Archive for the 'debito.org website updates' Category

I got a call today from a self-described “religious checker of Debito.org”, who was getting worried about my welfare after so few blog updates recently. Well, as the clock runs down on August 2010, let me just say I just got back minutes ago from travels with a friend in the Hokkaido Outback. Points of interest: Biei, Monbetsu, Saromako, Abashiri, Yanbetsu, Utoro, Shiritoko Goko and Kamuiwakka, Notsuke Hantou, Nemuro, Nosappu Misaki, Kiritappu, Akkeshi, and back. Drove the 550 kms circuitously between Nemuro back to Sapporo today through a gorgeous day, a great way to round off the journey (if not a bit tiring, all at once) that totaled 1700 kms. Back to work, got a JT column due next week and some other writing projects to get on with before trips to Tokyo and Canada in September and October. Sorry to do less updates last month, we’ll try to do better in September. Thanks for reading and caring, Debito.org Readers.

Just to let you know, as it’s finally summer in Hokkaido and school grading is all done, I intend to spend less time at the keyboard and more outside (as well as finish up a couple of overdue projects that blogging tends to take attention from). I won’t say that there will be absolutely no updates over the next six weeks or so (after all, I have Japan Times columns to republish here), but I’m going to try not to blog daily. Everyone deserves a break (and Debito.org has published since 2006 more than once a day on average), so I’m going to take one.

Enjoy your summer, everyone. We’ve earned it up here in Hokkaido, given how cold or clammy our climate can be. Gonna get outside until I get sick of sunshine and want winter back. Probably not going to happen, but worth a try.

Been on the road the past few days, giving speeches at Daito Bunka Daigaku in Tokyo on Thursday, and on Saturday at a place quite “in the middle of nowhere” called Kani City in Gifu Prefecture, close to an hour north from Nagoya, in a quite spread-out and leafy area of the country.

I’ll have more details on the speech soon (as soon as I can get to a scanner; I have copious documents) but this is a very, very progressive place regarding the treatment of its high NJ-resident population (it even signed the Hamamatsu Sengen nearly a decade ago), and I was invited to speak on what Japan needs to do as a country to make things better. Good audiences, great fun, more on it later.

Just to let you know, I’m on the road from early tomorrow morning, with only sporadic email/internet access. I’ll be tooling around Tokyo after Morioka this weekend, so if you want to come see me speak somewhere, here are some venues:

Just to let everyone know, I’m going over to Canada (Calgary and Edmonton) from tomorrow for a spell for most of February. I’ll still be online probably every day, of course, but the blog may be updated and comments approved less frequently. FYI. Thanks everyone for reading Debito.org.

Last week I put out a call for anyone to submit a logo for Debito.org’s upcoming iTunes podcast RSS Feed. Thanks for all the submissions, everyone, especially on such short notice. Here are the best ones:

Although Debito.org has been purely a solo effort since 1997 (I’ve archived and blogged all the many thousands of articles and posts (even those guest-written by outside contributors), read and approved each of the 10,000-plus comments here, and kept all the records alive on Google for free access for all), I’ve been told that just putting my photo up on iTunes would probably look less appealing (no wonder) than a really smart-looking logo.

This is where you come in. Those who have a yen for graphic design, would you please consider making a Blog/RSS image, meaning a square logo that captures, in your opinion, the essence of Debito.org?

The size that is mandatory for iTunes is 300 x 300 pixels (with a second version I have to shrink down to 144 x 144 pixels, which I can do on my iPhoto easily). So it’s pretty small, not much detail. It can include words or not, graphics or not, as you please. Please send as a reproduceable graphics file (not pdf, and jpg is best)

But I’d like to open this up to anyone who’d like to submit (debito@debito.org, email subject line “DEBITO.ORG logo submission”). Due date Tuesday November 17, 10PM JST. Please also include the name you’d like to be called as a submitter. I’ll have the best submissions up here on Debito.org later on. Thanks.

Just let you know: I joined Twitter today (twitter.com). If you want quick updates in text on your phone and somesuch (how it works, article here, courtesy Rick, who introduced me to the service), join or sign up. It’ll probably be just quick links in real time to what’s been blogged, or announcements of important rallies and such, but we’ll see. Only been a member for a couple of hours now and already have 39 “followers” (odd term, but that’s how it’s rendered). FYI.

Debito.org went down in the middle of the night close to two days ago. Sysadmin tells me it was a technical problem with the ISP. It also seems to have nuked most emails I’ve gotten in the interim, so apologies to anyone who sent and bounced. Sorry for the delay. One more screening of SOUR STRAWBERRIES, in Kumamoto on Tuesday. Otherwise, I’m thinking about another tour in late August/early September. If you’d like the movie with commentary and an event, please contact me at debito@debito.org. If you just want a copy of the movie, click on the last gray avatar above. Bests, Debito in Okayama

Writing you from Tokyo, just a quick post. I’m on the road from now until April 1, stopping in Tokyo, Tsukuba, Nagoya, Shiga Hikone, Osaka, Okayama, and Kumamoto. Showing an hourlong documentary on Japan’s hidden NJ labor force, SOUR STRAWBERRIES, in case you haven’t heard, at venues there. Come and see it if you like. Screening schedule here.

So in the interim I’m not sure when I’ll be online (every morning provided I have internet access, and probably most evenings after the movie and beers with friends), but I’ll try to approve posts as quickly as possible. I also can’t guarantee a daily update with a new post and commentary, but I’ll try.

If people have essays they want put up (Mark in Yayoi sent me a doozy today), please pass them by me. And you’ll get another Japan Times article (not a 700-word JUST BE CAUSE column, but a 1500 word ZEIT GIST article) next Tuesday March 24 if you’re feeling lonely.

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

It started during a search on Amazon.com this evening, when I found an amazing avenue for researching insides of books for excerpts.

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

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

Morning Blog. With the holidays coming up (I bet many people are taking Monday off too and getting ready to travel), I’m sure you have better things to do than read socially-conscious stuff on a blog. Eat, drink, and be merry, and I’ll do the same (in more moderation; I’m already fat). I’ll try not to do daily updates, and will put up more amusing, off-topic, stuff between Xmas and New Years. Enjoy yourselves and we’ll get back to business in January. Happy holidays, everyone! Arudou Debito (stuck in Sapporo; Hokkaido economics don’t help one get out for Xmas)

The “Rogues’ Gallery”, an archive of “Japanese Only” exclusionary establishments spreading nationwide across Japan, has now been updated for the season.

Added have been Tokyo Akihabara (shop), Minami-Asabu (ballet school), Kabukichou (nightlife), Tsukiji (seafood restaurant), and Ishikawa (a newspaper subscription outlet for the Hokkoku Shinbun — yes, a Japanese newspaper outlet refusing NJ subscribers).

This brings the tally to (places and types of establishment):

Onsens in Otaru (Hokkaido), Bars, baths, karaoke, and restaurant in Monbetsu City (Hokkaido), Public bath and sports store in Wakkanai (Hokkaido), Pachinko parlor, restaurant, and nightlife in Sapporo (Hokkaido), Bars in Misawa (Aomori Pref), Disco in Akita City (Akita Pref), Hotels and Bar in Shinjuku and Kabukicho (Tokyo Shinjuku-ku), Ballet School in Minami-Azabu (Tokyo Minato-ku), Seafood restaurant in Tsukiji (Tokyo Minato-ku), Weapons etc. store in Akihabara (Tokyo Chiyoda-ku), Women’s (i.e for women customers) Relaxation Boutique in Aoyama Doori (Tokyo Minato-ku), Bar in Ogikubo (Tokyo Suginami-ku), Bars in Koshigaya (Saitama Pref), Bar in Toda-Shi(Saitama Pref), Stores and nightclubs in Hamamatsu (Shizuoka Pref), Onsen in Kofu City (Yamanashi Pref), Nightlife in Isesaki City (Gunma Pref), Nightlife in Ota City (Gunma Pref), Bars in Nagoya City (Aichi Pref), Internet Cafe in Okazaki City (Aichi Pref), Hokkoku Shinbun Newspaper in Nonochi, Ishikawa Pref. (yes, you read that right), Onsen Hotel in Kyoto, Eyeglass store in Daitou City (Osaka Pref), Apartments in Fukshima-ku (Osaka City), Bar in Kurashiki (Okayama Pref), Nightclub and Bar in Hiroshima(Hiroshima Pref), Restaurant in Kokura, Kitakyushu City (Fukuoka Pref), Billiards hall in Uruma City Gushikawa (Okinawa Pref), Miscellaneous exclusionary signs (Tokyo Ikebukuro, Kabukicho, Hiroshima).

Update details as follows:

Debito.org has been revamped to make the Blog the main page, make the cover page more readable as summary, and resolve some internet issues. Thanks to everyone for reading!

Hi Blog. Just put up a new website on Debito.org with information on how you can buy our new book, HANDBOOK for Newcomers, Migrants, and Immigrants, within Japan or internationally. Paypal possible. Please see: http://www.debito.org/handbook.html More on the book and upcoming national book tour at http://www.debito.org/?page_id=582 Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Links to three new articles added to Debito.org’s regular website: My new Japan Times Column JUST BE CAUSE (March 4, 2008), article in the Journal of International Health, and an award-winning article written by Canon Pence on the Otaru Onsens Case etc. in the New York International Law Review.

Information from a realtor in Osaka called Kansai Kensetsu, which has a clear system (even a snappy logo) in their housing catalog for refusing “gaijin” renters. Don’t encourage this practice. Take your business elsewhere. Entered onto the Rogues’ Gallery of Exclusionary Establishments.

Addition to the What to do if… artery site up at Debito.org, now containing advice from people in the know on what to do if you’re threatened with eviction from your abode (answer: stand your ground–they can’t evict you without a court order in Japan). Plus additional advice courtesy of the Japan Times, September 25, 2007, regarding union support, unpaid wages, Immigration/Visas and employment, redundancies, and unemployment insurance.

Two recent Japan Times Community Page articles (one co-written by friend James Eriksson) discuss how Sumo wrestler Asashoryu might be being scapegoated by the Japan Sumo Association for its own excesses, and how Japan is trying too hard to blame the NJ community for social problems no longer limited to crime: Try military security, education, sports uncompetitiveness, even shipping! Updated to include Doreen Simmons KTO essay on Asa with comment.

Japan Times article on the Valentine Case, which came out August 14, 2007: Japan Times column 37: “ABUSE, RACISM, LOST EVIDENCE DENY JUSTICE IN VALENTINE CASE: Nigerian’s ordeal shows that different standards apply for foreigners in court”. Plus news on new JT column 38, coming out next week Tuesday.

The Blacklist of Japanese Universities gets Kyushu University, Shokei Gakuin U, and Kansai Gaidai, now totalling 105 universities which offers full-time contracted work with no hope of tenure to Non-Japanese academics. Greenlisted 34 get Nagoya University and Aichi University of Education (although they still refrain from a tenure review system, so they also remain on the Blacklist).

Quick update on what’s going on: Still in Tokyo, extending one more day. Links to last night’s speech Powerpoint (E and J) on the BLACKLIST OF JAPANESE UNIVERSITIES, given before even the Ministry of Education, plus a bit on a visit to Sanya and my next JT article. Yes, I’ll eat some crow over the UH election after I return to Sapporo tomorrow.

Chugoku Gakuen University and Junior College in Okayama, for refusing to promote NJ faculty solely on the basis of nationality, and Hokkai Gakuen University in Sapporo, for demanding PhDs for terminal term-limited contracts with heavy workloads and low pay (yet require no similar qualification from Japanese applicants to the same department, who even get automatic non-contracted academic “tenure”), get added to the 100 Blacklisted Japanese universities who have discriminatory hiring practices. Meanwhile, International Christian University near Tokyo shows proof positive that they not only tenure people regardless of nationality, but even have a functional tenure review process, and get moved from the Blacklist to the Greenlist for the first time in the Blacklist’s ten-year history.

Got hit by a car while riding my bike, had surprisingly good experience with police. After all the scorn I heap on the NPA, I thought I’d give praise where it’s due.

Some odds and sods waiting to be webbed: Concluding articles to the GAIJIN HANZAI Case for posterity (Japan Times and Japan Focus), an article on how your overseas work can count towards a J pension (kara kikan), other countries’ attitudes towards citizenship (some deprive it at will, some sell it), and, yes, a handbook cautioning J women about foreign men because of drug use and penis size…

University of Hyogo and International University of Health and Welfare (Tochigi) are added to the more than 100 universities now blacklisted for bad employment practices. Also included is a resurrected essay on your employment rights after repeated contract renewals.

SUPPORT THE CAUSE RAISE AWARENESS OF THE ISSUE BUY A “JAPANESE ONLY” T-SHIRT Hi Blog. Thanks to the quick sell-out of the first salvo (thanks everyone!), I just got a new batch of “JAPANESE ONLY” T-shirts in yesterday (thanks Todd): They come in the following colors and sizes: BLUE: American sizes (i.e. larger than corresponding [...]

Hello Blog. The Rogues’ Gallery of Exclusionary Establishments in Japan, with signs and policies restricting or forbidding “foreigners” entry, has just been updated on Debito.org. One place refused a naturalized Japanese, another has a sign refusing all people without “pure Japanese blood”, including Chinese, War Orphans, people with Chinese blood mixed in, and naturalized citizens. That deals me out. It’s the worst sign I’ve ever seen, and naturally I’ve seen a lot.

Hi Blog. Updated a section of my “What do do if…” artery site, where people can troubleshoot for some problems which may arise for them while living in Japan. The most recent addition as follows: Debito http://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#deposit ///////////////////////////////////////////////////// WHAT TO DO IF… …you want to get your deposit (shikikin) back from your landlord when moving [...]

Hi Blog. I just put up my 34th column for the Japan Times on debito.org, as I mentioned I would in my last newsletter. ==================================== Japan Times Community Page Column: “UPPING THE FEAR FACTOR: There is a disturbing gap between actual crime in Japan and public worry over it” published February 20, 2007 and available [...]

Back by popular demand, Debito.org T-shirts with an authentic “JAPANESE ONLY” sign emblazoned on the front. Help spread awareness of the problem in the best of satirical traditions, by wearing your heart on your sleeve, and the issue on your chest!

Have just updated the Blacklist of Japanese Universities, a website which warns the public about limited employment opportunities in Japanese academia. New entry is Ritsumeikan’s flagship Asia Pacific University in Beppu, Oita, Kyushu.

Three internet mailing lists under the aegis of Issho Kikaku, administered by Tony Laszlo (the basis of the star character in the bestselling “MY DARLING IS A FOREIGNER” manga series), have winked out of existence and/or public view. This report talks about the possible reasons, the effects, and the hypocrisies involved with this event.

Hello Blog. Just made a revision to the “Rogues’ Gallery” of Exclusionary Establishments–places nationwide in Japan which explicitly restrict or forbid foreign customers entry. http://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html Newest entry (the 22nd municipality found yet so far) is from Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture. An Internet cafe, of all things: Okazaki City (Aichi Prefecture) Internet Cafe “Dragon BOZ” Aichi-shi Kakemachi [...]

Hi Blog. After receiving a request from cyberspace about what to do regarding some of the “culturally-insensitive”, shall we say, articles and programs occasionally appearing in Japan’s print and broadcast media, I made a revision tonight to my “What to do if…” site on debito.org. This site is an artery site with links to several [...]