTARY: I will watch anything by Ken Burns, the director who revolutionized the historical documentary with his daylong THE CIVIL WAR some decades ago. I own everything he’s got out on DVD (and yes, there are a few turkeys: THE CONGRESS is one). But my appetite was whetted when NPR reviewer David Bianculli called THE WAR (about World War II from an American perspective) “his best”. I watched it after viewing the even longer British-produced (and now History Channel staple) THE WORLD AT WAR series, made nearly forty years ago.

I understand Burns’s production was about how a world war affected the US domestically, but his presentation rankled for the first time ever. Not only was the music and tone of the documentary in places quite inappropriate (upbeat contemporary songs for wartime scenes, for example), but the feeling was cloying, even jingoistic at times, as if boostering for Americana in the face of an international war (TWAW only pandered to its British audience once: it’s overuse of “Banzai” as Japan invaded British territories in South East Asia.) Unforgivable was the closing line of the final episode:

“This film is dedicated to all those who fought and won that necessary war on our behalf.”

I see. Well, maybe I’ve been too influenced by Japan’s need to see everyone (even the aggressor nations, such as itself) as the victims of war. But a film about a world war should not just herald those who won it. It should salute those who died in it, who suffered in it, regardless of side. History already overwhelmingly favors the victors of war. Why would a historian like Burns repeat that error by just honoring one side, as if those who suffered the historical accident of being on the wrong side do not deserve a modicum of respect for doing what many simply had to do? There is the victimization, the tragedy of group madness and legally-enforced conformity that leads to war anyway. It’s not all winners vs. losers, good vs. evil, is it? Let’s be a bit more sophisticated in our paid tributes, shall we?

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Alright, these are the things that made me think quite a bit this year. Thanks for reading those thoughts, and have a Happy New Year 2009. Arudou Debito

Bloggers Gathering Jan 17 Tokyo (RSVP by Jan 8)

Posted on December 30, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Forwarding from TPR. I was invited too but sadly I’m not in the Tokyo area that long (only Jan 1 to 8). Ah well. Attend if you like. Debito back in Sapporo

A gathering for bloggers and blog enthusiasts is being planned in Tokyo for the evening of January 17, and we would like to extend the invitation to any and all visitors who may wish to come. Bloggers from Observing Japan, Shisaku, Global Talk 21, Mutant Frog, Coming Anarchy, Trans-Pacific Radio and more will be amongst the crowd.

All of us are hoping to meet with other bloggers and readers for an evening of food an drink. If you would like to attend, please send an email to transpacificradio@gmail.com before January 8th. Please let us know how many folks you would like to bring along with you. Although we have a place in mind for the get-together, we will wait to see what the final numbers are like before confirming. We expect that the gathering will be held in either Shibuya or Shinjuku. After we have confirmed the numbers and location, we will send you an email letting you know exactly where and when (probably about 6pm) we will be meeting up on the 17th.

We hope to see you all on the 17th of January!

Xmas List: Ten things Japan does best

Posted on December 25, 2008January 16, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Merry Christmas.

As another distraction (hey, even The Economist Newsmagazine has a special Christmas Issue every year with all manner of off-topic articles), here’s my Xmas present to readers: Ten things that I think Japan does best.

(Please feel free to comment if you think I’ve left anything out. My personal Ground Rules: Skip over things like cars and semiconductors and consumer electronics and steel, because they are obvious even to those who have never set foot in Japan, moreover are not very interesting to write about. Stick to things that require extensive experience and knowledge of Japan — that way we get a more interesting set of opinions. Hey, it’s the blogosphere.)

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TOP TEN THINGS JAPAN DOES BEST, OR WORLD-CLASS (in ascending order):

TEN) SEAFOOD. As you know, food in Japan is high quality just about everywhere (even school cafeterias offer more than just edible fare). But good food is not unique to Japan — there are many world cuisines (Chinese, Italian, Thai, Indian, French…). Where Japan particularly excels is in seafood — both in preparation and in training on how to eat it.

One of the things about being surrounded by coast in teeming waters and not much meat (animal husbandry here has only been around for a century or so) is that you HAVE to eat what’s on offer in the ocean. You make do. Fortunately, Japan doesn’t just “make do” — it has discovered how to eat just about anything from the sea — even algae — deliciously! Once you get used to it (which doesn’t take long), you start lobbing things in your gob without holding your nose. Sure, I still order fish and chips whenever I go into an Irish pub in Japan. But that’s a heavy-salt and malt-vinegar soul-food break from the seafood I’m eating on a near-daily basis anyway. Because it’s so good in Japan.

And Japanese, justifiably, eat more seafood than anyone else.

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NINE) PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. Japan has its own problems with moving people around (to wit: overcrowding on subways, chikan molestation, and, er… that’s about all the downsides I can come up with). But even in Hokkaido, I can find a way, be it bus, train, and finally taxi if necessary, to get somewhere, including the boonies, if I have enough time. In other countries, I keep running into, “How are you going to get there if you don’t have a car?” situations. There’s often no other option there. Besides, even with the problems mentioned above, how many other cities the size of Tokyo can move this many people around on a daily basis (okay, London, and perhaps Mexico City)? Yet do it on such a clean (oops, that’s New York City out), reasonably comprehensible (oops, that’s Paris out) and cheap (oops, that’s Taipei out) basis? And extend it essentially across the country (okay, that’s Greater London and beyond out) so safely (oops, that’s India out)? Not many. I drive, but I’m increasingly realizing that I probably don’t need to (and I definitely wouldn’t if I lived in Tokyo). It’s a matter of time and convenience, and Japan has made a very good effort to make transit times approach and excel car ownership, probably as much as anywhere else in the world.

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EIGHT) ONOMATOPOEIA. Where to start on this one. No matter how many words I learn (and it helps if I have the kanji to get the root meaning), I am absolutely blind to the feeling of gitaigo and giseigo/giongo, Japanese onomatopoeic expressions. We all know guttari and gussuri and bon’yari and gakkari. But how the hell will I ever hear pori pori when I scratch the inside of my nose or rero rero when licking something, or gabiin when agape, or bosun when something, well, ejaculates? As inflexible as I find Japanese words, given how highly-contexualized the language seems to be (just hunting for that magic word to open the veto gate in any bureaucratic negotiation is a memory-taxing nightmare), there is incredible expressiveness in just a couple of repeated kana that I doubt I will ever master. My loss. Japanese is a language rich in expressiveness, and onomatopoeia is a huge part of it.

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SEVEN) PACKAGING. We hear about the Japanese department stores (Mitsukoshi first comes to mind) that essentially cocoon your purchase in more paper and plastic than is necessary (I too have to refuse half the plastics when just getting fast food and convenience store goods). That’s the downside. The upside is that when you really DO need cushioning for transportation, Japan really comes through.

Walk into any regular post office: You can buy a box and find tape and other packaging goods going for cheap or free. Go to a 100 yen shop and you’ll find spare newspapers lying about for you to package your just-purchased glass goods for the journey home. And then there’s Mitsukoshi…

Allow me to illustrate with another example: In September I came home from the US (having tried to send through the USPS some bulk items home in advance: talk about a rip-off; everything cost quite a bit and took its time getting here) and was glad to arrive in Narita (for a change!). Because the trucking delivery companies (Yamato, Pelican, etc) were just poised for me to fill one of their boxes (they had a selection) with goods I didn’t want to shlep around Japan during my September two-week book tour. In less than 30 minutes, Yamato had helped me pack, bubble wrap, and send off for a very reasonable price a bunch of sundries back north. If you don’t know how to pack, leave it to the experts. Over here, it’s part of the service. Because if it’s not boxed properly, it’s not presentable.

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SIX) CALLIGRAPHY GOODS. Here’s something I bet many haven’t considered: Germany and Japan are two otaku countries that are just plain nuts about how to write things with style. I’m used to crappy American Bic ballpoint pens that seize up in the same groove (and inexplicably ONLY in that groove, no matter how many times you go back and rewrite) or just decide to quit mid-cartridge. Plus I’m not used to fountain pens (I clench the pen too far down the neck and get ink on my hands), and I cannot see the use of spending a few dozen dollars or so (or even much more — there seems to be a Rolex league for pens out there) for something I might leave in a pocket or on a table somewhere or lend to somebody, whatever.

The attitude is diametric in Japan, where I have friends who specifically prowl stationery stores just to find a particular model (with special buttons to advance the pencil lead, or twirl cartridges that give you up to six different colors or pen/pencil combinations, or ink that comes out in multicolors like Aquafresh toothpaste) that they’ve seen advertised in some stationery magazine (yes, magazines devoted to bunbougu!). Poohie to those who think pens should be disposable. I too find myself prowling my students during writing assignments to see what they’re twirling (rather gracefully) while thinking. You’re just not going to get this much attention to fine-point durable pens in many other countries, when you consider how precisely people have to write (what with the finesse of kanji), plus this rich a society with near-unbelievable attention to detail. Germany, perhaps. But definitely Japan.

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FIVE) GROUP PROJECTS AND ATO KATAZUKE. Sure, we hear the downside of how working in groups makes situations inflexible and slow. But the good news is that when things work here, they really work, especially when the division of labor becomes automatic when faced with a project. Two examples come to mind:

One is whenever I was involved in setting up speeches and getting politically active in my former hometown of Nanporo (three essays on this here, here, and here). We’d rent a room at the local kumin center for a speech or town meeting, and a couple of friends on their own volition would always up early to help set up chairs and tables. Then when the proceedings were done, just about everyone would lend a hand in putting everything back exactly as they had found it before going home. I’ve done presentations overseas and found this phenomenon less frequent, if not nonexistent. “Hey, we paid an entry fee — you take care of the chairs. That’s what we paid you for,” is more the attitude. Sucks.

But my favorite example is when I was cycling between Sapporo and Abashiri via Wakkanai (yes, look at the map, it’s quite a ways) a few years ago. Here I was, soaking away in Japan’s northernmost onsen (Doumu), having accomplished the marathon cycle to Wakkanai (the last 68 kms between Teshio and Wakkanai is dry, so pack your own water — and pray for a tailwind). Suddenly, all the other cyclists (all half my age) and I had struck up a conversation about all the trials we went through getting up here too. An hour later, they were asking me where I was staying, and I pointed to the grassy knoll over yonder that looked like public space where I had set up my tent. They asked if they could join me (who was I to refuse?) and within minutes we had a tent city, and a bunch of kids who were perfect strangers not an hour ago deciding who was to make the fire, who would make the hot water, who would go on a beer run, who would collect the money for bento. etc etc. I couldn’t stay awake for the full project (I have a strict regimen: in bed by 8PM, up by 5AM when cycling; I’m old.), but this is the magic of people who automatically slot into roles when groups form, especially when those people are determined to have fun.

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FOUR) PUBLIC TOILETS. One of the first things I miss about Japan whenever I go abroad are the public lavatories. Sure, they exist overseas; but they are frequently hard to find (I think shoppers overseas must have enormous bladders), and the free ones usually look like they’ve been been through Lebanon or Somalia. Japan, however, is uncanny at its ability to keep its toilets clean and unstinky. And free (take that, you French!). Sure, I hate it when I’m turtle-heading and can only find Japan’s squatter-types. But I also hate being trapped behind a door where chance entrants can see my trousers dangling around my ankles and peep through the cracks in the toilet-stall partition; I pucker. Besides, whenever I’m on the road for several weeks in Japan and need a time-out, I just head for the nearest handicapped toilet, steer in my Monolith suitcase, and camp for fifteen minutes. Ah, a room to myself; it’s like a love hotel for my tuckus. With the added bonus of:

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THREE) TOILET CULTURE IN GENERAL. The Western flush toilet has survived remarkably unchanged since the days of Thomas Crapper. Like musket innovations in the 1600s, it took the Japanese to innovate toilets to include washlets (a quantum leap for those who tend to swaddle toilet paper until the bog chokes), with those lovely heated seats (overseas the flash-frozen toilet seats, not a shower or a cup of coffee, shocked me awake every morning) and hand-wash spouts on top of the tank.

Hey, when you’re not ashamed of your poop (it’s fair-game dinner-table conversation in Japan’s Working Class), you get creative. Japan, remember, is the place that shamelessly produced female urinals (which I cannot imagine anyone using; this is a nation where women waste immense amounts of water flushing while peeing to cover up the noise of their discharge; so add another innovation: flush-sounding noisemakers in their stead. But I digress…)

Anyway, shut the door, enjoy complete privacy (except for the grunting person next door; Japanese quack scientists claim that Japanese have the most fibrous turds in the world, therefore the lavatory lobby argues we cannot import toilets from overseas; no comment). And if somebody knocks to see if it’s occupied, just knock back twice; no voice needed (which helps when I do dumps at my university near students I’ll be teaching in a few minutes). Just be thankful if you skipped those traumatic years in Japanese grade school, when crapping is associated with smelliness, and kids wind up constipated just because they don’t want to make a stink.

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TWO) SEXUALITY. Here’s where I’m going to get into trouble, but I’ll say it: Japan in terms of sexuality is surprisingly liberal. I’m not just talking about the love hotels (not sleazy or embarrassing, and privacy is at a high standard, notwithstanding the hidden cameras behind some mirrors). Nor am I just talking about the porn or near-porn (artists here love the female form and know how to depict it perfectly in line, see below) one sees on a daily basis. I’m talking about attitude. People keep sexual liaisons here quite quiet, as long as it’s not a matter of celebrity (which means it’s fair game, like just about anywhere in the world anyway).

Case in point: People don’t “take it upon themselves” to tell others “for their own good” that their boyfriend/girlfriend is sleeping with others (in fact, multiple partners here seem to be a national sport, especially when people are not married. Actually, I take that back…) Sex is a private thing, and the sore lack of sex education here notwithstanding (the learning curve here is pretty steep, and seems to inch younger every year), it’s between consenting people and only between them. Kubi o tsukomanai koto.

Sex is also something that people engage in, without requirement of marriage or love (whatever that means), or fear of birth control or abortion, etc. — all those things that force people into making irrational and life-changing decisions that they’ll regret later. In modern Japan, where average marriage ages just keep getting older, sex is just sex. As long as people are informed about possible outcomes (AIDS, STDs, etc) and precautions, I think that’s the attitude that one should have. And Japan has it, and provides safe, clean, and often informed outlets for it.

And if you think this is only a recent thing, compare the US with Japan in The United States vs. One Package of Japanese Pessaries [as in contraceptive diaphragms] (1936), where Japan could develop this form of contraception but the US couldn’t, due in part to the Comstock Act. Other countries have liberal attitudes too, of course (Scandinavia and Holland come to mind). But I’m here, and I see it. Like it or not (more for the NJ male of either sexual orientation, less the NJ female, admittedly), Japan a very sexy country.

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ONE) ANIME. I’ve long admired Japanimation and comic art. Even though I never went all that deep; I still subscribe to 2000 AD and JUDGE DREDD THE MEGAZINE (British comics, think equal-opportunity former DANDY and BEANO reader too), as I have since both comics started, the former back in 1977, where I picked up the inaugural copy of 2000 AD from a London newsagent at age 12. But there’s just no resisting Japan’s clean lines, its sense of space and forcefulness, and its storyboard style of storytelling.

I knew for a long time that Japan’s Manga were underrated and deserved more attention overseas. Nowadays, Manga and Anime seem to be one of Japan’s largest cultural exports (the words have even entered the English language), with knockoffs surfacing all over Cartoon Network (I’ll admit it: I’m a big fan of POWERPUFF GIRLS, SAMURAI JACK, and just about anything by Genndy Tartakovsky). Resistance is futile.

But one of the knock-on effects of a society so consumed by comic art is that the general standards for line and face in the Japanese public are very high. I come from a society where the standard deviation for drawing talent is very high: you either get Pat Oliphants or stick figures, excellence or hopelessness. In Japan, however, consider this example:

I once gave a final exam where I had drawn a room on the answer sheet, and to test their spacial vocabulary skills, I said, “Under the table, draw Doraemon.” There were about 100 students. But EVERY student, save two, drew a clearly-recognizable Doraemon, many complete with spinner and collar bell and philtrum and whiskers. Some drew him airborne bumping his head on the table. Others had him can-canning, or waving his wand. I was overjoyed. The creativity (okay, cookie-cutter standardization for you cynical readers) within a set style was common to 98% of the students. Try getting people overseas to draw a recognizable Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Mickey Mouse, even just Felix the Cat, and you’ll see how comparatively low and underpracticed drawing skills tend to be.

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…AND JUST ONE MORE:

ZERO) SILLY CUTE. Nobody quite combines silly and cute quite like Japan does. Yes, Alex Kerr lamented how the culture of cute was paving over genuine time-tested Japanese culture in his book LOST JAPAN (this is how bluenose Kyoto rubs off on people). But if you allow yourself not to get too curmudgeonly about it, there are lots of giggles and laughs to be had.

Where else are you going to get Marimokkori (they’re algae balls, for crissakes, with capes and endowments of a nonfinancial nature!)? Try resisting the Hello Kitty goods when she’s adopting regional clothes (love Pirika Kitty and the super-tacky Susukino Kitty) or dining habits. Lots more characters and amusing crap in Japan, just look around. And they’re even finding markets overseas.

The reverse isn’t as true. Disney notwithstanding (and even that has gotten ironic in recent decades to broaden its audience), the West just can’t do cute or silly without sarcasm seeping in. Even those who shoot for it: France’s Barbapappa just comes off as “easy to draw”, not cute. Finland’s oddly-shaped Moomin even has that evil-looking Myy character (Finland is just plain weird anyway). Even the BBC’s Teletubbies (which will give you a hernia if you argue their cuteness; they’re apparently good to watch while stoned) had a short shelf life. They would have lasted longer if they’d gotten a J-makeover and a firm J-market.

The way I see it: Camp is imbued with a sense of irony. Tacky and Kitsch both come off as cheap. And all eventually become tiresome. But Japan just keeps up the cute and silly and manages to (thanks to a lack of sarcasm here) remain unironic, with a straight face throughout. Hey, it’s cute, what’s not to like? As long as you keep the permutations coming, you never quite get sick of it. Because it’s tacky, kitschy, and campy all at the same time, but only we non-natives seem to realize it.

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That’s the ten best. Merry Christmas, Debito.org readers. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Humor: Cracked Mag Online on unappetizing restaurants

Posted on December 23, 2008December 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Morning Blog. More humor for a national holiday: Some restaurants (according to Cracked Magazine, which I thought was a poor second cousin to Mad Magazine, until I started reading the cutting online version) that defeat their purpose by offering food in very unappetizing ways:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/9-restaurants-designed-to-ruin-your-appetite/

Now I don’t believe for a second that there is a place in Roppongi that allows you to diddle your meal before you eat it (in fact, I found this site due to a trackback to Debito.org exposing the source as the deep-sixed Mainichi Waiwai). But it’s still a good read, and I love the (what seems to be verified) idea of airborne meals even if it is a hoax. The entire idea is like the scene in the Bunuel movie “The Phantom of Liberty” switching meals and toilets (in fact, one of the featured restaurants specifically plays on that theme). It makes you think about something you do, often without really thinking about it, three times a day.

By the way, foreshadowing: The end of the year is a good time for reflection, and lists. I’m working on the top ten best and worst of Japan, as well as ten things that changed my world this year. I’ll have them out between Xmas and New Years. And my next Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column (due out January 6) will be on Japan’s top ten most important human rights advances in 2008. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Humor: Robin Williams stand-up comedy on Obama’s election

Posted on December 22, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. More festivities for the end of days. Here’s a very funny stand-up piece by Robin Williams (introduced by an oddly wheelchair-bound former Minister of Silly Walks) regarding Obama’s election and the outgoing Bush Administration. Courtesy again of Dave Spector. Enjoy. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

http://politicalirony.com/2008/11/30/robin-williams-on-obamas-election/

Humor: “Beware of the Doghouse”: For you men with thoughtless gifts

Posted on December 20, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. First off-topic festive humor entry, particularly for hetero men readers out there:

What follows is a link to the “Beware of the Doghouse” website, something well worth looking at because it’s a smart, funny, and well-produced five-minute mini-movie about men who don’t think deeply enough about what sort of gift to give their wife/female partner.

http://bewareofthedoghouse.com/

Click on the movie projector at the site and let things spool away. I watched the video three times in succession, it was so good. Thanks to Dave Spector for sending me the link.

You’d also never guess who created it. I won’t spoil the surprise, but afterwards you just might realize how effective a marketing tool the Internet is becoming (this is too long and edgy for most TV, for example, and would cost too much to put anywhere else but online).

Just be careful about watching it with a woman. She will definitely relate to the female characters. And if you’re not careful, she might even add your name and picture to The Doghouse. (Yes, she can, you know.)

Enjoy! Debito in Sapporo

Mainichi: USA to require visitors to register online before boarding planes

Posted on December 18, 2008December 18, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. This is only tangentally related to Debito.org (it’s about traffic going from Japan to the US), but as the Americans do policywise, so often does the Japanese Government. Here we have the last gasps of the Bush Administration trying to stick it to foreign visitors (fingerprinting and photography weren’t enough; the GOJ then copied it and went even farther), what with requiring people now to register online before they visit, or even get a boarding pass. As Japanese officials mildly protesteth (see Japan Times article below), the USG didn’t even bother with much of a publicity campaign for their program, leaving the burden on the airlines and the airports to deal with it. Let’s hope 1) this really puts off people travelling to the US, and 2) the GOJ doesn’t feel the itch to copy. Three articles follow — the Mainichi in English and Japanese, then the Japan Times with even better information. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Travelers to U.S. required to register online prior to boarding under new system

(Mainichi Japan) December 17, 2008, Courtesy of Jeff K

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20081217p2a00m0na002000c.html

Visitors traveling to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program will be required to register online prior to boarding from next January under the new Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).

Due to concerns that passengers unaware of the system will be unable to board their flights — largely due to a lack of proactive action by the Japanese government — the Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan (SAAJ) will be launching a new PR campaign to inform passengers about the system at Narita Airport on Thursday.

Currently, visitors are required to complete a visa exemption form while en route to declare any drugs possessed or criminal convictions. The ESTA — which will come into operation from Jan. 12 — will require prospective travelers to complete a survey of 20 or so similar questions online at least 72 hours prior to boarding. Carriers will then check each passport by its passport number to ensure the holder has permission to travel to the U.S. Those without authorization will be refused a boarding pass.

Once issued, the holder is allowed to travel to the U.S. for two years or until the passport expires, whichever comes first.

There are already computer terminals allowing Internet access at Narita Airport; however, there are no plans to have any more installed prior to the introduction of ESTA. And while Japan Airlines (JAL) and All Nippon Airways (ANA) have carried an explanation of the new system on their Web sites since July, fears over late applications or ignorance of the new system have prompted SAAJ to launch a campaign of leaflets and announcements at Narita Airport on Thursday.

ENDS

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

米入国審査：ネットで事前申請　忘れると搭乗不可－－来月１２日から

◇関係団体、ＰＲ

毎日新聞　2008年12月16日　東京夕刊

http://mainichi.jp/enta/travel/archive/news/2008/12/16/20081216dde001040039000c.html

米国にビザを持たず短期滞在（９０日以内）で入国する場合、来年１月１２日から、一部を事前にインターネットで申請して承認を受ける制度が導入される。しかし、この事前手続きが旅行者らにあまり知られていないため、空港に来て旅客機に搭乗できないなどのトラブルが続出することが懸念されている。国も積極的に広報しておらず、国内航空会社でつくる「定期航空協会」は１８日、成田空港でＰＲ活動を行う。【窪田弘由記】

◇空港混乱の恐れ

現在は薬物所持や逮捕歴などについての質問が書かれた「査証免除用フォーム」と呼ばれる紙に機内などで回答し、入国審査の際に手渡している。

米国は、来年１月１２日からテロリストらの入国を防止するため「米国電子渡航認証システム」（ＥＳＴＡ）を導入。こうした犯罪歴などにかかわる質問の一部について、事前にインターネットのサイトで回答し、米当局から承認を受ける手続きが必要になった。

具体的な申請方法は、米国土安全保障省の専用サイト（https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov）＝日本語版もあり＝にアクセスし、パスポート番号や過去の逮捕歴など約２０項目の質問について入力する。パスポートが有効期限内なら、承認は２年間有効。

米当局は搭乗の７２時間（３日）前までに手続きするよう求めている。航空各社は搭乗手続きの際、承認されているかをパスポートからチェックし、出発時間までに承認がない客は搭乗させない方針。成田空港にはインターネットに接続できる端末が一部には用意されてはいるが、航空各社は現時点では事前申請のために新たな端末は置かない方針。

出発直前の申請では認められないケースも出るといい、「空港で客とトラブルになる可能性もある」と懸念する。日本航空と全日空は７月から順次、自社のホームページでシステムの説明をしている。しかし、旅行客らの反応は鈍く、制度の浸透に不安があることから、定期航空協会は１８日午前９時、成田空港第１ターミナルで客室乗務員らがリーフレットを配って呼びかける。

◇「９・１１」で義務化

米国電子渡航認証システムの導入は、０１年９月の米同時多発テロを受けて制定された「９・１１委員会勧告実施法」に基づき義務づけられた。米国土安全保障省は概要を今年６月に発表。チャートフ長官は「渡航者が脅威をもたらすかどうかを、航空機に搭乗する前あるいは船舶が入港する前に審査することで、我が国と旅行者の安全を強化する」と説明。義務化を前に、８月からは自主的な申請も受け付けている。米国の駐日大使館も、大使館のサイトで概要説明している。【花岡洋二】

ends

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

New U.S. travel authorization plan has airlines on edge before launch
By ALEX MARTIN, Staff writer

The Japan Times Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081218a1.htmlA new border control system the United States will start using to screen short-term foreign travelers in January remains relatively unknown less than a month before launch, and people in the airline and tourism industries are worried the lack of awareness will wreak havoc at airports nationwide.

The new Electronic System for Travel Authorization requires travelers from Visa Waiver Countries who wish to stay in the U.S. for 90 days or less to use the Internet to apply for permission to enter the country three days before departure. Travelers with visas are not affected.

Those who come to the airport without ESTA authorization are likely to be forced to reschedule their flights or cancel, which is causing growing concern among airlines and travel agencies.

The system takes effect Jan. 12 and will replace the written application process used by those seeking visa-free stays. It will be valid for two years or until the applicant’s passport expires.

Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security initially announced plans for the ESTA system in June, public awareness still appears low, airlines and travel agencies said Wednesday.

“Airlines have been conducting PR activities through their Web sites and in-flight magazines, but it still seems little known to most people,” said Toshiya Shimada of the Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan.

The application is about 20 questions long and asks applicants if they have a criminal record or a history of drug abuse, and requests other basic biographical information. It must be submitted no later than 72 hours prior to departure

Shimada said the airline group, which includes Japan Airlines Corp. and All Nippon Airways Co., will distribute leaflets Thursday at Narita airport to boost awareness of the new system because the U.S. government doesn’t appear to be doing much to get the word out.

“We’d have appreciated it if the American Embassy had conducted a large-scale publicity campaign, but that doesn’t seem to be happening,” Shimada said, emphasizing that airlines stand to be the hardest hit by any confusion arising from ESTA.

The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said it has held briefings, two press conferences and several TV interviews in Japan to explain ESTA to the Japanese media and the travel agencies. It also said it has seen a noticeable bounce in advance applications and is encouraging travelers to prepare in advance.

Naoko Shimura of travel agency H.I.S. Co. agreed with Shimada and said the ESTA Web site itself threatens to pose difficulties for travelers with little computer skills.

“Since the online authorization involves personal information, we generally have our customers fill it out by themselves,” she said, noting the elderly and those unaccustomed to the Internet may find the process difficult.

According to the U.S. Embassy’s Web site, ESTA approval will be almost instantaneous in most cases. But in cases where applications are left pending, travelers will have to check the ESTA Web site for updates on their applications for the next 72 hours.

If an application is denied, it will prohibit the passenger from traveling under the VWP but will not affect one’s visa eligibility.

In the case of last-minute applications, Narita International Airport employee Eiichiro Takasu said Internet access is available through the airport’s wireless LAN network, provided that travelers have computers and a valid Internet service provider.

“JAL and ANA said they would provide their own PCs, although I’m unaware of the situation with other airlines,” he said.
ENDS

Pet peeve: How media casting choices based upon ethnicity contribute to cultural ignorance.

Posted on December 15, 2008December 16, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I thought I’d write today about one of my pet peeves: people substituting ethnicity for skills, and adding to the general public’s ignorance about Japan.

What pulled my chain this time: I watched an hourlong Discovery Channel program early last Sunday morning at midnight (a show called “Japan Revealed” in a series entitled “Discovery Atlas”), and on it they had a show full of stereotypes. From where I started watching, we went for a dive amongst some underwater ruins off Yonaguni Island which are purportedly older than the Egyptian Pyramids. Then suddenly we were jerked across the archipelago to attend a series about robots fighting (along with some hooey about how Japanese religion sees souls in everything, therefore Japanese like robots more). Then next we veered into a segment about Ama pearl divers and their dying tradition, and then careened into a bit about some fisherman trying to catch his once-or-twice-a-year big tuna “by tradition” (including “traditional” radar fish tracking, of course; with little time devoted to the majority of thousands of tuna actually brought to Tsukiji by “less traditional methods” — like imports). Then we coasted into a tattoo artist’s parlor for a lowdown on how radical one master artist has become by defying tradition — mixing seasons on his Yakuza body canvasses. At this point, I said, “What’s next? Geisha?” Yup. We skimmed a few stones over a fan dance, and then concluded how Japan’s special appreciation for nature and tradition and modernity makes it a special place (oh, brother).

I wish they’d just stuck with the underwater ruins off Yonaguni (which the show claimed could “rewrite world history”), and stopped retreading the same old hackneyed (and, crucially, unrevealing) images about Japan.

But what really got me revved up were the production values. Every time they had somebody talking in Japanese, the English voiceover came across as Hollywoodesque Ah-so-istic (think Mr Moto, Mr Miyagi, Grasshopper, or a few notches below Tokyo Rose in skill level). Moreover, who was the narrator? Masi Oka, one star of TV show “Heroes“, who showed his inability to speak Japanese reflecting even a rudimentary knowledge of Japan (saying words like “YaKUUza” and “Two-ki-ji”). He was hired not only for star power, but also ethnicity. Only Asians can talk about Asia, I guess.

You might be able to justify this kind of casting for comedy or satire, I suppose. Hire a token Asian and you can get away with poking more fun at Asia. But there are limits. People like Gedde Watanabe and Sab Shimono narrated the famous Simpsons’ “Mr Sparkle” episode (where Hokkaido soap factories, natch, were prominently featured 😉 ). Fine. But their Japanese was terrible, and I mean lousy (not even “Kitchen-Japanese” level). At least King of the Hill hired native speaker Matsuda Seiko (albeit to say one word: “Dansu!”) for their controversial (and, I have to admit, very funny) “Returning Japanese” Tokyo Trip episode. And even taboo-humor South Park shows a lot of moxie (and surprising depth: obviously they were coached both in terms of content and vocals by a native, I think Trey Parker’s boyfriend) in their episodes about video games and the marketing of Pokemon (“chinpoko-mon“: Love it).

But the Discovery Channel should be held to higher standards, especially if they’re doing a documentary to help people somehow “discover” a country in an hour. Instead, the program rankled, as though I was watching a condensed version of equally-irritating “Karate Kid” (indicatively retitled “Besuto Kiddo” for the Japanese market), or, put in a different light, (British) Robin Hood being played by (a very American) Kevin Costner (which caused no end of consternation in the UK). Let’s at least have less poetic license in nonfiction, please.

In the interests of full disclosure, I’ll give one more inside reason why this irks me: In 1991, as I was about to graduate from grad school, I did a lot of job interviews for American companies (particularly the kitchen-sink importers around San Diego, since at the time that was where I wanted to stay, not work in Los Angeles, Chicago, or the East Coast). Since I was trained in doing business in Japan, and spoke Japanese, I was hopeful that I would be on an equal footing with other job candidates. However, the Nikkei Americans in my classes, some of whom spoke no better (or, in some cases, worse) Japanese than I did, were making the case in their interviews and cover letters that their Asian roots were an asset. “Asians don’t like negotiating with foreign faces. Wouldn’t you prefer to hire a person with the right face for the job?” wrote one in paraphrase. The (non-Asian) employers bought into it. And I lost out to the Nikkei. So for the record: Japan has no monopoly on racism; it’s just a shame that the Americans couldn’t see beyond theirs when their “culturally-relativistic” weak spots got manipulated thusly.

I wound up coming back to Japan and getting much better employment in the end, so all’s well in retrospect. But I still dislike seeing casters with high public exposure choosing people not according to skill or knowledge level, instead rather whether or not they “look Asian”. Ethnicity should not be seen as a skill, or viewed as some kind of ideological conveyer belt into “The Ethnic Mind”. It’s not. Especially when those people haven’t even bothered to learn “The Ethnic Language”. That’s a personality quirk I have which comes out every now and again, when I see just how much this dynamic contributes to further stereotyping and ignorance towards Japan, videlicet this deeply-flawed Discovery Channel documentary.

Let’s have better-informed commentary about cultural issues, shall we, by choosing properly-qualified people? End of rant. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

PS: “Japan Revealed”‘s official website at http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/atlas/japan/japan.html

Grauniad: Japan comes down hard on Greenpeace whaling activists

Posted on December 10, 2008December 10, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I haven’t really gotten into the whaling issue on this blog (my take in essence is that regardless of numbers it’s not a farmable species, so don’t treat it as one). But let me bring up this article as an example of how Japan can treat activists it wants to make an example of: the GOJ sics the NPA on them and lets them “prosecute” (or, rather, interrogate and incriminate) them to the fullest extent of the law. Such as it is. Have a read. Courtesy of TK. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Greenpeace launches major anti-whaling campaign in Japan

Two activists who face years in prison say their arrests were politically motivated

By Justin McCurry in Tokyo

The Manchester Guardian, Tuesday December 9 2008 00.01 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/09/japan-whale-hunting

Greenpeace activist Junichi Sato holds a piece of whale meat during a news conference in Tokyo May 15, 2008 Photograph: Kyodo/ /Reuters

Two Greenpeace activists who face years in prison for investigating corruption in Japan‘s whaling industry have condemned their arrests as politically motivated on the eve of an unprecedented campaign to end the country’s whale hunts.

Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki were arrested in June, two months after intercepting 23kg of whale meat at a warehouse in northern Japan that they said had been stolen by crew members from the Japanese whaling fleet’s mother ship for sale on the black market.

They are now waiting to stand trial early next year, and if convicted face up to 10 years in prison.

“At the time I was arrested I wasn’t too concerned as I was focusing on our investigation,” Sato, 31, told the Guardian yesterday at the Tokyo offices of his legal team.

“But if we are convicted, then of course I will be worried about my wife and child. It would also raise serious questions about Japan’s commitment to human rights. We have already been detained for 26 days, which is very unusual for someone facing first-time charges of theft.”

The ferocity with which prosecutors have made their case against Sato and Suzuki has astonished Greenpeace officials and human rights activists.

During their time in police custody, the men say they were strapped to chairs and interrogated for up to 12 hours a day. No lawyers were present and the interviews were not recorded.

Under their bail terms they are not allowed to be in the same room and can only talk to fellow activists in the presence of their lawyers. One of the men says that he and his family were watched by plain-clothes police officers while dining out at a restaurant.

In May, after a four-month undercover investigation dubbed Operation Silver Bullet, Greenpeace said it had evidence to prove that at least 23 Nisshin Maru crew members had smuggled more than 90 boxes of salted whale meat from the vessel, disguising its as “personal baggage”.

The intercepted consignment, they said, was proof that the whaling crew was defrauding the Japanese taxpayer with the full knowledge of Kyodo Senpaku, which operates the fleet.

Kyodo Senpaku, however, insisted that the packages were simply “gifts” for crewmen who had spent months at sea in freezing conditions.

When Sato displayed the meat, worth up to 350,000 yen, at a press conference in June he was convinced he had delivered a decisive blow to Japan’s whaling industry, which receives at least 5 billion yen a year in government subsidies.

Instead, he and Suzuki were arrested in early-morning raids on their homes on the same day that prosecutors decided not to pursue their embezzlement claims.

In a separate interview yesterday, Suzuki recalled his ordeal at the hands of police in Aomori prefecture, northern Japan, where his alleged crime took place.

He said: “They asked me the same questions over and over again and even compared me with the Aum Supreme Truth,” the doomsday cult that carried out a deadly gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.

“I was expecting the police to investigate our embezzlement allegations, but looking back I was being optimistic. I was so angry when I heard the case against the whalers had been dropped.”

Suzuki, 41, whose wife is expecting their second child in May, responded by going on hunger strike for nine days and refusing to talk to his interrogators for four more. “By the end I could see that they were worried I might die,” he said.

Sato describes himself as a “political prisoner”, the victim of authorities who he says routinely denounce Greenpeace and the more radical marine conservation group, Sea Shepherd, as terrorists.

“By exaggerating the danger we pose they will get support from the Japanese public, who don’t know the truth about whaling but support so-called anti-terrorist measures,” he said.

Senior Greenpeace officials now suspect the Tokyo metropolitan government, led by rightwing governor Shintaro Ishihara, will attempt to remove its non-profit status, effectively closing down its Japan operations.

Both men support Greenpeace’s decision not to pursue Japan’s whaling fleet across the freezing waters of the Southern ocean this year as it attempts to cull around 1,000 whales in the name of scientific research.

“We need international pressure, but that’s not enough,” Sato said. “We also need people inside Japan to speak out against whaling.

“The media here doesn’t report the truth, so the Japanese people have no idea about the negative impact it’s having on our diplomatic relations with countries like Australia and New Zealand.”

Japan is permitted to catch whales for “lethal research” into their breeding, migratory and other habits, thanks to a contentious provision in the International Whaling Commission’s 1986 ban on commercial whaling.

During its recent scientific hunt, which ended in April, Japan’s fleet had hoped to catch 850 minke whales but returned with only 551 after being frustrated by activists from Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd.

Greenpeace’s new campaign comes as pressure mounts on Japan to drop the charges against Suzuki and Sato.

Amnesty International has condemned the arrests, the pair’s case has been raised in the House of Commons and almost 300,000 people have signed an online petition demanding that the charges against them be dropped.

Today, senior Greenpeace officials will present a protest letter to Taro Aso, the Japanese prime minister, before protesting in front of parliament. In the coming days demonstrations will be held outside Japanese embassies in 20 countries.

Sato and Suzuki are forbidden from playing any part in the protests, but despite the growing uncertainty about their future, they are unrepentant.

“Since my arrest I have not lied once about what I did,” Suzuki said. “But the whalers have had to make up one story after another. Their lies will come back to haunt them soon.”

ENDS

Kyodo: SDF’s Tomogami revisionist history shows cosiness between J military and right-wing nationalists

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s an issue that is being fleshed out in a well-written, informative Kyodo article: that of historical revisionism within Japan’s military, and its cosiness with the right-wing. We had a general write a prize-winning essay (received from right-wingers, see below) denying that Japan waged a war of liberation against Asia during WWII. How Japan treats or is treated by its neighbors is of import to Debito.org, albeit tangentially, so let me reproduce Kyodo’s recap of the debate so far.

I was asked for my opinion earlier this month in the Comments section of my blog. In brief, this is how I answered:

========================
–- Tamogami was forced to resign. Good. He did not capitulate. Fine with me (it is his opinion). But the media I’ve seen so far skirts the issue. It’s not a matter of whether what he said was appropriate for his position within the SDF. It is an issue about whether what he says is historically accurate. (It is not.) And until these historical issues are finally laid to rest (through, as UN Rapporteur Doudou Diene suggested, a history book of the region written and approved by scholars from all countries involved), this is just going to keep happening again and again. Exorcising the elephant in the room, i.e. the ghost of Japan’s wartime past (particularly as to whether it was a war of aggression or liberation), must be done sooner or later. It is still not being done and debunked, and that means the SDF person can just use “freedom of speech” as his cloaking device and compare Japan to the DPRK (as he has done) and just gain sympathy for the Rightists. There. Debito
========================

Unfortunately, I don’t see any diversion from this path even as the debate, as Kyodo reports below, goes to the Diet. The debate has gone into issues of civilian control (meaning, to freedom-of-speechers on both sides of the political spectrum, mind control), and Tamogami is setting himself up to become a martyr to the right wing. Again, the tack should also include, is what he saying historically accurate? Again, it is not.

The honest study of the history of any country is going to reveal things that a nation is ashamed of, and one must include that as part of the national narrative. The Tamogamis, Obuchis, Abes, and Asos are just going to have to live with that. And part of the process is bringing historical fact of Japan’s conquering, Imperialist past into the debate. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

FOCUS: Unapologetic ex-general’s testimony fuels civilian control concern

TOKYO, Nov. 11, 2008 KYODO, Courtesy of the Club

http://www.japantoday.com/category/commentary/view/unapologetic-ex-generals-testimony-fuels-concern-over-civilian-control-of-sdf

Sacked air force chief Toshio Tamogami testified in parliament Tuesday over his controversial war essay but his unapologetic rhetoric only highlighted a large difference in perception with the government regarding Japan’s role in World War II.

His testimony also posed a question even among Self-Defense Forces officers about whether the 60-year-old former general was ever fit for the post of Air Self-Defense Force chief of staff and prompted politicians to have second thoughts about the effectiveness of their efforts to maintain civilian control of the defense forces.

”Did I do such a bad thing at the end of my career?” the outspoken Tamogami told reporters after pressing his case over the essay as an unsworn witness during a 160-minute session before the House of Councillors Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense.

Tamogami offered no apology or remarks that he would take a hard look at the release of the essay in which he denied Japan waged a war of aggression in other Asian countries before and during the war.

”I’m feeling good,” Tamogami said to TV camera crews and photographers on entering the parliament building earlier in the day for the testimony session.

”Mr. Tamogami has learned nothing (from this controversy),” a senior official of the Defense Ministry said. ”I cannot help doubting Mr. Tamogami properly understands the gravity of what he did as a top SDF officer.”

The Chinese and South Korean governments have expressed their displeasure over Tamogami’s essay although the dispute has yet to develop into a major diplomatic problem.

Adm. Keiji Akahoshi, the chief of staff of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, questioned Tamogami’s remarks in the upper house committee, telling a press conference, ”Again I recognized the gravity of the problem and that his releasing the essay was inappropriate.”

Tamogami was dismissed as ASDF chief Oct. 31, the same day as his essay, which the government says clearly contradicts the position of successive governments, was made public.

In the essay, Tamogami denied that Japan had waged a war of aggression in other Asian countries and challenged legal restrictions on SDF activities such as limits on the use of weapons overseas under the U.S.-drafted Constitution.

Setting aside the essay’s content, the issue also shed light on whether politicians can properly control the expression of opinions by SDF personnel while being mindful of freedom of speech.

Tamogami was known for his straight talk after becoming ASDF chief in March 2007 and wrote an article later that year in a magazine circulating only within the ASDF on the war and historical issues that contained views similar to those in the essay.

Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada, a legislator, admitted that the then leadership of the ministry missed the article ”because that was an in-house magazine.”

This time, the essay Tamogami wrote while ASDF chief was made public as the winner of the 3 million yen top prize in a competition.

But an SDF officer tried to defend Tamogami saying, ”I heard it was well-known in the ASDF that Mr. Tamogami held such views on the history of the war as he expressed opinions to that effect on various occasions without being clearly advised not to do so.”

”He may be puzzled, feeling, ‘Why am I being criticized so strongly only this time?” the officer said.

Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, known as a military wonk, has said that more SDF officers should come forward to express opinions from the viewpoint of defense experts to support the defense minister.

Tamogami has also come under fire for his failure to notify civilian officials in the ministry in writing of his plan to publicize the essay, breaking an intra-ministry rule on the expression of opinions by ranking SDF officers.

But Tamogami said, ”That should not constitute a violation of any rules,” arguing that writing the essay was not part of his official duties and that it was a product of his private studies on history.

At the beginning of the session Tuesday, Committee Chairman Toshimi Kitazawa from the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan urged members of the committee as well as Tamogami to be aware that sloppy civilian control over the old Imperial Japanese military forces resulted in the loss of more than 3 million lives in the war.

The ministry is set to pay Tamogami a retirement allowance worth around 60 million yen. He was dismissed as ASDF chief but allowed to leave the ministry with a status enabling him to receive the benefit.

”I’ll use the allowance because I will have difficulty making a living,” Tamogami said, brushing off mounting calls to voluntarily return all or part of the money to the state coffers.

But a top official of the ministry blasted Tamogami, saying, ”I hope he will better understand how much trouble he has caused for the ASDF for which he served for 30 something years and how seriously the already damaged confidence in the SDF has been lost.”

The top official, who asked not to be named, also said that Tamogami was unfit for the top post in the air force and his behavior could suggest problems in the education programs at defense academies.

”We know there are some junior SDF personnel who don’t want to easily follow government policies on various matters. It’s OK. They have freedom of thought. But we do not usually expect a four-star-general-class officer like Mr. Tamogami to challenge the government in public,” the official said.

Revelations about Tamogami’s cozy links with a nationalist real estate businessman who organized the competition was also among topics taken up by the committee.

The essay contest was organized by hotel and condominium developer Apa Group and its head Toshio Motoya, a friend of Tamogami. Apa Group is also known for its support of hawkish former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

On top of that, an orchestrated submission of essays by ASDF personnel is also suspected.

Tamogami also denied in the parliamentary session that he received any inappropriate benefits from Motoya’s side and that he had played a role in the organized submission of essays.

But the ministry has found that in addition to Tamogami, 94 of the 235 essay submissions came from the ASDF.

Another senior official of the ministry questioned the fairness of the essay contest saying, ”It must have been fixed.”

ENDS

AFP on Obama victory and the reactions of (former) Americans abroad

Posted on November 7, 2008November 8, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. This was a fast turnaround. I got a call last night during dinner for some quotes from the AFP, and less than four hours later it’s up on the Net. About my reactions to the Obama election. The reporter wanted reactions from Americans abroad, so I asked if it would be okay to speak as a former American. Even better, she said.

RANT ALERT, but it’s about time: Over the course of a twenty-minute conversation I talked inter alia about the shame I felt as America became the conservatory of Neoconism. As the sole superpower deciding to remake the world in its own (ignorant) image, it betrayed its ideals through renditioning, signing statements, torture memos and waterboarding, Guantanamo, wiretapping, a widening gap between rich and poor and a net decline in incomes for the nation’s poor, fingerprinting foreigners and denying them habeas corpus, two wars built on lies and the profit motive that are ultimately bankrupting the country all over again, topped off by a worldwide financial crisis resulting from this administration’s misbegotten policies. And so on. How I no longer felt like an American anymore and was happy to have given up my affiliation to it. More in my next column. Here’s hoping Obama restores America’s image to the world. The reporter essentially took my first and last quotes and took away the word “former” from “the American side of me”.

Anyway, it’s an article worth writing as these reactions matter. Good riddance Bush, in all likelihood (given the unprecedented damage done to the country at home and millions of people abroad) America’s worst president in history. I doubt I am far from alone in that appraisal from other people with American roots overseas. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Supporters of US President-elect Barack Obama react while watching results on TV during in Geneva

Full coverage »

Obama win injects a Cool America factor

November 6, 2008

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jIrAEhXghUcfqnExqVJl7MZHPmlg

BERLIN (AFP) — Barack Obama’s victory in the US election has given Americans an almost overnight excuse to stop hiding their passports.

Americans around the world have reported being congratulated by strangers in the street. Obama t-shirts are on sale in stores in Paris and London, and after years of criticism over Iraq, climate change and other disputes, newspaper headlines have proclaimed that the United States is cool again.

“YES, WE CAN be friends!” splashed Germany’s top selling Bild daily on its front page Thursday. “We have fallen in love with the new, the different, the good America. ‘Obamerica’.”

Elena Fuetsch, a US student in Russia, learned about Obama’s victory on an overnight train from St. Petersburg to Moscow and was congratulated by a group of French students.

“One of them told me: ‘I never thought I would be telling this to an American, but congratulations on your president. We’re very proud of you’,” Fuetsch recalled.

“Many of us are still in somewhat pinch me mode,” said Roland Pearson, spokesman for the Johannesburg-based volunteer organisation Americans in Africa for Obama.

“I was out today shopping and a gentleman asked me whether I was American and I said yes. He said ‘oh, you must be celebrating along with all the rest of us’. No one said that in 2000 and no one said that in 2004.”

Eric Hansen, who has lived in Germany for more than 20 years and written several books on German culture from the US perspective, said Europeans “have waited just as much as Americans have waited to be able to change their opinions about America.

“I think that this old dream of an idealised America, this myth, is something that people need. It is allowed now, it is permissable to have it again.”

But while there was a sense of immediate common joy, Pearson, in Johannesburg and other expatriates, said global perceptions of the United States would take time to change after eight years under President George W. Bush.

“It’s only been 48 hours. Transforming a world view takes a little bit longer than that,” said Pearson. “Right now people are working on the level of emotion.”

Scott Saarlas, a 45-year-old American who now lives in Ethiopia, said: “There will be a lot of Americans who’ll feel more accepted and not be embarrassed to say that they are Americans in front of foreigners.

“I’d like to hope that it will be a lot easier now for us to travel overseas, but it’s too early to say at the moment.”

Jackie P. Chan, an American from San Francisco working in Hong Kong for an investment group, said Obama’s victory would be the first step to changing perceptions.

“We will have to see how the US government runs once Obama and the newly elected Democratic majority starts working in January,” she said.

“I think I will be proud to be American again when we pull out of the Middle East and stop spending billions a year of taxpayers’ money; when we develop better relationships with other countries based on shared ideals and values, and not interests like oil, and when we become more open-minded about the world and less US-centric.”

In [Sapporo], university lecturer and rights activist Arudou Debito, or formerly David Aldwinckle, said he abandoned his US citizenship in 2002 during the Bush administration.

Debito, 43, who now has a Japanese passport, welcomed the Obama victory as “the end of the dark age” and said he hoped the new president “may make the [former] American side of me proud again.”

But Hansen, the writer in Germany, said that it was often hard to be an American abroad even before Bush.

“It suffered before. When I came to Germany under (Ronald) Reagan, and then George Bush senior marched into Kuwait, and I heard the same sayings — ‘no blood for oil’ and that relationships with America had reached a nadir and all these things.

“It happens regularly. The perception of America sinks to a low point but it also regularly goes up,” said Hansen.

ENDS

Well done President Obama

Posted on November 5, 2008November 6, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Well done soon-to-be President Obama. Take back the country from the divisive and capitalizing forces that I have been glad to disassociate myself from. Arudou Debito in Sapporo, former American citizen.

(Two essays of note on this here:

https://www.debito.org/japantodaycolumns16-18.html (see essay 17)

https://www.debito.org/deamericanize.html)

Tangent: Excellent Ramen at Sakurajima, Sapporo Nishi-ku

Posted on October 26, 2008October 27, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I don’t think I’ve ever done this before, but it’s a Sunday, I’m on the road, and stats show that this is the day when Debito.org blog gets the least hits (Monday is generally the most). So let me indulge myself with an entry today about food (hey, food discussion sites are Legion in Japan, anyway).

Quite frankly, I’m not that much a foodie. I know what I like and I generally eat that, especially since (I’m not much of a cook) if it’s just put in front of me, it’s fair game. I take my time appreciating it, especially if it’s expensive (and if a restaurant is dedicated to slow food). But I’m a person who indulges in habitual meals and comfort food (meaning lots of meat and potatoes; probably not a sustainable diet). Because of the monotony, I know certain things well (such as apples — only eat Fuji, maybe mutsu or tsugaru in a pinch — also know my spuds, soup, yakitori…), the rest, well, I’ll enjoy it but not write home about it.

But I had some ramen the other day that is worth writing home, or, rather, my blog, about. I know this is all the way up in Sapporo, but it’s really worth your time if you appreciate ramen enough to go out of your way for it. People do — lines are prevalent at this joint, and when I went past and say empty seats for a change, I had a late lunch (yes, they have parking). It was incredible.

Here’s what their main item, “Sakurajima Ramen”, looks like:

Yes, that’s chashuu at eight o’clock (more if you order Chashuu Sakurajima, not available that day), another piece of grilled pork at four o’clock, and TWO pieces of charbroiled buta no kakuni at two o’clock, with pickles and hanjuku tamago. The broth is not overbearing, either. Everything is carefully cooked and put in. My only gripe: the noodles are thin (I’m a thick noodle guy), so it’s standard passable noodle fare.

I also ordered gyouza, and here’s how it came out:

It’s PURPLE with the contents, and includes the burnt-bit excess crispy excess film (at left, on and off plate). Full of spice, gorgeous.

All that together was only 1150 yen. I spent at least 30 minutes eating it all slowly. The restaurateurs seemed appreciative.

The storefront:

How to get there:
住所：〒063-0034 北海道札幌市西区西野4条3丁目1-38
電話：011-667-1321

http://www.sapporo-town.com/review/sp047345

Ramen gourmets, let us know your favorite local ramen shops (names, addresses, weblinks) in the Comments Section below, if you like! Arudou Debito in Tokyo

Tangent: Silly Beard Poll

Posted on October 20, 2008October 22, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. We’ve had serious polls for a number of weeks now, people. It’s closing in on Hallowe’en. Time for a silly one.

I’ve grown a beard. Lookee here. Do you like it?

Let the world hear your voice on this incredibly important issue! Vote early, vote often! Click on the poll at the top right of this blog page! Debeardo in Sapporo

Tangent: Michael Moore on how to deal with America’s financial crisis.

Posted on October 13, 2008October 13, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Complete tangent on a holiday: Michael Moore’s mailing list the other day put out a very thought-provoking assessment of the crisis enveloping the US financial markets. To me, the situation is one of chickens coming home to roost. The Bush II Administration has been morally bankrupt for a long time now — now it’s time for the fiscal irresponsibility to show how financially bankrupt it is (and right on the eve of an election; excellent timing). Anyway, read on if you’re interested. I bet you’ll think at least once “that’s exactly right” while reading! That’s why I reproduce it here on Debito.org. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

From: maillist@michaelmoore.com

Subject: Here’s How to Fix the Wall Street Mess …from Michael Moore

Date: October 2, 2008 5:16:59 AM JST

Friends,

The richest 400 Americans — that’s right, just four hundred people — own MORE than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. 400 rich Americans have got more stashed away than half the entire country! Their combined net worth is $1.6 trillion. During the eight years of the Bush Administration, their wealth has increased by nearly $700 billion — the same amount that they are now demanding we give to them for the “bailout.” Why don’t they just spend the money they made under Bush to bail themselves out? They’d still have nearly a trillion dollars left over to spread amongst themselves!

Of course, they are not going to do that — at least not voluntarily. George W. Bush was handed a $127 billion surplus when Bill Clinton left office. Because that money was OUR money and not his, he did what the rich prefer to do — spend it and never look back. Now we have a $9.5 trillion debt. Why on earth would we even think of giving these robber barons any more of our money?

I would like to propose my own bailout plan. My suggestions, listed below, are predicated on the singular and simple belief that the rich must pull themselves up by their own platinum bootstraps. Sorry, fellows, but you drilled it into our heads one too many times: There… is… no… free… lunch. And thank you for encouraging us to hate people on welfare! So, there will be no handouts from us to you. The Senate, tonight, is going to try to rush their version of a “bailout” bill to a vote. They must be stopped. We did it on Monday with the House, and we can do it again today with the Senate.

It is clear, though, that we cannot simply keep protesting without proposing exactly what it is we think Congress should do. So, after consulting with a number of people smarter than Phil Gramm, here is my proposal, now known as “Mike’s Rescue Plan.” It has 10 simple, straightforward points. They are:

1. APPOINT A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO CRIMINALLY INDICT ANYONE ON WALL STREET WHO KNOWINGLY CONTRIBUTED TO THIS COLLAPSE. Before any new money is expended, Congress must commit, by resolution, to criminally prosecute anyone who had anything to do with the attempted sacking of our economy. This means that anyone who committed insider trading, securities fraud or any action that helped bring about this collapse must go to jail. This Congress must call for a Special Prosecutor who will vigorously go after everyone who created the mess, and anyone else who attempts to scam the public in the future.

2. THE RICH MUST PAY FOR THEIR OWN BAILOUT. They may have to live in 5 houses instead of 7. They may have to drive 9 cars instead of 13. The chef for their mini-terriers may have to be reassigned. But there is no way in hell, after forcing family incomes to go down more than $2,000 dollars during the Bush years, that working people and the middle class are going to fork over one dime to underwrite the next yacht purchase.

If they truly need the $700 billion they say they need, well, here is an easy way they can raise it:

a) Every couple who makes over a million dollars a year and every single taxpayer who makes over $500,000 a year will pay a 10% surcharge tax for five years. (It’s the Senator Sanders plan. He’s like Colonel Sanders, only he’s out to fry the right chickens.) That means the rich will still be paying less income tax than when Carter was president. This will raise a total of $300 billion.

b) Like nearly every other democracy, charge a 0.25% tax on every stock transaction. This will raise more than $200 billion in a year.

c) Because every stockholder is a patriotic American, stockholders will forgo receiving a dividend check for one quarter and instead this money will go the treasury to help pay for the bailout.

d) 25% of major U.S. corporations currently pay NO federal income tax. Federal corporate tax revenues currently amount to 1.7% of the GDP compared to 5% in the 1950s. If we raise the corporate income tax back to the level of the 1950s, that gives us an extra $500 billion.

All of this combined should be enough to end the calamity. The rich will get to keep their mansions and their servants, and our United States government (“COUNTRY FIRST!”) will have a little leftover to repair some roads, bridges and schools.

3. BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE LOSING THEIR HOMES, NOT THE PEOPLE WHO WILL BUILD AN EIGHTH HOME. There are 1.3 million homes in foreclosure right now. That is what is at the heart of this problem. So instead of giving the money to the banks as a gift, pay down each of these mortgages by $100,000. Force the banks to renegotiate the mortgage so the homeowner can pay on its current value. To insure that this help does no go to speculators and those who have tried to make money by flipping houses, this bailout is only for people’s primary residence. And in return for the $100K paydown on the existing mortgage, the government gets to share in the holding of the mortgage so that it can get some of its money back. Thus, the total initial cost of fixing the mortgage crisis at its roots (instead of with the greedy lenders) is $150 billion, not $700 billion.

And let’s set the record straight. People who have defaulted on their mortgages are not “bad risks.” They are our fellow Americans, and all they wanted was what we all want and most of us still get: a home to call their own. But during the Bush years, millions of them lost the decent paying jobs they had. Six million fell into poverty. Seven million lost their health insurance. And every one of them saw their real wages go down by $2,000. Those who dare to look down on these Americans who got hit with one bad break after another should be ashamed. We are a better, stronger, safer and happier society when all of our citizens can afford to live in a home that they own.

4. IF YOUR BANK OR COMPANY GETS ANY OF OUR MONEY IN A “BAILOUT,” THEN WE OWN YOU. Sorry, that’s how it’s done. If the bank gives me money so I can buy a house, the bank “owns” that house until I pay it all back — with interest. Same deal for Wall Street. Whatever money you need to stay afloat, if our government considers you a safe risk — and necessary for the good of the country — then you can get a loan, but we will own you. If you default, we will sell you. This is how the Swedish government did it and it worked.

5. ALL REGULATIONS MUST BE RESTORED. THE REAGAN REVOLUTION IS DEAD. This catastrophe happened because we let the fox have the keys to the henhouse. In 1999, Phil Gramm authored a bill to remove all the regulations that governed Wall Street and our banking system. The bill passed and Clinton signed it. Here’s what Sen. Phil Gramm, McCain’s chief economic advisor, said at the bill signing:

“In the 1930s … it was believed that government was the answer. It was believed that stability and growth came from government overriding the functioning of free markets.

“We are here today to repeal [that] because we have learned that government is not the answer. We have learned that freedom and competition are the answers. We have learned that we promote economic growth and we promote stability by having competition and freedom.

“I am proud to be here because this is an important bill; it is a deregulatory bill. I believe that that is the wave of the future, and I am awfully proud to have been a part of making it a reality.”

This bill must be repealed. Bill Clinton can help by leading the effort for the repeal of the Gramm bill and the reinstating of even tougher regulations regarding our financial institutions. And when they’re done with that, they can restore the regulations for the airlines, the inspection of our food, the oil industry, OSHA, and every other entity that affects our daily lives. All oversight provisions for any “bailout” must have enforcement monies attached to them and criminal penalties for all offenders.

6. IF IT’S TOO BIG TO FAIL, THEN THAT MEANS IT’S TOO BIG TO EXIST. Allowing the creation of these mega-mergers and not enforcing the monopoly and anti-trust laws has allowed a number of financial institutions and corporations to become so large, the very thought of their collapse means an even bigger collapse across the entire economy. No one or two companies should have this kind of power. The so-called “economic Pearl Harbor” can’t happen when you have hundreds — thousands — of institutions where people have their money. When you have a dozen auto companies, if one goes belly-up, we don’t face a national disaster. If you have three separately-owned daily newspapers in your town, then one media company can’t call all the shots (I know… What am I thinking?! Who reads a paper anymore? Sure glad all those mergers and buyouts left us with a strong and free press!). Laws must be enacted to prevent companies from being so large and dominant that with one slingshot to the eye, the giant falls and dies. And no institution should be allowed to set up money schemes that no one can understand. If you can’t explain it in two sentences, you shouldn’t be taking anyone’s money.

7. NO EXECUTIVE SHOULD BE PAID MORE THAN 40 TIMES THEIR AVERAGE EMPLOYEE, AND NO EXECUTIVE SHOULD RECEIVE ANY KIND OF “PARACHUTE” OTHER THAN THE VERY GENEROUS SALARY HE OR SHE MADE WHILE WORKING FOR THE COMPANY. In 1980, the average American CEO made 45 times what their employees made. By 2003, they were making 254 times what their workers made. After 8 years of Bush, they now make over 400 times what their average employee makes. How this can happen at publicly held companies is beyond reason. In Britain, the average CEO makes 28 times what their average employee makes. In Japan, it’s only 17 times! The last I heard, the CEO of Toyota was living the high life in Tokyo. How does he do it on so little money? Seriously, this is an outrage. We have created the mess we’re in by letting the people at the top become bloated beyond belief with millions of dollars. This has to stop. Not only should no executive who receives help out of this mess profit from it, but any executive who was in charge of running his company into the ground should be fired before the company receives any help.

8. STRENGTHEN THE FDIC AND MAKE IT A MODEL FOR PROTECTING NOT ONLY PEOPLE’S SAVINGS, BUT ALSO THEIR PENSIONS AND THEIR HOMES. Obama was correct yesterday to propose expanding FDIC protection of people’s savings in their banks to $250,000. But this same sort of government insurance must be given to our nation’s pension funds. People should never have to worry about whether or not the money they’ve put away for their old age will be there. This will mean strict government oversight of companies who manage their employees’ funds — or perhaps it means that the companies will have to turn over those funds and their management to the government. People’s private retirement funds must also be protected, but perhaps it’s time to consider not having one’s retirement invested in the casino known as the stock market. Our government should have a solemn duty to guarantee that no one who grows old in this country has to worry about ending up destitute.

9. EVERYBODY NEEDS TO TAKE A DEEP BREATH, CALM DOWN, AND NOT LET FEAR RULE THE DAY. Turn off the TV! We are not in the Second Great Depression. The sky is not falling. Pundits and politicians are lying to us so fast and furious it’s hard not to be affected by all the fear mongering. Even I, yesterday, wrote to you and repeated what I heard on the news, that the Dow had the biggest one day drop in its history. Well, that’s true in terms of points, but its 7% drop came nowhere close to Black Monday in 1987 when the stock market in one day lost 23% of its value. In the ’80s, 3,000 banks closed, but America didn’t go out of business. These institutions have always had their ups and downs and eventually it works out. It has to, because the rich do not like their wealth being disrupted! They have a vested interest in calming things down and getting back into the Jacuzzi.

As crazy as things are right now, tens of thousands of people got a car loan this week. Thousands went to the bank and got a mortgage to buy a home. Students just back to college found banks more than happy to put them into hock for the next 15 years with a student loan. Life has gone on. Not a single person has lost any of their money if it’s in a bank or a treasury note or a CD. And the most amazing thing is that the American public hasn’t bought the scare campaign. The citizens didn’t blink, and instead told Congress to take that bailout and shove it. THAT was impressive. Why didn’t the population succumb to the fright-filled warnings from their president and his cronies? Well, you can only say ‘Saddam has da bomb’ so many times before the people realize you’re a lying sack of shite. After eight long years, the nation is worn out and simply can’t take it any longer.

10. CREATE A NATIONAL BANK, A “PEOPLE’S BANK.” If we really are itching to print up a trillion dollars, instead of giving it to a few rich people, why don’t we give it to ourselves? Now that we own Freddie and Fannie, why not set up a people’s bank? One that can provide low-interest loans for all sorts of people who want to own a home, start a small business, go to school, come up with the cure for cancer or create the next great invention. And now that we own AIG, the country’s largest insurance company, let’s take the next step and provide health insurance for everyone. Medicare for all. It will save us so much money in the long run. And we won’t be 12th on the life expectancy list. We’ll be able to have a longer life, enjoying our government-protected pension, and living to see the day when the corporate criminals who caused so much misery are let out of prison so that we can help reacclimate them to civilian life — a life with one nice home and a gas-free car that was invented with help from the People’s Bank.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Call your Senators now. Here’s a backup link in case we crash that site again. They are going to attempt their own version of the Looting of America tonight. And let your reps know if you agree with my 10-point plan.

ENDS

Tangent: Question raised about apparently problematic judicial ruling on media responsibility for public criticism

Posted on October 8, 2008October 8, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Readers, thanks for making yesterday’s column the #1 read article all day on the Japan Times website yesterday. Very honored.

Shifting gears a little, here’s a question I got from The Community mailing list. You legal scholars out there have any comment? Thanks very much. Arudou Debito

FROM THE COMMUNITY, AUTHORSHIP ANONYMIZED
=================================
From the Daily Yomiuri on 10/3 — link below for both English and Japanese.

The key question I have is whether anyone has ever heard of this in a ruling or statute, whatever?

“The judge also said that urging the public to call for disciplinary action through mass media was illegal and inappropriate.” (7th line)

And the “urging” the judge was referring to is explained here:

“During a TV appearance last year, Hashimoto urged the public to call for the Hiroshima Bar Association to discipline the four lawyers for arguing in a retrial that their client had acted without criminal intent, after stating the opposite in earlier trials.” (4th line)

Here is the online English version from the Daily Yomiuri:

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20081003TDY02309.htm

Here is the link in Japanese: http://osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/tokusyu/h_osaka/ho81002c.htm

There could be some problem with the Japanese use of (fuho- koui) (2nd paragraph)
判決で、橋本裁判長は「弁護団が虚偽の事実を創作したと（視聴者に）思わせる（橋下知事の）発言は名誉を棄損した。マスメディアを通じて公衆に懲戒請求をするよう呼びかける行為は、懲戒制度の趣旨に照らして相当性を欠き、不法行為に当たる」として原告側の主張を認めた。

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8D%E6%B3%95%E8%A1%8C%E7%82%BA

But it seems the English translation here “… urging the public to call for disciplinary action through mass media was illegal …” does justice to the original in Japanese. If that is correct, then we have a judge stating that I cannot go on television to ask the public to send letters to Prime Minister Aso to fire Mr. Kakayama. Well, “mass media” would include print, web, radio, etc.

Am I missing something here? It doesn’t read in Japanese or English that it was only illegal for a lawyer to do this. It doesn’t read that it is only illegal reference a bar association. It appears to be a general statement.

Can anyone please explain to me where I am getting this wrong? I ask because this can’t possibly be correct, can it? Haven’t we seen letters and appeals to the public to a prime minister for one of his cabinet officials to be fired?

Thanks for the help, folks.

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

(Archived articles follow, first Japanese original, then English)

橋下知事に賠償命令　弁護団懲戒呼びかけ「不当」…広島地裁

橋下徹　大阪府知事

http://osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/tokusyu/h_osaka/ho81002c.htm

　山口県光市の母子殺害事件の差し戻し控訴審を巡り、被告弁護団の４人（広島弁護士会）が、弁護士でもある橋下徹・大阪府知事に対し、テレビ番組で、弁護団への懲戒請求を呼びかけられたことで名誉を傷つけられ、業務に支障が出たとして、１人３００万円の損害賠償を求めた訴訟の判決が２日、広島地裁であった。橋本良成裁判長は１人２００万円、計８００万円の支払いを命じた。橋下知事は控訴する意向を明らかにした。

　判決で、橋本裁判長は「弁護団が虚偽の事実を創作したと（視聴者に）思わせる（橋下知事の）発言は名誉を棄損した。マスメディアを通じて公衆に懲戒請求をするよう呼びかける行為は、懲戒制度の趣旨に照らして相当性を欠き、不法行為に当たる」として原告側の主張を認めた。

　判決によると、橋下知事は知事就任前の昨年５月２７日に読売テレビが放送した「たかじんのそこまで言って委員会」に出演。差し戻し審の被告の元少年（２７）＝死刑判決を受け上告＝の弁護団の主張が１、２審から変遷し殺意や強姦(ごうかん)目的を否定したことを批判し、「弁護団を許せないと思うなら一斉に弁護士会に懲戒請求をかけてもらいたい」と視聴者に呼びかけた。

　橋本裁判長は、広島弁護士会に寄せられた計約２４００件の懲戒請求は、橋下知事のテレビでの発言が契機になったと認定。「多数の懲戒請求に対応するため、原告は答弁書を作成しなければならないなど相応の事務負担を必要とし、それ以上に精神的損害を被ったと認められる」と言及した。

　橋下知事の話「弁護団、遺族に大変ご迷惑をおかけしました。申し訳ありません。裁判所の判断は重く受け止めます。私の法律解釈、表現の自由に対する考え方が間違っていました。判決が不当だとは一切思っていませんが、３審制ということもあり、高裁の意見をうかがうために控訴したい」

（2008年10月02日読売新聞）

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

Defamed lawyers win 8 mil. yen from Osaka gov.

The Yomiuri Shimbun Oct. 3, 2008

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20081003TDY02309.htm

HIROSHIMA–Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto was ordered Thursday to pay a total of 8 million yen to four lawyers whose performance in a murder-rape trial he criticized on a TV program, which adversely affected their business.

In a ruling handed down at the Hiroshima District Court, presiding Judge Yoshinari Hashimoto ordered the governor to pay 2 million yen in compensation to each of the lawyers, who acted as defense counsel in the trial, to compensate for loss of business.

Hashimoto, a lawyer himself, issued an apology to the lawyers later Thursday but announced that he would appeal the decision.

During a TV appearance last year, Hashimoto urged the public to call for the Hiroshima Bar Association to discipline the four lawyers for arguing in a retrial that their client had acted without criminal intent, after stating the opposite in earlier trials.

The four lawyers claimed that Hashimoto’s remarks were defamatory and had interfered with their business, and demanded compensation of 12 million yen, 3 million yen each.

In the ruling, the judge acknowledged their claim, saying the governor had defamed the lawyers by giving viewers the impression that the lawyers had made false statements during the case.

The judge also said that urging the public to call for disciplinary action through mass media was illegal and inappropriate.

The case centered on a murder-rape that occurred in Hikari, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in 1999, for which a 27-year-old man was sentenced to death by the Hiroshima High Court in April this year.

According to Thursday’s ruling, Hashimoto appeared on a TV program aired by YTV on May 27 last year, before he became governor.

He criticized the defense counsel for changing key elements of the defense argument between earlier trials and the high court trial.

Hashimoto particularly criticized the counsel for denying that their client acted with criminal intent, because they had admitted in a previous statement that he had acted with criminal intent.

In his first trial, in March 2000, the man was sentenced to life imprisonment. The sentence was upheld in March 2002, before being overturned in June 2006 by the Supreme Court, which remanded the case to the Hiroshima High Court.

(Oct. 3, 2008)

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

ENDS

BTW…
Osaka governor ordered to pay lawyers after damaging gaffe
The Japan Times: Friday, Oct. 3, 2008
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081003a7.html
OSAKA (Kyodo) Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto was slapped with a court order Thursday to pay ¥8 million in damages to four lawyers over a gaffe he made last year.

The Hiroshima District Court ruled that the business of the lawyers, who were part of a defense team representing a juvenile defendant in a high-profile 1999 murder case, was disrupted after the celebrity lawyer-turned-governor called on the public to strip them of their licenses during a TV program in May 2007.

Hashimoto was critical of the defense lawyers and in the TV program he urged viewers to send letters requesting their dismissal to the Hiroshima Bar Association, which the four belong to.

The bar association received more than 2,500 letters since the program aired. Although it did not move to strip them of their licenses, the four sued Hashimoto anyway for disrupting their law firms’ business.

“I apologize for causing trouble to the people concerned. I misunderstood the legal system and made remarks beyond the boundary of freedom of expression,” Hashimoto told reporters Thursday after the ruling.

Nevertheless, the governor indicated that he will appeal the ruling.
ENDS

Tangent: Metropolis Mag (Tokyo) on the annual August Yasukuni “debates”

Posted on September 30, 2008September 30, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. As a follow-up to yesterday’s thoughts on the movie YASUKUNI, here’s an article that came out in August regarding the “debate” between Right and Left at the shrine. Bit of a tangent to Debito.org, but worth a read. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Feature

Text & photos by Brett Bull

Metropolis Magazine Aug 8, 2008, Issue #750

http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/750/feature.asp

Face Off
Each year on August 15, downtown Tokyo turns into a riot zone as right-wing militants clash with antiwar protestors. Metropolis gives you a ringside seat to all the action

Illustration by Kohji Shiiki

With his broad shoulders rippling beneath his dark blue jumpsuit, Shinichi Kamijo has taken a sidewalk position on Yasukuni Dori, not far from Jimbocho station in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward.

It is 2pm and, given that he is about to engage in battle, Kamijo is surprisingly calm. “We must stop them from advancing to the shrine,” implores the 38-year-old member of Gishin Gokoku-kai, an uyoku dantai (right-wing group) that he founded when he was 26.

Kamijo’s target is the Anti-Emperor Activities Network, a sayoku (left-wing) organization that is about to begin a protest march through Kudanshita and toward Yasukuni Shrine, the controversial Shinto monument that effectively serves as a symbol of Japan’s wartime past. The group of 150 members is assembling at nearby Nishi Kanda Park, a small concrete and gravel square about a kilometer east of the shrine. Before the protest begins, the leader announces that the group’s battles with the uyoku are a usual occurrence. “But we are doing this for the people of Japan,” he says.

As Kamijo waits, convoys of his brethren in black trucks descend upon the area, their presence reinforced by the imposing grilles welded to their fronts, the gold-painted chrysanthemum crests upon their sides and, of course, the unmistakable nationalist jingles booming from their sound systems.

Thirty minutes later, hundreds of riot police officers materialize on the streets. Each trooper is outfitted with a shield, heavy black boots, shin guards and a helmet—the equipment needed to oppose the throng of rightists now stationed on the pavement.

“I want to show the strength of the uyoku power,” Kamijo says, readying his stance, “but we are under the control of the police.”

The above scene unfolded just prior to last year’s pacifist demonstration in Kudanshita on August 15, the anniversary of the end of World War II. The protest, which will be repeated next week and preceded by various other marches near the shrine, highlights the one day of the year where downtown Tokyo could nearly be confused for Pakistan or Tibet during times of political unrest—the city literally turns into a riot zone as right- and left-wing groups stand off against one another.

Shinichi Kamijo, founder of Gishin Gokoku-kai

Perhaps Japan’s most notorious rallying point for nationalist sentiment, Yasukuni confounds its left-leaning detractors and inspires patriots due to its honoring of roughly 2.5 million military men, many of whom were encouraged by the belief that their spirit would be enshrined should they die in battle fighting heroically for the emperor. For South Korea and China, two countries that suffered most heavily at the hands of Japan’s military over a half-century ago, a crucial point of criticism is the enshrinement of 14 Class-A war criminals, including wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. A heated debate on an average day, Yasukuni and its surrounding area is like a spark landing in a tinderbox on the anniversary.

Last year, the morning saw a separate one-hour demonstration in the streets west of the shrine’s grounds led by the Anti-War Joint Action Committee, which assembled in front of Hosei University in Ichigaya.

“On the anniversary, the uyoku begin working from early in the morning,” says the committee’s 64-year-old representative, Misumi Tadashi. “Not only around Yasukuni, but all throughout Tokyo, they blast their messages from speakers mounted atop their trucks. This is the most appropriate day of the year for them to appeal their existence to the public. The police cannot control them, and we cannot let them continue with these harsh activities. We have to do something.”

The Anti-War Joint Action Committee, which is funded through the sale of publications and plans on marching again this year, was established in 1992 to oppose the dispatch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces to Cambodia. Today, the war in Iraq is one of the group’s raisons d’etre.

The procession left the Hosei campus and moved up towards Iidabashi and back down Sotobori Dori to Sotobori Park, near Yotsuya. All through the route, police officers walked pace for pace with the over 100 protesters as uyoku members attempted to physically disrupt the march.

“It seems like the police are trying to stop them, but in reality it is very easy for the uyoku to break through,” believes Tadashi. “We can’t rely on the police, and the uyoku know that we have the skills and power to fight back—so that is why they don’t attack so aggressively.”

The proceedings were decidedly more subdued inside the shrine’s compound. Kamijo, the right-winger, paid his respects at Yasukuni just before noon. As he faced the memorial’s imposing façade, a hinomaru flag proudly stitched on the back of his clothes, beads of sweat poured down from his shaven skinhead on this mercilessly muggy day. He performed a few bows, tossed some coins, and clasped his hands in remembrance of Japan’s fallen soldiers.

Behind him, veterans sporting camouflage military uniforms and tourists, cameras in hand, emptied from tour buses onto the baking concrete.

Afterwards, as the burly Kamijo made his way back to a few rows of shaded tables filled with members of other right-wing groups, he explained that he founded Gishin Gokoku-kai because of the way Japan’s neighbors view the country.

“China and South Korea educate their children to hate Japan. They don’t want the younger generation to stop being angry and want to continue receiving money from the Japanese government,” he says of the Official Development Assistance program, whose work has included a subway project in Seoul and programs to improve the environment and public health in China. “I am tired of their complaints. They do not appreciate our efforts.”

By midday, most of the right-wingers had, like Kamijo, completed their patriotic duties at the shrine and returned to their fortress-like vehicles for the eventual move down the road to Kudanshita for the clash with the pacifists.

In Kudanshita, the tension is increasing. Cordons of police officers are now lined up face-to-face with the uniformed rightists. Kamijo, however, won’t be intimidated.

“Japanese have been way too quiet,” he explains. “And since we don’t have a nuclear weapon, they [China and South Korea] can be aggressive.”

Kamijo admits that he’s not in top form since having dropped 11kg following an illness, but there is little doubt that he means business. As a warning to foreigners, the word “DEATH” is tattooed on the back of his neck, as is the numeral 4, whose kanji (pronounced “shi”) has the same morbid meaning. Appearing on his meishi are the lyrics to “Kimigayo,” Japan’s national anthem.

A carpenter by trade, Kamijo says that his history of brawling with mobsters and foreigners in Roppongi while a member of a bosozoku motorbike gang is so extensive that he suggests we have a separate meeting so he can convey all the gory details. Certainly, on this day, his actions make such claims seem extremely plausible.

Carrying large red balloons, colorful flags, and painted banners—including one featuring the image of Che Guevara—the Anti-Emperor Activities Network makes the turn toward Kamijo’s corner. Their chants are loud and clear: “We are completely against all the people who go to Yasukuni!”

As if rushing a quarterback, Kamijo tries to wedge his massive frame between a pair of police shields to get at his enemies. When rebuffed by the officers, he stabs his right index finger to the sky and screams.

Unbowed, Kamijo quickly follows the crowd down the street with one of his cohorts. Together, they leap over a flower bed yet find themselves pushed back by a flurry of helmets and forearms. Amid the chaos, Kamijo winds up getting flipped onto his back, with planters being dumped and their contents spilled. Advertising flags fall to the sidewalk.

Reports of uyoku-sayoku clashes commonly claim that the police firmly side with the right. But on this day, the sayoku are generally being protected. As the procession moves along, right-wingers with portable loudspeakers blast their righteous messages as their bolder brothers continue to make attempts at breaking the police lines. Each time, however, the protestor is tackled, dragged off or pushed away by Tokyo’s finest.

Confused onlookers stand by as the sidewalks and the center of the street become a swirling display of swaying flags, mashing bodies and deafening noise.

In spite of Kamijo’s claims of wanting to display the spirit of the uyoku, much of the violent activity appears staged, which matches with the observations of Tadashi from the Ichigaya demonstration. Though visually surreal, many of the punches seem feigned, and the multiple clenched fists merely come across as elaborate street theater. Further, given the clear planning on the part of the police, it is clear that the protest route, starting time and participants have been coordinated well in advance.
The opposition continues to show relentless zeal, yet the chants from the marchers do not stop: “We are not going to forgive the government at all! No more war! No more Yasukuni!”

In the surrounding area, right-wing groups have parked their trucks at police barricades established at many of the large intersections. The cops hold their ground as the members stand by and scowl outside their vehicles, whose sound systems are still smothering the area with the military anthems at ear-splitting volume.

By the time the mob comes within view of Yasukuni’s gates, an atmosphere of hatred permeates the entire scene. Standing outside of shops and offices, a few salarymen and older women have decided to join in and verbally condemn the lefties for their presence.

The march then turns up Mejiro Dori—not onwards toward the shrine—which most certainly was the plan all along. The protesters file into a small brick smoking area that includes a bathroom. Many right-wingers surround the premises and continue their screaming and pushing routines.

Down narrow side streets, a few overly aggressive rightists can be seen getting hauled away by small groups of police. It is now clear that the ranks are thinning, and when a caravan of right-wing trucks breaches one of the police blockades and makes a final sonic blitz past the assembled protesters, it almost signals a last gasp.

The atmosphere should be no less heated on the anniversary this year. This spring anger raged over the release of Yasukuni, a documentary by Chinese director Li Ying that multiple theaters in Japan refused to screen following threats from right-wing groups, who saw the film as being “anti-Japan.”

Kamijo, who was not arrested last year, expects a similar scene in Kudanshita, and once again he is excited. “We have to stop them,” he says bluntly. “We must force them to cancel the demonstration.”
The Anti-War Joint Action Committee, too, sees the scene unfolding much as it did 12 months earlier, and promises to be ready. “We have confidence to fight back,” Tadashi says. “We have guts and pride, and I am sure they will be coming after us.”

The Kundanshita demonstration will get underway along Yasukuni Dori on August 15, just after 2:30pm. Access via Jimbocho station (exit A1 or A2) or Kudanshita station (exit 5 or 6). The Ichigaya demonstration will start from Hosei University at 9am. Nearest stn: JR Ichigaya. Due to police activity, routes and times may change without notice.

A panel of journalists and other interested parties will be holding a meeting about the Yasukuni issue at Sendagaya Kumin Kaikan on Aug 15 at 5:45pm. 1-10-1 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku. Tel: 03-3402-7854. Nearest stn: Harajuku or Meiji-Jingumae. Seehttp://tinyurl.com/senkumin for map.

For more information about the Anti-Emperor Activities Network, see www.ten-no.net. For more information about the Anti-War Joint Action Committee, see www.anti-war.jp/english/index_e.htm.

Got something to say about this article? Send a letter to the editor atletters@metropolis.co.jp.

ENDS

Tangent: In Niseko, playing Cricket!

Posted on September 21, 2008September 22, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Morning Blog. Writing this as I wait for the copious amounts of water to take effect on my compact little hangover…

Have spent the weekend in Niseko (courtesy of RidgeRunner development Inc) getting more insight into just how the Australian-led building and skiing boom here is fundamentally changing this small ski town into an international resort area. Property values are soaring, very nicely designed buildings are going up, multilingual parties are on tap every night… even the Hilton recently opened a hotel here. More boosterism at http://www.powderlife.com/.

But the reason I dropped by this time (last time I emceed a forum in July 6, talking about the launch of organic farm Takadai Meadows run, again, mostly by NJ, and with speakers Alex Kerr, Bruce Gutlove, and Honma Yasunori) was to play Cricket!

Yes, Cricket, where you find that Baseball training (I played Little League) gets in the way of knowing how to hold the bat and how to catch that undeservedly hard ball (no gloves allowed; I have very bruised fingernails this morning, and am pleased I can type without broken phalanges). I actually had fun (fielded, bowled my first over and managed to do it with only three wides, and even got four runs after about twenty minutes at bat). Our pick-up team still managed to beat two teams, one with its own uniforms even (by ONE run at the last bowl–game couldn’t have been closer), and they take on the very serious Pakistani team today (which I shall give a miss; I need a Sunday at home for the first time since July).

It’s an event with charity auctions and large parties (of course), sponsored by organizations such as Metropolis/Jap@n.Inc/Crisscross, the Hokkaido International School, and various companies and government agencies. And attended by cricket heroes whose names I’ve never heard of, of course. More information at

http://www.ezocricketclub.com/international-cricket-competion/

Again, one of the fruits of multiculturalization. Who would have thunk I’d have gotten to know why people worldwide enjoy playing Cricket in the backwoods of Hokkaido! Long may a healthy development of Niseko continue.

Arudou Debito in Niseko

Excellent essay on Wikipedia on the origin of “Criticism” sections

Posted on August 24, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Update on my previous blog entry. I have been proven wrong by the editors on Wikipedia — they have shown themselves to be conscientious and serious about the editing they do. One even took the trouble yesterday to write an entire essay about how Wikipedia articles on controversial subjects develop. It answered a lot of questions I had about the media, so I’ll put it up here on Debito.org for a wider audience.

The Wikipedia entry on me (which I will not touch — I will just bring up points of order on the Talk page) has already been much improved. My thanks. Arudou Debito in San Francisco

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

Criticism section

Courtesy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Debito_Arudou#Criticism_section

I want to make a few general comments on criticism sections per se, then one related to this article. I feel the need to do so, because from the comments I’ve seen by newcomers (such as Mr. Arudou) and established Wikipedians, they either seem ignorant of the general trends regarding the need for such sections or have seen no need to explain.

The reason articles on controversial figures such as Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama do not have criticism sections is because the criticism has been integrated into the article. It is considered bad writing to have a biography where the first half says only the good stuff and then the second half says the bad stuff. I’ve seen the integration of criticism happening consistently across Wikipedia. I haven’t looked at those particular politicians article histories, but I’m sure you’ll find that periodically someone will complain on the talk page that the article has been whitewashed. The reason people usually complain about whitewashing when they don’t see a criticism section, is that they don’t actually bother reading the entire article. Those kinds of people come to a biography specifically to read the bad stuff about the person. They are not interested in reading a complete story of someone’s life and career and seeing criticisms and supports in context of the issue they are related to. This should already be a sign that criticism sections are not good. When we design articles so that people can come specifically to read only what fits their POV, we are not doing a good job at all.

I would say there’s a growing movement to eliminate such criticism sections for this and other reasons (see the essay Wikipedia:Criticism). But such improvements only happen on the more prominent articles first. The other articles are stuck with their old-fashioned criticism sections. I say “old fashioned” because this is what people used to do. Mostly, articles would be created by fans, and every time somebody wanted to put something negative in, the fans would say, well put it in a criticism section. The fans know well that relegating stuff to a criticism section at the end is often the same as throwing something into a dust bin. They then create the main part of the article to be flattering, and most people, by the time they get to the end, see “criticism” and think, oh this guy’s great but of course people are going to criticize like they always do. Thus the criticism section actually acts to lessen the impact of the criticism by shunting it aside from the “main” article. Over time, people that wanted to insert criticism forgot this is why such sections were created. When criticism sections would be merged into the main part to create a more balanced picture, such people would protest. Indeed, probably one reason they protest is that they prefer only to read and edit the negative portions of the article, thus it is more convenient for their agenda. Otherwise they would be expected to work at improving the article as a whole.

Now from this mini-history of criticism sections, let’s look at this article. It seems to me originally the same scenario held here. There was a main part, which had support, and a criticism portion. Unfortunately, over time, the main part lost the support element, and the criticism section grew. This seems to be because Mr. Arudou doesn’t have as many fans interested in editing his article as detractors. There were also editors that were concerned about the promotion element and worked to eliminate the more positive references while not scrutinizing the negative ones, as they should have. Basically, the system has been thrown out of wack. The criticism section is now the most prominent of all the parts of the article. Indeed, I am hard-pressed to find a single positive thing said about Mr. Arudou in this article. If I hadn’t done a little reading up, I would be under the impression that nobody has viewed his actions favorably.

It is clear we need to rework this article, possibly from scratch, and using only the best sources. Those who come here with an agenda will probably not like this idea. Criticism should be merged into the main article, as done in all the best articles on Wikipedia. —C S (talk) 03:31, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

ENDS

Tangent: Letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger on eliminating UCSC English program

Posted on August 15, 2008August 20, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I’m on vacation, I know, but duty calls. My school has a tie-up with a (very good) English-language program here in Santa Cruz, California. And yet budget cuts are eliminating it. First an article that came out in the local newspaper, The Santa Cruz Sentinel (which, despite the reporting, sees a lot more than three jobs affected). Then my letter from the perspective of a participant to the people in charge, including the University of California Regents and California Governor Schwarzenegger. Then a August 19 follow up article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Arudou Debito in Santa Cruz

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

UC Extension to close Santa Cruz office, close two programs

J.M. BROWN – SENTINEL STAFF WRITER

Article Launched: 08/13/2008 01:32:23 AM PDT

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_10186127

SANTA CRUZ — After years of fighting a mounting deficit, UC Extension will close its Santa Cruz office and eliminate two instructional programs affecting more than 2,000 students, a university official confirmed Tuesday.

Alison Galloway, vice provost for academic affairs who oversees UCSC’s Extension programs, said the University Town Center office in downtown will close in the spring after the final classes of the English Language International ELI and Science Illustration courses are taught. Galloway said three full-time jobs in student support services will be cut at the end of September, and other employees will be transferred to the UCSC Extension office in Cupertino.

Galloway said she made the tough call to shutter the Santa Cruz programs in recent days, and laid-off employees have received notice. Word of the cuts were beginning to spread through the university Tuesday.

“It’s incredibly upsetting — many of these staff have worked for us for many years,” Galloway said. “It is extremely hard on those who lost their job.”

Galloway, an anthropology professor who was appointed to her administrative position last September, said the cuts will free an estimated $1 million annually to address a $30 million debt load racked up in recent years by the UCSC Extension. The extension, which does not receive state funding, is supposed to be self supporting through tuition revenue, but in recent years has borrowed money from the university to stay afloat.

She said the cost of running the ELI and science programs — a combination of instructor pay, facilities costs and support staff salaries — are more than double the $1.8 million in annual revenue brought in by tuition. The cuts come a year after the program closed its arts and humanities course to save money.

“The problem is we have a very strong program, but it can’t carry the weight of everything else,” she said. “It’s very hard to make enough to cover overhead. We’re not looking to make a profit, but we have to be able to cover payroll.”

Galloway said closing the office at 1101 Pacific Ave. will save about $750,000 in rent per year, and the overall program will realize more savings by eventually closing classroom space in Sunnyvale. The job savings will amount to more than $200,000.

The office in Cupertino, which offers a range of high-tech courses, will be UCSC Extension’s only remaining site.

Galloway said the debt was caused partially by the program’s inability to adjust after the dot-com bust. The extension did offered a number of tech-related courses even after Silicon Valley’s bubble burst about eight years ago.

“We didn’t adapt quickly enough,” she said.

The ELI program teaches English to students from across the globe, including Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Faculty and students couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday, and several staff members declined to be interviewed or did not immediately return calls.

Prior students have hailed the program as an effective way to learn English in an idyllic setting.

“Santa Cruz is one of the most beautiful and wonderful city I have ever seen,” Bill Henney Mikolo Mireilee, a 2005 student from the Congo, wrote for the program’s Web site. “ELI staff is a wonderful team always ready to help at any time. Thanks to all of you.”

Contact J.M. Brown at 429-2410 or jbrown@santacruzsentinel.com.

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

MY LETTER:

From: Arudou Debito, Associate Professor
Hokkaido Information University
(contact details omitted)

To: Professor Galloway, Chancellor Blumenthal, Provost Kliger, President Yudof, Governor Schwarzenegger, and Santa Cruz Sentinel:

Dear Madams and Sirs:

I write to you as a participant in UC Santa Cruz’s UC Extension, English Language International Program. Since 2002, I have escorted dozens of students from Hokkaido Information University in Hokkaido, Japan, as an Associate Professor at HIU.

As a fellow educator, I beg you to reconsider your decision to close down the ELI Program. This letter is to make a case from the position of a customer, offering you a view that the accountants, considering the bottom line, may have underconsidered regarding the importance of this program:

THE ELI PROGRAM’S BENEFITS TO OUR STUDENTS

1) Collegiality. My students are generally low-level in terms of language ability (we have no English majors at our computer- and information science-oriented university), but they have come back every year with rave reviews about the ELI Program. After a month here, they have met students from all over the world (ELI has set attendance records year on year), learning that there are many countries out there they can talk to if they learn English; for Japanese students in particular, who generally grow up in a monolingual environment, this is a prime opportunity to get over their longstanding self-imposed communication barriers. They return to Japan aflush with positive feelings about language learning and other societies in general, with minds more opened to the outside world.

2) American university style. My students have been given time to settle in (and get over their jetlag) while interfacing with the gorgeous UCSC campus. They experience American-style dorm life and American college dining. What other chance will they have in their life to feel like an American college student?

3) American family life. My students through their three-week homestays receive a wide spectrum of experiences and lifestyles, reporting back to me every incident of culture shock, then every minor or major victory they felt when overcoming it. They learn more about cultural diversity, tolerance, and more self-assertive lifestyles. They also realize that it is possible to live in a multicultural society–something Japan as a whole (with its aging and falling population) will have to consider in future.

All of these are reinforced by the professional, courteous, friendly, and helpful staff at the ELI, with whom the atmosphere is like summer camp with classes and extramural activities. The ELI Program has offered us the gamut, and for that reason I fully support its educational aims. Moreover:

THE MUTUAL BENEFITS TO THE SANTA CRUZ COMMUNITY

Although the above may be found in other programs, why the UCSC ELI closing in particular is painful is because of the storybook atmosphere of the Santa Cruz community, found in few (if any) other communities in the United States:

1) The self-contained community of Santa Cruz. I feel secure turning my students loose on this town. The people here are tolerant, friendly and helpful, moreover now used to dealing with non-native speakers due to the ELI’s long tenure here. The bus service is good, meaning cars are not necessary to get around (try saying this about, for example, Los Angeles or San Diego). Students become so self-confident and self-contained that, within a week, I as their escort feel put out to pasture, checking in only once a day to be bombarded with questions from my students about this or that new phrase they kept hearing.

2) The safe, storybook Downtown area. We have it all. From Farmers Market right outside our front door every Wednesday, to fifteen movies every day in three movie theaters within minutes’ walk. From organic supermarkets to 24-hour drugstores. From Victorian-style homes to a fun and historic Santa Cruz boardwalk, pier, and beach. From Sequoias and a gorgeous UCSC Campus, to nearby attractions in San Francisco, Monterey, and Yosemite. Moreover, the Downtown is laid out in a grid pattern you would find in many textbooks. Again, try saying this about other cities in the United States or coastal California.

3) The natural beauty and climate. I am sure that Californians are used to the climate, but many students from around the world are not. The Santa Cruz area is perfect in terms of balance of temperature and sunshine. Do your classes, go outside and relax, and join in on ELI’s well-organized afternoon and evening events. You simply aren’t going to find all this in places like Silicon Valley, Berkeley, or the larger metropolises (or more insular small towns) around the country. Again, it’s the perfect balance.

In sum, Santa Cruz is a gem of a community, and the ELI a gem of a program. Without the UC System adequately considering the benefits given to both our students (who get a very favorable first impression of another country) and to the residents of Santa Cruz (who have the experience of meeting people from overseas, not to mention an influx of tourism dollars, and potential open markets once these students become overseas decisionmakers later in life), I firmly believe you are doing a great disservice by closing down the UCSC’s ELI.

Again, I beg you to reconsider your decision. My students want to come back to ELI again next year. So would I. It is an unmitigated joy to be here, and a great investment in the future communities of Santa Cruz, California, and the world in general.

Sincerely Yours,
Arudou Debito, Associate Professor
Hokkaido Information University
ENDS

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

Faculty, staff, union question decision to ax Extension program

By J.M. Brown – Santa Cruz Sentinel staff writer

Article Launched: 08/19/2008 09:51:17 AM PDT

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_10245125

SANTA CRUZ – Last week’s announcement that UCSC Extension would close its doors shocked instructors, staff and clients, who had hoped a record summer enrollment would be a life preserver for the program’s sinking debt.

Chris Fatham, one of several faculty members in the English Language International program who are expected to lose their jobs, said thousands of students from more than 50 countries are the real victims.

Fathman and other employees question whether the university’s decision to pull the plug in the face of a $30 million deficit was short-sighted given the program’s rising demand. They say the program, which served Fulbright scholars and Humphrey Fellows from Iraq, also met a need for more international students on campus and was a boon to downtown merchants.

“From what we have been told, ELI was actually making a profit and doing quite well,” said Fatham. “I’m really quite surprised that a small city like Santa Cruz … would want to lose something as valuable as this.”

Until receiving word Aug. 11 that the program would be axed, several Language International employees said they had been celebrating enrollment and revenue figures that far exceeded expectations.

But Alison Galloway, the vice provost for academic affairs, who made the decision to close the program, repeated a claim Monday that she made last week. She said English Language International overhead – including $750,000 in annual rent at the University Town Center, as well as staff and faculty pay – far outpace revenue.

“It is correct in that they had met the targets – they have done a really good job,” Galloway said of the staff’s efforts to increase revenue. “Unfortunately, the program is extremely expensive to run. Every time they generated more income, they were generating more expenses.”

Galloway plans by spring to close the language program and trim 14 full-time staff positions plus instructors, who are hired on an as-needed basis. Other jobs will be transferred to the UCSC Extension office in Cupertino.

But critics have suggested the university, which has been underwriting what is supposed to be a self-supporting program, wipe out the red ink.

“The university should forgive the debt, not only in the name of continued education services, but in the name of saving jobs,” said Nora Hochman, a representative of the Coalition of University Employees, which represents staff.

University officials said it was unclear if such a move would be possible, considering the program continues to operate at a deficit and the whole university will suffer if lawmakers agree on education cuts in coming weeks.

Galloway said there are discussions under way about finding space for English Language International on the main UCSC campus, but she said there are no guarantees.

“In the heart of campus, I don’t think they want to lose us,” said Carol G. Johnson, sales and marketing manager, who is being laid off next month. “But the need to cut costs was so dire, we were kind of sacrificed.”

The interpretations of the fiscal picture among administrators and employees has cast a cloud of confusion over the closure. English Language International’s director, Susan Miller, declined to provide exact budget figures.

But Johnson said the program originally budgeted about $2 million in revenue for the fiscal year that began July 1, but has raised 21 percent more in revenue through increased enrollment. She said the university had asked leaders to produce more income and contribute a greater percentage of the revenue to overhead costs.

Johnson said exceeding both those goals made the closure all the more shocking. She the summer program’s enrollment of 384 students – who stay in Town Center dorm rooms, with host families or on campus – exceeded last year’s total of 323.

“We had the biggest summer and the biggest spring,” she said, boasting they had students from 51 countries this summer.

In an e-mail to university officials, one of the program’s clients, Arudou Debito, an associate professor Hokkaido Information University in Japan, wrote, “As a fellow educator, I beg you to reconsider your decision to close down the ELI program.” He said the course helped his students “return to Japan aflush with positive feelings about language learning and other societies in general, with minds more opened to the outside world” and “learn more about cultural diversity, tolerance and more self-assertive lifestyles.”

ENDS

Tangent: The Economist on how the Internet is turning nasty

Posted on July 28, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Continuing with a recent theme on Debito.org, regarding how nasty the Internet has become (with cyberanonymity allowing people to make accusations without any accountability or sense of responsiblity to either the truth or to fair play), we have an excellent article from The Economist on how blogs and online media are in fact disseminating hatred and even racism worldwide. FYI. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Cyber-nationalism
The brave new world of e-hatred
Jul 24th 2008 From The Economist print edition
Social networks and video-sharing sites don’t always bring people closer together
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792535

“NATION shall speak peace unto nation.” Eighty years ago, Britain’s state broadcasters adopted that motto to signal their hope that modern communications would establish new bonds of friendship between people divided by culture, political boundaries and distance.

For those who still cling to that ideal, the latest trends on the internet are depressing. Of course, as anyone would expect, governments use their official websites to boast about their achievements and to argue their corner—usually rather clunkily—in disputes about territory, symbols or historical rights and wrongs.

What is much more disturbing is the way in which skilled young surfers—the very people whom the internet might have liberated from the shackles of state-sponsored ideologies—are using the wonders of electronics to stoke hatred between countries, races or religions. Sometimes these cyber-zealots seem to be acting at their governments’ behest—but often they are working on their own, determined to outdo their political masters in propagating dislike of some unspeakable foe.

Consider the response in Russia to “The Soviet Story”, a Latvian documentary that compares communism with fascism. If this film had come out five years ago, the Kremlin would have issued an angry press release and encouraged some young hoodlums to make another assault on Latvia’s embassy. Some Slavophile politicians would have made wild threats.

These days, the reaction from hardline Russian nationalists is a bit more subtle. They are using blogs to raise funds for an alternative documentary to present the Soviet communist record in a good light. Well-wishers with little cash can help in other ways, for example by helping with translation into and from Baltic languages.

Meanwhile, America’s rednecks can find lots of material on the web with which to fuel and indulge their prejudices. For example, there are “suicide-bomber” games which pit the contestant against a generic bearded Muslim; such entertainment has drawn protests both in Israel—where people say it trivialises terrorism—and from Muslim groups who say it equates their faith with violence. Border Patrol, another charming online game, invites you to shoot illegal Mexican immigrants crossing the border.

From the earliest days of the internet the new medium became a forum for nationalist spats that were sometimes relatively innocent by today’s standards. People sparred over whether Freddy Mercury, a rock singer, was Iranian, Parsi or Azeri; whether the Sea of Japan should be called the East Sea or the East Sea of Korea; and whether Israel could call hummus part of its cuisine. Sometimes such arguments moved to Wikipedia, a user-generated reference service, whose elaborate moderation rules put a limit to acrimony.

But e-arguments also led to hacking wars. Nobody is surprised to hear of Chinese assaults on American sites that promote the Tibetan cause; or of hacking contests between Serbs and Albanians, or Turks and Armenians. A darker development is the abuse of blogs, social networks, maps and video-sharing sites that make it easy to publish incendiary material and form hate groups. A study published in May by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish human-rights group, found a 30% increase last year in the number of sites that foment hatred and violence; the total was around 8,000.

Social networks are particularly useful for self-organised nationalist communities that are decentralised and lack a clear structure. On Facebook alone one can join groups like “Belgium Doesn’t Exist”, “Abkhazia is not Georgia”, “Kosovo is Serbia” or “I Hate Pakistan”. Not all the news is bad; there are also groups for friendship between Greeks and Turks, or Israelis and Palestinians. But at the other extreme are niche networks, less well-known than Facebook, that unite the sort of extremists whose activities are restricted by many governments but hard to regulate when they go global. Podblanc, a sort of alternative YouTube for “white interests, white culture and white politics” offers plenty of material to keep a racist amused.

Tiny but deadly
The small size of these online communities does not mean they are unimportant. The power of a nationalist message can be amplified with blogs, online maps and text messaging; and as a campaign migrates from medium to medium, fresh layers of falsehood can be created. During the crisis that engulfed Kenya earlier this year, for example, it was often blog posts and mobile-phone messages that gave the signal for fresh attacks. Participants in recent anti-American marches in South Korea were mobilised by online petitions, forums and blogs, some of which promoted a crazy theory about Koreans having a genetic vulnerability to mad-cow disease.

In Russia, a nationalist blogger published names and contact details of students from the Caucasus attending Russia’s top universities, attaching a video-clip of dark-skinned teenagers beating up ethnic Russians. Russian nationalist blogs reposted the story—creating a nightmare for the students who were targeted.

Spreading hatred on the web has become far easier since the sharp drop in the cost of producing, storing and distributing digital content. High-quality propaganda used to require good cartoonists; now anyone can make and disseminate slick images. Whether it’s a Hungarian group organising an anti-Roma poster competition, a Russian anti-immigrant lobby publishing the location of minority neighbourhoods, or Slovak nationalists displaying a map of Europe without Hungary, the web makes it simple to spread fear and loathing.

The sheer ease of aggregation (assembling links to existing sources, videos and articles) is a boon. Take anti-cnn.com, a website built by a Chinese entrepreneur in his 20s, which aggregates cases of the Western media’s allegedly pro-Tibetan bias. As soon as it appealed for material, more than 1,000 people supplied examples. Quickly the site became a leading motor of Chinese cyber-nationalism, fuelling boycotts of brands and street protests.

And then there is history. A decade ago, a zealot seeking to prove some absurd proposition—such as the denial of the Nazi Holocaust, or the Ukrainian famine—might spend days of research in the library looking for obscure works of propaganda. Today, digital versions of these books, even those out of press for decades, are accessible in dedicated online libraries. In short, it has never been easier to propagate hatred and lies. People with better intentions might think harder about how they too can make use of the net.
ENDS

Tangent: Why I don’t debate outside of Debito.org

Posted on July 26, 2008July 26, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Every now and then (actually, practically every day) I get word that somebody is taking up an issue on another list/blog/what have you and debating something on Debito.org. Great. That’s exactly what I want.

But I rarely ever go on those blogs and answer the claims made (often erroneous — the product of people who either haven’t read what I said thoroughly, or think that nobody will follow up and actually read what I said in context). Even when they email me individually to say, “C’mon, we’re talking aboutcha.”

Thanks for the invites, but I have a very specific reason for not doing that. I as I wrote in my book, JAPANESE ONLY (pg 298-299), after our announcement that we were going to be suing Yunohana Onsen in Otaru for racial discrimination:

Olaf: “I’m being bombarded with emails. How about you?”

Debito: “As usual. A couple hundred per day. About two-thirds, actually, are supportive. The Account I opened for the lawsuit has already collected enough donations to pay for our legal fees, and then some. Very generous people out there.”

Olaf: “But how do we answer the critics?”

Debito: “That’s the thing. We don’t. There are lots of them and one of you. If you try to answer them all, or even try to engage in a debate on a list, you’ll find yourself tangled up in shouting matches with a Peanut Gallery that will never see things our way. They diss people like us for sport. Ultimately you get tired out from all the reading and writing, unable to concentrate on what really matters — keeping the message clear and focused. So sit back, let the critics weigh in, see what kinds of arguments are out there, and only answer the ones who are earnest or from people whose opinions personally matter to us.

“This is not an unusual strategy. Even the Reverend Martin Luther King used it. In his ‘Letter from Birmingham City Jail’ (April 16, 1963), where one of his protests was characterized as ‘unwise and untimely’ by local White liberal clergymen, he opened his letter with:

‘Seldom, if ever, do I ever pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas… But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.’

“I will issue a long answer over the Internet and on the website fairly soon. After that, let that be our statement on the case. Send queries and a link and don’t bother saying much more.”

That was a decision I came to back in 2001. Nowadays, given that there are whole groups of attack blogs (i.e. people united by a common interest of wasting potentially productive lives attacking me) out there who have no problem whatsoever with issuing outright lies (no longer even deliberate misquotes, not even misreadings due to sloth or political bent), I follow this policy even more so, I’m afraid. Thanks to the inverse proportion of anonymity and responsibility, the Internet has only gotten nastier over time.

And even when a particular BBS has a more balanced (and literate) readership who can be bothered to take on the dolts, the debate goes on in circles because the dolts can’t admit they’re wrong and inject sophistry, or else latecomers don’t bother to read all the previous posts in the debate and it goes around in circles. No thanks. I think everyone has a better use of their time.

Here’s an example. For an entertaining read and seriously good debate (my thanks to the posters who actually bother to read what I write), here is a recent one from Big Daikon on the Hokkaido Police racial profiling issue I brought up last month:

http://www.bigdaikon.org/board/viewtopic.php?t=110089

The point is that even when the debate is enjoyable, when earnestly confronted with errors and facts of the case, critics still would not acquiesce and instead obfuscated. Sorry, there’s no winning or truth-seeking on most online debate arenas. I like games that come to a conclusion, thanks. That’s why I basically confine my comments and thoughts to this blog and my Newsletters.

To those who bother to read and quote me accurately, my thanks. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Tangent: Hong Kong’s new anti racial discrimination workplace laws

Posted on July 22, 2008July 22, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s a post I got from friend Mak talking about how other societies deal with matters of racial discrimination. Hong Kong, according to the article below, already has specific laws against discrimination by gender, family status, and disability. Now it has made racial discrimination in the workplace illegal.

Glad to hear it. What’s keeping you from doing the same, Japan? Arudou Debito in Sapporo

=================================
From: “AW&Co”
Date: July 21, 2008 2:35:37 PM JST
Subject: New Racial Discrimination Laws in the Hong Kong Workplace

New Racial Discrimination Laws in the Hong Kong Workplace
July 2008

It may seem odd that Hong Kong : Asia’s business hub a diverse modern metropolis and a city of live has no remedy for individuals experiencing private racial discrimination. Ethnic minorities form 5% of the population in Hong Kong and those who face racial discrimination whether in employment, housing, provision of medical services, education or transport have no protection. This is despite laws against discrimination in other areas such as gender, family status and disability.

The much debated Race Discrimination Bill (the “Bill”) was only passed by the Legislative Council on 10 July 2008. The Bill aims to make racial discrimination and harassment in prescribed areas and vilification on the ground of race unlawful, and to prohibit serious vilification on that ground. It also seeks to extend the jurisdiction of the Equal Opportunities Commission to cover racial discrimination, harassment and vilification.

This Bill targets 6 different areas and this article focuses on the provisions concerning employment.

1. Main Acts in the Workplace outlawed under the Bill

(a) Discrimination against Job Applicants

It is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a job applicant on racial ground :-

(i) in arrangements which the employer makes for the purpose of determining who should be offered that employment;
(ii) in the terms on which the employer offers that other person employment; or
(iii) by refusing, or deliberately omitting to offer, the other person that employment.

(b) Discrimination against Employees

It is also unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee on racial ground :-

(i) in the terms of employment which the employer affords that employee;
(ii) in the way the employer affords the employee access to opportunities for promotion, transfer or training, or to any other benefits, facilities or services, or by refusing or deliberately omitting to afford the employee access to them; or
(iii) by dismissing the employee, or subjecting him or her to any other detriment.

For a period of 3 years after the Bill is enacted, apart from discrimination by way of victimization, the aforesaid provisions do not apply to any employment where fewer than 5 persons (inclusive of the number employed by any associated employers of that employer) are employed by the employer.

2. Major Exceptions

(a) Genuine Occupational Qualification

Some acts mentioned above will not be treated as a breach, where, being of a particular racial group is a genuine occupational qualification for the job. For example, the job involves participation in a dramatic performance or other entertainment in a capacity for which a person of that racial group is required for reasons of authenticity, or the job involves providing persons of that racial group with personal services of such nature or in such circumstances as to require familiarity with the language, culture and customs of and sensitivity to the needs of that racial group, and those services can most effectively be provided by a person of that racial group, etc.

(b) Employment Intended to Provide Training in Skills to be Exercised Outside Hong Kong

It is not unlawful if an employer carries out any acts for the benefit of a person not ordinarily resident in Hong Kong in or in connection with employing the person at an establishment in Hong Kong. Where the purpose of that employment is to provide the person with training in skills which the person appears to the employer to intend to exercise wholly outside Hong Kong.

(c) Employment of Person with Special Skills, Knowledge or Experience

The Bill also contains an exception for employment that requires special skills, knowledge or experience not readily available in Hong Kong. The employee in question must possess such skills, knowledge or experience and is recruited or transferred from a place outside Hong Kong. If any acts mentioned in paragraph 1 above were reasonably done by the employer for such person with special skills knowledge or experience in places outside Hong Kong such acts shall not be regarded as unlawful.

(d) Existing Employment on Local and Overseas Terms of Employment

For existing employment falling into the meaning in Schedule 2 of the Bill, the employers are allowed to differentiate treatment towards employees under local contract and those under overseas contract. Different treatment is also permitted between employees from different countries but under the same set of overseas contracts.

3. Next Step Forward

There is no timetable for the enactment of the Bill but it is expected to be in place by the first quarter of 2009. It is feared that the Bill will lead to substantial increase in litigation against employers and the Equal Opportunities Commission will be providing a code of practice on employment to raise awareness and understanding of the new legislation.

Employers are advised to pay close attention to the development of the Bill as it is expected to have major impact on human resources management and relationship with and among employees.

Lawyers in our Employment Department will be happy to provide you with a copy of the Bill or assist you with any queries you may have on any employment matters.

ANGELA WANG & CO, Solicitors
Hong Kong
14th Floor, South China Building,
1-3 Wyndham Street, Central,
Hong Kong
Tel : (852) 2869 8814
Fax : (852) 2868 0708
Email: lawyers@angelawangco.com
Web Site: www.angelawangco.com
Shanghai
3708 37th Floor Westgate Tower,
1038 Nanjing Road West,
Shanghai 200041 PRC
Tel : (8621) 6267 9773
Fax : (8621) 6272 3877
Email: shanghai@angelawangco.com
Disclaimer: The information presented in this eNews Alert is not legal advice. Any liability that may arise from the use or reliance on the information is expressly disclaimed.

Contributor Most Read In Hong Kong

In February, March and June 2008, Angela Wang & Co received an award from Mondaq.com for contributing the most widely read articles in Hong Kong on its worldwide legal web site.
ENDS

Tangent: Palm Beach Post on dual citizenship in EU countries

Posted on July 21, 2008July 21, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. For the last day of the three-day holiday, here’s an interesting diversion on what options dual citizenship provides its citizens. As well as a quick roundup of what other countries say qualifies for dual at the very bottom.

Japan, as frequent readers of Debito.org probably know, does not allow dual citizenship. I consider that to be a big waste, as I know lots of people who would become citizens if only they could preserve both and not have to go through an identity sacrifice.

Arudou Debito, former American citizen who gave it up to become Japanese.

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

With U.S. in slump, dual citizenship in EU countries attracts Americans

By ANDREW ABRAMSON Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Palm Beach Post, Saturday, June 07, 2008

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/06/07/s1a_dual_citizenship_0608.html

Courtesy of Matt Dioguardi

For millions of Europeans who braved the Atlantic Ocean for a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty and dreams of a lavish life, there was little thought of ever emigrating back.

Yet for a new generation of Americans of European descent, the Old Country is becoming a new country full of promise and opportunity.

“With an EU passport, I can live and work in 27 countries,” said Suzanne Mulvehill of Lake Worth. “With a U.S. passport, I can live and work in one.”

Americans can claim citizenship in any of the 27 European countries that are in the EU based on the nationality of their parents, or in some cases, grandparents and great-grandparents. Citizenship in one of those countries allows you to live and work in any EU nation.

Since the United States doesn’t keep statistics on dual citizens, it’s impossible to know exactly how many people have applied for citizenship in Europe. But it’s estimated that more than 40 million Americans are eligible for dual citizenship, and a growing number of Americans want to try their luck elsewhere.

“I have to say that over the past few years, calls I never would have received before have been made to the office,” said Sam Levine, an immigration attorney in Palm Beach Gardens. “It’s not like a tidal wave, but it’s certainly more substantial, and it’s remarkable.”

He’s receiving calls from people like Mulvehill, executive director of the Emotional Institute, a Lake Worth-based company that trains entrepreneurs.

Mulvehill’s mother was born in Romania, which became a member of the European Union last year.

She’s obtaining Romanian citizenship, which she estimates will have taken about three years, a ton of paperwork, $750 in fees and a trip to the Romanian consulate in Washington.

But once she receives the passport, probably early next year, she’ll be able settle anywhere in the EU.

“I recognized for the first time in my life that being American had limits,” Mulvehill said, “and that if I really wanted to become what I call a global citizen, then I needed to tap into all my resources to expand my ability to serve entrepreneurs not just in Lake Worth, which is one town, and not just in Florida or in America or North America, but on the globe.”

Globalization is a word on the mind of Lauren Berg, a recent college graduate from Michigan who is obtaining Greek citizenship based on her grandfather. She plans to move to Paris, brush up on her French and engross herself in the European business world.

“It’s definitely a really good thing to have on your résumé with business going so global,” Berg said. “I probably never would have done it if it wasn’t for the EU, but at the same time I’ve always been extremely proud of my Greek heritage.”

Dual citizenship once viewed as unpatriotic

But not everyone is so excited about this increasing trend.

“I understand the impulse: You can get a better deal over there,” said Stanley Renshon, a professor at the City University of New York and former president of the International Society of Political Psychology. “Whether it’s good for the American national community is quite a different question.”

Renshon belongs to a faction of immigration experts that believes dual citizenship diminishes the American identity.

“The devaluation of American citizenship for the sake of comparative advantage strikes me as fairly self-centered,” Renshon said.

Dual citizenship became a major issue during the War of 1812, when the British military tried recruiting, and in some cases forcing, British-born American citizens to fight on Britain’s side.

For years, being a dual citizen was seen as unpatriotic, and until 1967 it was possible for the United States to revoke American citizenship for people who voted in foreign elections.

But in the 1967 Afroyim vs. Rusk decision, Supreme Court justices ruled 5-4 that it was unconstitutional to bar dual citizenship.

“It was the high point of the 1960s and individual rights,” said Noah Pickus, the associate director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. “So the notion that you could take a citizenship away from somebody would seem to violate the basic notion of individual choice.”

Today, immigrants who become American citizens have to swear that they renounce their previous citizenship, but it’s more of a symbolic gesture, and Renshon said it’s actually difficult to renounce a citizenship.

One of the biggest advocates of dual citizenship is Temple University professor and author Peter Spiro, who believes that defining one’s identity by his citizenship is a thing of the past.

“There are really no harms caused by individuals having additional citizenship these days,” Spiro said. “It’s the wave of the future, because more and more people are going to have it. It’s going to multiply on an exponential basis going forward.”

And as the value of the euro – the currency shared by 15 EU countries – rises and America’s economy slumps, it’s an attractive alternative for Amber Alfano, a recent University of Florida graduate who is becoming an Italian citizen like her father.

“I’m doing it as an exit strategy of sorts,” Alfano said. “I like knowing that I have another place to go if things get even worse here, or if I just get tired of running on the American mouse wheel.

“My dad was actually the one who put a bug in my ear about the whole citizenship thing. He said that Europeans are more interested in the quality of life than the quantity, and that it was a good place to have and raise children because of the way their social systems work. I don’t care much about the child-rearing part, but I would gladly trade in some of my material possessions for a little flat, a scooter and more vacation.”

The grass might be greener … for now

Levine, the Palm Beach Gardens immigration attorney, was born in Canada and has received calls from people also interested in obtaining Canadian citizenship. He also understands the European appeal. He said he’s proud to be an American and proud of what the U.S. has accomplished on a global scale in the last century but that there are some advantages to living elsewhere.

“You have to look at things like how hard people work here and how little vacation time people get here,” Levine said. “A lot of people who live in Europe might not make same amount of money as Americans, but in some senses it’s a kinder, more gentle lifestyle.”

When Alfano went to fill out her paperwork at the Italian consulate in Coral Gables, she said “the waiting room was full of second- and third-generation Americans (of Italian descent) picking up passports.”

Pickus said he’s heard stories of parents getting their children European citizenship as an 18th birthday present – “We didn’t get you a car, but we got you an Italian citizenship.”

Some, like seasonal Vero Beach resident Tony Monaco, who has been trying to get Italian citizenship based on his grandfather, bought property in Italy and learned that taxes would be much lower if he was a citizen.

For those who are moving for the EU economic boom, Hudson Institute senior fellow John Fonte – one of the nation’s leading immigration experts and critics of dual citizenship – warns that it might not last.

“I think it’s a short-term phenomenon,” Fonte said. “I don’t think the European economy in the long run will do that well because it’s a heavy socialist welfare state in most of the countries.”

Mulvehill, the Lake Worth entrepreneur trainer, taught a course at Lynn University and encouraged her students to obtain dual citizenship if they were eligible.

“Expand your possibilities. If you can get citizenship, why not?” she said. “The world is a bigger place than America. Look at what technology has done, creating a global economy. That, in my opinion, is what has created this phenomenon.”

Every country has its own process for obtaining citizenship.

Ireland, Italy and Greece are among the most lenient in terms of letting an individual claim citizenship not just from a parent but from a grandparent or possibly a great-grandparent.

Even in countries that allow an individual only to claim descent based on a parent, in many cases the new citizen can pass the citizenship on to his child.

Eric Hammerle, a Vero Beach resident whose father was born in Germany, said it was easy for him and his 16-year-old son Nick to become German citizens.

They acquired the necessary documents – birth, marriage and death certificates – and took them to the German consulate in Miami.

“The whole process took about 20 minutes,” Hammerle said. “They read over the documents, came back and said, ‘Congratulations, Germany has two new citizens.’ It was a fee of $85.”

ENDS

—————————–

SIDEBAR

Dual citizenship criteria

Ireland: Automatically grants citizenship to the child of an Irish-born citizen. A person can also claim descent based on a grandparent or great-grandparent as long as a grandparent had also claimed descent on or before the date of the person’s birth.

Italy: For those born after 1948, citizenship is granted if their father or mother was a citizen at the time of the applicant’s birth. Citizenship is also granted under these conditions:

Father is an American and the paternal grandfather was a citizen at the time of the father’s birth.

If born after 1948, when the mother is American and the maternal grandfather was an Italian citizen at the time of the mother’s birth.

Paternal or maternal grandfather was born in America and the paternal great-grandfather was an Italian citizen at the time of the grandparent’s birth.

United Kingdom: Descent based on a grandparent allowable only in exceptional cases.

Greece: Native-born parent or grandparent.

Latvia: Native-born parent.

Cyprus: Father was a citizen.

Holland, Finland, Germany and Norway: Applicant must have been born in wedlock with one parent a citizen, or he can claim descent based only on the mother.

All other European Union countries: A parent was a citizen of the given country. People who can’t claim descent can apply after living in the country for a certain number of years.

The creation of the European Union and its thriving economy is very appealing for Americans in a global economy.

SIDEBAR ENDS

Terrie’s Take: Oji Homes and asbestos–and treating NJ customers badly

Posted on July 19, 2008July 19, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Yet another fantastic article from Terrie Lloyd. I doff my hat in respect with the depth, breadth, and context provided every week in his “Terrie’s Take”s.

This one talks about the rot within Oji Seishi (Oji Paper), which is, incidentally, one of Hokkaido’s biggest employers (with factories in Tomakomai and Kushiro, not to mention seven other cities, and offices in Beijing, Melbourne, Vancouver, and Shanghai). Its nine other “specialty paper plants” include my city of employment, Ebetsu, Hokkaido, and their works and subsidiary investments are the backbone of many a community. Which is why the rot is supremely bad news.

Why is this a Debito.org issue? Because their expat housing is treating NJ badly–toxically, in fact. Terrie doesn’t make too big of a deal of that in his writing (you have to read almost to the end and blink when you realize the clientele include expats). But I will. (What did you expect?).

In whatever fairness is warranted these people, Terrie asserts that the lies and poisons the NJ clients are enduring would not happen to the same degree to Japanese. I’m not so sure of that, but it’s nevertheless a landlord that anyone would want to avoid. Especially when they are lying about the degree of toxins they are releasing into the land and air, and asbestos in their housing. Be advised. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

* * * * * * * * * T E R R I E ‘S T A K E * * * * * * *

A weekly roundup of news & information from Terrie Lloyd.

(http://www.terrie.com)

General Edition Sunday, July 13, 2008 Issue No. 477 (excerpt)

When one thinks of Oji Paper, Japan’s largest paper manufacturing company (in terms of consolidated sales), the image is of vast green forests in Hokkaido, excellent paper-making technology, and the guiding hand of Eichi Shibusawa. Shibusawa was the father of Japan’s capitalist economy, initially helping to modernize the Ministry of Finance, then going out on his own to found the nation’s first modern bank, one of its first joint stock companies, and helping around 500 other now major companies (such as Tokyo Gas, Mizuho, the Imperial Hotel, Sapporo Breweries, and Taiheiyo Cement) to get started.

One of Shibusawa’s key philosophies was the promotion of business ethics and that helping others was an intrinsic part of making a business successful. Perhaps this is where the Japanese view that the purpose of companies is to provide for society first and shareholders second, came from. On the philanthropic and education side of his life, Shibusawa engaged in a purported 600+ projects to improve the living standards of those around him.

What a shame, then, that Oji Paper has lost the positive spirit and moral fiber of this great pioneer of modern Japan.

The reason we make this statement is that despite its pedigree, Oji and its group companies have shown that corporate pride and covering one’s back is more important than ethics. The “ethics” we’re talking about here concern Oji’s record on environmental pollution and resulting business decision-making.

As an example, on July 8th of this last week, the Tokyo District Court ordered Oji Paper to pay JPY590m in damages to Seiko Epson for selling Seiko Epson a 30,000 sq. m. plot of land in Nagano which turned out to be highly polluted with PCBs and Dioxin. Seiko Epson had to have 8,300 tons of soil removed to remediate the problem. Of course there was no mention by Oji prior to the sale of the fact that the plot was damaged.

For some reason almost no foreign media picked up on this law suit, but it shows that Oji has a pattern of lying and covering up pollution and general business problems. You may recall that in January this year, Oji among other paper producers was found to have been a leading culprit in lying about the level of recycled fiber/paper content in their “green” paper products. In many cases the recycled content was only 10% – 20% of that claimed, and in some cases there was NO recycled material present at all. While the CEO of competitor Nippon Paper stepped down over the industry-wide scandal, the CEO of Oji Paper, true to form, decided to say “sorry” but to otherwise chose to dodge the bullet.

Going back a bit further, to July, 2007, Oji Paper was forced to admit that its Fuji paper plant in Shizuoka had emitted more nitrogen oxide (NOx) than allowed under a local agreement with Shizuoka prefectural authorities. What’s worse, they falsified their emissions data to cover up the problem and were only found out after the Hokkaido Prefectural government challenged the company up north and did its own inspection of the company’s Kushiro plant. They found that the Kushiro emissions were in some cases twice Japan’s allowable limit. Ironically, NOx is a leading cause of acid rain, which destroys forests…!

Go further back still, and there are other instances of similar cover-ups and subsequent court cases. However, the point of today’s Take is that a related Oji company, Oji Real Estate, has now been found to have been engaging in its own form of cover-up that is much closer to home.

It is common knowledge in the expat community that the three Oji Real Estate condominium complexes in Minami-Aoyama: Oji Palace, Oji Homes, and Oji Green Hills are extremely popular with out-of-town CEOs and their young families. Oji Homes in particular draws a long waiting list of young families thanks to its 20m outdoor swimming pool and it’s convenient location right in the middle of fashionable Omote Sando. There are approximately 20 apartments in that complex, and over the last 25 years, we imagine that more than 200 families have lived there.

That’s 500+ tenants who rented their luxury apartments in the knowledge that they had a rock-solid landlord and the building was safe — or so they thought.

About two years ago. Oji started refusing to renew leases with tenants at Oji Homes, on the basis that they wanted to do renovations to improve earthquake standards for the building. This sounded credible, and most of the families have subsequently moved out despite being offered inadequate compensation to find a similar replacement apartment (standard practice in Japan for high-class apartments being renovated or torn down is to offer tenants 1-2 years supplementary rent to move to digs of a comparable level).

However, two families who’ve been long-term residents decided to dig their heels in and demand from Oji fair and reasonable compensation to move out. Oji decided to ignore them by starting renovation work around the families, arranging for their utilities to stay connected until a resolution was reached, or until the living conditions became so difficult that the families would eventually move out.

By “difficult” we mean that the building is being jacked up, so as to strengthen the building foundations, and the passage ways are soon to be full of dust, wheel barrows, and workers lugging in and out building materials.

As work has progressed, the families became suspicious that Oji may have had another reason for doing the construction work and decided to hire a professional architect to come in and assess the work. To their shock, he pointed out a number of areas fitted with asbestos and worse still, PCBs — perhaps from the same source as those found in the Nagano soil by Seiko Espon.

When confronted by the families, Oji initially denied any presence of either substance and continued their work as if everything was OK. However, the two families persisted and in June (last month), in front of lawyers and staff representing the families AND the Minato-ku Ward Office, Oji Real Estate and Takenaka Construction company representatives admitted that the building does in fact have both substances, with the asbestos being present in significant amounts, and that they’d known for some time about the presence of these substances.

Now, let’s think about this. A luxury apartment full of young kids, top-level international executives, and their guests, and yet Oji had known for possibly up to two years about the presence of asbestos and PCBs! What does this tell you about the company and its ethics?

As far as we know, we’re the first to break this story to the public, but the families are obviously hoping that the media will pick up on the situation and give Oji the coverage that the company obviously still needs in order to get the message: “a quick admission of the problem and proper settlement of tenant claims is the only reasonable outcome”.

In the meantime, if you are living in or have lived in any of the Oji apartment complexes, you may be wondering what the presence of asbestos means. Providing it is inert, probably the buildings have been/are reasonably safe, but the problem with asbestos is that one never knows when it or the binders it is applied with will age and start to flake off. Oji Palace is even older than the Oji Homes facility and there has been no indication at this stage that Oji plans any investigation or remediation of substances possibly present there. We think this is extremely irresponsible.

We also think it is very irresponsible that there is a public school right next to the building site, with kids running around in the playground every week day. Perhaps the parents of those children are not aware that even a wisp of the stuff inhaled into your lungs can cause mesothelioma and asbestosis later in life. Oji can and should be taking a lot more precautions and needs to come clean to the public about the work being done. Elsewhere in Japan, when asbestos is removed from schools, the entire school is closed (so it’s normally done during the summer holidays), to prevent danger to the kids.

The following link gives you some idea of what level of work precautions are necessary to safely remove asbestos from a work site. From what we’ve heard from the residents, so far the Takenaka workers are taking only the very most basic of precautions, and sophisticated respirators don’t appear to be part of them.

http://www.workershealth.com.au/facts001.html.

Then of course, there is the matter of the two families and their kids left in the building… We find it incredible that Oji Real Estate is able to engage in such dangerous construction work with tenants still present. This represents a level of bloody mindedness on the part of Oji managers that wouldn’t be tolerated if those families were Japanese. The proper venue for a showdown of this nature is the courts, and if Oji wants the resisting tenants to move, it should take them to court, reveal the levels of compensation being offered, and wait for the courts to decide before continuing their work.

ENDS

Japan Times prints letter with big stripey lie about Summit airport ID checkpoints

Posted on July 14, 2008October 7, 2011 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

$\" width=$ $\" width=$
Hi Blog. I generally don’t answer or pay much attention to anonymous critics (for the most part, they’re irresponsibly provocative types that use Internet anonymity as a cloaking device), or respond much to other blogs with rather hostile editorial conceits (such as Japan Probe, an otherwise valuable media outlet). But I draw a line when a letter with an outright lie gets into a place of established reputation like the Japan Times.

The author, Lance Braman, has been banned from Debito.org for similarly trolling and outright lying here in the past, so he’s taken his venom to greener pastures like Japan Probe (which has a friendlier editorial policy, as in, mostly deleting ad-hominem comments unless they’re ad-hominem towards me. 😉 ; pity–I’m a fan of JP even if the feeling is not mutual.) And Lance continues in this vein in yet another screed to the Japan Times (excerpt):

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

Japan Times Sunday, July 6, 2008

READERS IN COUNCIL

Asking for trouble from police

By LANCE BRAMAN

Sano, Tochigi

Regarding Debito Arudou’s July 1 Just Be Cause column, “July forecast: rough with ID checks mainly in the north“: Arudou claims he was stopped at Chitose Airport (Sapporo) last month merely for being “Caucasian.” Yet, on his own Web site, Arudou admitted that he had “hung around” and had a tape recorder already recording! He posted photos of the police that he took from the shelter of the baggage-claim area. In other words, he was not some “innocent pedestrian” grabbed by an overzealous policeman; he was fishing for trouble.

Full letter to the editor at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20080706a3.html

(NB: The above redacted and excerpted under conditions of the Fair Use Doctrine (“17 U.S.C. § 107 […]the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright”. This is in response to an October 5, 2011 DCMA claim by Tepido Lance Braman of copyright infringement.)

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

Comment: I’m not going to debate his personal politics towards policing in the latter half of the letter (follow link; that’s of course a matter of opinion, and I’ll respect his), or his claims about media scrutiny (we’ll have to agree to disagree on that, but I’ve discussed issues of policing and accountability quite often in the past on this blog).

But I never admitted I “hung around” the airport. As an advanced Google search of “my own Web Site” Debito.org for these two words will indicate:

http://www.google.com/search?q=+%22hung+around%22+site:www.debito.org&num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&as_qdr=all&filter=0

Simply put, I waited for my bags inside Baggage Claim, took the photos of the cops while waiting, then tried to go home. I neither “loitered” nor “hung around”, and have never said as such–not to anyone. ‘Cos that’s not what happened. I was stopped for looking like a foreigner. Even the stopping cop said so.

Conclusion: I’m not going to make a habit of dealing with every online nasty who keeps spoiling for a fight (and I don’t expect much reasonability from a person this full of outright hatred, who compares me with a “foreign pest species of fish” which “you have to kill” (see comment 8)). And it’s probably too much to expect the Japan Times to check the claims of every troll who sends them a reasonable-sounding letter built on a lie.

But for the record, the assertions made to and published in the Japan Times about my behavior and statements are false. Now back to issues of more import. And get a life, Lance. Debito in Sapporo

The Australian: PM Rudd spearheading “Asia-Pacific Union” like the EU, Japan “interested”

Posted on June 18, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. On the road for a few days, here’s something for the Antipodean readers to tell us more about. Arudou Debito in Tochigi

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

Kevin Rudd to drive Asian union

Matthew Franklin, Chief political correspondent | The Australian June 05, 2008

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23812768-601,00.html

Courtesy Tony Desapien

KEVIN Rudd wants to spearhead the creation of an Asia-Pacific Union similar to the European Union by 2020 and has appointed veteran diplomat Richard Woolcott – one of his mentors – as a special envoy to lobby regional leaders over the body.

The Prime Minister said last night that the union, adding India to the 21-member APEC grouping, would encompass a regional free-trade agreement and provide a crucial venue for co-operation on issues such as terrorism and long-term energy and resource security.

And he outlined his plans for his visits to Japan and Indonesia next week, saying he would explore greater defence co-operation between Australia, Japan and the US – an approach that had been championed by John Howard.

Speaking in Sydney last night to the Asia Society Australasia Centre, the Mandarin-speaking Mr Rudd said global power and influence was shifting towards the Asia-Pacific region and that Australia must drive the creation of a new global architecture for the Asia-Pacific century.

“We need to have a vision for an Asia-Pacific community, a vision that embraces a regional institution, which spans the entire Asia-Pacific region – including the United States, Japan, China, India, Indonesia and the other states of the region,” said the Prime Minister.

The body would be “able to engage in the full spectrum of dialogue, co-operation and action in economic and political matters and future challenges related to security”.

“The purpose is to encourage the development of a genuine and comprehensive sense of community whose habitual operating principle is co-operation,” Mr Rudd said.

“The danger of not acting is that we run the risk of succumbing to the perception that future conflict within our region may somehow be inevitable.”

Government sources said last night that Mr Rudd was attempting to revive the reformist spirit of former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke, who successfully pressed for the creation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group 20 years ago.

Mr Woolcott, 80, was Mr Hawke’s right-hand man in establishing APEC and was a frequent critic of the Howard government’s foreign policy.

Mr Woolcott told The Australian last night that Mr Rudd had made it clear there was great scope to co-ordinate existing regional organisations.

“This fits neatly into the concept of greater middle-power diplomacy,” Mr Woolcott said.

“If the US or China or Japan or some other big power were to suggest it, other nations might be apprehensive and back away. It’s better for a middle power like Australia to take the initiative.

“I’ve always thought that this was the part of the world where Australia lives, and if an Asia-Pacific community does develop, it’s essential that Australia be part of it.”

The proposed new pan-Asian body would come in addition to a range of existing forums through the region, including ASEAN, ASEAN Plus Three and the East Asian Summit.

But Mr Rudd said now was the appropriate time to re-examine the regional diplomatic and economic architecture because foreign policy based only on bilateral agreements had “a brittleness”.

“To remove some of that brittleness, we need strong and effective regional structures,” Mr Rudd said.

“Strong institutions will underpin an open, peaceful, stable, prosperous and sustainable region.”

Mr Rudd said the existing forums were not configured to promote co-operation across the entire region.

And he said his proposal was consistent with US President George W.Bush’s call for the development of an Asia-Pacific free trade area.

While the EU should not provide “an identikit model”, the Asia-Pacific region could learn much from the union, which in the 1950s had been seen by sceptics as unrealistic.

“Our special challenge is that we face a region with greater diversity in political systems and economic structures, levels of development, religious beliefs, languages and cultures, than did our counterparts in Europe,” Mr Rudd said. “But that should not stop us from thinking big.”

Mr Rudd said he would send Mr Woolcott to complete the “unfinished business” he had begun with Mr Hawke. “Subject to that further dialogue, we would envisage the possibility of a further high-level conference of government and non-government representatives to advance this proposal,” he said.

“I fully recognise this will not be an easy process … but the speed and the scope of changes in our region means we need to act now. Ours must be an open region – we need to link into the world, not shut ourselves off from it.

“And Australia has to be at the forefront of the challenge, helping to provide the ideas and drive to build new regional architecture.”

Mr Rudd said his Government’s foreign policy was based on three pillars: its relationship with the US; its links with the UN; and “comprehensive engagement with Asia”.

Discussing his visits to Japan and Indonesia next week, Mr Rudd said he would continue talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda toward the creation of a free-trade agreement as well as advancing talks on security co-operation between Australia, Japan and the US. In Indonesia, he would pursue talks about a free-trade agreement and anti-terrorism co-operation with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, as well as seeking a template for greater co-operation on dealing with natural disasters.

ENDS

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

Former PMs douse Rudd’s Asian union

Australlian AAP June 06, 2008 01:29am

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23819466-29277,00.html

FORMER prime ministers Paul Keating and Bob Hawke have cast doubt on the Rudd government’s push to form a European Union-style body in the Asia-Pacific, saying it would be inappropriate for the region.

On Wednesday night Prime Minister Kevin Rudd put forward an ambitious vision for an Asia-Pacific community, possibly modelled on the European Union, to be adopted by 2020. He wants any new regional creation to span the entire Asia Pacific, including the United States, Japan, China, India and Indonesia.

While Mr Hawke and Mr Keating supported Mr Rudd’s focus on the region, both said an EU-styled system would be unachievable in Asia, News Ltd has reported.

“God knows, it has taken the Chinese 350 years of the modern age to truly recover their sovereignty – I do not see them sharing much of it with anyone else,” Mr Keating said.

“And Japan remains one of the most insular, monocultural countries in the world, whose political leadership, at least for the last Japanese prime minister, was still reminiscing about China’s war experiences…”

Mr Hawke said much could be done to better integrate the Asia Pacific region, without the need for an overarching body.

“I don’t want to knock references to the EU but don’t let us say that’s the way it must be for Asia,” he said.

“We can do a hell of a lot without necessarily having the full degree of integration that has occurred with the European Union.”

ENDS

NYT on free land in Hokkaido (yes, you read that right)–but in one place only for citizens and NJ with Permanent Residency

Posted on June 12, 2008June 14, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Today’s entry is a tangent. Time for the world to do a major update on their view of Japan’s economy, with it’s famous land-price bellwether (land was once used as the ultimate collateral–since once upon a time land prices in Japan were seen as something that never went down, and it fueled the Bubble Economy).

From the country where, less than twenty years ago, the Imperial Palace Grounds were once rumored to be worth more than all of Canada, now we have land so cheap it’s free! As long as you build and live on it.

This is apparently the first time this has happened here since the Oklahoma-style Hokkaido land grab during colonization about 150 years ago. Pretty impressive, and a sea-change in attitude. Especially as the exodus from the countryside continues, the ruralities empty, and entire communities die out. However, it turns out, Shibetsu is being oddly fussy–refusing NJ who do not have PR. Can it afford to be picky like this?

Arudou Debito in Sapporo (where the land is definitely not free)

Related article:
“Where have all the young men gone?” The Economist, Aug. 24, 2006.
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7830634

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

SHIBETSU JOURNAL

Despite Land for the Taking, No Cry of Northward Ho

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

Published: June 3, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/world/asia/03shibetsu.html

SHIBETSU, Japan — “If you build a home and move here, the land is yours free,” read a billboard on the side of a quiet two-lane highway that disappeared straight into the horizon here, under northern Japan’s big sky.

Norimitsu Onishi

A roadside billboard in Shibetsu, Japan, which is trying to stem population loss, reads: “If you build a home and move here, the land is yours for free.”

An orange hand atop the billboard pointed to a large, empty tract of flat land on which three new houses stood, surrounded by nothing.

Yellow stake signs dotted the land. Some displayed the name of a future settler, like a certain Inehara-san from Hyogo prefecture on lot B-9; others, only the details of a piece still up for grabs, including the 4,300 square feet on B-11.

Desperate to stanch a decline in population, this town and another on Hokkaido, the northernmost island in Japan, are trying to lure newcomers with free land. It was a back-to-the-future policy since Hokkaido was settled by Japanese drawn here by the promise of free land in the late 19th century, a time when Japan was growing and modernizing rapidly.

Since 1998, Hokkaido, like the rest of rural Japan, has been losing its residents to cities and old age. Significantly, just as Hokkaido’s earlier development resulted from Japan’s expansion, the decline in its population presaged the new era of a shrinking Japan, whose overall population started sliding in 2005.

Towns like Shibetsu — on Hokkaido’s eastern coast, so far east of Tokyo that the sun rises at 3:30 a.m. this time of the year because of Japan’s single time zone — have been hardest hit. Outside the small town center, few cars could be seen on the roads the other day. The open, flat land characteristic of Hokkaido, in sharp contrast to the densely packed mountains elsewhere in Japan, merely emphasized the area’s emptiness.

“If you think of it in American terms, this is like a Wild West town you see in movies or on television,” said Hiroaki Matsui, 50, a truck driver born here. “But even in America’s Wild West, this would be the remotest of all towns.”

Mr. Matsui supported the policy of giving away land but wondered whether newcomers, used to the comforts of modern Japan, were ready to move to an isolated town where winter temperatures drop to minus 4 Fahrenheit. “Will they really come here?” he asked incredulously.

In the United States, depopulated communities in the Great Plains have been giving away land in recent years. But in Japan, where a population more than 40 percent the size of the United States’ is squeezed into a country the size of California, offering free land seemed like an extreme measure.

“Land is cheap in Hokkaido,” said Akira Kanazawa, the mayor of Shibetsu, adding that many communities on the island were trying to attract new residents by offering rebates on land. “But free? That’s highly unusual.”

Because of a hollowing out of Shibetsu’s main industries, dairy farming and fishing, the town’s population has fallen by more than 10 percent in the last decade, to 5,889 today. So in late 2006, the town announced that it would give away 28 parcels of land ranging from 4,300 square feet to 5,230 square feet each, very generous by Japanese standards. A third of the lots were reserved for locals, with the rest going to outsiders.

The only stipulation was that the newcomers build a house on the lot within three years and move there officially.

Town officials had expected a big response. “But it wasn’t as simple as that,” the mayor said. “After all, it’s a huge commitment to migrate here.”

So far, only 11 families or couples, five from outside Hokkaido and six from within, have taken up Shibetsu’s offer, leaving 17 unclaimed lots. Locals now live in two finished houses; a third, to be occupied by a couple from Osaka, is under construction.

For centuries, the island was inhabited only by Ainu, an indigenous group, and was too cold to grow rice. But in the decades following Japan’s forced opening by the United States in the mid-19th century, Tokyo pressed to expand north, especially to counter growing Russian influence in the region.

The Hokkaido Colonization Board was established in 1869, guiding the migration of Japanese who displaced the Ainu and leading to the island’s acquisition by Japan. That migration was the first step in a movement that would send Japanese migrants to Hawaii, North and South America, and, with the growth of Japanese militarism, to Manchuria and other corners of Asia. As land grew scarce on the other Japanese islands, mostly second- or third-born sons who would not inherit any land back home arrived on Hokkaido with a frontier spirit, heeding the government’s call to develop the new land.

“That’s because back then Hokkaido was the only place in Japan with available land,” said Koichi Miura, a local historian in Yakumo, a town in southern Hokkaido that is also offering newcomers free land. He said that each settler then was given about 30 acres.

The lots being handed out this time in Yakumo are far smaller, roughly the size of those being given away in Shibetsu. In addition, unlike the earlier settlers, today’s tend to be older, with many deciding to move here for retirement. Town officials said that even if the newcomers were retirees, the economic benefits to the towns would outweigh the costs.

Toshiaki Nakamura, 48, who is scheduled to move here from Tokyo in the fall with his wife and daughter, said he wanted to escape the stress of Tokyo and was drawn by the nature on Hokkaido. Over the years, he and his wife, Toyomi, 52, had come to Hokkaido many times on vacation and decided to move here last fall after looking at three other locations on the island.

The land giveaway was also a factor. “It made me think how much those local governments are hurting as Japan’s population declines,” Mr. Nakamura said.

The couple planned to sell their Tokyo home, built on 1,200 square feet, and were making plans for a new house on their 5,000-square-foot lot here.

“I feel bad, receiving free land in this day and age,” Mrs. Nakamura said. “That’s unimaginable in Tokyo.”

ENDS

Number of foreign tourists visiting Japan plunges

訪日外国人：過去２番目の減少率 ２月４１．３％減

The Trolls Among Us

18 people to be prosecuted over insulting messages on comedian’s blog

Travelers to U.S. required to register online prior to boarding under new system

米入国審査：ネットで事前申請 忘れると搭乗不可－－来月１２日から

◇関係団体、ＰＲ

◇空港混乱の恐れ

◇「９・１１」で義務化

Greenpeace launches major anti-whaling campaign in Japan

Two activists who face years in prison say their arrests were politically motivated

Obama win injects a Cool America factor

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Despite Land for the Taking, No Cry of Northward Ho

訪日外国人：過去２番目の減少率　２月４１．３％減

米入国審査：ネットで事前申請　忘れると搭乗不可－－来月１２日から

橋下知事に賠償命令　弁護団懲戒呼びかけ「不当」…広島地裁