OTARU ONSENS UPDATE
THE NYUU YOKU TIMES, JANUARY 17, 2000
(The original forum for this information was Issho
Kikaku. Please note that Issho Kikaku is NOT A PARTY to this lawsuit,
and reference herein to Issho Kikaku should not be construed to assume that Issho
Kikaku has any stance in these matters. Disclaimer
here,)
1) LINKS TO NEW NEWSPAPER ARTICLES AND MANGA ON THE OTARU ONSENS ISSUE
These articles appeared the day after the January 13, 2000 Press Conference, which
I shall report on in more detail below. Unless otherwise indicated, all links in
this section are to Japanese articles, but some have photos which may prove interesting
even if you cannot read.
HOKKAIDO SHINBUN JAN 14, PG 28
the longest article of the lot, with a photo of Press Conference (I look like
Lenin with more hair or Trotsky with less), reporting on the chinjou, the onsen survey
results (which found that over half surveyed--surprise surprise--said they did not
want foreigners in their bath), and the rejection by Otaru City for a meeting including
non-Japanese.
Click here &, FYI: here
for an English translation of the biased survey with links and analysis, and
here for the Jan 7 Otaru Doshin report on the
survey results.
MAINICHI SHINBUN JAN 14, PG 17
with a photo of Welcome House's J. Mylet and me officially giving the chinjou to
a representative of the Otaru Mayor, also reporting that Otaru has responsibilities
under international treaty to pass it, and that the onsens still remain indecisive
about when their exclusionary signs will come down.
Click here
ASAHI SHINBUN JAN 14, PG 23
which also mentions that Otaru's behavior is being reported to the United Nations
by an NGO.
Click here
YOMIURI SHINBUN JAN 14, PG 29
a blurb including our appeal for penalties for offenders.
Click here
HOKKAIDO SHINBUN MANGA (comic strip), JAN 15, PG 6
which shows an annoyed-looking "ganguro" girl (one of those fashionable
young ladies with the big boots, bleached hair, dark face and fluorescent makeup)
at the door of an onsen, having to show her passport and say, "I'm a Japanese"
just to gain entry.
Click here
2) OVERVIEW: JAN 13 PRESS CONFERENCE AND PUBLIC APPEAL (CHINJOU) SUBMISSION TO
OTARU CITY GOVERNMENT
For a change, I will avoid my narrative style of reportage and narubeku stick to
the facts of the case:
The Press Conference took place in Otaru City Hall Kisha Kurabu from 2PM on January
13, in a tiny room with sofas, knee-high tables, and no OHP (I had to bring one)
or PA system. Eight people, Welcome House's Mylet and Makishita, Otaru University
of Commerce's Prof. Aiuchi and his four students, and Issho Kikaku's BENCI Project
Coordinator Dave Aldwinckle, squeezed in with reporters from newspapers Hokkaido,
Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri, as well as TV stations HBC, UHB, and NHK.
As coordinator of this Conference, I kicked off with an overview of the issue and
events, with us getting refused entry by both the exclusionary onsens and the City
of Otaru in its policymaking international-group meetings. Denied a voice, we decided
on a Press Conference to make our standpoints and recommendations known.
Mylet then talked about the social responsibilities ignored by people who erect walls
between fellow members of society.
Aiuchi talked about the international dimension. Passing out copies of the International
Convention on Racial Discrimination (in English here)
he stated that Otaru is in violation of it, and that its six years of exclusion and
foot-dragging will be reported to the United Nations.
Makishita talked about policy proscriptions. Have the exclusionary signs taken down
immediately, forge public policy to ensure that they do not go back up again. This
is the City's responsibility. The chinjou, or public appeal, is our opinion of how
policy should look (see it at http://www.issho.gol.com/BENCI/otaruchinjou1.jpg and
otaruchinjou2.jpg), and today we will be officially submitting it. We will also be
having an open public forum on this issue at Otaru University of Commerce on January
31, 2000, 6:30 pm (press release here)
where anyone is welcome to attend and speak.
Mylet talked about increased communication. Otaru should establish a Seaman's Club
(using the one in Hokkaido's biggest seaport, Tomakomai, as a template) to offer
a shelter and a point of liaison for visiting sailors and the local community. After
all, 10,000 non-Japanese used the Tomakomai Seamen's Club last year--making it perhaps
the biggest point of international contact in all of Hokkaido. So imagine what one
could do with the 30,000 Russians who come to Otaru every year.
I finished up with an overview of the future if this exclusion is allowed to stand.
According to sources which visited one of the onsens on January 10, they are crowded;
in fact, the onsens are using this policy as a marketing strategy--offering a sanctuary
to customers who dislike foreigners and laughing all the way to the bank with the
free publicity. If other industries are able to see this avenue of profit-plus-impunity,
they will have incentives to close their doors to foreigners as well. Then what is
next? Taxicabs have been reported in Doshin (click
here) for refusing foreign fares. Restaurants? Hospitals? etc.
Readers of this issue already know the arguments so I won't dwell. The point is that
the City has already given out a standard set of rules, signed by the Mayor (see
them here), and once-exclusionary onsen Panorama
has adopted them. Why can't the remaining two do so?
Conclusion: This chinjou is good for Otaru and Japanese society in general, with
the increasing presence and genetic variety of internationalization.
Our speeches took total thirty minutes. Q&A took another thirty. The reporters
received our dozen handouts, asked a bit about the surveys, and got clarifications
of what our organizations are and what they do. They reconfirmed the two bits of
news amidst all the data: 1) The Jan 13 Chinjou Submission to the Otaru Mayor and
City Assembly, and 2) The Jan 31 Public Forum.
And that was that. You can see the results in the above article links.
At 3:15 with cameras flashing and rolling, we submitted the chinjou to the representative
of the Mayor, Soumubu Jichou Sakai Yukio, who received it with thanks. Standing there
frozen with the chinjou between us was rather awkward, but that is how photo-ops
go.
At 3:20 I had a soundbite interview with NHK TV (whose simple question was, "Why
are you making this appeal?" As soundbites in a second language are not my forte,
especially for an issue that has so many angles, they allowed me 8 takes (bless 'em!)
and they would choose the strongest. With a 6pm broadcast this was no light request.
I will give you a translated teletext of the NHK broadcast within the next 48 hours.
At 3:45 we submitted the chinjou to the City Assembly, which pointed out a few goofs
but received it nonetheless.
And at 4pm we were all done. I hung around the Press Corps asking what they thought
of our presentation. Result: It was unfocussed and took 30 minutes to give them what
could have been said in five. They knew the issues and arguments (as they read each
others' newspapers and catch the cathode rays) already and didn't need the background--just
the news. But they were not bored and nobody left early. Thus an hour's press conference
with a dinnertime report deadline was truly nice of them. Next time trim the fat,
was the lesson.
3) CONCLUSIONS: POLICY SEEDS ARE SOWN
Let's wrap this up briefly: Months of work and publicity are snowballing without
slowing, and this time it is no longer plain ole "gaijin griping". It is
embrionic pubic policy. We have submitted something that could become legally binding--and
is in any case historically significant. It is, to our knowledge, the only chinjou
as yet submitted dealing with the abolition of discrimination by race or nationality.
And, if we can help it, it will not be the last. More to come.
Dave Aldwinckle
Sapporo
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