The Blog From Another Dimension: Focus on Japan 2006 Archives

Japan and Nukes

This story out recently:

The Japanese government recently looked into the possibility of developing nuclear warhead, a news report said Monday, citing an internal government document. ...

The Japanese daily Sankei reported that experts affiliated with the government estimated that it will take at least three to five years for Japan to make a prototype nuclear warhead.

The experts also estimated that Japan would need to spend about 200 billion yen ($1.68 billion) to 300 billion yen ($2.52 billion) and mobilize several hundred engineers to produce a prototype nuclear warhead, according to Sankei.

The interesting thing here is that Japan is claiming that it would take three to five years to develop a nuke, after spending tons of money and employing "several hundred engineers." This when Japan has been pretty much universally recognized as being within one year of producing a nuke; this Federation of American Scientists' report from 1998 is perhaps a pretty solid source:

Japan's extensive nuclear industry contains tons of already separated reactor-grade plutonium, which could be used for nuclear weapons. Within a year of deciding to develop a nuclear weapon, Japan could acquire the weapons materials and a workable design by drawing upon available unclassified information and its technical expertise.

So, what does the difference in the report mean? Were international estimates too high, overestimating Japan's ability to fabricate a nuclear weapon? Or perhaps there is a difference in the type of nuclear weapons capability each estimate was measuring, with the FAS report guessing at the time to produce one nuke and the internal Japanese report estimating how long it would take to build a minimal arsenal? Maybe the Japanese study overestimates the time and effort needed due to bureaucratic or engineering standards that call for such so that actual performance can exceed expectations. Or, perhaps, the report is simply a fake or hoax of some sort.

However, the probable truth is that the report is real; Japan, after all, has been making various noises recently about a nuclear weapons program in response to North Korea's own program. And, one has to admit, even if Japan is dead against building nukes, it would only be a reasonable, rational move to at least study what is or is not possible, just to have the information on hand in case things change. After all, it is not inconceivable that Japan and America could have a falling-out and North Korea could become much more overtly threatening in any number of ways; in such a case, Japan would have a real reason to consider nukes.

The worry, however, is not just that Japan might develop nukes (which itself would be enough of a worry, if for no other consideration than how other nations in the region would react), but that a nationalistic government of Japan were to have nukes along with a resurgent desire to assert itself militarily--something which also is not inconceivable.

Yes, But

I tend to challenge statements that I encounter, and that sometimes gets me into trouble. If someone makes a statement and there is a possible alternate view, I have a tendency to blurt out the alternate view, even if I don't agree with it or have no stance on the issue myself. This sometimes makes people think I disagree with them when I really do not. One example might be the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; if an American says they were necessary, I challenge that; if a Japanese says they were criminal, I challenge that, too. Probably because both sides deserve challenging, mostly because of who is saying it. If an American said that the bombings were a crime, or a Japanese said that they were necessary, I probably would be less inclined to challenge either one--probably because the statements would sound much less self-serving.

I just came across this news story:

NAGASAKI — The policy chief of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Shoichi Nakagawa, on Sunday called the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 a "crime" that was impermissible from a humanitarian viewpoint.

In a speech given in the city of Nagasaki, Nakagawa said, "The U.S. decision to drop such a thing was truly impermissible on humanitarian grounds...Atomic bombings are a crime," referring to the Aug 9, 1945 bombing of the city three days after an atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. [no link due to the site's ephemeral nature]

My immediate response? I would want to ask this person if he was aware that during WWII, Japan had not one but two atomic weapons programs. And how come that never comes up when a Japanese politician is speaking out against the evils of atomic weapons? Yes, some might think that it would give the politician less moral standing to make a claim of outrage. But in my opinion, stating such a thing would give him much more more standing to make such a claim. However, somehow I don't think that this is the kind of moral statement that Nakagawa was thinking about, considering that he has recently suggested that perhaps Japan should consider arming itself with nuclear weapons.

And that's where I start to worry a bit about statements like the one Nakagawa made about the U.S. bombings being a crime. Within the context of his other recent statements, it could be building to something less than encouraging. "It's a country's right to protect itself," Nakagawa said about a month ago. "Of course we need to examine all options, including missile defense." The "all options" bit is further worrying.

OK, so perhaps Nakagawa is simply raising the nuclear specter in order to put a few bargaining chips on the table for Japan, maybe to rattle the North Koreans a bit. For all I know, Nakagawa might be stridently anti-nuclear. But the things he has said are too close to what I would classify as 'pulling a reverse-Santayana.' I opined on the dangers here, but in short, if a nation forgets the bad things it did and focuses on its own victimhood, then starts saying that it has special standing to defend itself in light of that victimhood--it's time to start watching out for armbands.

Within the context of moral superiority, the claim of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being crimes falls a bit flat due to Japan's own atomic programs, and the rather inescapable fact that had Japan developed nukes first, there would have been no hesitation or remorse in using them first. Remembering that about yourself and your people is far more a claim to moral standing than is the claim of victimhood.

What Is With These Prices?

I am currently looking at getting a new camcorder, but was discouraged in Japan as the cheapest acceptable model cost 50,000 yen (about $430). That made a $200~$250 repair of my old camera look like a possible alternative. But then I looked at prices in the U.S.; I had forgotten the usual divide in prices, and sure enough, acceptable camcorders start at around $220.

So, what the heck is with the price differential? Look at this camera: the JVC GR-D350, on sale at Amazon.com for $250, but the exact same model is sold at Yodobashi.com for ¥49,800 ($425), fully 70% more expensive than the same model on sale in America.

I noticed this effect long ago. On my first trip to Japan, I wanted to buy a Nikon SLR camera. Fortunately, I had priced them in San Jose before I went, and so realized that they were a lot cheaper in the U.S. My Canon S1-IS was priced at $320 in the U.S., and $510 in Japan (60% more expensive). Prices for Apple goods in Japan seem to be more moderately jacked up, only about 5~10% higher than U.S. prices. But most consumer electronics have this massive difference in cost between Japan and the U.S.

Anyone know why?

It's the Simple Things

In Japanese homes, centralized heating does not exist. It simply isn't done. Instead, there are a variety of heating methods that take the place of what we in the West take for granted.

The traditional (in a modern sense) Japanese way to keep everybody warm is the kotatsu, a table with a heating element underneath it. The kotatsu is a low table, maybe only 18 inches off the floor (taller kotatsu are sold, but the low ones are the most common). The top comes off to show the frame with the heating unit; place a comforter over it, and put the tabletop back on--and presto, you have a nice heated table.

People sit around the table with their legs underneath to keep them warm. Usually, there are seats with no legs--just a chair seat and seat back--which keep everyone sitting comfortably that close to the ground. And not just humans enjoy it:

Now, put a bowl of mikan (mandarin oranges) on the table and you've got classic Japonica.

For some reason, I've never been too enamored of the kotatsu. I used to have one, twenty years ago, back in Toyama, but I don't think I've had one since. It's nice and all, but it doesn't heat your upper body, and I tend to move around the apartment--and the kotatsu is only good for keeping your legs warn when you're sitting.

One alternative I used back in Toyama was the kerosene stove heater. Every so often, a kerosene seller comes around and you can fill up your red plastic kerosene container; using a special plastic pump, you can siphon the fuel into the heater, and fire it up to warm up the room. Often there's a space on top to put a tea kettle or anything else you want to warm up. The down side: it's a pain to fuel, and smells kinda bad, too. And I hate the tunes (wav file) the trucks play when they come around.

Here in Tokyo, a lot of people use their reidanbo--literally, a "cooler-heater," or an air conditioner with a heating unit installed. They are virtually ubiquitous in Japan; I have two, in fact. Many apartments come with them pre-installed (not my place, though). I'll sometimes use this, but it uses tons of electricity, and is not an cost-effective way to heat the house.

The remaining way is, in my opinion, the best: using natural gas piped into the house to fuel gas heaters. I used to use the kind that simply light up heating elements, like four book-sized orange-glowing panels behind a sparse metal grill. This is called a "gas stove":

The problem with these, however, is that they don't circulate the heat very effectively. So the ultimate heating unit is called a "gas fan heater," a heater which uses a nice fan to blow the warm air a good distance so it fans out. I've had one for some time, but it's a huge, old, used unit which tends to cut out the heating part while the fan stays on, just blowing cold air around. So I broke down and went out and bought a new unit--last year's model, on sale for $200.

It's a nice unit--has a sleep and wake-up feature that shuts down and turns on the fan by a timer, but the feature I like is the thermostat, which automatically turns the unit down to a very low setting once a certain temp has been reached. And when on high, it heats up my big room fast.

And yes, I know that I can wear a sweater. Call me jaded.

Live from Takanoya, It's Arts Day 2006

Every year, my college has an Arts festival in early November. It's a 4-day weekend for the school (tomorrow is Culture Day), and so we celebrate by getting many of the students to show off their talents by singing, dancing, and performing in various arts media. My own contribution is to edit together a 15~20-minute video to start off the festival; this was the 4th consecutive year I've done this.

I am blogging this live from the (appropriately named) "live house" where we hold the festival; for some reason, they have a high-speed Wi-Fi node here, so I can blog as the festival progresses. I won't do too much, but perhaps a few times I'll give an update on what's going on.

The video featured a parody of the TV show "24" along with some other musical bits

The first group, "Mediterranean"

Roger & Friends--this friend is Miyuki, a very talented student and a great singer

Roger & his other friend, Masa

Masa going solo

My setup for showing the video

More later...

Nutritional Information in Japan, or the Lack Thereof

One thing that you miss quite a bit if you come from America to live in Japan is the more detailed nutritional information on food packaging. This is where that dreaded "big government" massively interferes with poor American businesses in ways conservatives hate--but which most Americans very much prefer, even if they do take it for granted most of the time.

Here in Japan, nutritional information on food packaging is spotty at best. I still haven't figured out why some foods have the information and some do not (is it entirely voluntary?). I think there is at least a requirement to list ingredients. Many foods do have limited nutritional information, in a small table on the back or side of the product, which lists:

エネルギー • "energy," or calories
たんぱく質 • "tampaku-shitsu," or protein
脂質 • "shishitsu," or fats
炭水化物 • "tansui kabutsu," or carbohydrates, and
ナトリウム • "natorium," or sodium.

And that's it. No information on the fats (how much is transfat, saturated fat, etc.), no information on fiber, cholesterol, or most vitamins and minerals--unless the producer wants to advertise them. And even then, it's a matter of simple readings in grams--no "daily recommended allowance." If you're not used to thinking about how much of each dietary element you need in grams per day, then you're outta luck.

That's why I was so surprised to see this on the back of a bag of lightly salted cashews that I bought recently:

Not only did it give a longer list of nutrients, but it also gave a bar graph of the nutrients as part of a DRA calculation. That startled me, and encouraged me as I thought that this might be a new thing I'd see a lot more of in Japan.

Then I knew those were false hopes when I looked down below and saw the maker:

...Which means that it's a purely voluntary carry-over from the U.S. which will probably not be followed by anyone else in Japan. Ah well.

Before I leave this topic, there is one pet peeve I'd like to unload, and if you're an American living in Japan, you'll probably share it. When American goods are imported to Japan, the Japanese government requires a Japanese-style ingredients sticker be affixed to the package. This is all good and well. What peeves me is where they affix the sticker: almost universally, they put the Japanese sticker right on top of the English-language USRDA label on the package, completely obscuring the far more complete nutritional information. This is done even when there is plenty of blank space elsewhere to put the sticker. And the sticker is almost always impossible to peel off in a way that reveals the original information.

I have this problem at Costco in Japan all the time. I've complained about it, and they always agree that I am completely right, but apparently it is done by the shippers, who presumably would rather their customers not be turned off by that damning evidence--why list something you don't want people to see when it's so easy to cover up?

Postscript: "Natorium"?

Halloween? Probably Not

As I went shopping at the local supermarket today, I saw something that I hadn't seen before in Japan: a substantial Halloween display.

Halloween has never been a holiday of note in Japan. I have never seen trick-or-treaters, and outside of some communities with heavy American populations, I don't think there has been any in Japan.

Not that this display suggests will will be any costumed kids. Yes, the Kit-Kats on sale are bags of the mini-bite-sized variety one stocks up on for costumed visitors, but note the rest: pre-packaged candy boxes, already full. Likely this is just like many other imported holidays in Japan: a commercial excuse for sales. A gimmick, in short.

As my sister-in-law noted in her blog recently (and I noted three years ago), Christmas is done much the same way in Japan. While a few people have taken to putting up Christmas lights (even the local hilltop tower is lit up), people in Japan generally don't get a Christmas tree, don't exchange presents (not for Christmas, anyway), and don't decide whether to unwrap gifts Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. But a lot of "Christmas cakes" are sold, along with foam-cast stockings/boots filled with candy--very much indeed like some of the candy items shown in the photos above.

At least Christmas in Japan has some odd angles to it--for example, it's considered "the thing to do" for men to take their girlfriends out to expensive restaurants and them for them to spend the night at a love hotel. And--god knows why--Kentucky Fried Chicken is the dinner of choice for huge numbers of people, to the extent that you have to wait hours to get an order filled. How that got to be a popular pastime is beyond me.

So far, all I've seen of Halloween outside of novelty shops in Japan is what you see above--but it was a bit of a shock to see. Kind of like, the confection companies of Japan, wanting another payoff holiday like Valentine's Day (women give chocolate to men), White Day (a domestically contrived 'holiday' acting as kind of a 'reverse' Valentine's day, where men give cookies and other baked goods to women), and Christmas (cakes and candies), have suddenly decided to push Halloween in Japan as well, hoping it'll take.

I didn't see many people buying. I'll have to ask around to see if it's catching on.

Turning Japanese

Have you ever heard the song Turning Japanese? At the beginning, there's a bit of an "oriental riff," something that Americans might associate with Japan, as the musicians obviously did.

Interestingly, Japanese people are familiar with the little melody as well--but they associate it with China, not Japan. One of my students tells me that it's played in a Chinese cooking TV show.

Escalated Shrine

We tend to think of shrines and temples in Asian countries as being places that encourage discipline and hard work. It is not atypical to envision a temple or shrine atop a mountain with a ten-thousand-step staircase leading up to it, making it so that only the most dedicated worshipers make it to the sacred ground.

In reality, it's not like that in Japan, at least not typically. Many shrines in fact are at the top of a few flights of stairs, but it's usually not quite as challenging as the stereotypes make out.

Nevertheless, when I visited the shrine at Tameike-sanno in central Tokyo yesterday with Sachi, I saw something I did not at all expect: escalators leading up to the shrine! Three of them, no less--two large ones, and then a smaller one at the top (you can just see the second big escalator above the staircase at center). Vehicular access was at the rear.

The traditional-shrine/modern-artifact contrasts didn't end there, however--once you get into the shrine's courtyard, you are immediately reminded of the shrine's location (Akasaka district, neat the US embassy and lots of big businesses), as seen in the photo below, with the Prudential Building looming in the background.

The final surprise came when Sachi and I went to offer prayers at the front of the shrine. I saw something I had never seen before: a wedding in progress, right inside the shrine, clearly visible to anyone and everyone who came up to throw in coins, shake the thick rope with the big bell on top, clap their hands twice, and then pray. On the pretext of taking a photo of Sachi praying, I got this in the photo, cropped to show detail.

Pretty cool, actually. Just surprising to me.

Somebody Noticed

About a year and a half ago, I blogged on a new Sapporo Beer product called "Slims," which bore the motto, "The new type of tasty draft brew. More flavor, with fewer less calories."

Well, somebody noticed the error, apparently. The new can now reads:

It is true, the brew is no longer new. Also, it seems, with not as much flavor.

You see this kind of thing all over Japan, of course. Sometimes it's really good (like the "off sale" signs, or the misspelled "in" sign I saw), but more often it takes the form of very mildly off-kilter English, like with these items:

Not especially funny, but certainly strange enough to remind you that you're in a country where English is not the native language.

And then there are some errors that you have to look at carefully to see, like with this bite-sized cheese snack:

From camels, perhaps?

And then, there's the just plain goofy names they think up, like for this chocolate snack:

And yes, I know that on this package of Hello Kitty Macaroni, that Kitty is supposed to be giving the thumbs-up. However, from the first time I saw it, it really, really looked to me like she was giving everyone the finger.

Food for thought.

Public Classics

DVDs in Japan cost considerably more than in the U.S. New releases of DVDs in America generally cost around $20; in Japan, the same movies go for $30. For example, current releases of V for Vendetta, Poseidon, and The Da Vinci Code all sell for about $30 at Amazon Japan, while the same titles sell for $20 at Amazon U.S.--except for The Da Vinci Code, which sells for $15.

This is one of the main reasons why I buy my DVDs from the U.S., and use a region-free player (or the Region 1 player I lugged here from the U.S.)--because U.S. releases are so much cheaper, in addition to having earlier release dates. Generally, much earlier--the latest X-Men movie is just out in Japanese theaters, while the U.S. DVD is on sale soon. Often, summer Disney titles go on sale by Christmas, just as they are opening in Japan.

This of course, is why they have region encoding in the first place: to keep people from benefitting from different marketing plans.

But there is a strange hole in this: if you want to buy the DVD for Gone with the Wind in the U.S., it costs $20. In Japan, the same movie costs $5--or more precisely, ¥500.

Same with Casablanca--$20 in America, the same movie is $5 in Japan. The same deal applies to movies like King Kong, The African Queen, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, It's a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz, and more. The DVDs are "all-region," and come with English and Japanese subtitles (which can be turned off).

So how did that happen? Well, it has to do with copyright law and a court case. As part of corporations' quest to become legally immortal super-human beings with endless ownership rights, they have been lobbying to indefinitely extend copyright protections. Previously, copyright protection for films was 50 years; in 2004, it was extended another 20 years. However, a recent court case decided that, in Japan at least, the 20-year extension was not retroactive. So a movie made in 1954 will stay protected until 2024. But a movie made in 1953 is now in the public domain.

I reported on this a few months back when I heard about the case, but it was just last week when I finally saw the DVDs on sale. I picked up Gone with the Wind, Notorious, Roman Holiday, Citizen Kane, The Third Man, and To Kill a Mockingbird for ¥3000, sales tax included--about $26, actually, at today's rates. Six movies for less than any one of them would cost "legitimately."

This in part reveals the actual production costs for DVDs--or even more sharply, the recent decision by Warner Home Video to start selling their movie titles in China for just $2.65. Although that is to compete with the widespread $1 pirate DVD market, you know that Warner wouldn't be selling at that price unless they were making even a small amount of money from them.

Meanwhile, back in Japan, we can enjoy some good classics for a still comfortable price. You can see the on-line catalog here; to see categories of specific movies, click the links after the English words "PICK UP" near the top left. (By the way, you can see they made the web page using Adobe GoLive 6--check out the web page title. Think it was a pirated version?)

They're only selling 140 titles now, but there should be more than 140 good ones made before '54. Alas, movies like The Man Who Knew Too Much (the Jimmy Stewart/Doris Day version) won't go on sale for another two decades.

Barriers, Physical and Otherwise

I went to a barbecue party with people from work yesterday (great party, lots of fun), and to get there, I took the train and had four transfers--quite a few escalators and staircases along the way. Not to mention a few new train lines. One of them was the Tsukuba Express Line, which had an interesting feature common to most new train lines: a platform guard wall, pictured below.

When the train stops, the gate doors open with the train doors. Japanese trains have always stopped at exact locations relative to the platforms (locations marked on the floor of the platforms for waiting passengers to line up at), which is necessary anyway for this to work.

Considering the tendency of many Japanese suicides to use jumping off railroad platforms as a tool for demise, this seems a prudent measure--though I suppose someone determined enough, and in good enough shape, could easily vault the fence anyway. However, this being Japan, I wouldn't be too surprised if even suicides decided that it would be too uncouth to do so.

One other feature of the train line is, from what I could determine without my computer along to test it, is an on-train wireless Internet connection. Most of the articles I read seemed a bit unclear about whether it was free or not, but a few said it was only available to DoCoMo users. Still, it seems a new thing, and if it spreads and is opened up to anyone for free, it'd be a big new reason to take the train--if you can get a seat, of course.

Right now, however, I don't take the train much for a few different reasons. First, I have never been comfortable with the sanitation of being crammed together in those cars with so many people with god alone knows what viruses and so forth. I'd wear a surgical mask, but they don't make one here that works effectively with a nose as big as mine, not that I think it'd make that much of a difference. And on cold days, one can see the windows not just fogged, but dripping with precipitation--which, when one considers it, is really saliva exhaled in mist form from all the passengers on the train, dripping down the sides of all the glass surfaces. Ewww.

Second, there's the footwork involved. I live in a place where I have to walk five minutes to a bus station, then take a seven minute ride to the train station, then walk for about 400 meters up and down several levels to transfer to the subway line to get to my school, and then walk from the station. The wait between the bus and the train is usually long, as the bus arrives at the station just as the every-20-minutes express train leaves; it's a choice between taking the local and transferring to a crowded express halfway there, or waiting almost 20 minutes for an express I can sit down on. Coming home, I can get a seat--if I am willing to stand in line an extra 10-15 minutes to get on a subsequent train.

Relative to that, taking my scooter has too many advantages to give it up. A guaranteed seat, door-to-door transport, and taking into consideration the walking, buses, and transfers, it's actually quite a bit faster than taking the train. Disadvantages include inclement weather (though the scooter is lovely in hot weather), and the dangers of driving in Tokyo. But for the time being, at least, I'll take the bike. At 35 kpl (83 mpg), gas doesn't cost too much--but then there's one last disincentive: my school only reimburses travel by train and bus. Despite it being cheaper by about half, even with wear-and-tear costs factored in, they don't pick up that particular tab. Ah well. Who said life was perfect?

"Flange"?

This story in the Mainichi Daily is a bit of a curious one, about a film coming to Japan where for a brief moment, female genitalia are visible. The story, titled "Film That Dares to Flash the Flange All in the Name of Art," describes the offensive film and the fact that Japan's censors are letting it slip by--as, so the story says, they let male genitalia appear on screen in Kinsey. (And, I observed, they let the same go uncensored in Schindler's List on cable TV.) This time it's an Austrian film about artist Gustav Klimt, which otherwise would have passed by unnoticed in small art theaters here.

A lot of people in Western countries assume that Japan and the Japanese are pretty blase about nudity, with the whole "nudity is often seen but never looked at" idea. Japan lacks privacy, as Mariko-san said in Shogun, and so nudity is not something Japanese mind so much.

Ha! Maybe in pre-Meiji Japan, or maybe even pre-WWII, but that is sure as hell not the case today. Modern Japan has kind of strange takes on nudity, probably a mix of Japanese mores and conservative censorship imposed by the US military during the occupation.

I remember the first time I visited Japan, back in 1983, and my tour group was in a countryside inn. The group leader told us that if we felt adventurous, we could all go together to the local bath house. Clearly everyone expected mix bathing, but when we arrived, to our collective disappointment and relief, it was a segregated bath--something which is very much the norm in Japan. Mixed bathing is rarely found in this country, mostly infrequent cases in the deep countryside, and is probably more common in California than it is in Japan. And even in segregated baths, people still carry small cloths which have little other purpose than to act as a fig leaf.

Outside of bath houses, nudity is not seen in public very much at all in Japan. One might see a flash now and again in terms of imagery, like in a manga cartoon book read by an oyaji (old guy) on a train, or in a poster outside a porn theater. Other than that, it tends to be restricted to pornographic materials. You certainly don't see even a suggestion of private parts in public. Women always wear bras with sufficient padding so that nipples never stand out. On the beach, women almost always wear one-piece bathing suits, and I've never heard of a nude beach in Japan (though they might exist). In fact, you never even see shirtless men in Japan outside of beaches and swimming pools--or the odd festival where men might even wear fundoshi. Japan can be very puritanical in regards to clothing.

Pornography tends to strange contrasts here, on the other hand. The subject matter can get wild very easily (I'd rather not get into details), but because of the laws, genitalia cannot be shown. In fact, even pubic hair is usually covered with digital mosaics, though maybe a decade ago censorship laws relaxed enough to make showing "artistic" pubic hair legal, creating a boom of "hair nudes."

There has also been a more conservative trend in terms of nudity on television. Back in the 80's and early 90's, nudity was pretty rampant on TV. Late-night shows featuring nudity were common, and by channel-skipping after 11:00 at night, one could almost always find some T&A going on. Um, so I heard. It was always very careful to restrict the view to boobs and bums, but it was common. One could even see the occasional women's bath scene on daytime TV. Today, the trend is definitely away from that. Nudity on television is much more scarce, for reasons I do not understand.

So the next time you hear someone sagely explaining about how Japanese are nonchalant about nakedness, bring them up to date.

Up to 6 Now

A year and a half ago I blogged on how doctors in Japan tend to over-prescribe through reflex, and how they would almost impulsively give you a pill, a capsule, and a powder for almost any ailment. Well, they seem to have graduated from three medicines to six. Just the other day a coworker of mine complained that she had been given six different nostrums by her doctor, which seemed excessive to her. And today I just got hit by the same outcome.

I went to see the doctor about stomach pains and other related ailments, and was diagnosed with gastritis and a cold. The prescription? One capsule, two kinds of pills, and three kinds of powders--one of the powders being a mix of three different medicines, actually. I'm hardly a doctor, but that seems way excessive to me. They include an antibiotic, two medicines for fever and pain (of which I only have slight indications), two stomach medicines, and one for general symptoms apparently. I'm tempted to just leave the whole thing behind and simply live out the illness naturally.

And I hate the powders. Gotta put them in your mouth dry, then wash them down with water, and they almost always leave a residue in your mouth that the water can't wash away, and it tastes horrible.

Snapshot

I'm not talking about a photographic snapshot (though I wish I'd had my camera), but the snapshot you see of someone else where you wonder where they came from and what will happen to them. People you just see on the street, passing by, and never see again. You see them for a moment, like a snapshot, and that's it.

I had one of those moments today as I drove back home from work. It's a rainy day here, and I was going down Route 20 outside of Shinjuku. And by the side of the road, I see a hitchhiker.

That alone is unusual. In all my years in Japan, I cannot recall having seen one before. And knowing Japan as I do, I know that a Japanese person would almost certainly not be doing this; even before I can make out the person's face, I know it has to be a foreigner--and so it was. A youngish man with short brown hair. He's standing under an umbrella with a few traveling bags at his side, and he's holding up a small piece of cardboard (maybe a foot and a half across). The cardboard has a simple drawing of a mountain, and below that, the single word "FUJI."

And that kind of makes me wonder what this guy is about. Obviously a tourist, is he just going to visit the Fuji area, or does he intend to climb? Does he have any idea what climbing Fuji entails? Or is he aware that the Fuji-climbing season is July and August, and he's just missed out on the time when the main trails are open? After August 28, the mountain is climbable, but few buses go up to the starting point at the 5th station halfway up the slope, and above that point, the huts and other support facilities are now closed.

Having climbed Fuji before myself (three times--and I just realized that I never blogged on this), and long ago having been a newbie tourist alone in Japan, I can sympathize with this guy, and keep wondering what will become of him. Is he so adventurous that he'll climb the mountain anyway? Does he have any clue as to what he's getting into. Or hell, will he even get a ride from anyone in the first place?

That's why these snapshots are so intriguing and frustrating--you're never going to know the answer.

Quake

5:23 pm: A few minutes ago, there was a fair-sized quake here in Tokyo. No big details, except that it seems to have been centered real close to where I live, in Kanagawa, where it was a 4 on the Japanese scale.

5:26 pm: Now they're saying that the epicenter was at the north tip of Tokyo Bay, around what looks like just at Yatsu Higata Salt Flats, though the strongest affected areas were in Kanagawa. Magnitude now reported at 4.8 on the Richter scale.

5:30 pm: HiNet is reporting it as a 4.7 (update: the same page now says 4.8). They're now saying no danger of tsunami. Coordinates of the quake epicenter are 140.1E, 35.6N, just at Chiba Port Park.

5:37 pm: Now HiNet is saying 5.2, on the same page where another panel says 4.7. The epicenter is also given as a bit different, 140.024E by 35.632N, more in line with what I've seen on TV. Trains are stopped, at least the bullet train service.

Mmmm.... Wasaaabi

I like wasabi. I love wasabi snacks. Wasabi sembei (hard, dry rice crackers in a wide variety of forms), and wasabi-flavored potato chips are great. But wasabi peas are the best. The only problem is, I can't usually find them. In Karuizawa (where apparently wasabi is produced somewhat more than elsewhere) they had some wasabi stuff, including the peas, so I bought some--the larger package shown above at left.

Now, there is a wasabi peas snack sold more widely--that would be the two smaller triangular packs on the right. The only problem is, half the packages are wasabi peas, which are great, and half are wasabi lima beans, which are okay but less desirable.

If you haven't had these before, give 'em a try. They're great. And if you know where to get the peas only in Tokyo, drop a comment and let me know.

The Other Side of Nationalism in Japan

Nationalism in Japan, like fundamentalism in America, is often over-represented relative to its actual popularity. The black loudspeaker trucks and vans tend to stand out. They are way over-represented in government, with the ruling party tending to go along their lines. Newspapers often tout their agendas (though the Yomiuri is now doing an about-face).

But there is evidence of a different point of view among actual Japanese people. One small point of evidence: a new anti-war film, called The Ants (Ari no Heitai), is drawing large crowds. It is only playing in two small art houses--bigger chains would not dare to bring this out themselves, at least not until it's wide popularity is proved--but it is getting record attendance. A small piece of evidence, to be sure, but it will be interesting to see if this gets wider attention and a broader release.

It's always been my observation that most Japanese simply don't know about what happened in WWII--too many simply never heard of it, not just because they didn't want to. I recall back in the 80's when I was tutoring a private student, a high-school girl, and discussion came around to the subject of Japan's actions in the war. She told me that her high school History teacher only covered material up to the end of the Meiji period (when Japan was modernizing and growing in international stature)--then said that there was "not enough time to cover everything," so they jumped ahead to the firebombings of Japanese civilians by the U.S. and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A jump which conveniently glossed right over Japanese militarism and aggression at its worst. Since then, I have spoken to several Japanese people from different parts of the country who report the exact same gap in their teachings.

As a result of this and the whitewashing in the media, many Japanese, though aware something is wrong in this area, have very little actual knowledge of what happened outside the revisionist retellings of what went on, usually focusing on how it was the Japanese, and not others, who suffered.

Like the people of any nation, many Japanese will defend their country when challenged with the facts, but it is my impression that most are not like that. When they discover what Japan did during that period, most Japanese I know accept it and are very disapproving. Now, that is certainly colored by the fact that many of those I see in this reaction are young people, and often students who have chosen to study English. But even in light of that, my general impression remains the same, so I would not be too surprised if The Ants were generally well-received if it were to enjoy a wider release. The news would probably be focused more on the predictable reactions of the minority nationalists, protesting such a film.

And although I see a general trend towards nationalism in Japanese politics, I am far from convinced that this is also true of the Japanese people.

Does anyone have experiences or opinions to the contrary?

Trapped at the Apple Store

So I went in to the Shibuya Apple Store for a Genius Bar consultation about my Powerbook. The screen gets dark around the bottom after it's been asleep for a while, and sometimes on startups.

I took it in a few months ago in June, and they told me the same thing they did yesterday: we have no idea what that darkening is, we don't see it, but let's replace the screen for you. The warranty ran out in June, but because I told them that I needed the computer for my work until August, they gladly extended the warranty for me (screen only). So now it's August, but I'm still on the fence.

First, it's not so bad. The darkness goes away in a few minutes, and after a while, I don't even notice it. But, and this is a big "but," the cause is unknown and so this could get worse over time and cost me a few thousand bucks in a year or two, if it goes bad.

Second: this screen is okay as far as dead and stuck pixels go. There's only one pixel with a dead green element (only shows up when white or greenish images hit the pixel), and it's way off to one side. A virtually clean screen. If I have the LCD screen replaced, I could be stuck with a screen with dead and/or stuck pixels, up to maybe a half dozen or perhaps more, and maybe in the middle of the screen where they'll stick out. (Apple will not swap out your screen for stuck or dead pixels unless they exceed a certain number, which they won't tell you.)

And third: I have to do without the computer for a week. Yeah, I know--I'm an addict. I'll get by on my PC and an antiquated iBook from work, but it's surprising how dependent I've become on this machine.

So I'm on the fence. I sat at the Genius Bar for twenty minutes, asking questions and getting advice from a very helpful guy (who spoke English). In the end, I decided to be indecisive, and wait it out a little more. But I am now edging, at maybe 55%, to bring it in early tomorrow to be serviced.

Unless anyone out there has any advice... ?

So, why "trapped"? Because when I left the store, a sudden torrential downpour had hit Shibuya. Fortunately, there were banks of computers connected to the Internet right there, so I checked the TBS weather site and saw that the rain could continue for an hour or two. Well, I was riding my scooter, and though I had my rain slick with me, my backpack would get soaked along with everything else in them. What to do?

Well, I asked an Apple store employee for a trash bag. (No problem finding help, they were all around and available to help despite the store being crowded.) Instead of a trash bag, they gave me one of the very nice, very large Apple bags. I asked for a pair of scissors, and was given a box cutter. I put the Apple bag over the backpack, cut two holes for the shoulder straps to poke through, and put the thing on--perfect. Another Apple store employee kindly tied the drawstrings to the bag at the bottom of my backpack, and I was ready to go.

One thing Apple knows, it's service.

Tokyo Tribunal

I noticed that one of the channels on my satellite connection was airing a 5-hour film called Tokyo Saiban ("Tokyo Tribunal"), so I recorded it. Turns out it is a Japanese film produced in 1983. And considering the first ten minutes of it that I've watched so far, when it was made goes a long way in explaining what I saw.

This is, ostensibly, a film about the Tokyo Tribunals, hence the name. Trials held after the end of WWII where Japanese military officers were held accountable for war crimes.

So what was in the first ten minutes? Extended footage of the atomic bombings of Japan, with grisly images of the victims, including a dead baby charred black, and piles of skulls (which I'm not even sure were actually associated with the bombings). Images of the bombings of the Japanese mainland and attacks by American forces of Japanese-held islands. Japanese civilians jumping off of cliffs, and American soldiers spraying Japanese in caves with flame-throwers. Kamikaze pilots, but not images of them hitting ships and killing people, rather the planes being shot down, one after another, by American ships, showing the broken, flaming wrecks spiral into the ocean.

Now, this film being about the war tribunals, one might imagine that relevant footage of evidence of Japanese war crimes might make an appearance. But of course not. Not a single image of what Japan did in China, nothing of the Nanjing Massacre, nor of the results of the Japanese "Three Alls" scorched earth policy. Not a single image of the Japanese concentration camps where western prisoners were starved and worked to death. Not one reference to the crimes that were, in fact, the subject matter of the film. The introduction did show images from Burma--of Japanese soldiers who somehow were starved and emaciated.

So the whole introduction was of what the film's producers clearly felt were American war crimes committed against Japanese. Ten minutes of images of Japanese suffering and dying. And then, switch to: Americans cheering, celebrating, dancing in the streets.

I don't have time to watch the whole thing today, and after the first ten minutes I'm not sure that I want to, but I'm keeping the recording and will watch it over what time I can make soon.

But the introduction certainly made a clear statement about the intent of the film, in an unmistakable way. Perhaps the filmmakers were nationalists, but it is just as likely not; in the Japanese mass media, certain subjects simply must be presented in certain ways. Another film from Japan, in 1998, titled Pride: The Fateful Moment, centered on the same topic--the war tribunals--in a different way, as a docu-drama focusing on Hideki Tojo. Tojo, of course, is presented as a kind, patriotic family man who is used as a scapegoat by scheming Americans.

The first ten minutes of Tokyo Saiban does very much make the point that, although Americans also whitewash and revise, that Japan does it more starkly and blatantly than just about anybody else. While Americans protest when exhibits of the Enola Gay are shown with photos and descriptions which suggest the bombings themselves may have been wrong, never have I seen anything on the American side so starkly biased as this from the get-go.

Update: I would say it was a coincidence that I found this new series from Yomiuri, but this is the anniversary period for end-of-WWII events, so I suppose there's no coincidence at all here. The new series asks who is responsible for WWII, which the newspaper has apparently unilaterally decided to call "The Showa War." Surprisingly, Yomiuri blames Japan itself:

Some conservatives claim that the war against the United States was a "war of self-defense" for Japan. They base their arguments on the United States' oil embargo and the Hull note of Nov. 26, 1941, which was considered a de facto ultimatum delivered to Japan by U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull shortly before the start of the war. However, the U.S. pressure on Japan to suspend its military advance in China came about, to a large extent, by Japan's "misjudgment." Japan in a sense drove itself over the precipice.

The series of 8 articles goes from the start of the Sino-Japanese war to just before the end of the war in the summer of 1945.

It might not be so surprising to see the Yomiuri, long dedicated to furthering nationalistic agendas, pinning the blame for the war on specific Japanese military and civilian leaders, since the owner of the Yomiuri Corp., Tsuneo Watanabe, six months ago announced a change of heart on such issues. With the help of his hamsters.

Power Outages

I heard the news on the radio this morning, that power outages had hit parts of central Tokyo. According to updates, about two-thirds of a million buildings were hit, and some people were stuck in elevators in Shinjuku. About 260 traffic lights went dark, and some train lines (notably the Hibiya and Ginza subway lines) were stopped for a while. This all happened around eight o'clock in the morning. However, since this is the O-bon holiday season, a lot of people were out of Tokyo, so traffic was light and disruptions were minimal.

A few points of significance to those unfamiliar with Japan: the O-bon holiday is one of three major annual holiday seasons in Japan (the others are Golden Week from the end of April though the first week of May, and New Year's, typically the first three days of January). Typically, you don't want to travel much during those times, because everyone else is. In Japan, people don't get so much time off, so when the three big holiday seasons hit, everybody makes for the door. The O-bon holidays are a time for Japanese to visit their hometowns, and pay respect to relatives and ancestors who've passed away. The peak time is August 13-15, but this holiday break is the least stringently assigned, and can come a little earlier or later for some people.

My other point: the reason why a simple power outage is significant is that it almost never happens in Japan. Back in the U.S., I remember power outages were a fairly common thing--we'd be hit by one every once in a while. In California a few years back, this was magnified by the whole power "shortage" and associated scandals, but even in good years, they'd happen with fair frequency. I never thought too much about them, but in the 90's, a Japanese classmate at SFSU commented on our having so many, and it caused me to realize that in the seven or eight years I had spent in Japan by that time, I had never been in a power blackout, nor had I heard of one. I've commented on this before, but it does seem an interesting question. I thought fewer trees and newer infrastructure were probably causes, and Roy suggested the idea of smaller power grids. I have heard of one grid affecting others and how usage in one part of the country could cause trouble in another part.

For today's outage, one thing it probably was not was overload. The weather is relatively cool, and a lot of people are simply out of town.

Update: Now we know why. A construction crane being transported on a boat going up the Old Edo River between Tokyo and Chiba apparently hit and took down some power lines there.

One of Those People Who Really Should Be Arrested

A 44-year-old man in Hiroshima made a complaint call to an Information operator several months ago. According to this guy, "the operator dealt with it very kindly, so I wanted to hear these women's voices." He then started making silent phone calls on his cell phone to "104," Japan's information number.

37,760 times.

One day, he made a total of 905 calls. Assuming 8 hours of sleep, that means he made silent phone calls every 64 seconds.

He's been arrested on charges of causing psychological distress to more than 100 telephone operators.

Chuicide

From Wikipedia:

The Chuo Line, one of Tokyo's major train lines, is so infamous for people committing suicide that many English editorials in Japan have taken to using the word Chuicide to refer to the means. Its relative popularity is partly due to its practical ease, and to avoid causing a nuisance to one's family, though families are often charged or sued by the railway companies to compensate for the trouble caused by the accident. A typical suicide may cause delays between one and a few hours on one or more lines and is certainly unpleasant for onlookers who may be present.

Another interesting trend related to train suicide is to wear a brightly colored cap (orange) to help shield your face. This is done out of concern for the train conductors, so that they may not be caused any trauma by seeing the face of the person about to be hit. It is also useful as a sign that the person is indeed intending to commit suicide, and that no one should risk their life in order to save them.

The costs to the surving families by the railway companies' "delay fee" is often in the 100 million yen (approx. 850 thousand U.S. Dollars) range. [Mainichi Shinbun, August 18, 2002]

Now, that last bit is cold. Your family member commits suicide, and the train company bills you close to a million dollars for their inconvenience as a punitive measure. It brings to mind the Chinese government's practice of billing the families of executed criminals for the cost of the bullet. I'm not sure if the billing works as a disincentive--probably not, considering that people keep on doing so in such large numbers--but even if it did work, I'd be squeamish about being so cruel to those who have just lost people they love.

This article in Wikipedia reports that of the 1,210 people who have committed train suicide in Japan since 1995, 156 of them, or about 13%, have done so on the Chuo Line. The article claims that the "high speed and frequency of the trains" is what draws people to it. But such things have their quirks. For example, more than a thousand people have committed suicide by jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge--but only one or two of all those jumpers chose the side of the bridge facing the city. It may be a matter of access, but if you've seen both sides, you'll know that the city side is indeed a far more desirable view than the ocean side--although it's an interesting question as to whether such a thing matters to someone about to leap to their doom.

Hirohito and Yasukuni

As it turns out, Hirohito strongly objected to the enshrinement of Class-A war criminals at Yasukuni shrine in the late 1970's--so much so that he stopped visiting the shrine. The information came from interviews between Hirohito and the former Imperial Household Agency Grand Steward Tomohiko Tomita. Ironic that Yasukuni and the people who most strongly support the war criminals being enshrined there also profess fealty to the Imperial throne. But as is usually the case with people of that stripe, there is little doubt that they will easily find a way to ignore, explain away, or otherwise reconcile this information while still retaining their views.

Update: I was right, but it looks like they're not even trying to explain how they reconcile the fact--they're simply ignoring it:

When asked if the reported note will affect his decision on whether to visit the shrine before he steps down in September, Koizumi replied: "No, it won't. (Whether to visit Yasukuni) is up to each person. It is a personal matter." ...

Asked how he felt about the fact that neither Emperor Hirohito, now referred to as Emperor Showa, or his son, Emperor Akihito, have visited Yasukuni since it enshrined the war criminals in 1978, Koizumi said he could not comment on their decisions.

Japan News

A Japanese judge has ruled that all movies made before `1953 are now in the public domain. A 2004 law extended copyrights for another 20 years, but the judge ruled that the law did not act retroactively, meaning that any movie that went into the public domain before that time will stay in the public domain.

You can fully expect this ruling to be challenged. Film studios have gone to extreme measures to ensure that they hold perpetual rights to content, using the legal fiction that a corporation is a virtually immortal person. In the United States, copyright creep has been going on for some time, the most recent having been a new 20-year extension to the pre-existing law that said copyrights last for 50 years after the death of the author (or 75 years for a corporate authorship); this extension was called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act by many, as it was seen to be a means of allowing Disney to hold on to exclusive rights of Mickey Mouse and other characters.

So, if you live in Japan, go ahead and copy all those golden oldies like Gone with the Wind, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and The Wizard of Oz, and sell them on the street corner--it's all legal now.

Taku Yamasaki of Japan's conservative LDP party has made public statements recently to the effect that it would be unconstitutional for Japan to use its military forces to attack North korean Military bases. Of course, he's the same crazy guy who has suggested that official visits by politicians to Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are enshrined, are also "strongly suspected" to be unconstitutional.

Japan has been considering possible pre-emptive attacks since North Korea seems to have both atomic weapons and the missiles needed to send them to Japan. Japan's constitution forbids any military action except for self-defense (hence Japan's military bearing the name "Self-Defense Forces").

The problem: "self-defense" is a slippery slope. Consider, for example, that Japanese right-wingers often call WWII, including Pearl Harbor, a "pre-emptive attack" intended wholly in the spirit of "self-defense." As Bush has aptly demonstrated, as long as you have a good propaganda machine, any war can be justified as "self-defense."

Use a gun, pay ¥50,000: a Japanese police officer in Nagasaki was in on the questioning of a man suspected in a minor crime (removing the door of a police box). Now, we've all heard about Japanese police officers using violent force to elicit confessions from suspects, causing a great many innocent people to be imprisoned while the guilty parties go free. This case seems to be a classic example of that.

The officer, named Norihiko Irie, got fed up when the suspect professed his innocence. So Irie unholstered his gun and pointed it at the man, threatening him with deadly force. Apparently, Irie also put the gun and five bullets on the desk in front of the man, and neighbors to the police box where the incident took place say that he was also walking around screaming and uttering nonsensical remarks, like shouting the word "Mongolian!"

Later it was discovered that Irie had argued with the man a few days earlier over the man's driving, and had called the suspect and perhaps another man to the police box to accuse him of removing the police box door as well. It also turned out that Irie had been accused earlier of inappropriate sexual conduct (fondling) by a woman who came to the police box to report lost property.

After the incident with the gun, Irie was brought up on charges of "suspicion of committing acts of violence as a public official" and for "violating the Swords and Firearms Control Law." He denied ever pointing the gun at anyone. Although Irie was convicted, the judge suspended his three-year sentence, punishing him with nothing more than a ¥50,000 fine, saying that "There is no fear of him committing the same crime again, and he made an apology."

Oh, well, he made an apology. Yeah, I know that counts for more in Japan than elsewhere, but we are talking about a public officer of the peace threatening someone with deadly force to elicit a confession. Somewhere, I think a line was crossed. Hell, the press reports don't even make it clear that he was even fired. He was transferred from the police box in January, shortly after the crime, but no more word than that. I would only hope that someone convicted of a crime like that would not be allowed to remain employed by the police, and absolutely never allowed near a gun again.

Local Openings

July seems to be the month for new stuff to open in my neighborhood. I'm a bit out of central Tokyo, but not so far; it's a nice spot. 25 km from Shinjuku on the west side of Tokyo, Inagi is just a half hour out by train, closer than Tachikawa or Hachioji, and as such is probably one of the closest-in open green hilly areas in the city. My apartment is a 20-minute walk, or a 5-minute bus ride (if you can catch it on time) from the station. There's not much around here--a big supermarket/home center just a block away, but that's about it. The closest video store is two stations down or a 7-minute drive (which always puzzled me--this is a big housing area, with maybe around 3-4000 units within 5 minute's walking distance of where a video store could be, and more units being built--you'd think it'd be a bidding war for the rights to open a video rental place). So whenever anything new comes up, it's worth noticing.

The first thing to open was the new central library for Inagi City, just a short hop away from my apartment. Their English-language material selection is not great, but not bad; not as good as my own college's library (naturally, since we're an American college), but there's still stuff there. A limited video and CD selection (they have DVDs, but I imagine most are checked out at any given time; what was left included, strangely, lots of Elvis movies), a few English-language magazines, The Japan Times, and maybe 100-200 English-language books.

Their computer search feature, accessible online, is nice, but it has a major flaw: an author search will not reveal English-language materials, though a title search will. Still, I was able to reserve The DaVinci Code; it'll be there for me maybe in a week or so.

Another new opening just this week was the main train station for the city. I haven't used it for such a long time, it was now unrecognizable to me. The station itself got an upgrade, with escalators both ways on both tracks, and a new shopping building was added on, including a supermarket, drug store, bookstore, coffee shop (Tully's, not Starbucks), 100-yen shop, a few restaurants, and a sports club on top.

Still no video rental store in sight. Ah well.

As I mentioned before, the new boulevard through the center of town also opened recently, and now I have found a way around the 5-traffic-light trap. Strangely, a one-lane side street running parallel not only is devoid of lights, but there are no stop signs at all in the direction I go. It takes me just past the traffic-light trap, so that works out quite nicely.

Of less consequence to me, a restaurant kitty-corner to the supermarket a block away from my house got torn down and a new senior center was built, with a swimming pool and other exercise and rehab facilities. Good for them. They also opened a new convenience store on one side of it, but I so rarely use those things now that it also doesn't matter to me.

But that's all the excitement out here in dullsville for the time being. But more will be built, especially as far as roads and public works. As someone pointed out to me recently, Japan's version of the military-industrial complex is the government-public works complex. They're always building some road or bridge or tunnel or new facility or some such, and it always takes them years and years and years to complete. For example, that new boulevard ain't finished yet. The road comes up to just past the city center, but there is a 100-meter stretch still unfinished; when it is, the road will go straight through to Hashimoto, some 15 km down the way. But it will probably take them 3 years to finish that one little bit. Already, I've seen them out there working for the past year on that stretch with no discernible progress. That's what construction in Japan is like.

Gaijin wa Dame, No. 1 Travel-Style

If you're a non-Japanese living in Japan and you fly home every once in a while, you may be getting screwed, according to this article. It seems that foreigners in Japan are getting charged more for airline tickets than Japanese are--perhaps significantly more. The same ticket that costs you ¥70,000 ($608) might be sold to a Japanese customer for just ¥57,000 ($495), a difference of 20%. This is done by selling the tickets via different agencies run by the same company.

In this case, the culprit is No. 1 Travel (the ones with incredibly stupid and annoying animated ads on CNN-J) and its sister agency, HIS Travel. No. 1 sells to foreign customers; HIS sells to Japanese.

A couple consisting of a Japanese woman and an Canadian man found this out when the woman called HIS and asked for a round-trip ticket to Los Angeles. She did not say who they were for (they were for her Canadian boyfriend), and the agency assumed it was for her. They gave her the ¥57,000 price. Later, when the agency found out who the ticket was for, they upped the price to ¥70,000.

So how could the agency justify this, when it is against the law in Japan to discriminate in pricing according to nationality or race? The HIS representative explained it like this:

According to Kinokuni, foreigners buy return tickets because they are cheaper than one-way tickets. They then return to their countries and don't use the return portion.

"In this case the airline may charge us the full fare which means low profits or a loss.

"So in order to avoid the risk we restricted the tickets to Japanese only customers, who will definitely return to Japan."

This explanation is, of course, utter BS. First of all, something is seriously fishy if if the airline sells a round-trip ticket for less than a one-way. Even if they can't fill the return seat, there is no logical reason to charge more than the round trip ticket. Second, if someone buys a round-trip ticket, they cannot be forced to use both ways, and charging the agency for the passenger's failure to do so is ludicrous; if it is not illegal, it should be made so.

Third, there is no reason why Japanese would not do the exact same thing; if a Japanese goes to live in the U.S. for longer than an open return ticket would allow for, there is nothing stopping them from pulling the same trick, and they likely do just that. Fourth, you cannot charge foreigners more based on a likelihood; not only are you discriminating by nationality and race, you're also charging the majority of travelers for the transgressions of a minority.

Moreover, the price differential makes it fairly clear that they are charging every foreign passenger the full difference in price, when clearly most passengers (probably the vast majority) don't pull out of the return. In short, the reason is bogus or it is being used to commit fraud.

Here's what I'm going to do when I buy my next ticket: I will get a quote from No. 1--which I usually use--and ask a Japanese friend to get the identical flight pricing from HIS. If they differ, I am going to raise holy hell with them. Unfortunately, I will not have the option of telling them that I'm going elsewhere--I mean, I could, but in the past, all agencies that sell to foreigners sell at the same price. It's not like this one agency does it and no one else does.

That does not mean that you can't threaten them and give them hell for it.

I advise everyone else to do the same, unless you enjoy being overcharged by 20%.

Traffic Cops Have a New Toy

I was having dinner at a yakitori place with my brother a few days ago, and in the far corner, saw that the TV was on. They were showing a story about something new that the Tokyo traffic cops have: onboard radar.

In Tokyo (and probably it's the same elsewhere in Japan), traffic cops are very specific, highly annoying, and completely ineffectual at what they are supposed to be doing. Ostensibly, they are supposed to be monitoring traffic for safety. In reality, it's all a show.

First off, traffic cops are almost exclusively on motorcycles. I have rarely seen a police car pull over a vehicle, and it may not even have been for a traffic violation. Instead, the motorcycle cops, on large white bikes ("shirobai") and wearing powder blue uniforms, take care of traffic tickets.

Second, they are picky about when they serve. They are never--repeat, never--out at night or in precipitation.

Third, they choose their prey with severe prejudice. Motorcycles and scooters are at extreme risk, far beyond the proportions of illegal driving habits. Cars are next in line. If you drive a taxi or a truck, you're golden--they are rarely, if ever, ticketed, despite commonly illegal and dangerous driving habits.

And fourth, they don't ticket you for being unsafe anyway. They ticket you, apparently, simply because they can, and they have a seasonal quota to fill. Let me explain more on this last point. Police don't stop people for being dangerous, just for breaking petty rules. Like making a right turn at a three-lane intersection on a 50cc scooter. If it's 51cc scooter, or a 2-lane intersection, you're fine. Making the illegal version of the turn is in no way, shape, or form dangerous. And the practice of not patrolling at night or in the rain--times when driving is at its most dangerous and the most lives would be saved by enforcing the rules--flies in the face of the "safety" mission. The traffic cops must have a great union.

Furthermore, police here don't monitor traffic at danger points. I know a very dangerous street full of blind corners, where there are no sidewalks, pedestrians crossing all over the place, and cars speeding. To top it off, a big police station is at the end of the street. And the cops never monitor traffic there.

Where do they monitor it? Where it's easy to catch people. At the biggest intersections--not because accidents happen there, but because it is the easiest place to break a law, and since you're going slowly, they can stop you more easily. (Yes, a few will speed past, I've seen it--and the cops didn't do anything.) At overpasses and underpasses--again, not for safety, these are usually safe as houses--but because they can hide very easily, and pull you over just as easily.

And speeding, until now, was restricted to long, straight, empty, countryside roads with no intersections, crosswalks, or cross traffic of any kind, where the speed limit is ridiculously low (usually half the actual safe speed), and where you can't turn off on side roads to evade capture. Shooting fish in a barrel. One guy clocks you, and then down the road, another guy flags you down and sits you at a desk where one of a line of policemen give you your ticket in assembly-line form (usually for driving 40 mph in a 25 mph zone that would be 50 mph if it were in the U.S.).

But now, it appears, the motorcycle cops have onboard radar, so they can officially clock your speed either while parked or while driving. A machine on their dash calculates the speed and spits out a sticker.

So are the streets of Tokyo safer? No, of course not. The traffic cops still stick to the areas of easy pickings. But there will be one small change: slightly more unpredictability. You see, one more point about traffic cops being for show and not for real is predictability. They always patrol the same intersections; the speed traps are always in the same places; they always are out in the daytime in good weather. If you know where they are and when they are there, you can violate traffic laws with impunity, slowing down only when you get to a hot spot. And you can tell this by the way some people drive in Japan.

So the new onboard radar thing will have an effect... but only where they use it, which I will bet you is only on the stretches of the main roads near big intersections, as always. That's where they were doing their thing on the TV show I glimpsed at the yakitori place.

This is one of the reasons why the police don't get much respect in Japan. The low crime rate is not due to their effectiveness, that's for certain.

This is not helped by the licensing system. When I got my motorcycle license renewed, we all had to take a driving test. The test was extremely non-real-world in nature, and penalized you for very piddling stuff--like resting on one foot instead of the other when you stop (your foot near the gear shift has to not be bearing your weight; I suppose shifting weight while stopped is illegal). I saw guys taking the test who seemed fine to me, and they were failed. Beats me as to why--piddling stuff, it must have been. When I took my test, I did fine--but they docked me points anyway, and declared I would have to go to driving school for x number of hours. When I went, the lessons had zero relationship to the things they faulted me for on the test. They made me drive a simulator which felt completely different from a real bike, and which I drove safely despite them throwing unreal stuff at me, until apparently I hit the end of the run and they had some virtual driver blindside me.

So why was I sent to school? Because pretty much everyone is; the guys who did perfectly well but were flunked had to go back to driving school for a lot more hours than I did. They had to pay very high fees to do so. And that's where the flavor of corruption comes in: the schools and the driving center have connections. I was directed to go to a specific school. Just like the motorcycle cops get a cut of the traffic tickets they hand out during "safety drives," money infects the system.

And the punitive stuff if you get tickets is useless as far as safety goes. If you get tickets, then when your license renewal comes up, you have to attend traffic school for most of the day. The school is a video-and-lecture, and doesn't address the violations the captive audience is there for. If you get enough tickets to rake up 6 points off of your license within a certain time period, then you get suspended for 30 days unless you attend an all-day lecture, and must take a test as well. The questions again are pretty much unrelated to your violation.

In short, it's all just for show, and has little or nothing to do with safety. As for the tickets and fines, unless you are a safe driver to the point of neurosis, you are bound to get them. I myself see them as a driving tax; you just get them and there's not much you can do about it.

NHK at the Door

I got a visit from the NHK guy a few weeks back. For those of you who don't know, NHK is the public television network in Japan; kind of like PBS in the U.S., but less independent of government. It is funded by quasi-mandatory individual fees (like British television fees), which are collected by besuited men who come to your door every so often. This time I was able to fend the fee collector off by pointing to my Sky Perfect satellite dish, and pointing out that I do not watch any terrestrial broadcast television (though I will admit to peeking when there is an earthquake, but don't tell the NHK guy--and I wouldn't mind losing that ability, they can shut off my NHK if they want). He accepted this and went away, unlike other visits I've had, where the NHK guy will shove an English-language slip of paper at you and insist that it's the law that you pay.

The thing is, the rules are less than clear on this. The law does not say it's mandatory to pay, and there is no penalty for not paying. However, it also says you have to make a contract "to receive NHK broadcasts." But NHK broadcasts--terrestrial ones, at least--are not arranged by contract, they are there whether you want them or not. But what it comes down to is, they can't force you to pay. And most foreigners in Japan have figured this out, which is why many NHK fee collectors are either resigned about us, or try to get in our faces and pressure us. They used to have far fewer problems with getting Japanese to pay, but with corruption scandals over at NHK, more than a million Japanese who used to pay refuse to do so now. And that got the government into a tizzy about what to do.

However, the laws may be changing soon. A government advisory council is going to release a report Tuesday with recommendations to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications about how they should suggest to the national Diet that the NHK fee laws be changed. It is expected that the report will propose that NHK fees be made mandatory and that failing to do so carries a punishment by law. They also are expected to suggest that NHK fees be "drastically" reduced. Currently, terrestrial broadcast fees are ¥2,790 ($25) every two months, and satellite NHK is ¥4,680 ($42) every two months (though that includes the terrestrial fee; you don't have to pay both). How much that amount would be reduced is unknown.

After the report is submitted, the ministry could use it to propose new legislation as early as 2007. If it passes, it is not clear if it would take effect immediately or if it would be scheduled for a future date for implementation.

All this takes me back to my days in Toyama in the mid-80's. I lived in an apartment building back then where the NHK guy made frequent visits. I was able to fend him off with my magical gaijin powers: I pretended that I understood no Japanese, and that did the trick. Then one day, the NHK guy came when my girlfriend was at my place. I had not briefed her on my technique with the NHK guy, so when she heard me tell the guy at the door that I could not speak Japanese, she innocently and helpfully walked up and offered to translate. Strangely, I forget how I handled that particular situation, though I am quite sure that I never paid the fee.

You Mean They're Not Really Japanese?

Back in the late 80's, when the economy in Japan was still booming and Japan was still poised to take over the world, there was a lot more building going on and a lot more workers were needed. But Japan didn't want to let in just any old foreigners. They wanted a better class of foreigners. So they got an idea: Japan sent a lot of its people over to South America about a century before, and there are still a lot of them down there that are still pure Japanese, or close enough. Let's bring in the Japanese foreigners!

Even that surprised me. I remember when I first traveled in Japan. It was in a group led by my Japanese language teacher, Mrs. Hiramatsu. She was born and raised in Japan, even worked as a newscaster in the Kansai region. She moved to America with her husband (also Japanese), and they both became U.S. citizens. Speaking to her in Japanese, there was no mistaking her native language proficiency. And her name is very easy to "spell" in Japanese, the kanji well-known and easily drawn. And yet, whenever I saw her name in print prepared by people we visited in Japan, it was spelled out in katakana--an alphabetic script reserved for foreign words and for spelling out other sounds which were not Japanese words. Simply because she was no longer a Japanese citizen. That bit of exclusivity struck me back then.

Well, it seems like Japan has remembered that exclusivity, as it is now looking at changing the immigration laws that allowed these foreign Japanese into the country since 1989. After a decade and a half of having South American Japanese in Japan, it's not working out. For one thing, Japan discovered that these ex-Japanese can't speak Japanese. Hell, they could have asked me--or anyone familiar with sansei on down--and we could have told them that the language doesn't survive overseas past the third generation. So now Japan has all these South Americans living in Japan. What's worse, they look Japanese. Hard to deal with that one!

The problem for me is, I don't know if I'm going to be caught up in this. The changes would affect "long-term visa renewals," which, for all I know, might include anyone looking for permanent residence--something I'm thinking of, once I qualify in three years. Apparently, applicants would have to pass a Japanese language proficiency test. I can get by just fine in everyday conversation, but I'm pretty sure that I'd do badly on a formal test. Despite having lived in Japan for some years, I teach in English--which would make such a Japanese language provision rather ironic in my case.

I might be worrying for nothing; the measure seems aimed to effectively reverse Japan's allowing South American Japanese permission to live in Japan long-term as unskilled laborers. But things are getting more and more anti-foreigners around here lately. Not as bad as the 80's, but it's as if the government is working really hard on getting back to that mindset. Every year or so, good ol' Ultranationalist Tokyo Guv Shintaro Ishihara drags out the artificially inflated gaijin crime stats and beats his chest about the dangerous foreigners. And the federal government is using terrorism as a reason to re-institute the old fingerprinting laws for foreigners, which was abolished just six years ago, but is now back.

Fortunately, it's still just the government, I haven't noticed this filtering down to the personal level, or even to the local police. Let's hope it stays that way.

Quake

There was a 5.6 quake (Richter scale) off the coast of Izu a few minutes ago, at 6:24pm. It was pretty strong here where I am (south central Tokyo). Hi-net is calling it a 4.9, but I believe the 5.6 reports from Tenki.jp--that felt pretty darn strong. Rolling more than jolting, here. Apparently it originated very close to Oshima Island. No danger of tsunami, so they say. It was about 80km south of where I am, but it was strong enough to be instantly noticeable, making the curtains sway and so on. Not nearly enough to throw stuff off of shelves, but still it was among the top ten, and maybe the top five earthquakes I've felt in the past decade. You might think that's not much of a distinction, but there are lots of quakes here. I've chronicled 21 quakes on this blog, not including aftershocks, the first one being almost exactly 3 years ago. That's about seven per year, and those are just the ones I've felt and could blog on quickly. For example, one hit about a week ago soon after I fell asleep one night, and so I didn't note that one in this journal. I'm supposing that there may be as many as a dozen quakes a year that you can really feel, should you be awake (or get shaken awake) when they hit.

Japanese Jury Duty

Although this was decided back in May 2004, I hadn't heard of it until now. Starting in 2009, Japan will change criminal court proceedings to a jury system--or, more accurately, a joint-judge-and-jury system.

I remember having trouble explaining juries to my students, as Japan has not practiced that system much since WWII. In Japan, court cases are usually decided by a panel of three judges--but public trust in that system is marred by police and prosecutorial misconduct, shown up over the past few decades by exoneration of many who were convicted under false confessions.

Back in the 80's, when Japan was the meteoric star of the world and America was trying to emulate it, a lot of attention was paid to the criminal justice system. Politicians from the U.S. would visit Japan to study how the police and courts worked. Japan, after all, had a superb record of catching criminals and successfully prosecuting them. Japan's arrest rate used to be as high as 70% (higher for serious crimes), and the conviction rate has been as high as a ridiculous 99.97%.

Part of the arrest rate comes from the fact that the police have been known to select which cases to even report--many foreign residents in Japan tell stories of police refusing to allow victims to file official complaints for crimes ranging from robbery to rape, instead told by police that it's unlikely the perpetrator could be found, so don't bother. Another aspect of the high arrest rate comes from rather strong police powers--one can be held by the police for up to 23 days without charges being filed, bail, or even an attorney, and false confessions are said to be numerous.

The high conviction rate stems, so it is said, from both prosecutors being highly selective about which cases to prosecute, and from the fact that judges tend to treat indictments by prosecutors with great respect, treating them almost as the equivalent of an assuredness of guilt. One case of a British national convicted on drug charges pointed out that the judge who presided over the case had not given a single "not guilty" ruling in at least ten years.

Apparently, the new jury system is a reaction to these problems, as well as a reaction to the fact that Japan's crime rate has risen dramatically since the early 90's, when the economic bubble burst.

The new system, explained in almost child-accessible terms here (pdf file) by the Ministry of Justice, will not exactly do away with the current 3-judge panel; instead, six layman jurors will be added to the mix, sitting alongside the professional judges. A majority will decide the case, presumably a 5-4 majority of judges and jurors. Defendants will not have a choice between the new and old systems--only the new system will be available, for most crimes that is.

I became aware of this news by reading in Crisscross News (a English-language Japan news-and-discussion site, which I will not link to as these links die very quickly) story that reported the results of a survey on jury duty. Apparently, about 60% of Japanese people are not at all pleased with the idea that they might be pressed into service, with 33% being strongly against the idea. This is actually an improvement--a year ago, 70% said they didn't want to become jurors. Most said that it would be too difficult to judge, or that they didn't want to have that responsibility. The new system will allow for people to duck jury duty, though it's not clear what will be accepted as a reason for doing so. Jurors will also be paid, but it is not decided how much. I can't find anything any sequestering or other details either.

Another problem Japan faces is the low number of lawyers; passing the bar in Japan is very difficult, with only 3% of applicants successfully doing so. This is in sharp contrast with the U.S., where there are far too many lawyers. Sadly, language difficulties rule out any hope of an export deal...

Yellow Thunder

I looked out the window not too long ago, and the sky was an alarming shade of yellow, as clouds covered the area. We've been having a rather intense thunderstorm, many lightning strikes, in the past half hour or so. I love thunderstorms. Caught glimpses of a lot of local lightning, too. Great stuff. But I hope it stops before I have to go for my eye exam in two hours....

Beginnings

So another year comes, another group of students. Today was the opening ceremony for my college and our affiliate school, and as usual, it was quit the shindig. In Japan, people are big on ceremonies like this. For opening ceremony, all the new students and most of their families come. It's held at a big hotel (the ANA Hotel in Roppongi, though we also use the Century Hyatt for graduations), and there are speeches (an hour and a half this time, including the speech by the Cultural Attaché from the U.S. embassy), followed by a buffet lunch and entertainment, including a string quartet, a guitar band, a marching band, and many musical and dance performances by students (the guy with the bagpipes didn't show up this year).

So it was a lot of fun--hopefully setting a good, upbeat tone with our new students. And so starts another year. The beginning of my ninth, as it stands. Here's to many more.

Parking Madness

There's a joke I came up with years ago: you can't park illegally in Japan because all the illegal spaces are taken.

Parking in Japan is a nightmare, which is why I'm glad I don't drive a car. Traffic jams and narrow streets are bad enough, but what do you do when you get there? Pay a lot of money to park in a parking lot somewhere, is the usual answer (paid parking starts at $2-3 per hour). But parking is not always available--legal parking, anyway. So you always see cars parked illegally. I always go down a boulevard in Japan, a two-lane street that serves as a major thoroughfare for western Tokyo. All too often cars and trucks park in the left-hand lane, blocking it. Forget double-parking; it's hard to imagine a place in Japan where that would not completely block all traffic.

Every year, 1.6 million traffic tickets are handed out. And that's already giving people a fighting chance--parking police (identifiable by their tiny police cars) mark tires with chalk, and then come back later (takes me back to the days when I worked in Palo Alto--the trick was to roll your car just enough in its space so the chalk marks went under the tires and disappeared). That gives people who've parked illegally a chance to get out before the ticket comes. Not a problem if you just need to park for ten or fifteen minutes--which is what the takkyubin (parcel delivery) trucks do all the time.

Parking at home can be a chore as well. I have heard that before you can even buy a car, you have to show that you've secured a parking place where you live. The parking lot outside my building has a dual-level lift system, where you park your car on a platform, which then rises so another car can park underneath. Vertical parking garages are not all that uncommon.

The problem is, there's no solution to the problem short of radically reducing the number of cars in Japan. It would be impossible to eke out any more space for parking. So Japan's new solution (tip of the hat to Cosmic Buddha) for alleviating illegal parking is not really a solution, but rather a compounding of the problem.

Here's the plan: starting in June, the Japanese police will hand over parking violation policing to private-sector companies. These companies will not chalk your vehicle, but instead will ticket you as soon as they see the violation. They take a digital photo of your vehicle, slap a sticker on it to inform you that you've been had, and notify the police, who bill you.

I see several problems with this. First, deliveries have to be made, and it appears that no exceptions will be made. There are a ton of shops in Japan that have no parking lots or driveways; to get their goods delivered, trucks will have to park far from the shops. Takkyubin companies will get into big trouble, as they rarely will have spot to park; they may have to increase their staff to include both drivers and delivery people, else make other arrangements that might cost more and muck things up.

Second, the problem is not that people have legal places to park but decide not to; the problem is that all too often, as my oft-told joke suggests, there is simply no place to legally park. Ergo this "solution" will solve nothing--it will simply increase the number of tickets issued. Can you say "government revenue enhancement"?

But worst is the specter of commercial ticketing, where for-profit corporations are paid a bonus for every ticket they issue. It will no longer be a meter maid who gets paid x yen per hour no matter how many tickets are issued. It will be a company that will have a vested interest in ticketing people as much as humanly possible. Japanese police say they expect parking tickets to double--I say that's a grossly conservative estimate. Unless there are specific stipulations limiting the number of tickets that can be handed out, there will be nothing stopping these companies from trying to maximize profits by issuing tickets galore--which in Tokyo and other big cities in Japan, will be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Add to this the fact that in Japan, parking violations are expensive ($100 to $150), and take two points from your license--15 points, or 8 parking tickets, and your license gets suspended.

Expect a lot of angry drivers later this year, and probably more than a few altercations between motorists and ticket issuers.

Ban on Secondhand Sales Blunted

Recently I reported that Japan was going to outlaw sales of secondhand electronics starting April 1st. Due to a great deal of protest, the government has stepped back from the ban, in that they introduced a gaping loophole for shops to drive through. They will allow "rentals" of the goods instead of sales. Presumably, a ¥1000 sale item will instead be rented, with a non-refundable deposit of ¥1000, followed by monthly rental payments of ¥10 or something like that, with the proviso that if one fails to pay the rental fee, the deposit is forfeit and you keep the product. I presume.

Windy City

A headline at CrissCross news:

Strong winds buffet Pacific areas of Japan

TOKYO — Strong winds hit extensive areas Sunday along the Pacific coast of Japan, with Tokyo experiencing the strongest wind on record for March, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

A maximum wind velocity of 120 kilometers per hour was logged in central Tokyo at 5:48 p.m., topping the record for March marked only two days earlier, at 115 kph, it said.

No kidding. I tried to do some birdwatching along the Tama River Sunday, darn near got blown off my feet several times. By the time I gave up, the left side of my face was numb.

Crazy Weather

It was like this in February last year, when temps in the 60's one day turned to snow the next. And so we had the same thing this week; temps in the high 60's on Sunday, and then on Monday, it starts to snow. Not a big snowstorm like last year, only a flurry--but still enough to turn your head. Two straight years with this phenomenon at about the same time, maybe it's a trend...

Cosmic Buddha noted the same variances, even more wild than what I observed here.

Want to Buy a Used Laserdisc Player? Better Act Fast

Because after April 1st--no foolin' this time--the sale of second-hand electronic goods made before 2001 will become illegal. That's right, against the law. If you have a shop and sell a laserdisc player, you'll be subject to a prison sentence and stiff fines. The ban is not total--it does not include personal computers, and only applies to businesses that sell used electronics--but that's quite a ban, if you ask me.

The ban applies to 450 types of items, including "TVs, audiovisual equipment, video-game machines, refrigerators and electric musical instruments." Ostensibly, the law is supposed to be for safety purposes, but that's a crock. The standards for checking the safety of products was changed in 2001; before then, the government required strict testing for safety, but changed it so that manufacturers could test items on a voluntary system. Which means that the new testing won't be as rigorous as the old one. But the new law is based upon the assumption that the old equipment should not be sold because somehow it won't be as safe as the new stuff. Makes sense, right?

Of course it doesn't. It makes no sense at all. Until you factor in the way the Japanese government works with its industries. The automobile industry is the best example. In Japan, if you own a car, you have to take it in for expensive "safety" checks every few years, called "shaken" (pronounced "shaw-ken"). When the car is new, you get three years free; then a safety check every two years. It used to become mandatory each year after the car became ten years old, but that was changed and now the two-year check continues indefinitely. But that doesn't change much--it's still hideously expensive. Shaken can cost up to $1,750, not including a weight tax (up to $500) and mandatory insurance (up to $250), which is skimpy and usually must be enhanced with additional insurance (also up to $500). So you might wind up paying an additional $3000 every two years--which is why a lot of people sell their cars before a shaken check comes along--which is the whole idea. Shaken is not really for safety, it's a gift for the automobile industry, intended to boost their sales. The discarded used cars, often in perfect running condition, are then scrapped or sold overseas, another big industry, as they aren't worth much--if anything at all--in Japan, due to shaken.

Knowing that, you can now understand the whole new "safety" law about reselling used electronics in Japan. It's more a gift to the Japanese electronics industry than anything else. So head off to Akihabara in March, and maybe you can find some good fire sales for pre-2001 electronics! Courtesy of the Japanese government.

Very Bad Sportsmanship

I know it's bad sportsmanship, but kind deserves kind: I hope the Japanese baseball team does not win the upcoming World Baseball Classic. That's not out of any antipathy for Japan, nor for the players, but strictly out of contempt for the team's manager: Sadaharu Oh. I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating.

When I first heard of Oh, I had respect for his record, if not for the claims that his higher number of home runs than Hank Aaron actually meant he was a better slugger; Japan's ballparks are smaller than American counterparts, and if Aaron had been batting in them, he'd most likely have gotten far more home runs than Oh did. But since there is no way to strictly determine that, it's enough to simply say that Oh holds the record for Japan, Aaron holds the record for America, and neither "wins" over the other.

But the respect I had for the man died when Oh showed unforgivably poor sportsmanship, not to mention racism (ironic for Oh, a half-Chinese man who initially faced racism himself in Japan) when he denied foreign ballplayers the chance to break his batting record--because they were not Japanese. This happened not once, not twice, but three times. First in 1985, when Oh managed the Yomiuri Giants and faced Randy Bass, who challenged Oh's record of 55 home runs in one season. Next was in 2001, when Oh managed the Daiei Hawks, and faced Tuffy Rhodes, who had tied Oh's record. Most recently, he denied the chance to Alex Cabrera, who had also tied Oh at 55 in 2002. In all three cases, the foreign players challenging Oh's record faced the teams managed by Oh in the final games of the seasons. In all three cases, orders were given to the pitchers for Oh's teams that these players were not to be given the chance to break the "King's" record. While some other teams gave the batters chances, Oh's teams have consistently blocked challengers on racial grounds. Oh tried to blame this on the coaches, saying he was "out of the loop," but the fact that he never disciplined a coach belies this weak excuse. It was also commonly understood that if the players had been Japanese, they would have been given good pitches and not walked:

"The pitchers are always under the direction of the manager. So it is not up to them," explains 25-year old Tigers fan Yasuhisa Tadera, seated in the left field stands, of the practice of intentionally not throwing strikes.

Sitting behind Tadera is Eiji Matsumoto. "The Japanese just don't want the record broken by a foreigner," he says.

So then if a Japanese player approached the record, would he see strikes?

"If [Hideki] Matsui of the Giants, for example, were close, they'd give him a chance," admits Matsumoto, a 52-year old Giants fan, "The Japanese don't play fair."

Any person who acts with such a depraved sense of foul sportsmanship not just once but three times does not deserve any titles or respect. This is, after all, baseball: what happened to "three strikes and you're out"? For Oh to lead this present team to a victory would be a crowning achievement for a man who has disgraced a sport which still idolizes him--for in Japan, unfortunately, such acts as Oh has taken part in are quietly dismissed. In America or almost any other country, the manager would have been ostracized and banned from the sport for such offenses. Japanese baseball is improving--when Oh shut out Rhodes in 2001, Japanese baseball commissioner Hiromori Kawashima criticized Oh, saying his decision was "completely divorced from the essence of baseball, which values the supremacy of fair play." But Oh has not been penalized in any way, nor has he taken much of a hit in his popularity in Japan. After all, he was chosen to manage the Japan team this year in the World Baseball Classic. What does that tell you?

Playing with What?

I've written here before about the Yomiuri Newspaper's long history of trying to popularize a rewriting of the Japanese Constitution to allow Japan to reclaim war powers. So this news story about the Yomiuri news baron Tsuneo Watanabe caught me a bit off guard:

Mr. Watanabe, now nearly 80 years old, has stepped into the light. He has recently granted long, soul-baring interviews in which he has questioned the rising nationalism he has cultivated so assiduously in the pages of his newspaper, the conservative Yomiuri — the world's largest, with a circulation of 14 million. Now, he talks about the need to acknowledge Japan's violent wartime history and reflects on his wife's illness and his own, as well as the joys of playing with his new hamsters.

Now, the idea that this guy would question Japan's rising nationalism was quite a shocker. But the revelation about hamsters is... well, stunning, I suppose. Almost jarring in juxtaposition to the serious issues at hand. You've got to admit, when you reach that last word, you kind of look at it again in a mental double-take, and wonder if you read it right. Could the turn against nationalism and the hamsters be somehow related? Did the hamsters speak to him and convince him to change his mind? Or is he just becoming kind of soft and fuzzy in his old age?

It's kind o