BENCI COORDINATOR DAVE ALDWINCKLE'S FEELINGS ABOUT THE DISTORTED NATIONAL NHK BROADCAST ON OTARU ONSENS, FEB 9, 2000, NHK ELEVEN O'CLOCK NEWS
(Japanese Text: 日本語のテキストはここです。）
X-Sender: davald@do-johodai.ac.jp
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 16:55:50 +0900
To: davald@do-johodai.ac.jp
From: Dave Aldwinckle <davald@do-johodai.ac.jp>
Subject: Brief comment: 2/9 NHK Onsens Broadcast
Hello All. Brief comment on the NHK national news segment last night (2/9 11:21-28
pm) on Otaru Onsens:
The show was basically a condensing of last Saturday 2/5's broadcast in Hokkaido
only (see translated telescript of older show at http://www.issho.gol.com/BENCI/onsennhk2500.html).
However, there were some very important omissions and misportrayals:
1) Although it depicted quite clearly the discontentment that both non-Japanese
and citizens felt about the exclusionary policies, the national broadcast never dealt
with the question of "does a few Russian sailors equal all foreigners?"
In fact, it effectively equated Russian seamen with all foreign residents--a tack
I hoped the mass media had progressed beyond--and thus reflected, however inadvertently,
the onsens' world view.
2) The show reduced the problem to a matter of "cultural differences".
This is off the mark because:
a) cultural knowledge notwithstanding, the will to follow
rules (once known) is an individual choice (indeed, there are ill-mannered
Japanese in the same situation), likewise
b) passing it off as culture loses the sense of interactions between individuals,
and in its place draws inaccurate lines between people (especially given
the tendency here of people to equate culture with nationality), then
c) a cultural explanation creates an exclusionary ideological trap, due to the
propensity here to assume anybody not from Japan automatically has different cultural
values; thus the assumption to many observers is never the twain shall meet,
and finally
d) the cultural explanation gives power non-progressives, saying, "well,
they are here in Japan and if they can't follow the rules (since they are foreign
and speak a foreign language, either they cannot learn or we cannot teach them) we
are justified in shutting them out.
In sum, all sorts of societal defense mechanisms kick into action when the debate
takes this path.
3) Unlike last Saturday's version, last night's show never even mentioned anything
about
Thus reducing the problem to cultural rifts misses the point entirely, which is:
what the Otaru Onsens are doing is illegal. That MUST be reported or the broadcast
loses balance.
This is supposed to be a brief comment, so I'll stop here. If you would like a Japanese
version of these criticisms, which I wrote up this morning and sent to my Japanese
friends, please read on.
It's not over yet. BENCI just got interviewed for another national broadcast on
a different network today. I'll let you know details
when they come up.
Dave Aldwinckle
Sapporo