mytest

Good Morning, all. Seems Saturday morning is a good time to get this newsletter out, as it adds cream to the coffee (or assault to the scrambled eggs). This week’s menu:

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1) IMMIGRATION POLICY–KEIDANREN VS NATIVISTS: BOTH IGNORE NJ NEEDS
2) ACCENTURE GETS SWEETHEART DEAL TO TRACK NJ AT BORDERS
3) ECONOMIST: UNITED NATIONS “ADRIFT” ON HUMAN RIGHTS
4) KYODO: LEE SOO-IM, ETHNIC KOREAN-JAPANESE ACTIVIST
5) TIME: TOKYO HOUSING IN 1964 AND THE EMPOWERED KENSETSU ZOKU
6) RESPONSES TO DEBITO.ORG RE GAIJIN HANZAI MAG, ALEX KERR,
LEE’S ELECTORAL DEFEAT, AND TORUKO

and finally…
LUNCHTIME SPEECH AT ICU (MITAKA, TOKYO) ON MONDAY, APRIL 23
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Collated by Arudou Debito (debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org)
Released April 21, 2007, freely forwardable
Those with personalities that can’t wait for American Idol results can see future newsletter entries in real time at https://www.debito.org/index.php

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1) IMMIGRATION POLICY–KEIDANREN VS NATIVISTS: BOTH IGNORE NJ NEEDS

Two excellent posts from other bloggers (Ken Worsley and Adam Richards) regarding Japan immigration policy: Corporate Japan (particularly Keidanren) has been calling for more foreign workers (but not necessarily “immigration”) to answer domestic labor shortages. Meanwhile (as we have been reporting at Debito.org), nativist elements within policy arenas keep putting on brakes (such as establishing stringent Japanese-language requirements for visas, which few people will pass), and whipping up public fear towards the alleged loss of Japan’s “homogeneous” society.

No policymakers, Ken and Adamu point out, really address the problem with how to give these people a good life once they get here. Excerpts and links follow:

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MORE ON FOREIGN WORKERS IN JAPAN: WHAT IS KEIDANREN AFTER?
Published by Ken Worsley at 12:30 am on Friday, April 20, 2007

Keidanren, the Nippon Business Federation, is pushing for a system that will allow more skilled foreign workers to enter Japan. However, be careful not to confuse this with an immigration policy.

Hiroshi Inoue, Keidanren’s director of international affairs, recently told members at a conference in Hakone sponsored by the European Commission delegation in Japan:

————–INOUE QUOTE BEGINS—————-
We cannot say we don’t want the workers to settle in Japan. But in terms of formulating a policy for the introduction of foreign laborers, we are assuming there will be a rotation system. I don’t think it’s likely that the majority of foreign workers will want to settle in Japan, so the assumption is that they will return to their home countries after a certain period.
————–INOUE QUOTE ENDS——————

There’s more than just a lack of hospitality in the sentence, “We cannot say say we don’t want the workers to settle in Japan.” That’s ok, Inoue-san: you don’t have to say it. The message came out loud and clear.

In response, Yoichiro Mizukami, a former head of the Tokyo Immigration Bureau, told the audience:

————–MIZUKAMI QUOTE BEGINS—————-
A system of rotating workers in and out of the country will not work. Sociologically, foreign workers are already immigrants once they arrive in Japan. We shouldn’t look at them as just laborers. We have to view them as human beings first, and it’s time for policymakers to do that.
————–MIZUKAMI QUOTE ENDS——————

After that statement, Claude Morales, a member of the European Parliament, warned Japan against the danger of adopting a policy similar to Germany’s policy toward Turkish immigrant labor in the 1960s:

————–MORALES QUOTE BEGINS—————-
The guest worker model Germany tried has failed. Germany got the labor, but the Turkish immigrants don’t feel as if they are a part of German society. Japan must avoid adopting an immigration system that results in a two-tiered society. I would suggest that Japan look to the immigration policies of Sweden and Finland, which serve as positive models of how immigrants can integrate into society.
————–MORALES QUOTE ENDS——————

I think Mr Morales has hit the nail on the head: the two-tiered society is exactly what I see being pushed for, and exactly what I’ve seen taking shape at Japanese firms and in society at large. Whose ends does it serve?… What is Keidanren thinking?…

Rather than bring up the example of Germany, why not bring up Japan’s own failed immigration policy in terms of bringing in Nikkei workers from South America?

Rest of the post and discussion at:
http://www.japaneconomynews.com/2007/04/20/more-on-foreign-workers-in-japan/

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JAPAN’S CONTINUING INFLUX OF FOREIGNERS AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU
April 19th, 2007 by Adamu

Quiz time! What percentage of Tokyo is non-Japanese?

Answer: 2.93%. That’s the percentage of registered foreigners in Tokyo as of January 1, 2007 (an increase of 1.8% over last year), says Shukan Toyo Keizai. That means that 3 out of every 100 people you see in Tokyo are foreign…

There are 371,000 registered foreigners among Tokyo’s overall population of 12.69 million. The information comes from a “population movement survey” conducted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government… Tokyo’s foreign population has surged 2.5-fold over the past 20 years…

Top nationalities:
Chinese: 126,000
Korean: 109,000
Filipino: 31,000

Most foreign districts:
Shinjuku-ku (where Tokyo’s Koreatown is located): 30,000
Adachi-ku: 21,000
Edogawa-ku (home to Indiatown in Nishikasai): 21,000…

The regular publication of statistics like these, and the regular, adversarial reporting of developments in this issue, should remind the public as well as the authorities that real “internationalization” based on economic interests, rather than the abstract concept of peace, cooperation, and English study that is usually associated with that term, has already arrived in parts of Japan…

CORPORATE-LED SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Generally, Japan’s immigration policies are much more liberal than the US–in the rare case that you speak Japanese fluently and have connections within the country… However, the Japanese side insisted on language requirements that guarantee virtually no significant numbers will be let in…

But the business community has changed its tone over the years, and now the two top business lobbies, the Keidanren (made up of manufacturers) and Keizai Doyukai (a more brazenly neo-liberal group of top executives), are calling for massive importation of labor to avoid a drop in GDP due to the shrinking native work force that will accompany Japan’s population drop to 100 million by 2050…

[I believe that h]ighly skilled laborers such as lawyers, doctors, professors, journalists, and especially corporate managers/investors should be allowed into Japan. Allowing a full spectrum of business opportunities into Japan, which with a highly educated population, peaceful society, and hyper-developed infrastructure, would allow for a wealth of more business and labor opportunities.

But of course that’s a silly proposition. The stewards of Japanese society will continue to hoard the top positions and continue making hypocritical appeals to racial harmony out of one side of their mouths when it comes to reform of corporate boardrooms, while pushing for internationalization of cheap labor from the other side…

My biggest worry is that without proactive efforts to make this immigration smooth and easy, Japan will start to experience something like the US illegal immigration problem, with all the poverty, crime, and mistrust that goes with it. Occasional statements from high-level politicians, like Education Minister Bunmei Ibuki’s statement that Japan is a “homogeneous nation,” should remind people that race consciousness and nativism are not dead and work as appeals to a conservative voter base.

The time to lay the groundwork is now to prevent a backlash against foreigners that would prove a major headache for the entire foreign population, and a loss of the culture of tranquil co-existence with neighbors that has defined Japanese society.

Full article and discussion at:
http://www.mutantfrog.com/2007/04/19/japans-continuing-influx-of-foreigners-and-what-it-means-for-you/

Speaking of regarding immigrants with suspicion…

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2) ACCENTURE GETS SWEETHEART DEAL TO TRACK NJ AT BORDERS

In a new website entitled GYAKU (http://gyaku.jp/en/), which offers in-depth reportage about lesser-known stories, we have the eye-opening story about the future of electronic surveillance of foreigners entering Japan.

I have reported in the past about how Japan’s new Immigration powers will now reinstate fingerprinting for all foreigners (regardless of visa status) who cross Japan’s borders:

Mainichi Daily News, Dec 5, 2004:
“Japan seeks foreigners’ fingerprints, photos, lists to fight terror”
https://www.debito.org/mainichi120504.html

Japan Times May 24, 2005:
“Here comes the fear: Antiterrorist law creates legal conundrums for foreign residents”
https://www.debito.org/japantimes052405.html

Japan Times November 22, 2005:
“THE NEW “I C YOU” CARDS: LDP proposal to computer chip foreigners has great potential for abuse”
https://www.debito.org/japantimes112205.html

Even though Japan’s NJ residents have fought long and hard (and successfully) to end fingerprinting as part of Immigration procedure.
https://www.debito.org/fingerprinting.html

So here’s how it’s playing out. According to GYAKU, company without a country (which to some constitutes a security risk in itself) ACCENTURE (which created the digital mug-shot and fingerprint scans seen at US Immigration nowadays) has not only acted as consultant to Japan’s upcoming version, but also has been awarded the contract to develop Japan’s system for a song. This means that Japan becomes the second country to institute one of these systems in the world, while Accenture “invests” in a toehold in Asia anticipating future profits from the fear of terrorism.

The issues involved, the political backrooming, and links to all the necessary documents to make the case for concern are available at
http://gyaku.jp/en/index.php?cmd=contentview&pid=000188

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

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ACCENTURE, JAPAN-VISIT, AND THE MYSTERY OF THE 100,000 YEN BID
Tuesday, April 17, 2007 By gyaku (http://gyaku.jp/en/)

The story first came to light… on April 21, 2006, during questioning… in the Japanese National Diet. Hosaka Nobuto of the Japan Social Democratic Party, a former journalist active in educational issues and one of the leaders in the fight against wiretapping laws in Japan, launched a barrage of questions at government officials over revelations that a contract for a new biometric immigration system had been awarded to Accenture Japan Ltd., a corporation previously hired in the role of “advisor” for the same project.

For many years a thorn in the side of the ruling party coalition, Hosaka in 2000 was ranked by the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun as the most active member of the House of Representatives, with a record 215 questions, a number that rose to over 400 by 2006 [1]. The questions Hosaka put to the government on April 21st were undoubtedly some of the most important of his career, and yet, now nearly a year later, the story… has barely made a ripple in the Japanese media, and remains virtually unknown to the outside world.

The background…: Accenture Japan Ltd., the Japanese branch of the consulting firm Accenture… received in May 2004 a contract to draft a report investigating possibilities for reforming the legacy information system currently in use at the Japanese Immigration Bureau. The investigation was requested in the context of government plans, only later made public, to re-implement and modernize a certification system to fingerprint and photograph every foreigner over the age of 18 entering the country, replacing an earlier fingerprinting system abandoned in the year 2000 over privacy concerns after prolonged resistance from immigrant communities.

Earlier the same year, against the backdrop of a post-9/11 society anxious about the threat of vaguely-defined dark-skinned “terrorists”, the U.S. had begun taking fingerprints of foreigners with visas entering the U.S. at international airports and other major ports… The five year multi-billion dollar contract for the American US-VISIT program was awarded to Accenture in May of 2004, the same month that the corporation was hired by the Japanese government as a consultant on immigration system reform…

And as Dietmember Fukushima Mizuho pointed out in Diet session: “According to the records of government and public offices for the fiscal year 2005, [Accenture] has been commissioned for the Imperial Household Agency, the Fair Trade Commission, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Finance, and the National Tax Agency…”
======================
EXCERPT ENDS

Read the rest of the article at:
http://gyaku.jp/en/index.php?cmd=contentview&pid=000188

The point is, as America does, Japan is also so emboldened, be it mistrusting foreigners or racial profiling. Meanwhile, someone seems to be asleep at the watchtower…

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3) ECONOMIST: UNITED NATIONS “ADRIFT” ON HUMAN RIGHTS

I post on this topic because (follow the daisy chain):

1) As the new UN Human Rights Council does, given Japan’s shabby record on following human rights treaties…

2) so Japan will do when it comes to Japan’s aspirations for a UN Security Council Seat…

3) which is really the only ace in the hole for putting pressure on Japan to finally pass a law against racial discrimination…

4) which Japan lacks, yet promised to establish all the way back in 1996 when it effected the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

I’ve been wanting to present the indicative Otaru Onsens Case (https://www.debito.org/otarulawsuit.html) to the HRC for some years now, but bureaucratic snafus, and warnings from my activist friends that doing so would probably be a disappointment, have kept me at bay. Meanwhile, articles like these from The Economist keep coming out and offering bad news about the meetings I’ve missed.

Would be nice to believe that human rights, from the organization which has established some of the most important conventions and treaties in history, still matter in this day when rules seem grey, and even the most powerful country in the world dismisses long-standing international agreements as “outmoded” and “quaint”.

Here’s the most recent article, with some referential links following:

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THE UN ADRIFT ON HUMAN RIGHTS
THE ECONOMIST April 4th 2007
http://economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RJGGNJP

“WE WANT a butterfly,” John Bolton, then America’s ambassador to the United Nations, said a year ago when explaining his country’s rejection of plans to replace the UN’s High Commission on Human Rights with a leaner and supposedly more credible Human Rights Council. “We don’t intend to put lipstick on a caterpillar and call it a success.” Mr Bolton, now in enforced retirement from the UN, may feel vindicated as the ludicrously painted creature creeps along, seemingly doomed never to metamorphose and take wing.

In its fourth regular session, which ended in Geneva on March 30th, the 47-member council again failed to address many egregious human-rights abuses around the world. Even in the case of Darfur, on which one of its own working groups had produced a damning report, it declined to criticise the Sudanese government directly for orchestrating the atrocities, limiting itself to an expression of “deep concern”. Indeed, in its nine months of life, the council has criticised only one country for human-rights violations, passing in its latest session its ninth resolution against Israel…

A central task for the new council was supposed to be regular reviews of human rights in each of the UN’s 192 member states. But nine months since its founding, nothing has happened. A key test of whether the council would prove any better than its derided predecessor would be to get this “universal periodic review” under way, Louise Arbour, the UN’s respected High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the Geneva meeting. The council has now given itself a year to establish such a mechanism.

Full text of article at
https://www.debito.org/?p=344
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REFERENTIAL LINKS:
UN HRC SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR DOUDOU DIENE ON JAPAN’S HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD
https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html

UNITED NATIONS ICERD COMMITTEE ON JAPAN’S HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD (1998-2002):
https://www.debito.org/japanvsun.html
(Note that Japan is now five years late handing in its biennial report on human rights to the ICERD Committee…)

WASHINGTON TIMES ON UN DIENE VISIT, IBUKI, GAIJIN HANZAI MAG ETC.
March 9, 2007 Washington Times
https://www.debito.org/?p=255

JAPAN TIMES: U.N. SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR CHALLENGES IBUKI’S ‘HOMOGENOUS’ CLAIM
February 28, 2007
https://www.debito.org/?p=239

Transcript of FCCJ Press Conference with United Nations Special Rapporteur Doudou Diene and Arudou Debito
Feb. 26th, 2007, 12:30 to 2PM
https://www.debito.org/?p=238

Endgame on GOJ push for UNSC seat?
Asia Times January 3, 2007
https://www.debito.org/?p=173

“WE SUPPORT HUMAN RIGHTS!” JUST DON’T SCRATCH THE SURFACE.
On how Japan finagled its way onto the HRC
Japan Times November 7, 2006
https://www.debito.org/japantimes110706.html

UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL IN TROUBLE
The Economist March 22, 2007
https://www.debito.org/?p=297

Now for some better news…

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4) KYODO: LEE SOO-IM, ETHNIC KOREAN-JAPANESE ACTIVIST

Two newsletters ago I sent you a rather half-baked article about a Turkish national who rid the “Toruko” signs from Japan’s “Soapland” brothel industry. “Half-baked”, in that the article offered no detail on how his campaign was so effective.
https://www.debito.org/?p=324

The problem with this kind of lukewarm coverage in the domestic media is that people get the impression that human rights are a low priority in Japan, or that the Japanese public is docile with rare protest.

This is completely false. You just don’t hear about it. And when you do in the major media, coverage can often be pretty shallow. Same thing happened with another newspaper article I mentioned in my last newsletter:

ASSEMBLY TO PROTEST PROPOSED LAW REVISION
TO MAKE OBLIGATORY CORPORATE REPORTING OF FOREIGN WORKERS
Asahi Shinbun April 10, 2007
https://www.debito.org/?p=341

Thanks to the half-assedness of this article, it was difficult for the reader to understand what SMJ is all up in arms about. They sounded “jinken baka” (human-rights-oriented to a fault). Space concerns notwithstanding, the reporter should given more depth to the counterarguments involved. And I also wish the Asahi had bothered to translate the article for their English readers!

The point is, people do protest these things. And if the media paid more attention, so would the rest of Japan. So it’s a great pleasure to see an in-depth article on a naturalized Japanese activist from Kyodo News. Excerpts follow:

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FOCUS: KOREANS’ STRUGGLE CASTS FRESH LIGHT ON JAPANESE IMMIGRATION DEBATE
March 28, 2007 Kyodo News
https://www.debito.org/?p=340

Debates over whether or not to import more foreign workers have always been a thorny issue in Japan… While foreigners still comprise about 1 percent [sic!] of Japan’s population, the number of new arrivals has been steadily rising, especially from South America and China.

As these newer immigrants struggle to settle into the Japanese society, the decades-old struggle of the zainichi, or the ethnic Koreans in Japan, has come into clearer focus, says Lee Soo Im, professor at Ryukoku University.

A third-generation ethnic Korean, Lee was born in 1953 in Osaka Prefecture. Like hundreds of thousands of their compatriots, Lee’s grandparents emigrated to Japan in 1921 after losing their farmlands following Japan’s colonization of Korea in 1910…

Growing up in Osaka, home to a large ethnic Korean community in Japan, Lee said she had grown immune to racial slurs, including the neighborhood kids’ yelling at her, ”You stinking Korean!” But Lee was unprepared for her first encounter with an ”institutional discrimination” when she was about to graduate from Kyoto’s renowned Doshisha University.

”My grades were good, and I wanted to work for a municipal bank–and the teacher said, ‘No, they won’t hire Koreans. I lost all my hope. I graduated from my university in 1975 and decided to immigrate to this country (the United States),” Lee spoke recently at New York’s Korea Society…

Back in Japan, Lee decided to apply for Japanese citizenship to safeguard her family’s visa status. But the immigration office was not convinced that she would become the ”head of a family” under Japan’s quintessentially paternal family registry system. ”They didn’t even give me an application form,” Lee said.

[Lee was hired by Ryukoku University] in 1996. The move opened up her world to the study of ethnic Koreans and a host of human rights issues ethnic minorities face around the world.

Regaining her confidence, Lee went back to the immigration office in 1999 to apply for citizenship. The office was initially reluctant, but gave in after she threatened legal action, Lee said.

Lee became a Japanese citizen in 2002. Unlike most Koreans who naturalize, however, she decided to retain her Korean name, a decision questioned by an official in the process…

”I have to be a living example, teaching the domestic internationalization to Japanese people,” Lee said.

Lee, who recently co-edited ”Japan’s Diversity Dilemmas: Ethnicity, Citizenship, and Education” to highlight issues surrounding the country’s immigrant population, says there are no such thing as pure Japanese. A homogenous Japan is a myth built upon foreigners forced to live ”invisibly,” she says….
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Entire article at
https://www.debito.org/?p=340

Now that’s more like it. Speaking of coverage of Japan:

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5) TIME: HOUSING IN TOKYO IN 1964 AND THE EMPOWERED KENSETSU ZOKU

Here is article I found completely by chance last year during a walk around Kyoto, in a basketful of old TIME magazines. Decided on a whim to buy the issues which straddled my birthday (January 13, 1965) to see what was news back then:

JAPAN: $18 MILLION AN ACRE
TIME Magazine January 8, 1965
https://www.debito.org/?p=333
(article scanned, not text, so please visit the blog to see it)

COMMENT: It’s interesting how Japan’s high-growth economy has already by 1965 created a huge economic bubble, and how even back then the Western media was noting the “rabbit hutch” housing market.

But I cite this article because it contains the Fun Fact:

“THE AVERAGE HEIGHT OF BUILDINGS IN TOKYO WAS 1.7 STORIES IN 1965.”

Amazing to consider, with the price of land beggaring everyone both in terms of budget and space.

This also meant that current PM Satou Eisaku’s policy of earmarking public funds to alleviate this housing shortage (3 million units to be built over seven years) is probably the main reason why so many buildings in Tokyo were built for function, not form. They had to go up as quickly as possible. Which meant:

1) The “rabbit hutches” were just stacked on top of each other (see the horrible danchi system to this day in Adachi-ku, for example).

2) The construction lobby (kensetsu zoku) would thus get phenomenal power in terms of politics and corruption (for when you throw public money at a problem without time for oversight, there is nearly always skimming and cut corners). This probably enabled the kensetsu zoku to continue leaning on the government for more boondoggle seibi projects (see Kerr, DOGS AND DEMONS), even after the housing shortage was alleviated. The impact of that on Japan’s financial health still resonates today.

3) As Tokyo does, the rest of the country follows. The economies of scale created by these cookie-cutter houses influenced housing design nationwide. Meaning (in my opinion) Japanese houses are still some of the the highest-priced for the lowest quality in the world, and still largely devoid of esthetic (i.e. despite many exceptions, still generally built for function, not form–especially up here in Hokkaido).

I’m probably overstating the case. But this article answered quite a few burning questions for me about why Japanese are so rich, yet in terms of housing live so poorly.

—————————–

PS: Another interesting article up on the blog is from the following week’s TIME Magazine on PM Satou. Contains a bit of the contemporary attitude of belittling Japanese leaders (cf. de Gaulle’s description of PM Ikeda Hayato in 1960 as a “transistor salesman”). It also contains the bonus Fun Fact that PMs Kishi Nobusuke and Satou Eisaku were brothers! Japan’s political world is indeed riddled with an elite…

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6) RESPONSES TO DEBITO.ORG RE GAIJIN HANZAI MAG, ALEX KERR, LEE’S ELECTORAL DEFEAT, AND TORUKO

Got some good letters in the mailbag these past couple of weeks (and believe you me, I terminate silly blog posts with extreme prejudice):

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RE: GAIJIN HANZAI PUBLISHER EICHI SHUPPAN GOES BANKRUPT
https://www.debito.org/?p=318

HARTLEY REPLIES:
Do you think their bankruptcy announcement supports or weakens the theory that some group of unknown investors was behind the publication of “Gaijin Hanzai File”? On the one hand, I suppose you could argue that it’s unlikely that an outside group of investors, as opposed to a keiretsu-related company, would pour money into the project if the had concerns about the financial health of the publisher. On the other hand, one might argue that it was precisely because Eichi was staring bankruptcy in the face that they became desperate and accepted the project, and the money, from some outside group.

Some other questions I’ve been pondering include:

1) Eichi, or at least a related company according to the blog you showed us, had published porno mags, many of which no doubt got ads from fuzoku-related businesses. And guess who the fuzoku business often turn to in order to ensure the places get operating permits with minimal hassle from the government? You guessed it: retired police officials.

2) One of the largest sources of legal income for the yakuza is the adult video business. They are heavily invested in all aspects, from recruiting the starlets and studs, to shooting and editing the films, to packaging and marketing them. Obviously, Eichi had connections to that world. Though I’m certain there was no direct involvement, one wonders if Eichi wasn’t repaying a favor, of sorts, to somebody who did have connections and, for ideological reasons, wanted this done.

3) Obviously, Eichi and its investors knew months ago that the end was probably near. If so, perhaps some accountant advised them that, for whatever legal reasons, they needed to lose a lot of money quickly in order to get a better deal in bankruptcy court. “Find a project and dump lots of cash into it before you declare yourself insolvent,” may have been the order from the accountants six months ago or so. This project may have been on the back burner but, for lack of advertising, never went anywhere until the order came down. Just idle speculation at Mr. Donuts…
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COMMENT: The answer is, I don’t know. I’ve gotta eat more donuts, I guess. Sugar sure made Hartley’s synapses connect.

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RE: ASAHI: NATURALIZED KOREAN-J RUNS AS MINORITY FOR OSAKA PREF SEAT
AND LOSES BADLY DUE TO RUMOR CAMPAIGN PORTRAYING HIM AS DISCRIMINATOR
https://www.debito.org/?p=338

MATT DIOGUARDI REPLIES:
Debito, This whole case fascinates me. I agree with you that Lee Kyung Jae did poorly in the public relations department. The far right did a better job of getting THEIR message out about him, than he did of getting out his OWN message out. If you search for the quote that is constantly ascribed to him, you get over 1500 pages. If you search for a Lee Kyung Jae home page, you can’t find one. His Wikipedia entry is NOT locked down, so anyone could have edited it, including Lee Kyung Jae or a friend.

Again he sounds like a really cool guy with a message of coexistence. He was someone who once got arrested for not giving his fingerprints to local authorities, and he has been active in many ways to help the Korean community. Recently his message has really been pro-integration. Become Japanese, but don’t forget who you are.

I’m perplexed by his whole campaign though. I’m not sure what it was he wanted to achieve. But inadvertently he’s allowed certain issues to be raised that probably confuse the situation for foreigners.

For example, if many immigrants were allowed to come into Japan and establish themselves, would “yamato Japanese” (whatever that may mean) become a discriminated minority? What would happen to Japanese culture, would it be lost? How about the Emperor system, would all these new foreigners do away with it?…

Controlling the problem context is really important here. Looking at this situation, I have to say, you were certainly right to take legal action against 2-Channel. [https://www.debito.org/?cat=21]

MORE RESEARCH FROM MATT ON THIS AT
https://www.debito.org/?p=338#comment-15197
===============================

COMMENT: Thanks very much for the research, Matt. Problem is, if you’re going to run a successful campaign, you’ve gotta have good image control. (I speak from personal experience–look how easily it was for Internet trolls to besmirch what we’ve been doing re the Otaru Onsens Case.)

If Mr Lee wants to put his comments online in context for the voter, he ought to have at least use the name he put on his campaign posters. Not the kanji for “Lee”, but the hiragana for “i”, or else search engines aren’t going to represent him properly. Alas and alack, people just won’t research too deeply–they have neither the time or the inclination.

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RE: ALEX KERR FALLS INTO “GUESTISM” ARGUMENTS WITH UNRESEARCHED COMMENTS
https://www.debito.org/?p=321

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KEN WORSLEY REPLIES:
I found it good to read Mr Kerr’s response. My comments are not meant to be directed at him, but more in general:

I find it odd when people say Debito is being “too direct” or not working within the “Japanese way of doing things.” I wonder if these people have ever witnessed demonstrations that go on frequently outside of government ministries in Kasumigaseki. There are a number of groups that rally, march, picket, hand out leaflets, protest and use lawsuits in order to gain attention (and hopefully support) for their causes. Many of these incidents appear in the newspapers, so I’m not sure how they go ignored as part of this dialogue.

Here I defer to Matt, who has written something I’ve thought about but was never able to put into words: Could the same criticism of those Japanese people who engage in activism be applied? And, further, given that Debito is Japanese, so long as he acts within the confines of what is legal, who has a horse high enough to suggest that what he’s doing is somehow detrimental?
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TURNER REPLIES:
Ken’s definitely touched on something here that I’ve been struggling to grasp for some time now; I’m not so sure there is a “Japanese Way” anymore. Like you said, with protesters and people demonstrating in a true rebel fashion, and with Japanese-ness, so to speak, not limited to Japan-born citizens, it’s hard to know if there is a line to be drawn.

What is the Japanese way of doing things? What the majority agrees upon? And what if a clear citizen of Japan should break that pattern? Is he then not Japanese in his approach? I don’t think so.

—————————————
I REPLY:
I don’t think there is “a Japanese Way”. Sure, there are certain styles and methods. But whenever one raises “Japaneseness” in the course of debate, I see it as a rhetorical device to cloak censorship and stifle change.

The “Japanese rules” that are provided (vague at best if ever expressed) ultimately lead to passivity and doing nothing. The disenfranchised are basically told to wait for the powers that be to deign to throw them a bone.
Note that the proponents of “The Japanese Way” are generally those who benefit the most from the status quo.

I’m not saying that any of this is Alex’s intent. I’m just saying that we should not buy into it. It is not a nationality or even a cultural phenomenon. It is intensely a political phenomenon. Make no mistake about it.

====================================
RE: MAINICHI: BIO OF THE MAN WHO GOT “TORUKO” OFF “SPECIAL BATHHOUSES”
https://www.debito.org/?p=324

ANONYMOUS REPLIES:
The story I heard was that there was a bathhouse in Shinjuku (or somewhere) whose sign read “TORUKO TAISHIKAN” [TURKISH EMBASSY] and the Turkish embassy was pissed because pranksters kept phoning them and trying to reserve their favorite masseuse.

Anyway, the residents of Sendagaya living near the Turkish Embassy got the last laugh. They jokingly refer to the embassy in their midst as “soapland.”

—————————————
I REPLY:
See? If true, the Mainichi’s retelling of the story as one man’s dedication (without at least some gaiatsu to make it a national government thing) is far too simplistic, too good by itself to be true. Especially when you consider my near decade of railing against “Japanese Only” signs… 😉 Debito

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

and finally…

LUNCHTIME SPEECH AT ICU (MITAKA, TOKYO) ON MONDAY, APRIL 23

I will be giving a speech at International Christian University (open to the public) in Mitaka, near Tokyo, next Monday. Readers are welcome to attend. Details as follows:

=================================
Institute of Asian Cultural Studies
ASIAN FORUM #104

“JAPANESE ONLY” The Otaru Onsens Case and Racial Discrimination in Japan

Despite effecting the UN Convention on Racial Discrimination in 1996, Japan still has no laws against racial discrimination. “JAPANESE ONLY” signs are appearing on places like shops, hotels and public bathhouses nationwide.

The speaker will talk about his activities against this sign-posted discrimination, including successful lawsuits against an exclusionary onsen, and another against the the City of Otaru that went all the way to Japan’s Supreme Court. He will also discuss what this trend means for Japan’s future, both as a society with an aging labor force and as a member of the international community.

Speaker: Arudou Debito
Associate Professor at Hokkaido Information University and human rights activist
Monday, April 23, 2007, Lunch Time (12:50 – 13:40) East Room, ICU Cafeteria
Lecture is in English

Everyone interested is welcome!
Coffee, tea, and cookies will be served
Institute of Asian Cultural Studies (Honkan 255)
Tel: 0422-33-3179 Fax: 0422-33-3633
e-mail: asian@icu.ac.jp http://subsite.icu.ac.jp/iacs/

I will also be giving at least three more lectures at ICU next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and having Q&A with students. Not sure if those are open to the public, though. Ask the hosts.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

That’s all for today. I will be in Tokyo for the next week, and then jumping on a bicycle during Golden Week with friend Chris to cycle from Miyazaki to Fukuoka. So my daily regimen of putting up one post per day on the blog, and one newsletter per week will probably not be possible for the next two weeks or so.

But I still have of interesting nuggets of information on my desktop to blog whenever I have spare time, so check back there every now and again:
https://www.debito.org/index.php
Thanks for reading! Enjoy Golden Week!

Arudou Debito
Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 21, 2007 ENDS

mytest

Morning everyone:

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 14, 2007

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1) ANSWER FROM ALEX KERR re HIS JAPAN TIMES COMMENTS
2) TAKAHASHI SPEECH ON REMILITARIZING JAPAN AT U OF CHICAGO
3) LATEST CRAZINESS FROM J JUDICIARY: SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD
4) NATURALIZED KOREAN-J RUNS FOR OSAKA PREF ASSEMBLY
5) PROTEST RE LABOR BILL: COMPANIES MUST REPORT THEIR FOREIGN WORKERS
6) SUCCESSFUL PROTEST: CHANGING “TORUKO” TO “SOAPLAND”
7) JAPAN TIMES: SHIGA GOVERNOR BACKS ANTI-DISCRIM LAW

and finally…
NORTHERN TERRITORIES DISPUTE… OVER A CASE OF BEER
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

By Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

1) ANSWER FROM ALEX KERR RE HIS JAPAN TIMES COMMENTS

I wrote last newsletter (https://www.debito.org/?p=321) about DOGS AND DEMONS author Alex Kerr’s rather dismissive comments in the Japan Times a while back, re the methods people (particularly me) utilize to raise issues in Japan. They weren’t The Japanese Way, in his view. Then a bowdlerized version of his comments were used in Wikipedia’s Arudou Debito entry. Matt Dioguardi then provided historical context to show that the trend of silencing the minority voice through ideological social othering is a timeworn tactic (not that Alex was consciously aiming to do that).

Within 24 hours, Alex commented back:

============ ALEX’S RESPONSE =================
April 7, 2007 8:41:47 PM JST
Dear Debito, Alex Kerr here. I see that there has been some discussion in your newsletter about my Japan Times interview of Oct 2005. It goes to show that you can never be too careful about what you say, because it lives on for years, and can even reappear and be enshrined (in distorted form) on Wikipedia.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that in the meantime I’ve become quite an admirer of yours — to the extent that I’m a regular reader of your newsletter, and have recommended it to many friends. As you can see from the original Japan Times interview, my take even at that time was basically favorable. Since then I’ve learned more about what you do, and I’m greatly impressed by the thoroughness with which you approach the various gaijin and racism issues in Japan. Among other things, your newsletter is a goldmine of information, which is why I’ve become an avid reader.

I must admit that I began by feeling not very comfortable with your approach — but this could be due to personal circumstances and preferences. I understand that you are doing things in the Japanese way in the sense that you pursue official legal and social channels. At the same time, your style is undoubtedly combative: confronting people with what they are doing and facing them with the consequences.

It’s the not way I work personally, and my own experience is that the Japanese have welcomed and accepted the very critical things I say because my style is to speak quietly, from “within”. However, this is appropriate to my work, which is mostly in the field of traditional culture, tourism, city planning, and the environment. Those are fields in which the classic Japanese low-key and sympathetic attitude works.

But given the field which is your specialty, there is no doubt that a stronger, more direct approach is appropriate. You are bringing these issues into consciousness in the media and among society at large in a way that the traditional quiet approach could never succeed in doing. Otherwise, what you have to say would disappear in the usual muffled silence that surrounds these issues in Japan.

It’s proof that there is no one way to do things. For me, the old-style Japanese way works. For you, there’s a different way — and I respect that.

As I understand it, anyone can write in and edit a Wikipedia entry. So I suggest that you, or a friend of yours, amend that Wikipedia article to indicate that I wholly support your activities and your methods. I think I speak for many foreigners resident in Japan when I say that I feel very grateful that you’re out there paying attention. Best wishes, Alex
============ RESPONSE ENDS =================

Somebody then altered Wikipedia to reflect this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arudou_Debito). Thanks to Alex for commenting so quickly, thoroughly, and positively.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

2) TAKAHASHI SPEECH ON REMILITARIZING JAPAN AT U OF CHICAGO

Great speech (available as a podcast from the link below) from the University of Chicago’s International and Area Studies Multimedia Outreach Service (CHIASMOS). (Thanks to Fiona for notifying me):

==================================
“Postwar Japan on the Brink: Militarism, Colonialism, Yasukuni Shrine”
by Professor Tetsuya Takahashi, University of Tokyo
March 6, 2007

Professor Takahashi’s writings, including his 2005 bestseller, The Yasukuni Issue, make unmistakably clear that the role of the Shrine is antithetical to democratic values in Japan and to reconciliation with Asia, which requires acknowledgment of the harms inflicted through colonialism and war. The subject of his lecture is Japan at a crossroads today, its hard-won postwar democratic values at stake as never before.
==================================

Available as a podcast and/or video at:
http://chiasmos.uchicago.edu/events/takahashi.shtml

Delivered in Japanese, with excellent translation by Dr. Norma Field (author, “In the Realm of a Dying Emperor”, http://ealc.uchicago.edu/faculty/field.shtml), there are no excuses for not listening on either side of the linguistic fence!

EXCERPT (minute 120):
==================================
“At the outset of my talk, I referred to the Tomita Memorandum as having been used by those who wanted to criticize the Prime Minister’s official visits to Yasukuni Shrine. However, I think that in the medium future, it is possible that that memorandum could be used in the opposite way–i.e. to clear the way for official visits by the Emperor himself. This past summer, in 2006, Foreign Minister Aso, an extremely influential politician, proposed that in order to revive the path for Imperial worship, the [Yasukuni] Shrine should be nationalized again. Such a proposal by such an influential politician is one we can not afford to overlook.

“It is the case that between 1969 and 1974, the LDP proposed legislation that would remove Yasukuni Shrine from its non-special status and make it again subject to State support. However, in that period, from 1969 to 1974, there was too strong a worry that this would lead to the revival of militarism, and this legislation was not enacted. However, now, thirty years later, influential politicians in the LDP are stating that the State should remove, according to its own judgment, the Class-A War Criminals from Yasukuni Shrine, secure the understanding of China and Korea, and then make it possible to nationalize Yasukuni Shrine, make it possible for Yasukuni Shrine to have regular visits from the Prime Minister and the Emperor.

“I think that what I laid out earlier is that Triadic System stands a very good chance of being revived now. Namely, with the revision of Article 9, and the establishment of a force that is openly recognized to be an army, with the revision of the Fundamental Law of Education already effected in December of 2006 building in patriotic education. And then, the possibility of nationalizing Yasukuni Shrine–so that if there are deaths on the battlefield that occur, given the newly-established army, then these people will be enshrined in the national shrine and honored by the Prime Minister and the Emperor.

“I hope that you can understand now why I cannot accept that the problem of Article 9 is merely a problem with the Class-A War Criminals. I should have added that all these things could be happening according to this scenario with no objections coming from China and Korea*because the Class-A War Criminals have been disposed of.”
==================================
(Transcript by Arudou Debito)

Very eye-opening talk, and well worth the listen during your commute to work. I’ve been in touch with Dr Field since, and feel a very verdant shade of envy over her translation abilities!

Shifting gears from sense to nonsense:

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3) LATEST CRAZINESS FROM J JUDICIARY: SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD

In his fascinating new JAPAN LAW blog (http://www.redhead.jp/japanlaw) by friend Joe Jones, charting developments which interest the foreign lawyer (gaiben) community, we have yet another facet of Japanese citizenship up for dispute:

The trend for infertile couples to seek Surrogate Mothers (i.e., and at the risk of sounding a bit crass: borrowing another woman’s womb to bring a child to term after in vitro fertilization and surgical impregnation).

Japan’s Supreme Court recently ruled that the woman giving birth, not the woman who contributed her DNA, is to be recognized as the legal mother. Now throw in the new question of paternity (“he’s my dad, but she’s not my mom… er, what?”) and you have yet another forehead-slapper from our ever-sagacious judiciary.

Defeats the whole purpose of Surrogate Motherhood, in my view, and throws in extra monkey wrenches should Japanese wish to use extranational surrogates to help with Japan’s low birthrate. (This is precisely what happened; see article from China Post below.)

The Japanese government (and the popular public) has long had the unofficial attitude that the uterus is the Property of the State, not the property of the mother (shikyuu (or hara) wa karimono) (See “WOMENSWORD” by Kittredge Cherry, p 87-88). So I guess this is the next logical extension.

I initially blogged this even though it is not really a “foreigner issue” (except to say people had better not outsource overseas if they want their babies to have Japanese nationality, let alone legal ties to mom).

But then something happened on April 11 which made it *precisely* a foreigner issue. More after Joe’s report…

===================================
SURROGATE CHILDREN ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE SURROGATE
Posted by Joe Jones April 3, 2007

The Supreme Court ruled on March 24 that children born to a surrogate mother are not legally the children of their biological parents. The Court came to this conclusion based on the Civil Code provision (art. 772) that maternity is recognized by giving birth to the child. The Court also deemed that enforcing a US court order which reached the opposite conclusion would violate public policy. This overturns a Tokyo High Court ruling passed down in October, which recognized the parental rights of the biological parents.

The story here is not that the Supreme Court is against surrogate parents. Rather, they give priority to strict construction of the Civil Code, which was drafted long before surrogate parenting was on the horizon. This viewpoint almost invites the Diet to pass a new statute to fill out this hole–an especially likely proposition when you consider that the mother of these children is a TV personality who will probably push for public support. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is being characteristically mum about the whole thing, however, so this may require more publicity before it moves forward.

Why not adopt? For one thing, the children’s “natural mother” would forever be recorded in the family’s koseki (family register), the document which evidences their relationship. Paternity may be an interesting issue as well. Under the Civil Code, there is a presumption that a child was sired by the husband of its mother. The mother’s husband may disavow paternity, and another man may claim paternity, but either claim must go through the Family Court, one of Japan’s more well-traveled bureaucratic nightmares. Until the paternity of the biological father is established, the children may not even be construed as Japanese citizens.

See PDF of the decision at
http://www.redhead.jp/japanlaw/2007/04/03/surrogate-children-are-the-children-of-the-surrogate/
============================
============================
JAPAN COURT REJECTS SURROGATE TWINS
The China Post 2007/3/24
By Carl Freire TOKYO, AP
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/archives/asiapacific/2007324/105406.htm

…The nation’s top court struck down a September 2006 Tokyo High Court decision ordering a local government to accept Aki Mukai, a television personality, and her husband Nobuhiko Takada’s registration of their two boys…

The Supreme Court cited in its decision a Japanese law that presumes the woman who gives birth to a child is its mother.

…Mukai can no longer have children of her own after undergoing a hysterectomy because of cancer.

Friday’s ruling upheld a November 2005 Tokyo Family Court verdict that found in favor of the local government’s decision to reject their registration request. Local authorities had refused to register the twins because the Justice Ministry said Mukai could not be recognized as the boys’ mother…

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the case highlighted the need for discussion and debate. “How we should think about the parent-child relationship is a fundamental problem for us as human beings,” Abe told reporters Friday evening.
============================
ENDS

Then on April 12, 2007, TV show Tokudane did a long report on Mukai and Takada:

They refused to file paperwork to acknowledge the paternity of husband Takada over their two children within a deadline, which was April 12. Because, according to the show:

———————————————-
1) The mother of the children would be listed as “Cindy” (the surrogate), not Mukai Aki.
2) “Cindy” legally relinquished all ties to the children, and a Nevada court established the full parentage of Mukai and Takada over the twins.
3) They promised both Cindy and the courts that “Cindy” would be fully left out of future proceedings.
4) The inability of Japanese courts to uphold Nevada court rulings and birth certificates (based upon Meiji-Era laws which are based upon ancient ways of establishing parentage–since modern methods, such as DNA testing, didn’t exist) would make registering “Cindy” an illegal act (in Nevada), and the breaking of a promise made to her.
———————————————-

Meaning that now Mukai and Takada are the proud parents of two American (and only American) citizens, since the courts have refused Mukai maternity status, and there is no other way to establish citizenship (except by legal adoption–which will still not resolve the problem of listing the surrogate mother) through the Koseki system. As the show pointed out, this means:

———————————————-
1) The children (now three years old) must get visas, and keep renewing them.
2) The children must register as foreigners, and carry Gaijin Cards 24-7, or face criminal charges, once they reach Junior-High age.
3) The children have no automatic right to compulsory education (gimu kyouiku), guaranteed only to citizens in Japan.
4) The children cannot vote.
5) The children cannot participate in the democratic process.
6) The children have no automatic inheritance rights (short of the parents writing a Will).
———————————————-

Now my opinion: I’m very proud of Mukai and Takada standing up for themselves like this. The ruling is ludicrous. And it may inspire lawmakers to update the citizenship laws to reflect modern realities.

Moreover, this case (attracting great attention due to the couple’s celebrity status) might even point out what a raw deal foreigners have in Japan (particularly regarding education and inheritance), even if they ARE born here.

SOME REFERENTIAL LINKS ON THE CASE:

Japan Times Saturday, March 24, 2007. “Top court: No registry for pair born to surrogate”
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070324a3.html

Japan Times Wednesday, Apr. 4, 2007. “READERS IN COUNCIL Shoddy ruling on baby twins”
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20070404a4.html

Tokyo High Court’s reasoning in 2005 when rejecting Mukai and Takada’s case (basing it more upon public morals than maternity issues):
Japan Times: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 “High court rejects registering babies by surrogate mother”:

Presiding Judge Sota Tanaka of the Osaka High Court: “Surrogate birth poses a serious humanitarian concern as it treats a person as a reproductive tool and causes danger to a third person through pregnancy and giving birth. The contract for such surrogate births violates public order and morals and is invalid, as it could cause a serious feud over the child.”
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/print/nn20050524a5.html

The Nanny State, which refuses to believe that individuals can contract between themselves and decide their own best interests (even when it comes to reproductive rights), strikes again.

Now for a follow-up to last Sunday’s election:

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

4) NATURALIZED KOREAN-J RUNS FOR OSAKA PREF ASSEMBLY

Here’s a campaign I was not aware of (again, Sapporo is a long, long way from Tokyo and Osaka): A naturalized Korean-Japanese’s campaign for a prefectural seat in Osaka, campaigning his Korean roots overtly.

I’m not going to spoil the surprise and tell you how it turned out until the end of the article…

=================================
FOREIGN VOICE
Asahi Shinbun 04/06/2007
By Hiroshi Matsubara, Staff writer
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200704060113.html
https://www.debito.org/?p=338

TAKATSUKI, Osaka Prefecture: Lee Kyung Jae has repeatedly urged Korean children in Japan to cherish their ethnic roots. He has arranged festivals that promote Korean culture and long battled discrimination directed at Korean communities.

But to take his efforts to the next level, Lee, a 53-year-old second-generation Korean resident of Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture, did what had been considered unthinkable: He gave up his long-cherished Korean nationality.

Members of Korean communities have argued that one’s nationality is essential to their identities. Yet when they seek voting rights for foreign residents in Japan, they are met with the legal provision that only Japanese citizens can cast ballots.

So Lee and others decided to take an ironic method. They obtained Japanese nationality to bring the voices of foreign residents to local and national politics.

“As I have spent all my life as a minority, I am keenly aware of the rights of the elderly, the disabled and others who are regarded as socially weak,” he told passers-by at JR Settsu-Tonda Station recently.

“I would like to ask voters to sympathize with the sentiments of foreign residents and allow me to become the first Korean-Japanese assembly member in Osaka,” he said…

He is the first candidate of foreign origin who has run in a local or national election on a campaign to represent the interests of an ethnic group, according to the Korean Residents’ Union in Japan (Mindan)….

After graduating from high school, Lee set up a citizens group to teach Korean children about their ethnic roots and to organize cultural festivals. He was also involved in human rights movements for non-Japanese, including the campaign aimed at abolishing the mandatory fingerprinting of foreigners for their alien registration.

In addition, he has joined the movement for foreign residents’ suffrage in local elections since the early 1990s.

Although Lee has won praise for his work, his campaign faces a serious problem: Many members of his main support base are not allowed to vote.

At the end of 2005, Osaka had 142,712 people with Korean nationalities, or 24 percent of 598,687 Koreans nationwide.

Lee is now counting on Koreans who have obtained Japanese nationality, whose number may exceed those who have maintained their Korean nationalities.

“Many ethnic Koreans apparently opt to live as Japanese by hiding their ethnic origins, and I hope my campaign will be an opportunity for them to solidify their ethnic identity or to openly express it to their Japanese neighbors,” Lee said….

Lee estimates that his electoral district of Takatsuki and the town of Shimamoto have several thousand Korean-Japanese who are eligible to vote. He said he will need about 13,000 votes to win a seat on the prefectural assembly. That means he needs votes from the Japanese as well…

“But even if my campaign ends in failure, I hope it will encourage future generations to aspire to become political representatives of their ethnic group.”

During a preliminary campaign for the Upper House election in July, Kim Jeong Ok, a second-generation Korean in Tokyo, recently visited local chapters of Mindan. He asked Mindan members to collect votes from Japanese members of their families, as well as neighbors and ethnic Koreans who have obtained Japanese nationality.

“I decided to run for the election because the relatively homogeneous composition of the Diet is the primary cause of the rapid nationalistic swing of politics today,” Kim, 51, said.

Kim, who works at a nonprofit organization that supports disabled people, obtained Japanese nationality in December 2005 in a bid to campaign in the Upper House election. He will run on the ticket of opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) in the proportional representation part of the election.

But Kim said his campaign will not be easy. Even his relatives, including five siblings, who use Japanese names will not openly support him for fear of revealing their ethnicity…. (IHT/Asahi: April 6,2007) ENDS
===========================

ELECTION RESULTS:
Mr Lee lost. Badly. There were five seats to fill, six candidates. Here are the numbers, courtesy of the Osaka Prefectural Election Admin Committee:

===========================
LDP YOSHIDA Toshiyuki 30,385 votes
Komei HAYASHI Kenji 27,921
DPJ OHMAE Hideyo 26,980
JCP MIYAHARA Takeshi 20,342
SDP OZAWA Fukuko 19,475
Unaffiliated I Kyon Je (LEE Kyung Jae) 2,543

TOTAL 127,646 votes
===========================

He’s at the bottom. Not even close. Ouch.

Rumor had it (from–where else–2-channel etc.) that he wanted to discriminate against Japanese after he got elected (“nan to shite mo Nihonjin o sabetsu shite shinitai”).
http://www.osaka-minkoku.info/news/20070409-1068.htm
Hard to believe he would be so stupid to say something like that.

But I can’t seem to find a website dedicated to his campaign telling his own story and combatting this smear campaign. That’s pretty odd too.

Matt Dioguardi did find more sites (with his last name rendered in kanji as “LEE”, not hiragana “I”) with the possible speech taken out of context:
https://www.debito.org/?p=338#comment-15197

But since image is everything in these sorts of things, Mr Lee should have done something to make it easier for casual or harried researchers to hear his side. Pity. Anyway, thanks for trying.

Now then, let’s shift focus to two protests done by minorities in Japan, one in progress, one that worked:

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5) PROTEST RE LABOR BILL: COMPANIES MUST REPORT THEIR FOREIGN WORKERS

======================================
ASSEMBLY TO PROTEST PROPOSED LAW REVISION
TO MAKE OBLIGATORY CORPORATE REPORTING OF FOREIGN WORKERS
Asahi Shinbun April 10, 2007
(Translated by Arudou Debito, original Japanese at
https://www.debito.org/?p=339

On April 10, civil rights groups, including “Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan” (Imin Roudousha to Rentai suru Zenkoku Network), convened an assembly at the Diet’s Upper House Kaikan in Nagatacho, Tokyo, to protest a proposed revision to the labor laws requiring all companies to report their foreign workers to the authorities.

The groups oppose the proposal out of concerns for potential privacy concerns and discrimination towards foreign workers.

The proposed revision expressly aims to improve the general employment situation, where foreigners are employed illegally or under horrendous conditions, to make clear the responsibility of the employer and create an appropriate administration of employment.

Up to now this reporting was optional. Making this obligatory with fines for all companies, the new system will be expanded to require workers’ names, ages, and visa status.

April 10’s assembly had the participation of human rights lawyers and foreign workers. By strengthening administrative powers, “This law will take away foreign laborers’ employment opportunities, and make discrimination a fixed practice,” they protested.
ENDS
======================================

COMMENT: Based on this article alone, it’s hard for the reader to understand what SMJ is all up in arms about. They sound “jinken baka” (human-rights-oriented to a fault). Space concerns notwithstanding, I wish the reporter had given more depth to the counterarguments involved.

In SMJ’s own words (sorry, only in Japanese):
http://www.jca.apc.org/migrant-net/Japanese/Japanese.html
(see the first article dated March 23, 2007)

The point is, people do protest these things. They just don’t get sufficient coverage. Likewise the following, from the Mainichi talking about a man who apparently single-handedly got the word “Toruko” (Turkish bath) signs removed from what are now “Soaplands” etc. (places which offer deluxe massages, if you will):

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6) SUCCESSFUL PROTEST: CHANGING “TORUKO” TO “SOAPLAND”

==============================
PERSONALITY PROFILE:
MR NUSRET SANCAKLI, THE PERSON WHO GOT “TORUKO” (TURK) REMOVED FROM “SOAPLANDS”
Mainichi Shinbun, March 7, 2007. Translated by Arudou Debito. Original Japanese at
http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/shakai/wadai/news/20070407k0000m070152000c.html
https://www.debito.org/?p=322

…It was 1981 when Mr Sancakli came to Japan from Turkey [rendered in Japanese as “Toruko”] as an exchange student to study earthquakes, and had been here about six months. In the evening twilight he saw a place named after his home country and went to investigate.

“We got a gaijin here,” he heard from inside, and several women in their undergarments appeared. [It was a brothel.] He couldn’t understand how this country he loved and his home country could have gone so far off track. He thought about his 19-year-old wife, Hadie, who had also accompanied him to Japan, and locked his feelings deep inside.

But one day, when he and his wife on the way home by subway, an elderly woman asked where they were from. She was still a bit rusty in Japanese, so she answered, “I go to Toruko with him”. The old women began to shake and blush, to Mrs Sancakli’s embarrassment. So he explained to his wife for the first time what “Toruko” meant in Japan: “Turkish baths”*with sexual services.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said over and over, and said she wanted to go back home to Turkey. So Sancakli said , “If it’s the last thing I do, I promise you I’ll get ‘Toruko’ off those signs.”

He came back to Japan in the summer of 1984. He went on a pilgrimage to tell politicians and the media what a “hammam”, a real Turkish bath, was like. There were instant repercussions, and within a few months all “Toruko” signs were gone [and changed into “Soaplands”]….
ENDS
=========================

Essentially, the article depicts Mr Sancakli as a man motivated by shame and love of his wife, country, and Japan. Fine. But somehow I don’t think it’s so simple that he spoke to some media and politicians and they automatically saw the error of their ways–and within a few months got “Toruko” nationwide to change their signs at their own expense.

Call me cynical, but it’s gotta be a little more behind it than that. A bit of pressure from the Turkish government, perhaps? Anybody out there know? Wish the article had bothered to tell us.

What old friend Wikipedia has to say (in a surprisingly thorough entry from people in the field):

=========================
Soaplands were originally called toruko-buro meaning Turkish bath. A Turkish scholar, Nusret Sancakli, set off on a newspaper campaign to denounce Japan’s Turkish girls and the so-called Turkish baths they worked in,”[2] and the word “soapland” was the winning entry in a nationwide contest to rename the brothels.[3]

Footnotes: Peter Constantine, Japan’s Sex Trade: A Journey Through Japan’s Erotic Subcultures, (Tokyo: Yenbooks, 1993), 37-8.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soapland
=========================

Anyway, I offer this up to show that once again, it is possible for one person to make a difference. Well done, Mr Sancakli.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

7) JAPAN TIMES: SHIGA GOVERNOR BACKS ANTI-DISCRIM LAW

Sorry to be months late on this one: A Japan Times article from last August I missed because I was doing one of my cycletreks around Hokkaido. Better late than never.

==============================
SHIGA GOVERNOR BACKS ANTIDISCRIMINATION LAW
The Japan Times Thursday, Aug. 24, 2006
By ERIC JOHNSTON Staff writer
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20060824a2.html
Courtesy of The Community and Steve Silver

OSAKA: Shiga Gov. Yukiko Kada said Wednesday [August 23, 2006] she generally supports the creation of a national law to ban racial discrimination.

“Yes, at first glance, I support such a law,” Kada said. “But Shiga Prefecture still needs more hard data on the condition of foreign residents before deciding what policies to support.”

In May, nearly 80 human rights groups around Japan, and the United Nations, urged the country to enact legislation to guarantee the rights of foreigners and to show people thinking of moving here that the government will protect their legal rights.

However, many people in the central government and business who are pushing for more foreign labor oppose legislating against discrimination. Some say it would be better to change the attitude of society to be more tolerant of foreigners…

Shiga has about 30,000 foreigners, including about 14,000 Japanese- Brazilians. In the Kansai region, it has the largest ratio of foreign residents who have moved there in the last two decades to Japanese. Many of them came to work in auto-parts factories.

“Compared with Gunma and Shizuoka prefectures, which also have large populations of Japanese-Brazilians, the debates and policy measures for integrating foreigners into the community have not advanced very far in Shiga,” she said.
ENDS
==============================

Point is, there are indeed people in the government, particularly at the local level, who see sense and speak it: Japan needs a law to ban racial and other forms of discrimination. They are doing things in their own way which shouldn’t be overlooked.

As I have written before, some local governments are abolishing the “Nationality Clause”. Tottori Prefecture even passed its own anti-discrimination law (before it was UNpassed months later). Several city governments around Gifu and Shizuoka Prefectures themselves have been working since 2001 (starting from a signed declaration called the Hamamatsu Sengen) to get the national government to take specific measures to secure better systems re education, social security, and registration for their NJ residents. (Links to dedicated websites on these events from https://www.debito.org/?p=323)

Even though the mayor of Hamamatsu (Mr Kitawaki) recently lost his seat, a student friend of mine offered this brief comment:

==============================
“I don’t know what Kitawaki’s replacement will mean for Hamamatsu in particular, but the gaikokujin shuujuutoshi kaigi seems pretty well institutionalized by now. More and more cities are joining in making appeals to the central government–I think the count is up to 18 cities now. And I think next year the leadership goes to Minokamo-shi in Gifu prefecture, where the mayor is fairly dedicated to foreigner policies. Will keep you updated when I hear more and write all of this down.”
==============================

An aside: Notice how the JT article mentions the typical “chicken-and-egg” arguments which keep derailing the debate: Change society before changing the law.

Sort of like asking rapists and stalkers nicely to desist their naughtiness before you pass a law against rape and stalking.

It’s preposterous, but, I might add, historically not unique to Japan. Read some of the arguments raised in the Lincoln-Douglas Slavery Debates of 1858 (http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/debates.htm) or by the US South supporting segregation in the 1950s, and you’ll see remarkable similarities in the points raised by people on the wrong side of history.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

and finally…
NORTHERN TERRITORIES DISPUTE… OVER A CASE OF BEER

Finishing up with some humor. Nothing like a little casual illegal entry to help make one of the world’s disputed borders (the Northern Territories, islands seized by USSR at the end of WWII and reason why there is no peace treaty to this day (only an armistice) between Japan and Russia) more disputed.

Especially when Russian news agency TASS reports that it’s over a case of beer.

============================
RUSSIAN FISHERMEN DROPPING INTO JAPAN TO BUY BEER DETAINED
ITAR-TASS 08.04.2007, 06.20
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11413576&PageNum=0

TOKYO, April 8 (Itar-Tass): A Russian fisherman catching sea urchins decided to “drop into” Japan quickly to buy beer and was arrested on Saturday for illegally entering the country.

The incident took place in Nemuro on the eastern coast of Hokkaido close to the Southern Kuriles.

The Japanese police said, referring to the detained man’s words, that he together with his colleagues fished near the Southern Kuriles. While his fellow fishermen picked sea urchins from the seabed, the 29-year-old man decided to quickly go on a rubber pneumatic boat with an engine to Nemuro to buy beer. He presented a 10,000-yen bill (about 83 dollars) and bought a box of bottles of beer.

However, members of a local fishing cooperative informed police about the suspicious boat, and the police thwarted the attempt of the man, who had no documents to enter Japan, to leave Nemuro.

The man was arrested at 11:48 local time (06:48 Moscow time), about an hour after he reached the coast. He remained in the police office in Nemuro. The police suppose the fisherman had no bad intentions, but say he had alcohol smell.

Japanese authorities informed the Vladivostok sea rescue centre that the detained person was a crewmember from a Russian schooner. Supposedly, the vessel is from the Sakhalin port of Nevelsk.

The Nemuro police do not remember such incidents happening ever before. At the same time, 30 years ago, in 1977, Soviet border guards detained a Japanese who managed to swim to Signalny Island that is within the territory claimed by Japan.
============================
Thanks to http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17556

And as the posters of this site poignantly ask, whatever happened to the beer?

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

All for now. Thanks for reading!

Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan
https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER FOR APRIL 14, 2007 ENDS

mytest

Morning all. Arudou Debito here with a weekly roundup of events:

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 7, 2007

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1) GAIJIN HANZAI PUBLISHER GOES BANKRUPT
2) METROPOLIS ON POLICE TREATMENT OF CRIMES AGAINST NJ
3) IRISH TIMES AND NYT ON J HISTORICAL REVISIONISM
4) “GUESTISM” PLACED IN A HISTORICAL CONTEXT
5) GET READY FOR A DIVORCE-RATE BOOM IN JAPAN
6) U OF HYOGO AND IUHW ADDED TO UNIVERSITY BLACKLIST
and finally… FUN FACTS! RE LOCAL GOVTS
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

1) GAIJIN HANZAI PUBLISHER GOES BANKRUPT

This just in (thanks to Trans-Pacific Radio (http://www.transpacificradio.com)): Japan Probe and Fukumimi blogs report that Eichi Shuppan, publisher of the infamous GAIJIN HANZAI Magazine (https://www.debito.org/?cat=27), has gone bankrupt (and I don’t mean just morally bankrupt).

=========================================
Good bye and good riddance to the publisher of racially inflammatory content.
http://fukumimi.wordpress.com/2007/04/05/good-bye-to-eichi-publishing/

Eichi Shuppan has closed its doors and is being liquidated. It had oustanding debts of JPY2.3B (about $20 million give or take).

I’m sure people like Debito and JapanProbe will be celebrating, although the failure of the business is unrelated to the recent fuss over racist publications, and is rather due to the fact that its parent company has closed its doors and Eichi was one of the subsidiaries which was already in trouble and could not stand on its own two feet. The publishing of smut had been transferred to a different company a long time ago (Eichi seems to have retained the sales rights in that reorganization, which was due to the company being busted on pornography charges), and that was the cash cow business anyway, although this line is no doubt also feeling the heat from internet sites (many of which apparently feature many scanned images from old magazines, including those of Eichi, so I’m told.)

Addendum: The news is courtesy of Teikoku DataBank via a Nikkei Telecon subscription (no link available to the actual data regarding Eichi, but see here for an article: http://www.zakzak.co.jp/gei/2007_04/g2007040515.html (Japanese)).
=========================================

COMMENT: Now, before anyone says we dood it: As Fukumimi points out, it’s unclear that GAIJIN HANZAI magazine was entirely responsible (but the bath they took on it certainly didn’t help).

Then this begs the question: What was a publisher in such fragile condition trying to pull by taking on this high-risk (if they even saw it as that) controversial magazine? If it was merely trying to stir up debate, as the editor asserted throughout the debacle, then it should have had a bit more of a buffer cash flow in its safe.

Naw. In the end, they were just trying to sell magazines through provocation, for they never expected it to be a flop (they obviously couldn’t afford one). No wonder they were on tenterhooks the whole time during this debate.

Okay, people are probably expecting me to crow a bit. Well… let’s just state the obvious: Darwin Awards for the publishing industry. Eichi Shuppan was just stupid. Glass houses and stones? Publishing houses and racist overtones? Reap and sow.

Some friends in the media have since let me know that this sort of thing is not unusual in the publishing industry–where publishers create presses for their saleable ideas, which ultimately run their course, and the publisher winks out of existence. If I get permission to reprint their mails, I’ll blog them presently.

Meanwhile, speaking of “gaijin hanzai”–how about crimes which go the other way round?

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

2) METROPOLIS ON POLICE TREATMENT OF CRIMES AGAINST NON-JAPANESE

I just got a call this evening from an African and his J wife regarding a recent Civil Court loss against the police, where negligence regarding his case (he still suffers physical debilitation due to the assault) was downplayed to the point where his friend’s testimony was dismissed because he was a “foreigner and a friend”, and the Defense’s doctor claimed his injuries were due to his overlong African legs. I hear about these sorts of things a lot nowadays. (More info later after I meet them in Tokyo in two weeks.)

Here’s an excerpt from an article which will hopefully start the pendulum swinging backwards on the whole “foreigners are potential criminals” starting point, often found whenever NJ interact which the police. Several cases of probable police negligence are included.

=========================================
CRIME SPREE
Foreigners who turn to Japan’s justice system for help find themselves ignored. Is incompetence to blame… or racism?
METROPOLIS MAGAZINE #677 MARCH 16, 2007
By Oscar Johnson
http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/677/feature.asp
https://www.debito.org/?p=302

Trying to extract redress from Japan’s criminal justice system can be an exercise in the absurd for anyone. But add in the suspicion that’s associated with a foreign face or name, and that absurdity can turn into dismay and outrage. Many non-Japanese say their crime reports are routinely dismissed by police, who may instead turn a suspicious eye on them for daring to complain about being victims. At best, police negligence can underscore a foreigners’ second-class status; at worst, it can lead to an atmosphere where crimes against gaijin are tacitly condoned…

Negative perceptions of foreigners by the police and public is a reality in Japan, just as it is elsewhere, says H. Richard Friman, director of the Institute for Transnational Justice and a political science professor at Wisconsin’s Marquette University. But in Japan, he notes in an email interview, the situation is exacerbated by several factors, not least of which is “the willingness of political officials to play the ‘crime-by-foreigners’ card for political gain… Japanese aggregate crime data rarely specifies the victim of the crime, and anecdotal evidence… tends to stress those cases where Japanese are victims, or high profile cases of foreigner-on-foreigner violence. Thus, the common image is that Japanese especially are at risk.”

[T]here are a few things that can be done to increase the chances of an adequate police response, according to activist Arudou. The first is to be patient and not expect a quick resoltion. “If you get flustered, it’s only going to turn the cops off,” he says. “Have everything ready for presentation. If it’s rape or robbery, have photos of the location or stolen property; if there’s a language problem, take someone with you to interpret.” Arudou stresses that when dealing with the police, “establishing your credibility is paramount”–even if theirs may be on shaky ground.
=========================================

Here is some information I should have added to my comment:

=========================================
ADDENDUM FROM LAURIE TROST, HEAD OF THE US CITIZENS’ SERVICES SECTION OF THE US EMBASSY (FORWARDED FROM A FRIEND REGARDING A RECENT INQUIRY TO DEBITO FROM A VICTIM OF ASSAULT)

“Thank you for forwarding this. Since the American filed a report he might be able to get some funding from his state for Victim’s Assistance for his medical bills… I confirmed… that it’s better to report an assault at a Police Station rather than a koban. And yes, the police tell us the incident should be reported where it happened.”
=========================================

Finally, if you are going to deal with police–any police–anywhere in the world, get everything you need in reproduceable document form (on paper, digitally, electronically, etc as best you can) before, during, and after police investigations. Otherwise you have no case. Might be tough, but that’s whatcha gotta do. More in our upcoming GUIDEBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS (https://www.debito.org/?p=189).

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

3) IRISH TIMES AND NYT ON J HISTORICAL REVISIONISM

It’s business as usual as Japan Inc. takes on the world’s political arenas with spin doctoring over “Comfort Women” etc., to feint with the left hand while fiddling with the right. Distract with snow jobs while whitewashing the historical record. Only this time I think we’ve got enough people on the ground over here who know what our government is doing for a change. David McNeill releases an excellent article for the Irish Times, while Norimitsu Onishi, on an incredible roll these days, continues unearthing for the New York Times (who’da thunk it, considering Nori’s articles when he first got here…?)

=========================================
ABE UNLEASHES THE DENIERS OF HISTORY
By David McNeill
Irish Times, April 2, 2007
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2007/0331/1175003571900.html
Available by subscription only, so see full article blogged at
https://www.debito.org/?p=303

One of the Japanese TV networks recently pointed out that some of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ministers no longer stood up when he walked into the Cabinet meeting room. Even worse, fumed one observer, they kept chatting as he tries to start the meeting… [M]ost concluded: Mr. Abe had lost the respect of his troops.

The unruly Cabinet coincides with a period of plummeting approval ratings for the government, which started last year at 63 percent and now speed inexorably toward the low thirties as elections loom…

Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, Mr. Abe is taking shelter under a political umbrella he has always found comfortable: nationalism. The man who coined the election slogan “beautiful Japan” and who will, if nothing else be remembered for re-injecting patriotism into the nation’s schools (in an education law approved Friday) is also unleashing the historical deniers and whitewashers who have long been kept tied up in the dungeons of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

The deniers offer a startling historical counter-narrative: Japan was not the aggressor in the Pacific War but the liberator, fighting to defend itself from the U.S. and European powers and free Asia from the yoke of white colonialism; Imperial troops were not guilty, as most historians suggest, of some of the worst war crimes of the 20th century but the “normal excesses” of armies everywhere.

Mr. Abe’s cabinet is dominated by such revisionists…
=========================================

=========================================
JAPAN’S TEXTBOOKS REFLECT REVISED HISTORY
By Norimitsu Onishi, The New York Times April 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/world/asia/01japan.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

In another sign that Japan is pressing ahead in revising its history of World War II, new high school textbooks will no longer acknowledge that the Imperial Army was responsible for a major atrocity in Okinawa, the government announced late Friday.

The Ministry of Education ordered publishers to delete passages stating that the Imperial Army ordered civilians to commit mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa, as the island was about to fall to American troops in the final months of the war.

The decision was announced as part of the ministry’s annual screening of textbooks used in all public schools. The ministry also ordered changes to other delicate issues to dovetail with government assertions, though the screening is supposed to be free of political interference.

“I believe the screening system has been followed appropriately,” said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe…

Mr. Abe, after helping to found the Group of Young Parliamentarians Concerned About Japan’s Future and History Education in 1997, long led a campaign to reject what nationalists call a masochistic view of history that has robbed postwar Japanese of their pride.

Yasuhiro Nakasone, a former prime minister who is a staunch ally of Mr. Abe, recently denied what he wrote in 1978. In a memoir about his Imperial Navy experiences in Indonesia, titled “Commander of 3,000 Men at Age 23,” he wrote that some of his men “started attacking local women or became addicted to gambling.

“For them, I went to great pains, and had a comfort station built,” Mr. Nakasone wrote, using the euphemism for a military brothel.

But in a meeting with foreign journalists a week ago, Mr. Nakasone, now 88, issued a flat denial. He said he had actually set up a “recreation center,” where his men played Japanese board games like go and shogi…
=========================================

Games people play. Speaking of tinkering with the record:

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4) “GUESTISM” PLACED IN A HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Some time ago, Alex Kerr, author of DOGS AND DEMONS and LOST JAPAN (and a person I have great respect for), was asked in an interview with the Japan Times (Oct 25, 2005) about he thought about activists (and, er, about me in particular). He responded:

=========================================
JT: In Dogs and Demons you argue that Japan has failed to internationalize. What do you think about the work of Debito Arudou and others to combat racial discrimination in Japan?

AK: Well, somebody has to do it. I’m glad that there is a whistle-blower out there. But, I am doubtful whether in the long run it really helps. One would hope that he could do it another way. He’s not doing it the Japanese way. He’s being very gaijin in his openly combative attitude, and usually in Japan that approach fails.

I fear that his activities might tend to just confirm conservative Japanese in their belief that gaijin are difficult to deal with.

That said, perhaps we who live here are slow to stick our necks out when we sense an injustice, and quick to self-censor in order to get along smoothly in our communities.

To me the most interesting aspect of Arudou Debito is that, in taking on Japanese citizenship, he has brought the dialogue inside Japan. His activities reveal the fact that gaijin and their gaijin ways are now a part of the fabric of Japan’s new society. A very small part of course, but a vocal and real part.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/member.html?fl20051025zg.htm
=========================================

This sticks in my craw for two reasons: One is that Alex, who does incredible amounts of research for his books, seems ill-informed about the ways we have combatted racial discrimination. If he had read my book JAPANESE ONLY (and despite receiving a copy from me nearly two years ago, he wrote me last January that he still hadn’t read it), he might understand that ARE doing it the so-called “Japanese Way”. We took every channel and route available to us WITHIN the Japanese system, as I meticulously detail in the book. In fact, there are plenty of Japanese who do exactly what we do (and more), and don’t get slapped with a “gaijin” label. It is out of character for Alex to comment on something he hasn’t done thorough research on.

The other reason is that this quote has been lifted out of context and selectedly reproduced by the unscrupulous on places like Wikipedia:
=========================================
Some critics question Arudou’s brand of conflict resolution: the judicial system. Alex Kerr, author of the best-selling Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan (ISBN 0-8090-3943-5), criticize such tactics as “too combative,” is doubtful “whether in the long run it really helps,” noting that “in Japan…[the combative] approach fails.” Acknowledging that “gaijin and their gaijin ways are now part of the fabric of Japan’s new society,” Kerr also notes that Arudou’s activities may “confirm conservative Japanese in their belief that gaijin are difficult to deal with.”[24]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arudou_Debito
=========================================
The essence and thrust of Alex’s comment, which is in fact about two-thirds positive, is lost.

Anyhow, the reason I bring this up now is because Matt Dioguardi in a recent, thoughtful essay, grounds this phenomenon in historical context, from an angle I hadn’t considered before:

=========== MATT DIOGUARDI WRITES =================
As a foreign national who is making a life for himself in Japan, I’m personally concerned that remarks like his have a negative effect on me (as a so-called “gaijin”). Because regardless of what one may or may not think of Debito, unintentionally Kerr is commenting on all “gaijin”.

Compare this to C. Eric Lincoln’s vivid description of a “smart nigger” in Coming Through the Fire: Surviving Race and Place in America:

————————————————
The smart nigger was likely to be everything the good nigger was not. Most likely he was educated above the norm considered sufficient for colored folks; whether he got it in school or some bigger fool than he had put it into his head, he had some dangerous notions. In either case, Mr. Martin said that the smart nigger was a pain in his own ass, and everybody else’s too. He wanted too much. He wanted his street paved, and he wanted it paved because he paid taxes rather than because his wife cooked for the judge. His house was painted and well kept and he didn’t waste his money on rattletrap cars. He didn’t “owe money downtown,” or “take up” advances on his pay every Monday morning. More than likely he had “been up North,” and he had a colored newspaper come to his house in the mail. The smart nigger paid his poll taxes, and he was mighty slow, it seemed to Mr. Dubbie Gee, to answer when somebody said “Boy!” He didn’t think that the bad nigger was funny, or that the good nigger could be trusted. Clearly, every smart nigger would bear watching. “They don’t last long,” Mr. Martin said, and he “flat out had no use for them.” He said that if he were colored he’d either kick a smart nigger’s ass down off his shoulders or keep away from him. A smart nigger, he said “is a damn fool hell-bent for trouble. And mark my words, he’s gon’ find it quicker’n a catfish can suck a chicken gut off a bent pin.”
————————————————

Is Alex Kerr saying Debito is a “smart nigger”?

I’d like to note that Kerr should be more specific in his comments, because is it really the case that there are no non-“gaijin” doing the things that Debito does? Is he saying that when Japanese file lawsuits, this is a natural evolution of culture, but when Debito does it, it’s reinforcing the notion that “gaijin” have an “openly combative attitude”?

Is he saying the teachers who refuse to sing Kimigayo are acting like “gaijin”?

What exactly is the definitive way some one displays an “openly combative attitude”?

Moreover, what is the definitive “Japanese way”? And in what specific way is Debito not doing it?

It’s very disappointing to see some of Alex Kerr’s calibre engaging in Nihonjinron. He should know that there is nothing so destructive to Japan’s traditional local customs as Nihonjinron. Do I need to quote from his own books? Just like the centralization of construction standards begins to make all parks and all buildings look bleakly similar, the centralization of identity around the concept of “Japanese” in an essentialist sense is just as destructive to the development of a full personality.
=========== END MATT DIOGUARDI ==============

More at
http://japan.shadowofiris.com/nihonjinron/is-alex-kerr-calling-debito-a-smart-nigger/

The point is, I always find it amazing how easily people can fall right back into the “Guestist”-sounding paradigms of “nicely, nicely, don’t get too uppity, for it’s not ‘The Japanese Way'”. When in fact everything we have ever done has also been done by Japanese. I hope Alex gets around to reading my book (https://www.debito.org/japaneseonly.html) and will offer more informed comments.

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5) GET READY FOR A DIVORCE-RATE BOOM IN JAPAN

I’ve written a few essays on the problems with divorce in Japan in the past. Artery site at https://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#divorce

Well, the BBC is projecting the same thing as I have: that this month’s pension reforms are going to bring about a few changes in the artificially low divorce rates in Japan.

=========================================
JAPAN SET FOR DIVORCE RATE BOOM
By Chris Hogg BBC News, Tokyo
Published: 2007/04/01 05:44:14 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6515193.stm

New pension laws coming into effect in Japan could lead to an explosion in divorces, some experts are warning. The rules will make it easier for wives to claim up to half their husband’s pension once the marriage is over.

The number of divorces in Japan has been rising for several decades, but the trend reversed four years ago when the new laws were first discussed. Many believe that wives in unhappy marriages have been waiting for the new laws to come into effect on Sunday…

And there is another factor at work. Japan’s baby boom generation is starting to retire this year… These absentee spouses will now have much more time to spend at home – all day, every day – perhaps for the first time in the couple’s married life. Many here believe that will prove too much for their wives to cope with.
=========================================

Consequently, what happens to the retirees who come home to wives they don’t know? This week’s issue of Terrie’s Take speculates:

=========================================
http://www.japaninc.com/terries_take (Click on Issue 415)

The wave of retirements will definitely bring about some interesting socio-economic changes. Not having a “family” of like-minded salarymen to report to every morning will be a big shock for most male baby boomers–who have been described as the “generation waiting for instructions”. They will be forced to make lifestyle changes and as a result, many will become angry, upset, and confused. We expect the suicide and divorce rate to soar as a result.

The problem, of course, is that many of these men have followed a rigid routine for the last 40 years and find it very difficult to make friends outside their work–particularly with their alienated wives. As a result, they are likely to become part of the statistics contributing to the pending divorce surge we wrote about several weeks ago.

After the divorce, the future is unremittingly bleak for many of these male retirees. A recent OECD survey found that Japanese men are amongst the loneliest in the world, with 16.7% of males rarely or never having contact with friends or colleagues outside work. However, with Need being the Mother of Invention (and life changes), we imagine that a growing number of retirees will realize that to save their marriages, they have to start a new life and get to know their partner again.
=========================================

Anyway, this is getting beyond the purview of Debito.org, but this TT issue offers more interesting crystal-balling about life in Geriatric Japan (probably assuming rapid migration into Japan doesn’t happen). Click on the above link for more.

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6) U OF HYOGO AND IUHW ADDED TO UNIVERSITY BLACKLIST

The Blacklist of Japanese Universities (https://www.debito.org/blacklist.html) has just been updated for the season.

Breaking the 100 mark with two more universities are:
=========================================
NAME OF UNIVERSITY: International University of Health and Welfare (Kokusai Iryou Fukushi Daigaku) (Private)

LOCATION: Kita Kanamaru 2600-1, Odawara City, Tochigi Prefecture http://www.iuhw.ac.jp/
EMPLOYMENT ABUSE: “From its inception in 1995, International University of Health and Welfare, Tochigi Prefecture, has discriminated against its foreign teachers, and often its few foreign students. Foreign teachers, many of whom have been far more qualified than their Japanese counterparts, have suffered extreme marginalization born of . . . garden variety racism…”

SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Brave testimonial from Kevin Dobbs, Associate Professor, IUHW, available at https://www.debito.org/blacklist.html#IUHW
=========================================
=========================================
NAME OF UNIVERSITY: University of Hyogo (Hyogo Kenritsu Daigaku, or literally Hyogo Prefectural University) (Public) School of Human and Environmental Studies

LOCATION: 670-0092 Hyogo-ken, Himeji-shi, Shinzaike-Honmachi 1-1-12
EMPLOYMENT ABUSE: Hiring gaikokujin kyoushi or “Foreign Lecturer” on a one-year contract (According to my source, the university already has three other people with this title.)even though the Ministry of Education has told universities to phase out this position.

SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Job advertisement at JREC-IN at http://jrecin.jst.go.jp/html/kyujin/main/D106101920.html (archived here) and http://jrecin.jst.go.jp/html/kyujin/main/D106101920_E.html (archived here)
https://www.debito.org/blacklist.html#hyogokenritsu
==============================

Also added is an important essay, which winked out of existence when the Issho Kikaku website was rendered defunct (https://www.debito.org/?cat=25), resurrected by the author on Debito.org:

If you have been on a contract, renewed several times, then are suddenly facing dismissal, you can find out more about your rights in this essay by Steve van Dresser, “The Employment Rights of Repeatedly Renewed Private Sector Contract Workers” here:
https://www.debito.org/rightsofrepeatedlyrenewed.htm

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and finally… FUN FACTS!

Kicking off my first two installments of FUN FACTS–an occasional series of interesting articles I’ve found and blogged for posterity. Not necessarily internationalization- or immigration-related, but fun to know nonetheless.

=========================================

FUN FACTS #1: COMPARATIVE PREFECTURAL ECONOMIC PROWESS

I’ve heard many times from people that Japanese newspapers and media are boring. But that’s often because the bored don’t know where to look. For example, have a look at this article from February 7, 2007’s Asahi Shinbun (pg 23):
https://www.debito.org/?p=314

The article talks about PM Abe’s vision of “doushuusei”, the consolidation of prefectures, to cut down on local government costs and maybe even (*cough*… pipe dream at this stage) devolving more power to more self-sufficient local governments.

If Japan’s 47 prefectures/municipal governments were cut down to eleven regions (see chart above), this would produce the following results: (2003 GDP sizes, population figures from the 2005 Census)

1) HOKKAIDO (population 5.63 million) would be the world’s 36th largest economy, around the size of PORTUGAL.
2) TOUHOKU (pop. 9.63 million), 25th, around the size of NORWAY.
3) NORTH KANTO (pop. 16.27 million) 17th, between SWITZERLAND and HOLLAND.
4) SOUTH KANTO (including Tokyo and Yokohama, pop. 28.30 million), 8th, around the size of CANADA.
5) TOUKAI (including Nagoya, pop. 15.02 million), 17th, around the size of HOLLAND.
6) SHIKOKU (pop. 4.09 million), 41st, around the size of SINGAPORE.
7) OKINAWA (pop. 1.36 million), 64th, around the size of LUXEMBOURG.
8) HOKURIKU (pop. 5.54 million), 32nd, around the size of ARGENTINA.
9) KANSAI (pop. 20.89 million), 16th, around the size of AUSTRALIA.
10) CHUUGOKU (pop. 7.68 million), 27th, around the size of SOUTH AFRICA.
11) KYUSHU (pop. 13.35 million), 17th, around the size of SWITZERLAND.

From this you can get an inkling of which parts of Japan are richest and poorest, and which are more or less likely to be self-sufficient (if the tax-hungry and control-freak national government would ever allow any political devolution to the provinces; fat chance at this stage) post-Doushuusei on an economic basis alone.

Hokkaido, you might note, remains unchanged–which is probably why our governor (a protege of LDP Kingpin Machimura (https://www.debito.org/?p=130) supports it. Makes no difference either way–except more brownie points for her for going with the flow.

Old Debito.org essay on Hokkaido’s economic dependency on the mainland here.
https://www.debito.org/hokkaidodependency.html

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FUN FACTS #2 ON REGIONAL NON-JAPANESE RESIDENT USER-FRIENDLINESS
Courtesy of the Minami Nihon Shinbun of February 12, 2007:
https://www.debito.org/?p=315

Blogged here is a color-coded chart of how each of Japan’s 47 municipal governments stack up in terms of NJ user-friendliness for their NJ residents (tabunka kyousei). This is behind the two other pillars the national government (Soumushou) determined in March 2006 to be the backbone of Japan’s internationalization: “International Communication” (kokusai kouryuu), and “International Cooperation” (kokusai kyouryoku). “Multicultural Coexistence”, the cleanest translation I can come up for tabunka kyousei, means, according to the article, “the mutual acknowledgement of peoples’ differences by nationality and ethnicity, and living together as equals in the local communities”.

Hm. This shows quite a bit of thought on the part of the government. Well and good. But in practice?

An NPO in Osaka (the Tabunka Kyousei Center) launched a survey to see how well each local government did. According to the article, they included services such as Japanese lessons, information in foreign languages, education for their children, and policies taking into consideration local non-Japanese residents, etc. The data was collected between October 2005 and August 2006. Full marks are 80 points.

As you can see by the color coding in the above article, Tokyo and Hyogo scored best, then high-foreign population centers near Aichi and Gifu bubbled under. Scoring worst were Aomori, Nagasaki, Saga, Ehime, and (gasp–seriously) Okinawa!

The Japan Times (Feb 15, 2007) also did a full article on this, blogged on Debito.org at
https://www.debito.org/?p=223

The average score was just above half marks, 41 points. So any prefecture in the map above colored orange or below should hang their heads in shame. Note how they are often the prefectures with depopulation problems (not to mention imported brides for farmers). So if local governments want to avoid acculturalization issues in the future, they had better get their acts together and make people more comfortable living there.

More FUN FACTS to follow. Finally going through a stack of a couple hundred newspapers I’ve saved over the years, and am uncovering lots of buried treasure…
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All for now. Thanks for reading!
Arudou Debito in Sapporo
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER OF APRIL 7, 2007 ENDS