If you thought Japan was all the same, go work for an agency.
You see them all.
The banks, the breweries, the lycra sellers, the gravestone makers. The curers of our sicknesses, the exploiters of our vanities, the profiteers from our vices, the suppliers of our brands. House builders, gadget makers, copper miners, bond traders.
Conservative monoliths with dark, high-ceilinged buildings and funeral atmospheres. Fashionably white-furnitured IT startups whose bright modern trendiness masks incompetence, brilliance or more of the same. The ones who think they are cool and forward-thinking but aren't; the ones who are proud they aren't but are. The quiet, the hardworking, the incompetent, the naïve. The brash, the proud, the opportunistic, the exploiting. The self-appointed bearers of all burdens; those happily passing through.
Those you respect, those due a fall. The ones time passes by—no idea, no care. The ones who care a lot and still have no idea. The ones we need more than they need us. The ones that know. Those with patience beyond any call of duty, and sweetness to match. Those to crucify, or push off a wall.
The aloof, the anal, the abject, and the rude. The friendly ones, happy, happy. The quietly kind-hearted silently fixing our mistakes. Loud correctors of mistakes not made. The drunks, the socialites, the recluses and the whores. Mutes by day, hedonists by night.
I'm talking companies, not people. There are all kinds out there. At an agency, you don’t get sucked in to only one. You get to step inside, look around, then go home.
An article explaining the specifics of the Japanese beer market.
The people of Japan believe the bad times are over. (Financial Times)
But happy enough right where I am.
With the marathon training and the new job, I've been tied to Tokyo for a few months now. I'm not complaining: things are moving along nicely here and I'll be back out and about bikewise and in the hills soon enough. In the meantime, I'm reliving some old memories. These are from the Hokkaido trip last summer. Hokkaido really is the perfect place for a bike tour, especially if you're a fan of seafood, hot-springs and beautiful mountains.
Taken while sitting on that wall after just pulling into the port of Utoro after a stunning 40k stretch along the coast going out onto the Shiretoko Peninsula.
Another view from that wall, of the Shiretoko range in the background, with Mt. Rausu on the right. It was around about the time I saw that view that our bike tour began to incorporate a mountain climbing element.
Another view of that range from that wall.
A sunset on a barren stretch of road just south of Cape Soya Misaki, the northernmost point in Japan.
This is Cape Soya Misaki, the northernmost point on the Japanese Archipelago and one hell of a dump. We cycled 60k into a massive headwind that day to make it there and when we got there we were less than impressed with what we found. Neither the destination or the journey itself bore any resemblance to a reward. Headwinds, long distance on bicycles and shameless tourist traps in the middle of nowhere do not mix.
I must have spent an hour on the back of the ferry coming back from Rishiri Island taking pictures of the gulls. Climbing Rishiri in the rain had been the culmination of another successful Hokkaido holiday. It had looked like it wasn't going to be possible, but we made it at the last minute, just like we did in fierce winds on Asahidake, the last mountain we had left to climb in the Daisetsuzan range, the year before.
Along the Kanda River. Click to enlarge.
Saving the Sun by cultural anthropologist and former Financial Times Tokyo Bureau Chief Gillian Tett is the best Japan book I've read since Dower's Embracing Defeat.
Ostensibly the story of the collapse of the Long Term Credit Bank and its rebirth as Shinsei, Saving the Sun is also a history of the Japanese economy from the excesses of the bubble to the crises of the bad loans.
A comprehensive yet understandable insight into how the Japanese economy works, how it is controlled by the bureacrats, misunderstood by the politicians, and set up to favour stagnation and procrastination, it's also a tale of American capitalist opportunism and vicious cross cultural friction.
And it's a page-turner of a story. A thriller. When "This is Japan" meets the God of market logic, there are always unexpected new twists in the tale.
A great book on what needs to be done in Japan and how to--and how not to--get it done.
I filed my income tax return yesterday.
It's not difficult. Like many things, the perception of difficulty is a cognitive choice made before you act. Once you get off your backside and start doing it, it's just primary school maths.
It is, however, an imperial pain in the balls. Going through all that red tape just to give the government money.
This is my kind of blog post. JH from In The Foothills describes his neighbour.
In the Foothills: Old Man Sato and the lug nut wrench mugging: a tale of neighbourly love
Butuki from Laughing Knees (taken out of context) on different expectations in Japan:
"There is a whole alternative expectation out of life here [in Japan] that, I think, puts less pressure on individuals and in many, many ways is much more realistic about life....People here expect life to be hard and full of sadness."
So true.
Take work. By Western standards I am a hard-working person. But in work I expect reward for effort. I believe in incentives. I expect work to facilitate happiness. I expect the work itself to be rewarding and satisfying. I expect to develop professionally, to be evaluated and guided in the course of "my career". I expect holidays (that I can take). I expect systems and efficiency. In short, I expect a lot from my workplace in my pursuit of happiness. And when those expectations aren't met, I complain.
I am often unhappy in work.
My colleagues give effort unconditionally. Many don't take holidays. Those that do take three to five days in summer. They work late all the time. They work weekends. They laugh wryly and acceptingly when a job arrives late on Friday evening. They don't expect training or growth. They don't expect performance evaluation. They don't believe in job titles or descriptions. They accept lower salaries. They don't complain about workload. They do the work they are given. They fit in to the hierarchy and persevere.
They never seem disappointed in work.
Could you tell me why you rejected our translation?
We decided to reject your trial translation based on our judgement criteria.
Could you be more specific please?
It is not our policy to be more specific about these matters.
But we would like some clarification of our mistakes in order to produce a better document next time.
[Line goes silent for one minute]
Ummm. Ok. It is not our policy, but I will say this. While there were no major problems with your translation, we felt it was not suitable for our ministry.
I see. Could you give me specific examples of why you thought so?
[silence]
Okay. Here is one example. In the third paragraph, fifth line, you use the word "because." We feel that this word is not suitable for a government ministry.
Really? Let me clarify. Are you actually saying it is the official policy of your ministry not to use the word "because"?
[silence]
Yes. That's right.
Tim from Sleeping in the Mountains has written a really good piece about Hokkaido, my home from home from home.
It really captures what's happening to the ghost towns of Japan's Wild North frontier.
I would like to add to it a couple of scenes.
The first is the glittering pachinko parlour and its full car park of shining SUVs. It's somewhere down the highway out of town or right in the centre near the whitewashed brick English-village style railway station. The pachinko parlour is the only show in town, a hub of gaudiness in sparkling oranges and yellows syphoning off any vibrancy that's left from the surrounding void of emptiness, dying and decay.
The other is the old woman. Surely you have seen her, that one solitary old lady, alone at midday on an empty main street in a world of ordered silence, sweeping fastidiously imagined dust in front of her already immaculate store? She has no time for your sadness at the scent of death.
The Alex Kerr-esque stuff Tim describes with the public works and the mascot and the record-breaking, ridiculous grand-scale European immitations and the empty museums and rest of the pork-barrel tourist attraction extravaganzas, and how things were before and after the bubble, and how Hokkaido was in the war all rings true.
I'm also interested in where Hokkaido people came from, why they moved there in the first place, and who they replaced when they arrived.
And how that history influences their mentality and relationship with the island.
And the cold and cruel conditions of the place.
And how this affects its people (I'd live up there but for the winters).
And all the dark secrets.
And the relationship with an aloof and distant Tokyo.
And a rough and openly hostile Russia.
And how the conquistadores feel wronged.
And why the young want out.
You may think the comparison to Apartheid is sensational, but the arguments and context this article provides about the McGowan case are undeniable.
On the Road to Apartheid? Japan and the Steve McGowan Case
Japan Times Zeitgeist: Twisted logic deals rights blow to foreigners.
I read a lot of hanketsu (court decisions), most of them handed down by the Supreme Court for cause-celebre, heavily-under-spotlight criminal cases. What strikes me most about them is the arbitrary and pro-establishment nature of the judgements. Reasoning is often applied backwards. This is the judgement we want to give. And this is how we're going to justify it.
So when the regional High Court judge ruled against McGowan in his civil case claiming damages for racial discrimation, I wasn't surprised by the arbitrary, biased and quite frankly ridiculous reasoning he used.
I agree fully with Debito here. This one really needs to be appealed.
Japan Times: Female on throne could marry foreigner, Hiranuma warns
"Dozens of conservative lawmakers and their supporters Wednesday attacked a proposal to let females and their descendents ascend to the Chrysanthemum Throne, warning the move threatens a centuries-old tradition -- and could even allow foreign blood into the Imperial line.
The lawmakers, led by former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma, are fighting a bill being drafted by the government to avert a succession crisis in the Imperial family by allowing reigning empresses and their descendents.
Females have been barred from the throne since the Meiji Era (1868-1912) and a 1947 law further restricted ascension to males from the male line. No woman has reigned in more than 200 years.
The Imperial family has not produced a male heir since the 1960s and public support has been growing for a change in the law to allow Princess Aiko, the only child Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, to ascend to the throne.
Hiranuma, however, warned the reform could corrupt the Imperial line, which he said has been the supreme symbol of Japanese national and ethnic identity for centuries.
"If Aiko becomes the reigning empress and gets involved with a blue-eyed foreigner while studying abroad and marries him, their child may be the emperor," Hiranuma told about 40 lawmakers, academics and supporters at a Tokyo hall. "We should never let that happen."
Despite the overwhelming public support for the reform, traditionalists have stepped up a campaign to quash the move -- going so far as to propose bringing back concubines to breed male descendants as was done until the Taisho Era (1912-1926). Others have argued the aristocracy, banned after World War II, should be reinstated as a way of broadening the pool of candidates for the throne."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I can't believe this guy was trade minister of Japan. Much as I love Japan, this country is still feudal, and the old men that run it are a joke.
Assumptions he makes:
(1) Aiko is naturally going to get swept away by some blue-eyed foreign man
Note: You have to wonder why he makes this assumption.
(2) A blue-eyed foreigner would taint the pure Japanese blood
(3) Women are not to be trusted with important things or to make important decisions
As for introducing concubines and reinstating the aristocracy...
The fossils of Nagatacho.
Nurtured immaturity, one-way sensitivity, blood-sanctioned arrogance.
Behold these leaders of men.
Alan Booth said it all those years ago and nothing has changed.
The sooner Japanese women start running this country, the better.
Out a while back with a group of Japanese people, I realized the conversation had been focused for too long on Irish food, because one of them had lived in Ireland when she was a kid and we were reminiscing about scones and Pancake Tuesday and other Irish delicacies and traditions, stuff we probably hadn't thought about in years, and then explaining them to the rest of the group.
I could see the others were getting bored, so I turned the conversation to Japanese food, saying:
"Irish food is great, but I don't think Ireland's food culture is anywhere near as advanced as Japan's."
I really think so too. Japanese cuisine is one of the most sophisticated in the world. I love Japanese food. Where would you be without your udon and your soba and your sushi and sashimi and your nabe and your shabu shabu and your miso soup and your tofu and your ajitsuke and all the rest of it?
Then one of the other Japanese people there, who I like as a person and respect professionally, says bluntly, "I hope so."
It sounded at once dismissive and arrogant, and whether it was intended that way or not, it became my lasting memory of that night.
I bumped into her today and we shared a lift and talked about the weather.
"It getting a bit warmer now, isn't it?"
"Yes, especially in the mornings. It's been such a cold winter," she said, smiling.
But she wasn't finished her sentence. She added two more words: "for us."
This lunchtime I went to my City Office to obtain a certificate of proof of alien registration. I need one of these to give to my City Office.
A certificate of proof of alien registration is different from a card of proof of alien registration. One is a certificate. The other is a card.
But there are similarities. Both would seem to serve as proof of alien registration.
So why did I need a certificate of proof of alien registration as proof of alien registration when I already had a card of proof of registration?
Because my City Office requires both a card of proof of alien registration and a certificate of proof of alien registration for the procedure I want to take.
Based on the logic of that requirement, we must draw the following conclusions:
To acquire a certificate of proof of alien registration, you must produce your card of proof of alien registration. In other words, the only requirement to prove alien registration to obtain a certificate of proof of alien registration is a card of proof of alien registration.
And yet, the reason you require a certificate of proof alien registration in the first place is because a card of proof of alien registration does not prove alien registration.
And when you get it, it won't prove alien registration.
Got that?
Hmmm.
I went to the doctor's today for the first time since I was a child, to have a full health check-up no less, known in Japanese as the kenkou-shindan.
It's quite something, your first full health-check up. First off, it costs a lot. I did it all in Japanese through a regular Japanese clinic, and it cost 42,000 yen, which is about 305 euro or 370 dollars. Had I gone to a fancy English-speaking clinic aimed at the Azabu expat crew, it would have been almost double.
The kenkou shindan requires some interesting preparation. You can't eat after nine p.m. the night before, and you can't drink fluids after midnight that night. You have to fill in an epic, epic questionnaire about your health conditions. And then there's the small matter of having to provide and package a sample of your own, er, stool. All of our modern world's great technological advances don't make this task any easier. Your panicked fumblings in the bathroom this morning are testament to that. They'd be great slapstick entertainment for others. You semi-recognise this yourself. Somewhere in a toilet in North Tokyo, you've become Peter Sellars.
You're also advised to be liberal with your weeing on the morning of the test. You take this advice seriously.
And it's just as well. On the morning of the test, you show up at the clinic at the appointed time with your completed questionnaire and your jar of stool. You're given a locker key, told to change into the hospital clothes, and then to wait in the waiting area. You do this, apprehensively. Then a nurse comes in, calls your name, hands you a plastic cup, points you to the toilets. Off you go, son.
Your mission is to fill the cup to the 25 ml mark. No more, no less, and no warm up. This is straight from the first whistle, serious stuff. Errors will not be tolerated. You're in a dark toilet, pissing seriously into a paper cup. Accuracy and control is everything. You're Daley Thompson, competing in the javelin at the start of the Olympic Decathlon. Happily, compared to the sideshow that went on vis a vis the stool sample, you pass this little test with accomplishment and ease. You return from the toilets triumphant, like a proud young hunter returning with his catch. And suddenly the tides have turned and now you're Spartacus, letting your people live.
You're then weighed and measured, and your body fat is recorded. You regret them now, those Christmas beers. Then comes the eye test. Migi Hidari Shita Ue. They always come in order. You're back on old ground again, Bill Murray from Groundhog Day.
The hearing test is like being on a quiz show. You put on some metal headphones and sit inside a telephone-booth-esque cubicle. You're given a buzzer. When you hear a sound, you're to press the buzzer as fast as you can. The theory is this: the longer it takes you to press the buzzer, the worse your hearing is. You don't have to be a genius to work out how to cheat. Your competitive edge and the delusion you're on Blankety Blank take over. Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! You're on a roll here. You think you might have won a checkbook and pen. But by the time they let you out again, you're Donny from Magnolia, and it's not going to stop. Terry Wogan, unfortunately, has already left.
You're then told to lie down on a bed and open your gown. They put clamps on your ankles and wrists, and some electrode-like things on various points on your chest. Immediately you think two things: torture and bondage. In truth, it's the closest you've been to either, but the similarities are far too striking to ignore. Tabloid thinking. At least half the world probably thinks the same. Now you're Dustin Hoffman from Marathon Man, or you're in a Ken Russel film with his namesake Theresa.
Then come the x-rays. You ask if you need to take your top off for the chest x-ray. The doctor reckons there's no need. You're intelligent and wise, like Trigger from Only Fools and Horses.
And then you come to the part where you have to drink barium so they can check for abnormalites in your upper gastrointestinal tract. This is the dreaded ii no kensa. You can read all about the wonders of the barium swallow here. I might just add that drinking something with its own entry in the periodic table of the elements is disgusting, and in combination the moving torture machine they put you on immediately afterwards and spin you around in all directions on, it doesn't help the tranquility of your once calm and healthy stomach. You're Buck Rogers, returned from strange adventures in the 25th century, down but not out.
Then, to top it all, they take you outside and make you take a laxative.
You're nearly finished. You have a blood test. After the barium and spacecraft thing, an injection is nothing. You look the nurse straight in the eye as the tubes fill up with your crimson blood. You're Clint Eastwood now. No problem, this once potentially squeamish stuff. Then you go to visit the doctor. She tells you the lump on your leg is not cancerous and probably just fat. You feel relieved, but you keep the facade of nonchalance.
And then the show is over. The 3-hour health check up has been finished in 1 hour 15 minutes. It's businesslike, this production-line health check, for profit in every sense. You don't mind. You collect your results in a couple of weeks.
You get dressed, pay up and stagger back to your office. Your stomach feels sick, and you sense a certain laxative starting to kick in. Somehow, amid the frequent rushed trips to the bathroom, you find it hard to concentrate for the rest of the day. Fittingly, life has turned full circle. This morning you were Peter Sellars with the bathroom equivalent of writer's block. Now you're one of those who ate the beans in Blazing Saddles.
It's happened to you, too.
You go to a restaurant with a Japanese person. The waiter or waitress comes to take your order. They pointedly look at the Japanese person you are with, ignore you completely, and wait for the transaction to begin.
You decide to cause trouble. You start speaking. In Japanese. This goes against the accepted behaviour for this situation. After all, you're supposed to be invisible. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. The door has been opened to confusion and ill will.
Invisible men are not supposed to speak.
The next move of the waitress is predictable. After the initial shock wears off, she answers your perfectly understandable Japanese with monosyllabic English that can only be described as "simian with an American accent".
The invisible man may be no longer invisible, but he's still a foreigner.
You're insistent and rude: You answer her English with Japanese.
By now, tension reigns. And it's your fault. You didn't follow the script. You were supposed to be invisible.
John Dower: Occupations and Empires: Why Iraq is not Japan
Reuters on the Juan Carlos Pizarro Yagi affair.
Anti-foreign backlash feared in Japan after murder
TOKYO: Japanese police arrested an unemployed Peruvian on Wednesday on suspicion of strangling a primary schoolgirl and abandoning her body in a cardboard box, fanning fears of an anti-foreign backlash.
Concern about crime committed by foreigners has been growing in Japan, and broad media coverage of such offences has made many Japanese wary of welcoming more foreign residents to their nation despite prospects of a shrinking work force.
Activists now fear such feelings will be stoked still further by the arrest of Juan Carlos Pizarro Yagi, a Peruvian of Japanese descent, in connection with the murder of 7-year-old Airi Kinoshita last week, a crime that horrified the nation.
"Manhunt for Peruvian," said a banner headline on the front page of the morning edition of the Asahi Shimbun, a liberal daily, while others said "Arrest warrant issued for Peruvian."
"The fact that he was Peruvian was the big thing in the headlines, when there was absolutely no need to mention it," said Makoto Teranaka, with Amnesty International. "After all, most headlines don't say 'Japanese arrested.'"
"This is really quite a serious human rights problem, and shows that the winds of society are blowing harder against foreign residents of Japan."
Airi disappeared on Nov. 22 shortly after noon while walking home from school in the western Japanese prefecture of Hiroshima. Her body was found around two hours later packed into a cardboard box abandoned in an empty lot in full public view.
Yagi has denied killing the girl, media reports said.
The murder, which was top news on tabloid television shows, was seen as especially shocking because it took place in broad daylight in a residential area, and the fact that a Peruvian was arrested guaranteed wider play.
"There have already been a lot of comments on television that could fan prejudice, such as remarks implying foreigners commit a lot of crimes," said Yuriko Hara at IMADR, a group that fights racism and discrimination.
Hara also noted that most media outlets were referring to the suspect as Carlos rather than by his surname, as would be usual.
"That seems to be playing up the sensational aspect that this crime was committed by a foreigner," Hara added.
Foreign crime is undeniably rising as Japan's foreign population grows, but still only a small fraction of serious crimes are committed by non-Japanese.
The number of legally resident aliens has doubled over the past 25 years and now amounts to about 1.45 percent of the population.
Annual police reports (my note: and all Ministry of Justice reports) highlighting the number of foreign arrests, and wide media coverage of them, create a sense among many Japanese that the problem is serious and growing.
Last February, in the most recent such report, police said they arrested a record number of foreigners in 2004. Still, only 2.29 percent of the 389,027 people charged with violating Japan's Penal Code and other relevant laws were foreigners.
Nearly 9 in 10 Japanese believe their country is less safe than it was a decade ago, and most blame foreigners and young Japanese for rising crime, government polls have shown.
"It's often said that concern about terrorism is feeding this fear of foreigners, but if you look at incidents of terrorism in Japan's recent history, all of them were conducted by Japanese," said Amnesty's Teranaka.
"Foreigners are simply being made scapegoats by people upset by rising crime rates here" - Reuters
If you're reading this blog, chances are the government of Japan think you're a criminal.
As Japanese public opinion moves ever further to the populist, isolationist right, as Japan brashly alienates itself even further in Asia, as the bellowing black vans with their tin-pot thugs become noisier and more frequent, the official xenophobia continues at its accelerated, reactionary post-September 11 pace. Small past victories are being erased as the liberal voices huddle in corners, hoping only that the deluge will pass.
There's a real feeling of dark clouds descending over this country these days, a sense of an ugly impending storm. It's a bad time to be a minority anywhere in the world, but is it any wonder long-term expats in Japan feel uneasy, certainly not protected, and often end up hating the place? Life here would become all but impossible for a foreigner if ever a terrorist attack, or the long-overdue big earthquake, does take place.
My feeling is that nothing is changing here. Japan is just reverting back to past, never-lost insecurities. The corridors of power are filled with the same old dinosaurs. They articulate the same old insecurities felt deeply by most of the population. The young are learning from the old. The newer generation is more reactionary than the ones that came before. Japan is a nation that doesn't really trust anyone else. It's a nation with a profound identity crisis. And so it swings, like the stages of salaryman drunkenness, from belligerence to self-pity, politeness to ignorance, nice words to harsh acts, strong rhetoric to nervous laughter. All the while, it clings uneasily for protection, like the favoured child, to the coattails of a country it both admires and despises. It looks back at the past and feels defiant and aggrieved, a victim, at the very least of double standards. Not much has changed since the first black boats of foreign barbarians disturbed paradise all those years ago. Japan remains suspicious of the rest of the world, wondering how does it fit in and why it's not getting the respect it innately deserves.
And its expats, who once had, and even still have, so much love for the place, continue to feel barely tolerated, routinely degraded. Things stop becoming surprising in the Groundhog Day world of the Japanese cocoon, until you slap your cheeks to wake yourself and think.
I may be being overdramatic here. I may be being unnecessary gloomy. I may be blowing things well out of proportion. I may be unfairly generalizing. I may be blurring the borders between the personal and political. I may even be projecting. But whatever the case, the feelings behind this rant are honest and without agenda, and I make no apologies. I rarely write about politics anymore, but I feel like doing so today.
The real danger to the psyche of thinking long-term expats in Japan comes when they let these constant, steady drops of age-old distrust erode the rocks of their perspective, to the point where they succumb to biased hatred, disconnected cynicism, or watery shou ga nai.
via Cosmic Buddha
A rambling, diary style post about celebration.
On Thursday night, I went over to Shibuya to see the new Shane McGowan documentary produced by the Irish Film Board. Before the screening they had a Japanese traditional Irish band, who were excellent apart from when they decided to inflict on us the sound of bagpipes. (Anybody playing bagpipes should be shot.) They had the right mix of preparation and spontaneity, hard work and enjoyment. By the end I was sitting there tapping my feet and smiling. Young Japanese who learn the words to Dicey Riley are special in my book. I felt like singing with them, but resisted the urge. People were there for a night out.
The film was awful, infused with the cloying presence of Victoria Clark and full of gossip and bullshit. It didn't meet my expectations. The fact is, I could have made it much better, by focusing on things that matter, like the ease and magical beauty of McGowan's lyrics (Nick Cave said they were unparalleled: "He has never written a bad line"), the hows and whys and mystical, trance-like nature of the creative process, theories of poetry and music, and the Pogues' place in a long, beaufiful line of Irish tradition, not the drink, the drugs, the inner politics and the fallings-out. Anyone can drink themselves to death and fall out with their friends. They were asking the wrong questions.
On Friday night, I took the bike for a night spin around the palace, stopping to take some photos of the Ginza and the moat. As I was setting up the tripod, guards started filing down the steep embankment on the inner side of the moat. You could only make them out by their torchlights. More and more torchlights appeared, moving down purposefully in organised single-file. Then the main palace lights all went out. It was sinister, like a Bond scene. It was a Milk Tray moment. Over there, on the other side of the moat, people had serious business to attend. They were following trails, looking for something important. Maybe a plot had been foiled, like someone trying to break into the palace. Or someone trying to escape. I went home to watch the Preview Show.
On Saturday morning I got up before the sun and took the Odakyu Line to the old tramping ground, Tanzawa. This time I chose to go up Oyama again and back down through Yabitsu Pass. The route up was full of day trippers with noisy kids or well-behaved dogs. Oyama is a famous mountain. Things got better and people fewer on the route less travelled on the way down. The beauty of Tanzawa is in its sasa-covered open ridges. The uniqueness of Tanzawa is contained in the sasa. The first few times, you take its innocuous presence for granted. Eventually, you begin to realize its importance in the scene.
I also saw Tanzawa from a new perspective. From the ridge between Oyama and Yabitsu Pass, you can see the outline of the main Tanzawa traverse clear in the skyline--Tonodake, Tanzawayama, and Hirugatake all standing tall and distinct. I've done it in summer, and now would like to do that traverse in winter this year. It must be beautiful in snow.
On Sunday morning, I cycled 15k across the city at dawn to a football pitch in the east of Tokyo near the bay. Tokyo is so much better when it's empty. It was just me, the morning light and the crows. Rolling along. During the game, I had one of those pure joy moments, when you can feel your body actually releasing its endorphins. I wasn't sure what it was at first, and thought I might be dizzy or something and need to come off. Then I realized what it was—the physical state of happiness. I proceeded to score a volley the Gods of football would only dream about. I'm thinking of sending a copy of the video to Liverpool Football Club, fao Djibril Cisse and Peter Crouch. Morientes doesn't need to watch it. His technique is probably slightly better than mine. On the cycle back, the aggressive bus drivers and wannabe Saitama gangstas in their souped-up yellow Pikachu dream machines made sure I didn't linger in reveries for too long.
And then, on Sunday afternoon, body sated, I entered the wonderful world of the Chinese Dim-Sum restaurant, where I lounged around for hours drinking cup after cup of Puar tea (which enables the eating of lots of greasy food) and ordering dumplings and shrimp pancakes and Chinese cabbage concoctions from the food carts wheeled around the restaurant by young waiters and waitresses in traditional Chinese dress.
It was a celebration of a weekend. If weekends had theme tunes, this one's would be Ode to Joy.
I bought a book* last night for one yen (0.007 euro) on the Japanese version of Amazon Marketplace. Its delivery will cost 340 times its price.
*¥¨¥Ù¥ì¥¹¥È¤ò±Û¤¨¤Æ¡¢¿¢Â¼Ä¾¸Ê¡¡(Surmounting Everest, Naomi Uemura)
Interesting article. Apparently Shintaro Ishihara has been championing Dogs and Demons.
Kerr has good things to say about Koizumi—likening him to the alcoholic who takes the first and biggest step, recognizing the disease.
He also talks about Debito Arudou. His take on Debito is surprising.
via Gen Kanai
The lamely named Hokkaido Highway Blues contains the ramblings of a large Canadian who hitchhiked the whole length of Japan (not just Hokkaido, boneheads) following the Cherry Blossom Front.
Time-in-Japan snobs beware. This fellow had only been here two years when he decided to squeeze out his Japan book. Sound the alarms. And he couldn't speak or read much Japanese. Cynical cynics will wonder how, then, did he have all the conversations he describes. "Was he making them up, the lying whopper?" they'll inquire.
And let's face it. Resting knowingly and yet so at ease in the long-established tradition of the Japanese "pilgrimage travelogue" (blurb radar bleeping indignantly, like a sheep with every right to be indignant), following in the hallowed footsteps of the Japanese poet-wanderer Basho and British master travel writer Alan Booth (bleeping like a metal detector that's just struck cucumber in Spinal Tap), just isn't enough to make people shell out for your book.
People are much smarter and duller than that.
You can almost hear their whispers: Only two years. No Japanese. And from Canada.
It's an ask.
(Alright, this particular snob thought the same. He only read it because someone said the writer was better than Alan Booth.)
But but but. HHB is a good book. It's well-written. It's funny (blurbs would say irreverent). It's only annoying at times (economically viable blurbs probably wouldn't say that). And it's not afraid to take the piss unmercifully in a land that often needs it. Yes, all the usual sorry expat cliches are trotted out like gaijin teachers at a sportsday. But it also has--wait for it--moments of authentic insight (blurb alert raised to evacuate--the sheep leave town).
I'd no choice, your honour. "Authentic insight" was the right phrase. Exactly the right phrase. It's insight because all-seeing me hadn't thought of it. And it's authentic because it doesn't smell the place out like a stable of reeking horseshit. Like some of the nonsense you hear from the "Japanese are very polite" brigade. The two-year stage can be a rosy-tinted time in a man's expatriatism.
But not for this fellow. "Ferguson reached an early understanding of the enforced freedoms and limitations of the narrow role of the foreigner in Japanese society," an academic might pontificate.
He did. And then wrote a pretty funny book.
Japanese ability or not, some see early. Add hitchhiking, humour, self-deprecation, the occasional cracking of sarcasm's whip, and the innate ability of the storyteller, and you've got yourself a decent, enjoyable book.
Just couldn't help feeling it's been done before, and better. But what does that matter?
Had one of those moments tonight on the south viewing deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Buildings in Shinjuku.
As I was setting up my little tripod to take a few photos of the Tokyo night skyline, one of the staff approached me, did that cross the arms dame gesture, and said in English, "Hand only."
He meant I couldn't use my tripod for taking photos. Only handheld shots were allowed.
I asked him why in Japanese.
He took me over to a sign on the wall, written in English, that said "Do not use tripods because they disturb the neighbours."
The only neighbours were a couple practically having sex on the window ledge. I could've stripped naked and started doing jumping jacks and they wouldn't have been disturbed.
And there was graffiti everywhere.
But I've been here long enough not to argue. Rules are rules.
A couple of weeks ago, I climbed Mount Rishiri (photos in the gallery), an island-mountain off the Northwest coast of Hokkaido. I climbed in runners in the rain, so my feet got very wet. Coming off the mountain, I needed to buy a pair of sandals. I got on my bike and went looking for a shoe-shop in the tiny port of Oshidomari, with no real hope that I would find a pair of sandals my foreign size on such a tiny island as Rishiri.
Finding a shoe shop, to my surprise there was a pair of New Balance sandals in the shop window, and they looked like they might fit. As I went into the unstaffed shop, a bell sounded to tell the owners in the back a customer had arrived. A plumpish realist of a woman in her late thirties or early fourties arrived and asked if she could help me. I pointed to the sandals and asked if I could try them on, speaking confidently in Japanese to dispel any doubts she might have. She said she'd go get them from the store room at the back and went off again.
Then a much older lady arrived, bent over but with a glint in her eye that made her seem much more alive than her daughter. She asked me if she could help me, and I told her I was already being served, and that I was waiting to try on a pair of sandals.
The conversation began. In it, the old lady switched roles from flirting young version of herself, to salewoman, to old lady concerned about religious customs without a moment's thought or warning. Staying in the conversation was like surfing a very enjoyable wave. I didn't want it to stop, but there's only so long you can draw out the process of buying a pair of sandals.
And where are you from?
Ireland
Is it very cold there?
About as cold as Japan.
Japan? What do you mean by Japan?
Hmmm. Tokyo, I suppose.
Ah, then you come from a very warm place. It must be cold for you up here on Rishiri. And what are you doing on Rishiri?
I climbed the mountain today.
Oh, it must have been very, very tough.
Well, the weather was fairly bad today, but if the weather had been good it wouldn't have been tough at all. My feet got wet, you see; that's why I'm buying sandals.
[Daughter returns with the sandals, I look at them and think they're too small, and the old lady's sales instinct kicks in]
Ah, but you must try them on. You can't tell just by looking. Here, take off those wet runners. Oh, what smart feet you have. Lovely, smart feet. So smart. There, see, they fit you perfectly. Just the right size.
That's great. How much are they?
They're 3,800 yen plus consumption tax, but I'll tell you what, we won't charge you any consumption tax at all.
That's very nice of you. I'll take them. I'd like to wear them from now if you don't mind. Could you put my runners in a bag?
Oh, but you can't wear them now. That's not done. You never put on new shoes in the evening. Always best to wait until the next morning. Something bad might happen.
[Daughter jumps in]
But the poor lad's feet are soaked. He wants to wear them now. That's why he's buying them.
[Mother]
Yes, and they're lovely smart feet and he's a lovely fellow, but it's dangerous putting new shoes on at night, and he really shouldn't do that.
[Daughter]
Mother!
[Mother]
Wait, there's a way around this. Give me that red marker.
[Starts making marks on the soles of the new sandals]
There, they're not new any more. It's fine to wear them, now. We'll put those runners in a bag. Here, put the other one on. Your feet look soaked.
[Outside the shop, mission accomplished, saying goodbye to my new friends]
Ah, you came by bike? From Tokyo?
No, just from Kushiro.
Wah...wonderful. Are you a regular member of a gymnasium?
Well, I am, but my attendance isn't all that regular...
Wonderful, really wonderful, travelling around Japan on your bike. Are you going for dinner now?
I am, yes.
Have a lovely dinner and please ride carefully. Thank you very much.
I said my thank yous and cycled off in my new sandals, happy to have met them and sad the Rishiri sandal experience eventually had to come to an end.
There's a consensus of silence. None of the tourist literature mentions the island's dark side, But I assure you, it's there, and they are there, sinisterly well-fed for their kind, loitering in the shadows trying to look nonchalant, all the while taking side-glances your way and biding their time—before they strike.A few weeks ago, I was in a bike shop in Nakano, where I met for the first time a person with Tourette's Syndrome. He was Japanese and worked in the shop.
Japan doesn't have a lot of swear words, to the degree that to call someone baka (stupid) is akin to some of the insults Mick used to deliver to taxi drivers in Bordeaux.
Every ten seconds, this fellow would splurt out, "Ba," "Ba," "Ba," and stop himself before he could add the "ka" and severely insult the customers.
For the first ten minutes or so, it was a strange experience, and then I got used to it, and the "Ba," "Ba," "Ba," just became an accepted non-part of the conversation.
He knew a lot about bikes. And it was good to see that the shop wasn't afraid to let him deal with customers.
I'm not one for pretending (a) that there is an elusive, real Japan out there tantalizingly just beyond your reach, Daniel-san, or (b) that I know what it is.
But.
Let me tell you two memories.
The first is coming home after a farewell party round about 1998. I was on a crowded train with a Japanese colleague. Suddenly some drunk threw up a few metres down the train. And then, to my amazement, my colleague apologized to me for the stranger's behaviour.
Fast forward now to 2000. A Japanese judo-ka gets robbed of a Gold Medal at the Sydney Olympics (I've told this once before), and I'm incensed by the injustice of it. I tell a Japanese fellow as much the next day and he is shocked. Why would you care? You're not Japanese, he tells me. He was a decent bloke, too, which made his reaction all the stranger. He just couldn't work out why I'd care.
And then, of course, there's this conversation we've all had in some form or another:
Japanese person: "Do you like sushi?"
Non-Japanese person: "Yes, I do."
Japanese person: "Oh, thank you."
What links the stories is the idea of a tight-knit national collective that shares responsibility for one another well beyond the degree we share it for our fellow countrymen in the west, identifying much more strongly as a nation.
I'm not making any value judgments. I'm just asking a question: What are the implications for me, here in Japan, and not a member?
Huge, I'd say.
Take work situations. If I criticise the incompetence of one person, is it going to be taken as a criticism of the whole Japanese people? Sounds ridiculous to people from the west, maybe, but I think it's a real possibility over here with some of my colleagues.
Or the racism argument. If I say Japan is racist, is it taken as an attack on the Japanese people, as opposed to a statement of a problem that exists in all our societies also existing in Japan?
As I said, I'm not trying to shed light on some "real Japan", but I think the implications of its stronger national collective responsibility on us in our everyday lives here is well worth considering.
There are worse crimes than glossing over history.
The Freddy Mercury worshipping continues. Following the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's erecting of a statue to the great man, I found this in a high-school textbook I was proofing tonight:
"Nobody in this world is as cool as Mercury."
The senior editor obviously wasn't as hip and streetwise, crossing out the legend's name and replacing it with "that guy."
I was tempted to cross out "that guy" and replace it with "Hasselhof."
The hot topic is privatisation. Next month the LDP might fall because of Koizumi's thwarted attempts to privatise Japan Post.
I don't really understand it as a concept. Public companies are protected and inefficient, whereas private companies are competitive and efficient. Okay.
So how do you make a public company efficient? Make it private. Because if it's competitive, it's automatically going to be efficient.
But aren't there also inefficient private companies? And wouldn't it be nuts to suggest they are inefficient because they are private? Saying a kebab shop should be nationalized for not making a profit would definitely be nuts. So why not the same the other way around?
My understanding is that the huge postal savings funds in Japan Post are currently being used by Japanese politicians and bureaucrats to fund ridiculous, unnecessary construction projects in rural areas through the FILP (Zaito) shadow-budget scheme, which helps keep the bureaucrats and politicians in power, helps keep 10% of the population employed in the construction industry, helps destroy the Japanese countryside, but ultimately does nothing to make the Japanese economy competitive. And hence the need for change.
But how will making Japan Post a private company achieve that? It will certainly reduce labour costs and make some people very rich in the process. But will it mean that the trillions of yen in postal savings is turned to uses that will benefit the Japanese economy and people? Or will it just make the private owners very rich? And is there even any guarantee the private owners won't continue using the funds the exact same way they have been used before?
Go on, explain it all to me if you like, because I haven't got a clue. I need someone to sit down with me for about four years to help me understand economic theory.
Like most Japanese offices, my office is usually silent. The non-Japanese are even quieter than the Japanese--and I often think this reflects our position.
So when I read something raw enough to make me laugh like a child, I bite my finger. I have a sore finger today. In the greater scheme of things, it's wrong to suppress real laughter.
Last week I bought a Thermarest self-inflatable camping mat to replace my foam groundsheet. No more not sleeping on hard, stony ground, or waking up in the night with sore hips and shoulders and a chill running through from the cold earth below.
With the final piece in the camping puzzle in place, last weekend was supposed to be perfect camping. Sexy camping even.
And it would have been, if I hadn't forgot the rice.
There I was, long walk done, rain stopped, tent up, blanket self-inflated, cooker out, ready to go. Slightly high-end curries taken out of the bag. Miso soup, mochi, chocolate, tea, and milk. A drop of whisky. The sun setting over Ozegahara. Mount Shibutsu sharp in the distance in the fading evening light. I'd even remembered the tent pegs this time round.
But not a grain of rice. Sexy camping had just gone Irish.
It was then I had the plan. Maybe one of the mountain huts would sell me some rice if I brought along my bowl. Who knows, maybe they even provided it as a service?
Sure enough, the first one I went to had a sign for rice for 250 yen. Cheap as you like, cheaper even than the freeze-dried stuff.
I was mountain hungry.
Maybe if I gave an extra couple of hundred yen they'd give me a big serving. In I went. The girl behind the counter was young and incredibly tall. And she was radiant, beaming goodness. One of those rare people--just entering their aura makes you instantly warm.
I asked her for a big serving of rice and she smiled in understanding.
"Are you camping? It must very tough sleeping in a tent with the ground all wet? It must be very cold. Very tough."
I've seen this reaction before. Non campers the world over can't understand why anyone would ever choose to sleep in a tent. Unless of course they had no money. So their common assumption is campers must be poor. Especially in Japan. Not poor and dangerous. Poor and pitiable. Kawaisou.
She took my paper bowl and went to fill it. When she came back, it was so full it could have fed four. Overflowing wouldn't describe it. It was so full it was difficult even to carry back to the table outside. I gave her 450 yen and went to leave, but she stopped me, gave me 350 yen change and wouldn't hear of me paying any more.
I smiled, thanked her sincerely and went back outside.
Cooking the curry, I heard the inviting call of beer. End of the day beer. Curry beer. Back I went inside and asked for a Kirin. She went to get it for me and returned.
"Excuse me for asking you this, but are...are you from Belgium?"
I replayed her question in my head to make sure I'd heard it right. Some time passed.
"Er, I'm not. No. I'm from Ireland."
"Oh, thank you."
Awkward as ever in spontaneous, unscripted second-language social situations, I wasn't sure what to say next. So I just stood there, a benign but slightly bemused-looking mute.
A smile of reassurance told me the unscheduled and unwarranted social interaction was officially over, and she was sorry for having taken such liberties and intruded upon my space.
"Here's your beer. Thank you very much."
Glowing, baffled--and just a little disappointed--I went back to my curry and my new-found rice.
Serendipity. And confirmation. Fukushima people are just so special.
Haven't ranted in a while. People might be thinking I'm mellowing.
Worked on a piece today to be submitted to the Asian version of one of the world's most respected newspapers.
Came back after lunch to find the client (the Japanese government) didn't like it and wanted it to be made more "smooth." They always deliver their instructions from a cloud of pompous vagueness for pieces to be either more smooth or more "sophisticated." Their decisions are mostly based on emotion ("I don't like this") and without reasoned analysis ("Here's what I don't like and why").
They gave one specific example, today. The sentence "Asia has many regional frameworks..." was to be changed to "There exists in Asia many regional frameworks..."
In any style of English, but particularly in a piece for a newspaper, "there exists" is pants. If I was being kind, I'd say replacing an active verb with that piece of strait-jacket pomposity is "perhaps not beneficial." If I was being honest, I'd laugh in his face and call him a word he wouldn't understand.
Then he says he wants the whole piece to be changed "in line with" this correction.
Ever wonder why official English in Japan is so shocking? It's because the Japanese government is full of jumped-up little twats, spoiled by their Mammies, who believe they know more than the specialists they commission.
And because people don't tell them so.
Some days it's hard not to believe this whole country, and its economy, is nothing but a sham, proliferated by agreement at all costs and the following of ridiculous orders because that is what the hierarchy dictates.
I'll never fit into a hierachical system based on the assumption of automatic deference as opposed to earned respect.
And even on the mature principle of picking your fights and letting their arrogance destroy their work, I want this one.
There exists an irate Irishman in Tokyo on this day.
The first in an occasional series:
Saw the worst Japanese film I have ever seen (almost) last night. The French title was Seance and had an actor that I like in it Koji Yakusho.
Brief summary:
Koji is married to Junko.
Marriage is bland.
He is a sound engineer.
She is an unwilling medium and occasionally can talk to the undead.
A young girl gets kidnapped by a predatory type who asks "are your parents rich?" - which fails and then tells her that they are dead so he can ask "can I drive you to the hospital?"
Koji drives to the forest to record the sound of the trees.
The girl is chased through the same forest by the predatory type.
She sees Koji, who has his earphones on, so she hides in his big studio equipment box.
He takes her home unwittingly.
The police come knocking, asking Junko to help search for the girl with her special powers.
When they have gone she goes to the box and there they find the girl.
They contemplate calling the police and for an ambulance but don't.
Koji unwittingly kills the girl when shaking her to be quiet when she startes to cry.
Junko tries to fool the police into finding the girl's body where they eventually bury it.
The girl haunts Koji.
He sees his doppelganger which he then burns.
At the end the police guess all.
So don't watch this shite but do watch Cure, with the same actor.
As another watery and unwelcome rainy season sluices uninvited into a forlorn but resigned Tokyo, thoughts inevitably move to the controversial topic of umbrellas.
You can tell a lot about people by their umbrellas. And you can tell long-term gaijin because they'll be the ones with the good ones.
Mine is a black hiking umbrella. It's telescopic (about six inches long), so it fits nicely in my bag. (I've never been a fan of full-sized umbrellas because (1) you can't just put them in your bag and carry them around every day, thus eliminating the need to join the National Weather Forecast Obsession Club or get the kousuikakuritsu (percentage chance of rain) piped in by RSS and (2) you have to leave them outside convenience stores, enabling some law-abiding citizen to abscond with them in a savage but beautiful moment of criminal tendency.)
It's fully automatic, so you can put it up and collapse it with one hand while on the trail (or not), and the material is of satisfyingly good quality, especially the cover. It's got a rubber loop coming out of the handle, so you can attach it to your wrist and carry it hands-free (or clap a little). It's quite lightweight, but it doesn't have a compass in the handle like some of the other hiking ones do, not that you or I would have any idea what to do with a compass anyway. It cost 2,700 yen (27 times the cost of a 100 yen umbrella, I think you'll find) and I bought it in Ishi Sports, Okubo, Tokyo about six months ago.
I'm quite attached to the little fellow.
How about yours? Is it ornate? Did you steal it? Does it take USB II?
Following on from the Fink-on-a-Foreigner Program, Japan plays the terrorism card to justify its own dark-ages, official xenophobia.
It would seem the Japanese ruling elite (and a good portion of the population--remember Ishihara got 70% of the vote in Tokyo in 2003) view non-Japanese people as suspicious potential criminals. A healthy belief to have when your own population is about to start decreasing.
Kyodo News: Japan to have all foreigners carry IC cards for crime control
Yesterday I visited the Supreme Court of Japan for aisatsu (formal introductions). Amid the usual bowing and card-swapping, which always makes me uncomfortable anyway, the somewhat unorthodox president of my company kept introducing me to important strangers as "the man who went to the same high-school as James Joyce." I was embarrassed for me.
As the real business went on around me, cosmetic me spent the time observing the bureaucrats of Japan's highest court. These are all gifted people, you would hope. But even among them, it was easy to see those who had plateaued and were losing both interest and hair, those who were still on the up, and the ones with the real power, who literally shone. The powerful ones and their heirs smiled and seemed at ease with life, the ones without were sullen and heads down, either dozing off or waiting for an argument.
I met one really big fish—the guy who recently oversaw the revision of one of Japan's main laws, the Civil Code. He just happens to come from the same home town as my company's president, and their families are friends. (My president comes from a big political family in Tokushima. Anyone thinking for a second you can separate the legislature from the executive in a country should remember that people will still come from the same hometown and families will still be friends.)
Japanese government offices are sparse and frugal to the point of being penitentiary. If they could get away with not using tables and chairs, be sure they would. It's not about saving money. There's still plenty of money around. No, it's about toughening people up, something the rural Irish farming side of my family would well understand. Despite all the surface manners, it's a tough world, the working world in Japan. And if you don't know that, you're not really in it. In fact, I'd go as far as to say you're being carried.
But this guy, who interrupted everything for our unexpected visit, had a huge office, a roving office, with big black leather armchairs and teak tables and hatstands and umbrella racks and photos of his kids, and bookshelves and the works. Space was being ostentatiously and flagrantly wasted in this guy's office. You wondered what he had done to earn these trappings. In a world where luxury is scorned, this guy had a presidential suite. And you don't know really know how significant that is unless you've spent time in the Spartan world of the Japanese government.
As we sat down, he showed us an article about himself with a full colour photograph from yesterday's Nihon Keizai Shimbun. It was impressive stuff. We were not to be outdone, however. Oh no, my friends. For the third time that day, my president brought up my close connection with one of the giants of world literature.
With each party suitably awed, the balance of the world reset, and order resumed, they talked about their hometown (Tokushima) and a recent festival neither had been able to attend. They enquired about each other's health. It turns out that this smiling, affable fellow had so much stress from opposition within all branches of Japanese government to his Civil Code revision that his insides collapsed sometime last year and he ended up being treated with steroids. He was okay now he assured us, before moving on to more important matters.
Would she take a copy of the newspaper to show her family in Tokushima? Ah no, she couldn't do that, sure she can buy a copy herself on the way out. And on the wrangling went. The "go on", "but I couldn't", "ah, you could", "no I couldn't", "sure you'll need to keep a few copies for more important people than me", "ah go on, they gave me three free copies", "only three, then I couldn't possibly take one" that seems as important to conversation in Japan as it is in rural Ireland. It was ritualized friendship and beautiful to watch. She giggled like a child as the ritual played itself out to its long decided conclusion. Comfortable in their roles, both were shining now. It really was beautiful to watch. It crossed my mind that maybe these two old warriors had once been more than friends.
And although James Joyce's successor was sitting in the very same room, he could have been a million miles away.
Later that day, back in the reality of our office, I saw her reading the article again.
The Japanese government's clever campaign (Jonathan Head, BBC) to encourage all bureaucrats to dress casually this summer to save on air conditioning costs has started rather slowly.
Today saw a general reluctance to dress down in the corridors of Kasumigaseki.
I'm not one to take cheap, unnecessary digs at the much-maligned Japanese working man, but I'll never really get the "wait and then do what everyone else does" approach to life.
Granted, that may be because I usually wait and then do the opposite. Even more ridiculous.
(via Nippon Goro Goro)
Here's another thing I bet you didn't know about the Japanese prison system: unlike western prisons, where prison guards only look after safety, in Japan, prison guards also do the counseling work.
When society ages, so does the prison population. Twenty years from now, Japanese prisons are going to be full of old criminals.
Here are some good statistics.
"Among newly admitted convicted prisoners in Japan in 2003, the eldest convicted prisoners were 89 years old for theft, 83 years old for fraud, 79 years old for Stimulant Drug Control Law violation, 79 years old for Road Traffic Law violation, 85 years old for homicide, 78 years old for robbery, 83 years old for injury, 78 years old for embezzlement and breach of trust, 84 years old for breaking and entering, and 85 years old for arson."
Take hope.
You're never too old to pickpocket, fleece an innocent fool, do a line of coke, drive over a pedestrian, kill the motherfucker, break into your neighbour's house, hit his dog with a hammer, blackmail and lie to his wife, break into his house again, and then burn it down.
The brother of Akihiko Saito, the latest Japanese person taken hostage in Iraq, has apologized to the Japanese public for the trouble his brother is causing.
Last year, when five Japanese were taken hostage in Iraq and later released, they returned home to face a public backlash, with many criticizing them for recklessly entering the country. In October, when militants brutally beheaded a young Japanese backpacker in Iraq, many here blamed the victim for his own death.Saito's brother, Hironobu, in apparent awareness of such a response, apologized profusely to the public at a news conference.
''I am so sorry that my brother Akihiko caused lots of concerns and troubles to the Japanese government, the people of the Foreign Ministry, and the Japanese people. I am sorry,'' Hironobu said, sobbing.
''More than anyone, I think my brother went into Iraq aware of the dangers,'' he said. ''If the Japanese government decides it's best to stay in Iraq, I will support (that). ... I do not expect the Japanese government to waver for the sake of my brother.''
Boston.com: Japan says kidnapping won't lead to withdrawal from Iraq
(Compare this story with the scenes and response in England after the death of Kenneth Bigley for an insight into cultural difference.)
I've written before about my love of the Odakyu Line because it takes me to the mountains quickly and cheaply. I have one more favourite train line: the Tobu Line.
Like the Odakyu Line, it's private and much cheaper than the former state-run Japan Railways lines. Like the Odakyu, it heads for the mountains.
And there's one more massive plus: the Nikko Mini-Free Pass. With this 2-day pass, you can travel from Tokyo to Yumoto Onsen and back for just 4,950 yen. Yes, return. Two hours to Tobu Nikko station, and then a spectacular 75 minute bus ride up the Irohazaka to Yumoto, and back, all for less than 5,000 yen.
Yumoto Onsen on the shores of Lake Yu, with Shiranesan, Senjyogahara, Lake Kirikomi, and Kotakubokujyo all within walking distance, is one of the most beautiful places in the Kanto region. Great cheap onsen ryokans if you want to go the onsen, rainbow trout and yuba meals route. Pitch your tent in the campsite if you want to spend even less.
As I've said before, if you're going to Nikko, forget that over-rated tourist-trap bridge and the Tokugawa temples below. Go up beyond to the high lakes. It's surely the ideal cheap weekend away from Tokyo. Even without the mountains.
And all thanks to Tobu Railways.
Nobody doubts Japan is ready to renounce pacifism. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is gradually being eroded, and opinion polls suggest its days are numbered. Politicians including Koizumi are already calling the SDF what it actually is--an army.
But how do we interpret Japan's move to the right? Is it a "dangerous reawakening of Japan's martial instincts" or "the emergence of a pragmatic new realism that is natural and long-overdue"?
This article in The National Interest answers that question convincingly. Timely piece too. Recommended reading for indignant, intransigent nationalists all over Asia, especially ones with positions of power and those thinking of setting fire to themselves outside embassies.
Normally matter-of-fact Nippon Goro Goro couldn't contain the amusement. In a bid to clean up the image of Kabukicho, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has erected a statue of Freddy Mercury.
In an otherwise meandering article, Gregory Clark, writing in the Japan Times, asks an interesting question about Japan's international relations.
Clark says Tokyo has been insensitive to its Asian neighbours, and that claims that it has truly apologized are "meaningless." Then he wonders why Japan continues to damage its own diplomatic position in the region.
Even allowing for the emotionalism and ad hoc manner in which Japan conducts much of its diplomacy, it is hard to believe that Tokyo wants deliberately to antagonize its neighbors. Some other factor must be involved, and I suggest that deep down it goes back to Japan's largely unstated view of itself as a victim of obstinacy and insensitivity from others.
Japan as victim, he continues, is a justifiable position to partially explain World War II and Japan's advance into Asia. But if Japan is a victim, it is a victim of the West, not China or South Korea.
Then he asks the key question:
But there is one puzzle in all this: Why don't Japan's conservatives and rightwingers take out their postwar resentments more on the West, the U.S. especially, rather than on Asian neighbors?
Gregory Clark (Japan Times): Shedding Imposed War Guilt
Report on a lecture by a US historical geographer on the "creation" of the Japanese Alps and the distinct characteristics of Japanese alpinism and travel to the mountains.
I was particularly taken with talk of how Walter Westin's introduction of Western concepts of Alpinism has caused a transition from traditional Japanese worship of famous places (̾½ê) to a more modern appreciation of remote places with beautiful scenery (É÷·Ê).
Luckily, this transition isn't happening as fast as the historical geographer believes. Yesterday was a perfect example. I started off with É÷·Ê on the ridge of Myojingatake and then had to pass through the town of Hakone-Yumoto, surely one of Japan's most famous ̾½ê, on my way home. Beautiful and remote Myojingatake was all mine but empire of tackiness Hakone-Yumoto was crammed. There wasn't even a table to be had at the Cafe St. Moritz!
Call me a snob, but I'm all for ̾½ê as places to keep the hordes occupied and away from the real beauty of Japan.
[Yet another post about work. But then again, work is a big part of my life.]
In the documentary Surviving Everest, Pete Athens, six-time veteran of Everest and leader of the National Geographic 50th Anniversary Expedition to the great mountain that famously included the sons of both Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, said this about the legendary Sherpa Norgay: "He approached the mountain as a child going into the lap of his mother. He never tried to impose his will on the mountain."
Since hearing these wise remarks, I've been asking myself if I try to impose my will on things too much, both personally and professionally. They say that damaged people need to exert control over situations and other people.
Professionally, a perfect situation for assessing that question came up this week.
I've been translating a white paper for a government ministry. The material, despite containing the usual mix of unabashed nihonjinron self-congratulation and pathological bureaucratic vagueness, was very interesting, and I really enjoyed working on it.
Until it was sent for the first revision on the government side, that is.
When it came back, they had made many changes, as is normal and natural. Translation and editing is a process, after all.
Some of the changes concerned the nuances of the original Japanese text. Not a problem.
Some of them were possibly legitimate issues of prefering certain English phrases over others. No problem there either.
But (and you knew a but was coming, didn't you?) there were also the infuriating English grammar changes. Ask yourself a question. Who knows more about English grammar (and writing style), a native-speaking English-language professional with years of experience reading, writing and editing English, or a Japanese mid-level government official with a high-intermediate grasp of the English language?
Now ask yourself another question. Who does the government official think knows more? Yes, you've got it. The government official's money is on the government official.
And therein lies the dilemma.
Do you fight these stupid changes? If you do, you might manage to make the work read better than the usual pitiful official English in Japan. But to do that, you're going to need to spend a lot of time trying to move mountains of stubbornness and take on a lot of extra stress in the process.
Or do you quietly laugh at the foolishness of their arrogance and let them believe they are right? If you take this option, you get some kind of trivial, vengeful satisfaction and much less stress, but you also have watch the quality of your work going down the toilet.
This is my professional dilemma. Do I impose my will on the monumental arrogance of Japan's elite, or do I accept that "This is Japan" and shrug it off with a shou ga nai, allowing my work to be defaced?
Not an easy choice when you actually care about your work. One thing's for sure though: I certainly don't approach working with the Japanese government as a child going into the lap of its mother.
Safety in numbers doesn't necessarily work in mountains. A group of 43 (!) elderly snowshoers managed to go missing in Japan's Tohoku region this week. They were found today.
Trouble in the Japan camp ahead of tonight's World Cup Qualifier against Iran. Zico has decided to revert to 4-4-2 and is playing Nakata as Captain, despite Nakata having been out with injury for a year. The players don't like it, thinking they should stick with their familiar 3-5-2 system.
For me, tactically-inept, Kashima-Antlers-favoring, JFA "yes man" Zico is delaying the development of Japanese football and the sooner he's out, the faster Japan can build on the great work of former manager Philippe Troussier. In that sense, this rare open criticism by Japan's players is a positive thing.
On the other hand, teams that are infighting in the media on the eve of big games almost never win them. The great but bickering Dutch teams of recent decades proved that so many times.
I hope I'm wrong, but it's not looking good for Japan in the cauldron of Tehran tonight.
How Paradise Yamamoto, Japan's "top mambo musician," broadened the stunted horizons of bonsai.
The one thing that annoys me more than the assumption of a racial hierarchy in Japan (the one with white people and Japanese at the top and Indians and Pakistanis at the bottom), is the widely-held belief that English teachers are automatically not worthy of respect, and even untrustworthy, lazy, alcoholic, freeloading, promiscuous, incapable of understanding Japan and so on.
What a load of nonsense.
Some of the most creative and industrious people I've met in my time in Japan have been English teachers, and some of the people who've taught me most about how to live in Japan and how to live in general have been English teachers too.
The proportion of nice people to assholes among English teachers is, at worst, no different to the proportions in other professions. At best, it is higher, because English teachers are often young and interested in interacting with other people and cultures.
The belief that a profession can be worthless per se says a lot about the believer's mindset.
The belief that the profession of language teaching, with all its opportunities for creativity, self-expression, and communication, is worthless says more still.
And the belief that a person working in that profession is automatically unworthy of respect too...well, I don't think I even have to imply what that tells us about the believer.
Just as beauty can be found in all things, the same applies of job satisfaction.
All you need is to know where to look. Not that difficult, of course, but I think most of the people writing off English teachers (including among such critics ex-English teachers and English teachers themselves) wouldn't even know where to start.<