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Hi All. Arudou Debito here. Welcome to the first automated online Newsletter.  If you’d like to get this sooner and by email in your inbox (so you don’t have to come back to this site every day), please subscribe via the box in the top left-hand column on any page of this blog!

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 30, 2009
SPECIAL ON THE OTARU ONSENS LAWSUIT, TEN YEARS ON:

Yes, September 19 marked the tenth anniversary since a group of friends and I went to Otaru Onsen Yunohana and tried to take a bath. Time for a retrospective of what has and has not changed:

Table of Contents:
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1) INTRO ESSAY: What the case means even today, Article for Japonesia Review
2) Index of online study aids of media on the event
3) YouTubed: News Station Oct 12, 1999 on Ana Bortz Verdict YouTubed
4) YouTubed: HBC award-winning broadcast Mar 27, 2001 creates contentious dichotomies
5) YouTubed: “KokoGaHen” Feb 28 2001 and their critique of us plaintiffs
6) YouTubed: J Media reportage of the Feb 1, 2001 Lawsuit Filing in Sapporo District Court
7) YouTubed: How the J media whipped up fear of foreign crime from 2000 and linked it with lawsuit
8 ) CONCLUDING ESSAY: How the debate still rages on, article by TransPacific Radio

… and finally …
9) Sunday Tangent: SAPPORO SOURCE DEBITO Column on Zombie Movies

PS: See my next Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column October 6, 2009 on Tokyo’s Olympic Bid
(we’ll know Oct. 2 whether or not they get it).
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By Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, www.debito.org
Invite others to subscribe by going to any blog page at debito.org
Back issues of the NEWSLETTER archived at https://www.debito.org/?cat=3

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1) INTRO ESSAY: What the case means even today, Article for Japonesia Review

Today is the tenth anniversary of our visit, on September 19, 1999, to “Japanese Only” Yunohana Onsen et al in Otaru, a life-changing event that to this day has not been fully resolved mainly because we still don’t have a law against racial discrimination in Japan. This situation remains more than 13 years after Japan effecting of the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, where it promised to take “all measures, including legislation” to effectively eliminate all forms of RD. And it deserves comment and reflection after years of protests, two books, countless articles, and successful lawsuits against the onsen (albeit not against the negligent City of Otaru).

My thoughts on this day are bittersweet. I know we did the right thing (as Olaf noted, when I called him today, people are still talking about the case), and we had a good outcome in court. But I judge things like this based upon whether or not they could ever happen again. The answer is, unfortunately, yes. After all, all Yunohana Onsen has to do is put up another “Japanese Only” sign and we’d have to take them to court all over again just to get it down. There is no law to stop it, nothing for authorities to enforce. Ten years later, it feels more overdue now than in 1999.

TITLE: THE OTARU ONSENS LAWSUIT: TEN YEARS ON

What has and has not changed regarding human rights for Non-Japanese in Japan…

https://www.debito.org/?p=4428

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2) Index of online study aids of media on the event

This week I will continue a retrospective on the Otaru Onsens Case, with links to media I collected nearly a decade ago, charting the course of the debate, and how it went down a path that in fact ultimately encouraged people to discriminate. The full arc in my book JAPANESE ONLY, but here is a list of primary sources for your viewing pleasure.

If possible (my friend KM is also supposed to be on holiday, but he’s the one who has kindly converted my analog recordings into digital and YouTubed it), I will put up a link to each media every day, the first one this evening. There is also a DVD I can burn for those who wish to use this for an educational purpose (contact me at debito@debito.org).

Here’s an outline of the media I have when I first offered this as a study aid three years ago:

https://www.debito.org/?p=4462

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3) YouTubed: News Station Oct 12, 1999 on Ana Bortz Verdict YouTubed

OTARU ONSENS TAPE (1999-2003) PART ONE
CONTENTS WITH TEACHING NOTES
1) TV ASAHI NEWS STATION on ANA BORTZ DECISION (Nationally broadcast October 12, 1999) (10 minutes). National broadcast. Describes the first court decision regarding racial discrimination in Japan, citing the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the fact that Japan has no law against racial discrimination. Imbedded video and mp4 format for viewing on iPods available.

COMMENT: What’s remarkable about this broadcast is how thoroughly it describes the Bortz Case and the UN CERD. Also the videotape, from Sebido Jewelry Store security cameras in Hamamatsu, showing the owner refusing Ana quite forcefully. It is the most sympathetic broadcast to come out during the Otaru Onsens Case, and unfortunately it would come at the very beginning, before the media really lost the point.

The Ana Bortz Lawsuit would inject new energy into the Otaru Onsens Case (which first started in earnest on September 19, 1999, about a month before), offering positive legal precedent for the onsens to take their signs down. Shortly afterwards, one did (Onsen Panorama). The other two, Onsen Osupa, would take until March 2000 and a lot of beers and making friends with the owner. The last one (in Otaru, at least), Onsen Yunohana would take until January 2001, nearly fifteen months and a lot of events later, on the day that we announced that we would be suing them. Then, and only then, and Yunohana only replaced it with a new set of exclusionary rules. It would take several years to prove this, but these moves would be a losing formula for them in court. More in my book JAPANESE ONLY.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4460

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4) YouTubed: HBC award-winning broadcast Mar 27, 2001 creates contentious dichotomies

OTARU ONSENS TAPE (1999-2003) PART TWO
2) HBC TV award-winning documentary on OTARU ONSENS CASE (Locally broadcast March 27, 2001). Gives the most thorough rundown of the issue and expresses the issue from a more “Japanese point of view” (i.e. the issue less in terms of racism, more in terms of cultural differences). 50 minutes, six parts on embedded YouTube or download one mp4 file from Debito.org to play on your iPod.

COMMENT: We have a decent establishment of the issue in part one, then in subsequent parts we have a whole bunch of pundits claiming this is a “cultural issue” (meaning misunderstandings of our unique J culture make refusals of NJ inevitable to some). Or that it’s a Hobson’s Choice between “human rights of the NJ” and “the survival rights of the business” (which was always a false dichotomy borne out in retrospect that none of the onsens have gone bankrupt since taking their signs down; quite the opposite in the case of Defendant Yunohana).

What happens is that the show becomes a”Japanese vs Non-Japanese” thing, where we get lots of old J men and women etc. saying how much they dislike NJ, vs NJ bleating about their rights despite having allegedly different and disruptive bathing rules. We even have Tarento Daniel Carr coming off all sycophantic blaming NJ for their plight and pointing out their foibles. Teeth begin to itch before long.

Nowhere in the show is there anyone J saying, “Look, all you have to do is kick out those who don’t follow the rules. It’s not a matter of nationality at all. Just a matter of ill-mannered people, which is an individual matter, not a cultural matter.” But no. That would remove the drama that TV news reports are such suckers for, alas.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4480

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5) YouTubed: “KokoGaHen” Feb 28 2001 and their critique of us plaintiffs

OTARU ONSENS TAPE (1999-2003) PART THREE
3) TV ASAHI tabloid show “KOKO GA HEN DA YO NIHONJIN”, on exclusionism in Wakkanai, Monbetsu, and Otaru (Nationally broadcast Feb 28, 2001) (16 minutes). Complete with brickbats for the Plaintiffs for filing suit from the screaming foreign panelists.

If you would like to download and watch this broadcast in mp4 format on your iPod in one part, click here: There is also a complete transcript and English translation here:

COMMENT: I remember clearly three things about that evening:

1) That ALL the panelists (the half-baked comment from Terii Itoh notwithstanding) on the Japanese side of the fence were very supportive in fact, they wished us luck and success in the lawsuit.

2) That ALMOST ALL of the panelists on the NJ side did the same. In fact, it looked in danger of becoming a boring debate because it seemed so cut and dried. It was a tiny minority who stood up to offer brickbats.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4508

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6) YouTubed: J Media reportage of the Feb 1, 2001 Lawsuit Filing in Sapporo District Court

In Part Four of this retrospective on the Otaru Onsens Case a decade on, I talk about how the J media received and reported on our filing of the lawsuit against Otaru Onsen Yunohana on February 1, 2001. The answer: Not well. Comment from me follows embedded videos about the disingenuousness of Otaru Onsen Yunohana, the City of Otaru, and the very media itself.

4) HBC NEWS (Locally broadcast March 27, 2001) on the OTARU ONSENS LAWSUIT FIRST HEARING (3 minutes). Otaru City claims impunity from CERD responsibilities due to local govt. status, while Yunohana Onsen tries to claim it was the victim in this case.

5) VARIOUS NEWS AGENCIES (Dosanko Wide, Hokkaido News, STV, and HBC) with various angles on OTARU ONSENS LAWSUIT FILING (Locally broadcast February 1, 2001) (15 minutes total). NB: HBC contains the only public interview given by Defendant Yunohana Onsen owner Hashimoto Hiromitsu. This interview was given live (the only way Hashimoto would agree to be interviewed, so that his comments would not be edited, according to reporter sources), where he states that he has never met us (of course; he always refused to meet us; the only time we would ever cross paths would be November 11, 2002, in the courtroom, when the Sapporo District Court came down in Plaintiffs’ favor).

https://www.debito.org/?p=4516

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7) YouTubed: How the J media whipped up fear of foreign crime from 2000 and linked it with lawsuit

In Part Five of this retrospective on the Otaru Onsens Case a decade on, I talk about how the J media misinterpreted the issues revolving around the “JAPANESE ONLY” signs up at Otaru Onsen Yunohana et al., and how they wound up fanning the fires of exclusionism by spreading fear of foreigners (particularly vis-a-vis foreign crime).

As I chart in book “JAPANESE ONLY”, when we first started this case in September 1999, NJ were seen as “misunderstood outsiders”, impaired by “culture” as their monkey on their back. But following GOJ policy putsches by politicians like then-PM Koizumi and Tokyo Gov Ishihara (who in April 2000 famously called upon the Nerima SDF to prepare for “foreigner roundups” to prevent riots in the case of a natural disaster), NJ became a public threat to Japan’s safety and internal security (even though NJ crime was always less than J crime both as a proportion and of course in terms of absolute numbers). Then more doors slammed shut and more signs barring NJ from entry went up some of them direct copies of the signs in Otaru. Hey, as those onsens indicated, exclusionary signs are not illegal.

Thus, although we made progress in the first six months of the Otaru Onsens Case, getting signs down in two of Otaru’s three exclusionary onsen, we could not compete with the national government and media saturation, and lost all the ground we gained and then some. The media’s overfocus on NJ crime to this day affects the debate regarding assimilation.

Embedded videos of how the media could not escape linking NJ rights with foreign crime follow.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4539

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8 ) CONCLUDING ESSAY: How the debate still rages on, article by TransPacific Radio

TPR: In the ten years since the case, much has changed and debate over Arudou’s goal and tactics continues apace. As with any heated issue (and human rights issues are always heated), the disagreements range from perfectly legitimate concerns to objections that are, to put it nicely, based on misinformation or incorrect assumptions.

It is no secret that Arudou has many critics (in the interest of disclosure, it is worth it to point out that while we here at TPR pull no punches with the man and feel it necessary to play Devil’s Advocate at the least, we do know him sociably and will say that, politics aside, he’s a likable guy just exercise caution before bringing up the topic of Duran Duran.) It is also no secret that, for a variety of reasons, his most vocal critics are almost entirely non-Japanese.

Among the most high profile of those critics is Gregory Clark, whose column in the Japan Times gives him perhaps a wider audience than most other writers on the topic. On January 15th of this year, Clark wrote a risible and deeply disingenuous column for the paper headlined “Antiforeigner discrimination is a right for Japanese people”.

In the column, Clark tries to paint a picture of a contemptible rabble-rousing jerk that he very clearly hints is Arudou (it’s not. As far as we can tell, there is no such person as the one Clark is writing about.) Wondering at Clark’s vitriol and some of his more outlandish statements, this observer settled on the following paragraph: (…)

https://www.debito.org/?p=4535

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… and finally …

9) Sunday Tangent: SAPPORO SOURCE DEBITO Column on Zombie Movies

After a week of the Otaru Onsens Case (thanks to KMCheese for YouTubing all the videos on his channel), it’s time for something lighter. My most recent column for freepaper SAPPORO SOURCE.

On Zombie Movies. Yes, I’m a big fan. See why below. Download the entire issue of SAPPORO SOURCE here in pdf format. Cover, scanned page, and text of the article follows.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4545

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PS: See my next Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column October 6, 2009 on Tokyo’s Olympic Bid
(we’ll know Oct. 2 whether or not they get it).

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All for this Newsletter. Thanks for reading and resubscribing!
Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, www.debito.org
Invite others to subscribe by going to any blog page at debito.org
Back issues of the NEWSLETTER archived at https://www.debito.org/?cat=3
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 30, 2009 ENDS

mytest

UPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 22, 2009
LAST SUMMER INSTALLMENT: ODDS AND SODS

Table of Contents:
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PROMISING DEVELOPMENTS
1) TransPacific Radio gives background on PM Hatoyama Cabinet members
2) Eikaiwa NOVA embezzler and former boss Saruhashi gets his: 3.5 years
3) Activism: New documentary “The Cove” on dolphin slaughters in Taiji, Wakayama Pref
4) Terrie’s Take on recent new rulings on tenants’ rights in Japan
5) Yomiuri: UN set to criticize Japan for lack of gender equality and flawed marriage law (read: child abductions after divorce)

LESS SO
6) Narita cops allegedly stopping newly-arrived “foreigners” for passport checks before boarding Narita Express trains
7) Another way of stealing children in J marriages: legal adoption
8 ) LA Times: “Charisma Man: An American geek is reborn in Japan”

DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT
9) Community’s DMG on how he dealt with too much neighborhood construction noise
10) TheWorldGame.com on why Brazilian footballers in Japan are so footloose
11) Bumping into Ramos Rui, one of my heroes, by chance in Nagoya
12) Japan Times interviews Dave Spector on Japanese Media
13) Interview by JapanTechTalk on NJ rights, courtesy of Mondo Books Nagoya
14) Discussion: What do you think about offers of special discounts for NJ? (Blog poll included)

… and finally …
15) Sapporo Source DEBITO column Sept 09 on “albums” vs “tracks” culture (full text)
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By Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, Daily Blog updates at www.debito.org (long-time readers, please resubscribe your RSS)
Freely Forwardable

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PROMISING DEVELOPMENTS

1) TransPacific Radio gives background on PM Hatoyama Cabinet members

Well done on TPR for getting this information out. Have a read. Get to know your government, because this one might be the one which is more attentive to the needs of the NJ communities. Regardless of bent, I myself have had the Cabinet and all their backgrounds posted on the wall of my loo, like I have had for every Cabinet since Koizumi 2003. Their writeup as follows:

===================================
Hatoyama Officially becomes PM, Names Cabinet
TransPacific Radio.com Filed under: Japan in the News, Politics
Posted by Garrett DeOrio at 11:18 am on Thursday, September 17, 2009

As expected, Yukio Hatoyama officially became Japan’s 93rd Prime Minister yesterday and just the second since the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party was founded not to belong to it. Just as importantly, after roughly two weeks of managing to keep the press at bay and leaking little, if anything about the make-up of the new Cabinet, the new Prime Minister formed the first Cabinet since 1955 to contain no LDP members.

In fact, as promised, the new Cabinet is made up entirely of elected representatives. Every portfolio went to a DPJ member, with only two positions going to the DPJ’s partners: State Minister in Charge of Consumer Affairs and the Declining Birthrate to SDP head Mizuho Fukushima and State Minister in Charge of Financial and Postal Issues to People’s New Party chief Shizuka Kamei.

So, without further ado, the Cabinet:

Yukio Hatoyama, Prime Minister…

https://www.debito.org/?p=4457

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2) Eikaiwa NOVA embezzler and former boss Saruhashi gets his: 3.5 years

Japan Times Aug 27: Former Nova President Nozomu Sahashi was sentenced Wednesday to 3 1/2 years in prison by the Osaka District Court for his role in skimming off employee funds in 2007, just before the foreign language school giant’s bankruptcy that October.

Presiding Judge Hiroaki Higuchi’s severe sentence took some in the courtroom by surprise. Prosecutors had sought five years for the former president of what was once the country’s largest foreign language school chain and employer of foreign nationals. Sahashi is expected to appeal the sentence.

Sahashi was charged with funneling nearly 320 million from employee benefit funds to a bank account belonging to a Nova affiliate in July 2007. He denied embezzling the funds, telling the court he used the money on behalf of his employees.

He tried to portray himself as only one of a group of senior Nova executives responsible for the decision. But the judge said that given the amount of money and his authority, Sahashi bore a heavy responsibility for the crime.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4364

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3) Activism: New documentary “The Cove” on dolphin slaughters in Taiji, Wakayama Pref

Sunday Tangent: I heard on NPR Fresh Air July 30 (podcasts available here) a review and an interview on upcoming documentary “THE COVE”, regarding a town in Wakayama Prefecture named Taiji famous for its whale hunts. It’s also going to become famous for its periodic dolphin slaughter, the subject of this movie.

Ostensibly, the activists claim, for “pest control”, the slaughter of entire schools (if you consider the dolphin a fish, like the fishermen apparently do) of dolphins is apparently due to the dolphins having a taste for the fish that they catch (sorry, but dolphins gotta eat too). It’s a frequent event that takes place in a national park that is otherwise off limits to public eyes. The documentarians (one of whom trained Flipper — seriously — and realized the error of his ways) actually put cameras in rocks and other submersibles to capture first hand the footage of the slaughter the GOJ denies is happening. The movie comes out in spring. NPR gave it a good review.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4042

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4) Terrie’s Take on recent new rulings on tenants’ rights in Japan

Terrie’s Take July 26, 2009: The Japan Times has been doing a good job recently of documenting consumer rights law cases and also foreigner- related issues that might be of use to its readers. Last week they reported on a landmark court ruling, whereby the Kyoto District Court said that a landlord’s insistence on contract renewal fees (“koshinryo”) may violate the rights of the tenant. This is the first time such a case has been ruled in favor of the tenant.

In the case, the tenant was apparently told that there would be a contract renewal fee, but not why. Presumably the agent thought that because the renewal fee is a traditional payment, dating back to post-war times when the government didn’t want returnee soldiers relocating en masse to the cities, they didn’t go into it in any detail. In any case, as a result of that oversight, when the plaintiff moved out several months after he’d paid the renewal and the landlord refused to refund the payment, the tenant took offense and took the landlord to court.

The basis for the lawsuit was the 2001 revised consumer protection law, which the court agreed had precedence over the tenancy law. In the ruling the judge apparently commented that, “The reasons for charging contract renewal fees must be clearly explained to tenants and agreed upon between the two sides.”

Now before everyone starts hooting from the roof tops that it’s time for landlords to get some of their own medicine, it’s worth remembering that this is the exact same Kyoto District Court that in January of last year dismissed a very similar lawsuit. In that earlier case, the tenant also based his claim on the 2001 consumer contract law, where he said that renewal fees in the way they are currently notified and imposed, constitute a contract that “Unilaterally causes damage to the interests of consumers.” We daresay that a lot of readers would agree with that statement!…

https://www.debito.org/?p=4426

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5) Yomiuri: UN set to criticize Japan for lack of gender equality and flawed marriage law (read: child abductions after divorce)

Yomiuri describes the political business as usual regarding another facet of human rights in Japan:

A legislator-sponsored bill calling for a revision of the Civil Code in response to CEDAW recommendations has been repeatedly presented to the Diet. But the bill that would delete provisions that discriminate against women has been scrapped every time without in-depth deliberation.

Japan’s failure to ratify the Optional Protocol on the convention on the elimination of discrimination against women also is being questioned by the international community.

The protocol stipulates that a mechanism should be put in place that would allow individual women who have exhausted legal and other avenues available within Japan to report directly to CEDAW to ask them to inquire into alleged human rights violations against them.

As Japan has been repeatedly urged to ratify the protocol, government ministries and agencies concerned have been studying the wisdom of doing so.

However, with many politicians expressing wariness about signing a protocol they say might come into conflict with the principle of independence of the nation’s judiciary, no earnest discussions have yet to take place in the political arena.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4076

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LESS SO

6) Narita cops allegedly stopping newly-arrived “foreigners” for passport checks before boarding Narita Express trains

September 16, 2009 11:26:32 AM JST
Don’t really want to open a can of worms here, and would prefer that this stay anonymous if blogged, but I was stopped by the police in Narita airport after returning from a two-week trip to the states yesterday.

There were many officers deployed in a couple of lines to catch anyone comming off the escalators to the trains out of the airport. They were carrying clipboards and stopping anyone who looked foreign for a “passport check.”

COMMENT: Anyone else experiencing this in Japan’s airports? Of course, I have on several occasions (one here and another here). Others, please pipe up. As the author says, this passport checkpoint coming so fast on the heels of Immigration checks is a bit much.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4411

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7) Another way of stealing children in J marriages: legal adoption

For some reason the most popular article on the Japan Times website September 6 was one nearly a decade old, one about another loophole in Japanese marriage laws legal adoption of the children by the grandparents.

Not the first time I’ve heard of this (I had a friend whom this happened to as well), and it’s definitely not limited to J-NJ marriages, but it’s one more cautionary tale about how the lack of strong family law, coupled with the Koseki system and easy inkan fraud, leads to parents being denied access (or even legal ties to) to their kids in Japan.

What makes this an NJ issue is that many don’t know the system, or get taken advantage of more easily than native speakers. And then many spend years stringing along in Japan just trying to see their kids. The information is no less poignant today.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4332

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8 ) LA Times: “Charisma Man: An American geek is reborn in Japan”

LA Times: From his window seat in the Roppongi bar district, Neil Garscadden eyes an exotic street parade: the reggae-styled hipsters, the Nigerian nightclub hawkers, the soft-stepping geishas, the secretaries in miniskirts and impossibly heavy eye shadow.

The nuances of the scene, Garscadden insists, would be lost on a mere tourist.

This, he says, is a job for Charisma Man.

With his blue eyes, tousled blond hair and foreign passport, Charisma Man is a sake-sipping man about town, suavely negotiating the intricacies of Japanese culture. Women adore him. Men respect, even fear, him. Life in the East bends to his every whim.

“It’s great to be a Western guy in Asia,” he says. “I’ve got lots of money, chicks dig me everybody respects me.”

Well, not everybody.

In this land of anime, Charisma Man is a comic strip character created in 1998 by Larry Rodney, a Canadian then teaching English in Nagoya, to lampoon what he saw as the absurd hubris of many Western men in Japan. Capitalizing on their novelty status, they prowled for cheap thrills, an easy paycheck and sex not necessarily in that order. Many were slackers posing as teachers (a job for which they were underqualified) to continue the charade of their low-wattage celebrity.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4368

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DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT

9) Community’s DMG on how he dealt with too much neighborhood construction noise

I have a series of letters here from DMG, writing for The Community, who tells us what he did (relatively successfully) to reduce construction noise in his neighborhood, which was affecting both his work and rest. If you have a similar situation of neighborhood meiwaku, take it to the authorities, talk to the neighbors, and open a dialog with the meiwaku-ers, is the lesson. In his case, it seems to have worked. Good for him. Passing this on as practical advice.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4417

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10) TheWorldGame.com on why Brazilian footballers in Japan are so footloose

[Gamba Osaka striker Leandro’s] departure has the potential to unleash catcalls that Brazilian players are only in the J-League for the money.

Well, so what if they are?

In a country where xenophobia is a softly-spoken secret how’s this for McDonald’s latest Japanese ad campaign? can anyone really blame Leandro for hopping on the first available flight to Doha?

There are plenty of Brazilians in the J-League committed to the cause. Some, like the high-profile Zico, are afforded star status.

But others toil in relative anonymity, happy to ply their trade far from their homeland, struggling to overcome cultural and language barriers.

Often their contracts are terminated with no fanfare and little regard for their welfare

It’s a draining lifestyle one I can attest to and I don’t begrudge a single Brazilian player who chooses to make a living in Japan, or one who departs for pastures anew.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4335

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11) Bumping into Ramos Rui, one of my heroes, by chance in Nagoya

I was in Nagoya two weeks ago finishing up one of my intensive courses on Media Professionalism, and at checkout from my hotel who should I bump into on the elevator but somebody I could have sworn looked just like one of my heroes.

Ramos Rui, a famous soccer player who has done a great deal in my opinion for assimilation of NJ (he even naturalized in 1989), toughing it out in what would become the J-League, then the Japan National Team, was standing right there. I asked him, he acknowledged, and we had a quick conversation in Japanese about things. Photo enclosed.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4381

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12) Japan Times interviews Dave Spector on Japanese Media

We’ve been talking about the media quite a bit lately. Now let’s read an interview with someone on the other side, who is, according to the Japanese media polls, one of the, if not the, most trusted and popular commentators in Japanese TV. Dave Spector. Yes, Dave Spector, who has been a very kind supporter of Debito.org. Excerpt from JT article follows.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4078

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13) Interview by JapanTechTalk on NJ rights, courtesy of Mondo Books Nagoya

My last night in Nagoya I had an immensely enjoyable interview with JapanTechTalk’s Robert Sanzalone over tebasaki.

Have a listen! http://twaud.io/tg

Amazing how six hours after an interview takes place it can be all over the Net.

Thanks to an introduction by Mike and Jose at Mondo Books Nagoya.

http://www.mondo-books.com/
on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nagoya-Japan/Mondo-Books-/218012530513

Two autographed signed copies of HANDBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS, MIGRANTS, AND IMMIGRANTS available at Mondo. First come, first purchased! How to get there at above links!

https://www.debito.org/?p=4375

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14) Discussion: What do you think about offers of special discounts for NJ? (Blog poll included)

The Community yahoogroup has been having an interesting discussion about “positive discrimination”, where NJ actually get special treatment or discounts for being foreign. What do people here think about that?

Here are some posts from The Community developing the issue. Comments? Debito

Discussion begins: “Just wanted to pass along a very nice thing that happened today went out to a cafe here in Fukui with my family for lunch and was surprised to find a sign in English at the register reading “10% discount to all foreigners”. Although the discount is nice, it’s even nicer to see a shop going out of its way to open itself up to NJs, especially in a conservative prefecture like Fukui…”

https://www.debito.org/?p=4354

I also put up a blog poll, just in case you’d like to express your opinion:

=======================================
If you (personally) were offered a “foreigner discount” by a store in Japan, would you take it?

• Yes, under just about any circumstances.
• No, under just about any circumstances.
• Depends on my mood.
• Depends on the store.
• Depends on the spirit under which it is offered.
• Not sure, undecided, or indifferent.
• None of the above.

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

Vote at any Debito.org page, or at
https://www.debito.org/?page_id=1851

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… and finally …

15) Sapporo Source DEBITO column Sept 09 on “albums” vs “tracks” culture (full text)

Keeping track of musical albums as an art form
Column three for the free newspaper SAPPORO SOURCE Debito Column
Submitted August 1, 2009, to be published in September Issue
DRAFT FIVE
Download entire magazine in pdf format at
http://www.sapporosource.com/

I turned 44 this year, but in terms of musical tastes I might as well be prehistoric. Music “generations” (as in, the life cycle of a genre that people identify with, like “Psychedelic”, “Heavy Metal”, “Funk”, “Punk”, “Disco”, “New Wave”, “80s Music” etc.) seem to be getting shorter, lasting four years or so.

When I was young and the earth’s crust was still forming, we’d listen to music that our parents couldn’t understand (Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath usually did the trick). After all, it was “our” music, not theirs. The fogies would dismiss it as some kind of unsyncopated noise that we had better turn down before the Devil carried us off.

Nowadays, however, I’m the fogy who doesn’t get it. I flip on MTV and see scantily-clad line dancers working out to “rap music” (to me, an oxymoron). Or I listen nonplussed to “hip hop” or “house”. Somehow I missed whole genres. “Grunge”? “Trance”? “Techno”? Meanwhile tunes familiar to me have either been relegated to “Classic Rock”, or else are getting recycled by American Idol as “remakes” and “updates”. Sometimes I wonder if we’ve run out of ways to manipulate the 120 notes audible to the human ear.

Ah well. That’s the way generations of genres work. If kids they want to buy something new just because it’s new (and why wouldn’t they we did), then fine. But I will harrumph that you whipper-snappers have lost something. Due to the way your music is packaged.

Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=4244

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All for today! Thanks for reading!
Arudou Debito (debito@debito.org, www.debito.org)
Sapporo, Japan
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 22, 2009 ENDS

mytest

UPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito

Quick note at the very top. Tomorrow, Sept. 19, is a very special day for Debito.org, as it marks ten years to the day since the Otaru Onsens Case began with our visit to Yunohana Onsen et al. (https://www.debito.org/otarulawsuit.html). I will offer a special retrospective article tomorrow on Debito.org to discuss what has and hasn’t changed. Go to www.debito.org tomorrow if you’d like to read it before the next Newsletter.

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 18, 2009
SPECIAL ON EXCLUSIONISM AND TARGETING
Table of Contents:

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EXCLUSIONISM
1) Mainichi: Shizuoka bureaucrats force Brazilian woman to take “Repatriation Bribe”
2) American journalist banned from “Japanese Only” Toyota press conference in America!
3) Kyodo & JT: Osaka JH school reluctantly takes preteen NJ kid despite teacher opposition!
4) J population drops, Internal Ministry converts it into rise, excludes NJ from tally.
5) Interview with the Berlin Institute for Population and Development re Japan’s int’l future
6) BBC: British furniture store puts up “no foreign students” sign (parallels with Otaru Onsens Case)
7) Japan Times: NJ visas now contingent on enrollment in Japan’s health insurance program starting April 2010
8 ) Contrast: Naturalized Caucasian Korean becomes SK’s National Tourism Org leader

TARGETING
9) Collating update: upcoming IC Gaijin Cards, RFID hackability, next generation police walkie-talkie, and NPA access to TASPO information
10) Debito.org reader Brian reports on Shinjuku Police 9-day incarceration of 74-year-old tourist for pocket knife
11) SITYS: Japan Times confirms that 74-year-old tourist WAS indeed incarcerated for 10 days for carrying a pocket knife
12) Update: Ibaraki Police’s third new NJ-scare poster
13) Comparison: Open Society Institute report on police racial profiling in France
14) Yomiuri, Sankei, FNN: Sakai Noriko’s husband fingers NJ dealers as source of their drug habit
15) Japan Times: New “lay judge” court system sentences first NJ
16) Economist.com: Far higher proportion of NJ in Japanese prison than proportion of population
17) Freeman offers specific dialogs to deal with J police during Gaijin Card Check

… and finally…
18) Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column: “Unlike Humans, Swine Flu is Indiscriminate” (full text)
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By Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, Daily Blog updates at www.debito.org (long-time readers, please resubscribe your RSS)
Freely Forwardable

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EXCLUSIONISM

1) Mainichi: Shizuoka bureaucrats force Brazilian woman to take “Repatriation Bribe”

Case number #4534 or so of why one does not allow untrained bureaucrats to make Immigration decisions: The potential for misunderstanding and abuse.

Last April, the GOJ decided to offer unemployed Nikkei workers (only this did not apply to Chinese etc. “Trainees and Researchers” because they did not have the correct blood) a 300,000 yen Repatriation Bribe for airplane tickets “back home”, not only asking them to void their visas and give up their paid-in pensions, but also to go elsewhere and just be somebody else’s problem.

Now, according to the Mainichi of Sept 14, 2009, a local government tried to make any possible welfare benefits to a NJ contingent upon promising to take the Bribe and go home — a Catch-22 if ever there was one.

Not too surprising. This is the same prefecture which around up to ten years ago restricted or denied NJ the right to sign up for the National Health Insurance (kokumin kenkou hoken) because they weren’t “kokumin” (citizens).

Fortunately, this case came out in the press. How many others have been duped here and elsewhere and forced to go home without it being reported? Shame on the GOJ for creating this policy avenue for abuse in the first place.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4397

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2) American journalist banned from “Japanese Only” Toyota press conference — in America!

Here’s something discussed in Ivan Hall’s seminal CARTELS OF THE MIND and other sources, such as Laurie Freeman’s JPRI article on Japan’s Press Clubs (kisha kurabu, i.e. media cartels). It hasn’t changed since the publication of these works. Problem is, the case discussed below isn’t a Japan Press Club. It’s a Japanese company denying access to local-area journalists IN AMERICA, despite both local ethics and corporate promises to the contrary. In other words, it’s Japan’s Press Clubs exported. Read on:

https://www.debito.org/?p=4385

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3) Kyodo & JT: Osaka JH school reluctantly takes preteen NJ kid despite teacher opposition!

Kyodo: A 12-year-old girl from a Southeast Asian nation ran into problems earlier this year in trying to attend a public junior high school in Osaka due to opposition from some teachers who resisted her enrollment, the Osaka municipal board of education said Tuesday. She was ultimately enrolled in the school’s first-year level on July 1, a month after she applied for admission.

The girl, accompanied by her parents, visited the school in the city of Osaka on June 1 to say she wanted to be enrolled, but the school, whose name has been withheld, advised the girl to attend the sixth grade in elementary school, citing her inability to speak Japanese, board officials said.

COMMENT: How nice. A NJ kid tries to get an education and these teachers try to fob her off on another school (as if that changes the circumstances), claiming well, let’s come up with something. Oh, I know. A language barrier! We all know how difficult Japanese is for foreigners, and it requires that we be somehow certified in Japanese language training from the MOE to teach them! (Even though kids, as we all know and gnash our teeth about, soak up languages like a sponge; she’ll adapt, wouldn’t you think?)

It’s times like these I wish we had a Hippocratic Oath for teachers too (not that it always binds Japanese doctors dealing with NJ patients). For don’t these teachers feel any obligation to teach children regardless of background? No, I guess not. Compulsory education is only compulsory for citizens. Not foreigners.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard about schools refusing NJ children, either. Check out this report I released April 13, 2000:

https://www.debito.org/?p=4020

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4) J population drops, Internal Ministry converts it into rise, excludes NJ from tally.

Here’s one way to tip any undesirable downward trend in statistics: change the paradigms. In this case, the Internal Ministry considers “Japanese population” not only as births and deaths, but also inflows. That is, inflows of citizens only. Once again, inflows (or current residency) of foreigners are not considered part of the “population”, even though they pay taxes and contribute to Japanese society like any other living breathing soul.

Know of any other G8 country which refuses to include its foreign population as part of its total population? The fact is, given that we get plenty more than 45,914 foreigners per year coming in, the main thing keeping Japan’s population in the black is immigration. But again, that’s a taboo topic. We can’t act as if Japan actually needs foreigners, after all.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4132

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5) Interview with the Berlin Institute for Population and Development re Japan’s int’l future

Excerpt: Q: But if Japan decides it does not want or need immigrants what is wrong with that?

ARUDOU: Because it doesn’t reflect reality. We have had a UN report that stated, at least one Prime Minister who acknowledged, and several important domestic organizations who admitted, that Japan needs immigration. Now. Our society is aging and our tax base is decreasing. We are on the cusp of a demographic nightmare, a future with a society that cannot pay or take care of itself. Either way, people will come here, even if it means they find an enfeebled or empty island to live in. Might as well do it now while we have more energy and choices.

The people who represent us or make decisions for us are not necessarily that receptive to understand that people who appear to be different are not a threat. We cannot expect them to lead us to a world they cannot envision. It’s our country, too…

https://www.debito.org/?p=4125

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6) BBC: British furniture store puts up “no foreign students” sign (parallels with Otaru Onsens Case)

BBC: A furniture shop in a south coast town [of the UK] has banned foreign students who it says take their fast food into the store to eat on the sofas and coffee tables.

Chris Moffet, manager of Perfect Homes in Eastbourne, said he put up a sign barring foreign students after his stock was damaged.

Solicitor Paul Gilbert said the store could be leaving itself open to prosecution under race relations laws.

COMMENT: The parallels with the Otaru Exclusionary Onsens Case are pretty straight, so let’s keep an eye on this one. Will be interesting to see how the British authorities treat this case. I have a feeling the government will demand they take the sign down, and if not threaten with criminal procedure. That is, however, where the parallels end.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4085

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7) Japan Times: NJ visas now contingent on enrollment in Japan’s health insurance program starting April 2010

Japan Times: “In your wallet or somewhere at home, do you have a blue or pink card showing that you are enrolled in one of Japan’s national health and pension programs? If not, and if you are thinking of extending your stay here, you may want to think about a recent revision to visa requirements for foreign residents. The changes, which the Justice Ministry says were made in order to “smooth out the administrative process,” may have major consequences for foreign residents and their future in Japan.”

The bottom line is that all residents of Japan have to be enrolled in one or other of the two systems. The revised visa laws, therefore, should pose no threat to anyone’s visa renewal, because every foreigner in Japan should already be enrolled. However, the reality is that most foreigners in Japan do not have either form of insurance…

https://www.debito.org/?p=4026

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8 ) Contrast: Naturalized Caucasian Korean becomes SK’s National Tourism Org leader

Korea Herald: Media personality Lee Cham was named chief of the Korea National Tourism Organization Wednesday, the first naturalized Korean to take a top government post in Korea, according to Yonhap News.

Lee, 55, is the first German male ever to become a naturalized Korean citizen, and his appointment is anticipated to pave the way for others like him to assume government positions, a pledge by President Lee Myung-bak during the 2007 election.

“I became a Korean citizen to help the country in some way,”

https://www.debito.org/?p=4032

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TARGETING

9) Collating update: upcoming IC Gaijin Cards, RFID hackability, next generation police walkie-talkie, and NPA access to TASPO information

Last May I put out an article in the Japan Times about the (now approved) IC Chips in revamped Gaijin Cards. How they would enable the police forces to remotely track foreigners in a crowd, and how data would be less secure from hackers.

Not unsurprisingly, I was told I was exaggerating. But it’s hard in this day to exaggerate the reach and rate of development of technological advances (who would have thought we would have this very medium to communicate through a little over ten years ago?). So here are some sources showing how 1) ID Chips and RFID technology is eminently hackable and remotely trackable, 2) how police already have IC scanning ability in their walkie-talkies, and 3) how the Japanese police in particular are using ID cards beyond their originally-intended purpose to track crime. I don’t think I was exaggerating at all.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4008

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10) Debito.org reader Brian reports on Shinjuku Police 9-day incarceration of 74-year-old tourist for pocket knife

One of the nastiest debates ever to take place in the Comments Section of a Debito.org blog post started with a crie du coeur about tourist treatment in Japan.

Excerpt: I’m writing this email to all of you because I feel it’s in your best interest to understand how dangerous it is for tourists to visit Japan.

On July 2nd in Shinjuku, a 74-year-old American tourist walked into a koban to ask directions. Inside the koban was an older (senior) police officer and a younger (rookie?) police officer. The American asked where Kinokunia Book Store was and the police officer responded by asking the American if he had a pocket knife. The American being the law abiding citizen that he is said “Yes!” and handed it to the senior police officer. After a quick measurement of the knife, the police officer arrested the 74-year-old man for having a pocket knife 1 centimeter over the legal limit.

The most amazing parts to the story, a new law about pocket knives had just gone into effect one day before thisTOURIST was arrested, making this entire situation more ridiculous! Moreover, 2 other American tourists were arrested that same day at the same koban.
[He was held in police custody for nine days.]

UPDATE JULY 28, 2009: A version of this letter was published in the Japan Times.
UPDATE AUGUST 25, 2009: The Japan Times corroborates the story as true with an article.

https://www.debito.org/?p=3962

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11) SITYS: Japan Times confirms that 74-year-old tourist WAS indeed incarcerated for 10 days for carrying a pocket knife

After a very nasty discussion on Debito.org last month, regarding the validity of a story by Brian Hedge that a 74-year-old tourist was incarcerated for more than a week just for holding a pocket knife, the Japan Times has come through (The only media to bother — subscribe to the paper, everyone! Who else you gonna call?) and confirmed that it actually did happen. The Japan Times Community Page also ran a series of responses on Tuesday from readers, many outraged, by this treatment. Here they are:

It sure would be nice for the anonymous nasties who raked people over the coals to capitulate now. How ’bout it? (Guess what: They didn’t.)

https://www.debito.org/?p=4257

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12) Update: Ibaraki Police’s third new NJ-scare poster

The Ibaraki Police are at it again. JR Mito Station, July 18, 2009. Another one of those police posters up in a public place explicitly making the case that Japan’s shores have to be defended from foreigners, and calling for public assistance to help the armed police surround and subdue them.

It’s the third poster in as many years. Despite the addition of the spicy red background, it’s arguably more subdued than last year’s (click to expand in your browser), where they bore automatic weapons and did Normandy Beach maneuvers. Where’s the budget for these redesigns coming from? And why does Ibaraki think it’s specially prone to invasion? Not as if it’s facing the usual suspects (China and North Korea). More mysteries from our boys in blue.

https://www.debito.org/?p=3996

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13) Comparison: Open Society Institute report on police racial profiling in France

Tangential, but germane to the current discussions happening here. This year the Open Society Institute in New York City released a report about the costs and effects of racial profiling in France. I think Japan and the NPA could learn something from this as well. Two recommendations:

a) Review the operational guidelines and procedures that regulate police stop and search activities to determine whether they provide adequate protections against discrimination and ethnic profiling, and to ensure that they conform to the principles of non-discrimination. Provide specific guidance and training for police officers on ethnic profiling issues, including permissible versus impermissible uses of appearance in targeting identity checks.

b) Require that officers explain the reason for identity check to all persons they stop, and provide all persons who are stopped with information on police and citizens’ rights and responsibilities.

https://www.debito.org/?p=3979

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14) Yomiuri, Sankei, FNN: Sakai Noriko’s husband fingers NJ dealers as source of their drug habit

It’s all over the news these days, probably receiving more press than even when Michael Jackson died. Celebrity Sakai Noriko (and her husband)’s arrest for drug use. The word “junkie” has certainly entered the lexicon.

The latest: Despite Noriko’s yakuza connections, her husband is saying foreigners supplied their drug habits.

Turning the keyboard to some concerned NJ residents of Japan, who poignantly foresee not only hypocrisy, but a reinforced spate of NJ crackdowns for drugs…

https://www.debito.org/?p=4109

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15) Japan Times: New “lay judge” court system sentences first NJ

Japan Times: The first foreign defendant to be tried in a lay judge trial was sentenced Friday to five years in prison at the Saitama District Court for two counts of robbery resulting in injury…

The lay judge system, which debuted in May, requires courtroom participants to make their arguments orally so trials are easier for people who are not legal professionals to follow, which in turn means more work for the interpreters in cases involving foreign nationals.

Much of the focus in the latest case was on whether the two Tagalog interpreters could accurately convey the tone of the remarks and how their interpretation might affect the decisions of the lay judges.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4387

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16) Economist.com: Far higher proportion of NJ in Japanese prison than proportion of population

Here are some interesting stats: Proportions of foreigners within jail populations. Saudi Arabia has by far the highest. But Japan is well up there as well, and as a comparative proportion of the total domestic population significantly higher.

What we need now is a chart weighting the percentage of foreigners within a population compared to this proportion of foreigners within the prison population, to see the disparity in conviction rates. (I’ve done some preliminary searches: I can only seem to find comparative charts going up to 1997 for some reason; woefully out of date, so I’ve done a quick country-by-country search for a few select countries).

Speaking for Japan only, that visibly seven percent or so looks many multiples of the 1.7% of the NJ population (about 4x), meaning that roughly speaking you are four more times likely to be incarcerated if you are foreign than if you are Japanese. And with all the racial profiling and targeting that goes on by the Japanese police forces, this is a sad if not scary statistic.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4099

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17) Freeman offers specific dialogs to deal with J police during Gaijin Card Check

Freeman: Dear Debito, I have read all of your great advice, thank you for kindly sharing. Please share this easy-to-remember summary with your readers.

Are you a human being here in Japan who appears to be Non-Japanese?
Do you want to avoid being coerced into interrogations by police officers?
Then here is how to respond when a police officer asks to speak with you:

#1 Silently show your Alien Registration Card.* **

#2 Say, “Ittemo ii desu ka?”
Repeat this exact sentence, without adding any other words, until the police officer admits, “Hai.”

#3 After hearing “Hai.” you are free to leave.

The police officer might try to fool you into speaking further… what to do in that event:

https://www.debito.org/?p=4062

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… and finally…

18) Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column: “Unlike Humans, Swine Flu is Indiscriminate” (full text)

JUST BE CAUSE
Unlike humans, swine flu is indiscriminate
By DEBITO ARUDOU
The Japan Times: Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2009
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090804ad.html
Version with links to sources at https://www.debito.org/?p=4074

The biggest news a few months ago, now affecting every prefecture in Japan, has blipped off our radar screens. For the time being.

I’m talking about the H1N1 swine flu virus that originated in Mexico, took wing across oceans and continents, and eventually settled down here despite our government’s panicky measures.

Time to learn some lessons. We need to prevent a public panic from once again causing discrimination against the ill.

rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=4074

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All for today. Happy 10th Anniversary of the Otaru Onsens Case. It’s lessons are not forgotten. Not by Debito.org, at any rate.
Arudou Debito
Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 18, 2009 ENDS

mytest

UPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito

Hi All.  On this day when the new PM Hatoyama Cabinet first steps forward and takes the reins of power (bravo!), let’s get this out quickly before the information gets too stale…

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 16, 2009
SPECIAL ON JAPANESE ELECTIONS AND THE DPJ TSUNAMI

Table of Contents:
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1) The gathering storm: Thoughts on DPJ Tokyo Election victory July 12, 2009
2) Japan Times on nuts and bolts of Japanese elections
3) Japan Times on upcoming national election #1: Rules regarding Campaigning
4) The Economist Banyan column on the LDP’s terminal decline
5) CSM’s Kambayashi on Japan’s “hereditary candidates” and new voter attitudes
6) Reuters THE GREAT DEBATE column on how this election in Japan just might change everything
7) DPJ changes its slogan from “Kokumin” to “Anata…”
8 ) Japan Times: Parties split on issues of NJ PR suffrage
9) Aso presides over sinking LDP ship, slams DPJ Hatoyama for being open to NJ suffrage
10) Quick update on Japan’s national election: WOW, what a landslide!
11) More quick thoughts on last night’s election: Looking at the numbers
12) Former PM Aso’s last email magazine: still a sore loser

… and finally…
13) Sunday Tangent: Fascinating DaiTouA WWII propaganda
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By Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, Daily Blog updates at www.debito.org (long-time readers, please resubscribe your RSS)
Freely Forwardable

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1) The gathering storm: Thoughts on DPJ Tokyo Election victory July 12, 2009

As usual (I get all geeky looking at election results; dunno why), let me give you a quick set of thoughts on last July’s election in Tokyo. I’m not going to provide really deep politico analysis on Japanese politics (that can be found most fascinatingly here and here), just some common sense. Excerpt:

As my friend said last night, “The LDP have been taken to the woodshed.” The LDP dropped from 48 to 38 seats. Although KMT held on to their seats (23), the DPJ was the biggest gainer, rising from 35 seats to 54. Since the majority line is at 64, for the first time an LDP-fronted coalition is not in charge of the Tokyo Prefectural Assembly.

PM Aso has kept saying that the Tokyo Elections have no bearing on national politics, but it seems that he’s a minority of one in that belief. Even his own party is calling for his resignation. He refuses to leave the helm of the LDP. Good. That means this proud old fool will probably drive his party further into the ground than ever before. It’s hard to envision, but if he manages to cause the dissolution of the LDP itself, he could even go down as the worst PM ever (that honor I bestow unto former PM Murayama, who killed the Socialist Party during his Faustian bargain for the prime ministership in the 1990s).

The DPJ has decided to introduce a vote of “No Confidence”, and Aso decided today that the Diet would be dissolved on July 21, with elections on August 30. As a voter, I’m looking forward to that. The long hot summer has just gotten hotter. And we may emerge with a brand new polity and sweep out the long-entrenched and corrupt incumbents at last.

https://www.debito.org/?p=3837

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2) Japan Times on nuts and bolts of Japanese elections

Japan Times: All signs seem to indicate Prime Minister Taro Aso and his Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition face a tough battle in trying to hold onto their Lower House majority in the Aug. 30 election.

If the Democratic Party of Japan-led opposition camp wins a majority in the Lower House, it will be able to select the prime minister, most likely the current DPJ president, Yukio Hatoyama, ending more than five decades of almost uninterrupted LDP rule.

Following are questions and answers regarding how the Lower House election works:

https://www.debito.org/?p=4187

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3) Japan Times on Rules regarding Campaigning

Got a good primer here on how campaigns are run in Japan, courtesy of the Japan Times. Excerpt:

What can candidates do as far as campaigning?

Soapbox speeches with loudspeakers are permitted between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. if the candidate displays a special flag distributed by the Election Administration Commission.

Even without microphones, candidates can still give speeches. They are often found outside train stations or other areas with high pedestrian traffic. Candidates engage in “tsuji-dachi” (standing on street corners), picking strategic locations to hail passersby early in the morning or early evening during peak commute times…

https://www.debito.org/?p=4178

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4) The Economist Banyan column on the LDP’s terminal decline

Thoughtful essay in The Economist (London) on the LDP’s primacy and corrupting effects on Japan, and why it deserves to fall from power. Excerpt:

“Thus developed Japan’s characteristic mix of anti-communist — even anti-civic –politics with state-directed development and policy set by bureaucrats. Yoshida founded the Ministry for International Trade and Industry, MITI, whose bureaucrats were famously powerful. Trust-busting efforts were quickly wound down after the second world war. Oligopolies—in the form of the former zaibatsu conglomerates—were supported, even if they had been implicated in Japanese aggression. A man accused of war crimes became a notable post-war prime minister and Yakuza gang bosses consorted with top politicians and helped put down left-wing protests. The political and bureaucratic system was solidly made and has lasted, like so many things in Japan. But its origins, and its effects on Japan, were ultimately rotten.”

https://www.debito.org/?p=4034

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5) CSM’s Kambayashi on Japan’s “hereditary candidates” and new voter attitudes

Kambayashi: The political climate has changed since former Prime Minister Abe and his successor, Yasuo Fukuda (whose father also served as premier) abruptly stepped down under pressure. And their woes, analysts say, have contributed to growing skepticism about both the qualifications of hereditary politicians and the merits of giving certain families such a strong grip on power.

“This could mark the beginning of a permanent shift, and it is a shift that could ultimately help shake up Japanese politics,” says Akikazu Hashimoto, a political science professor at J. F. Oberlin University in Tokyo. “This is probably the first time we’ve seen the pendulum swing against them.”…

Tokura is running for office in one of Japan’s most conservative regions, a stronghold of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the hometown of Mr. Abe and Yoshimasa Hayashi, a newly appointed minister of economic and fiscal policy and a fourth-generation lawmaker.

But even here, Tamotsu Tomoda, who is close to Abe, was defeated in the March race for Shimonoseki mayor, while, last month, in the nearby city of Ube, Kimiko Kubota, who rose from a citizen group leader, won the mayoral poll and will become the first woman mayor in Yamaguchi Prefecture…

https://www.debito.org/?p=4190

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6) Reuters THE GREAT DEBATE column on how this election in Japan just might change everything

Debito writes for Reuters: I think, as do most people, that we will have a change of government, with the DPJ taking power in September. Will it change anything, however?

It just might. The DPJ Manifesto (They were the party that started this earlier this decade. How revolutionary! Making your policies clear to the voter!) is already out and it’s saying some pretty ambitious things. Paying families sizable amounts to support their children. Making schools up to junior high free. Making our toll highways free. Breaking the stranglehold the bureaucrats have over our policymaking levers. And quite a bit more that is ambitious if not a bit vague. (But that’s quite normal.) According to my backdoor channels, there’s even the promise of the DPJ facing up to the task of dealing with Japan’s decreasing population by broaching that taboo topic (until after the election) — loosening up the borders to let more immigration happen! That would mean EVERYTHING changes!

https://www.debito.org/?p=4231

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7) DPJ changes its slogan from “Kokumin” to “Anata…”

I watched the LDP and the DPJ’s respective political advertisements on NHK yesterday, and had quite a surprise:

Well, two actually. First was I thought the LDP’s was better (the DPJ’s, despite the catchy song, was too corny). But never mind. I don’t think it’s going to make a huge difference, what with recent polls forecasting DPJ landslide victories.

The bigger surprise was the DPJ’s slogan in the TV spot. Their campaign slogan has been “kokumin no seikatsu ga daiichi” (the citizens’ livelihoods are the most important thing). It says as such on their Manifesto and their website.

However, in the TV spot (and on the back of the Manifesto) it was “ANATA no seikatsu ga daiichi” (your livelihoods are the most important thing).

For reasons I can’t elaborate upon at this juncture, I have been giving a lot of feedback and input to DPJ Hokkaido in recent months. One of my recommendations has been to remove the “kokumin” in favor of “shimin” or “juumin”, so that NJ are not excluded. But “anata” will do just as well. I’d like to believe my suggestions some impact.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4223

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8 ) Japan Times: Parties split on issues of NJ PR suffrage

Japan Times: “(Foreigners’) right to vote is a big issue and we are not fully in agreement with those who are calling for granting suffrage (to foreigners) immediately,” Aso said, refusing to elaborate.

But Hatoyama said it is now time to consider granting foreigners voting rights at the local level.

“There are pros and cons and the DPJ is in the process of unifying its opinion right now,” Hatoyama said. “But considering the future, I think that the time has come to take a positive step.”

Whether to grant foreigners suffrage has become a contentious issue in the political world. While the conservative ranks of the LDP are strongly opposed, its coalition partner New Komeito is actively promoting this right.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4182

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9) Aso presides over sinking LDP ship, slams DPJ Hatoyama for being open to NJ suffrage

Japan Times: Aso also expressed his disapproval of DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama’s willingness to give local-level suffrage to foreign nationals with permanent residency.

“Hatoyama says that Japan is not a country just for Japanese, but if that is the case, then whose country is it for?” Aso asked. “Honestly speaking, this isn’t something that will be resolved by just granting (foreigners) suffrage and it is likely that there will be many more difficult problems.”

While many lawmakers in the DPJ and New Komeito are for granting foreigners the right to vote in local elections, many conservative LDP members have expressed strong reluctance.

The prime minister added that the number of descendants of Koreans who lived in Japan before the war and were forced to take Japanese nationality at that time is declining and that “we must consider various things like whether (suffrage for foreigners) is even necessary.”

https://www.debito.org/?p=4165

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10) Quick update on Japan’s national election: WOW, what a landslide!

Just a quick word from on the road (1AM Aug 31) on a remote computer:

Wow.

I thought the DPJ were going to win big. But not this big. Watching kingpin after kingpin fall in the LDP (not sure if they’ll be resurrected by the PR vote; results are not all in yet).

To say the least, I’m very cheered by the result. About bloody time. More than five decades of the same party is far too long for any electoral system.

And was anyone else watching former PM Aso as he was answering questions to the networks? Refusing to say hello to anyone or thanks when done, just pulling his earpiece out all surly. He really is a piece of work.

Will try to comment in more detail tomorrow when I have some numbers and newspapers in front of me…

https://www.debito.org/?p=4285

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11) More quick thoughts on last night’s election: Looking at the numbers

THE RAW NUMBERS: According to two major newspapers (Asahi and Mainichi, the others had slightly different numbers when they went to press), opposition parties got a total of 322 seats including Proportional Representation (308 for elected seats), gaining 195. Incumbent ruling parties got 140 (119 elected seats), losing 192. This is a landslide for the opposition no matter how you slice it, and an absolute majority of the 480 total seats in the Lower House. In terms of PR (180 seats total), The LDP dropped from 77 to 55, while the DPJ rose from 61 to 86. It was a rout.

Topics for analysis:
THE AFTEREFFECTS:…
THE VOTERS REALLY DID SPEAK: …
KINGPINS OUT…
BUT SOME STILL VOTED THE PERSON NOT THE PARTY:…

https://www.debito.org/?p=4288

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12) Former PM Aso’s last email magazine: still a sore loser

Aso says of the election, and I quote in excerpt:

“I am convinced that I have made the right decision to prioritize policy over politics.

“I am also confident that I have advanced the correct policies on the North Korean issue, the fight against terrorism, and measures to counter piracy, with an aim to safeguard the nation and the people.

“However, my inadequacy led to this result. I offer a frank apology and take sincere heed of the people’s voice, determined to make a fresh start. Safeguard what must be safeguarded. Reform to safeguard what must be safeguarded. Change what must be changed.

“This is the essence of conservative politics.”

COMMENT: Now there’s a capitulation, kinda. No gracious nods to the victors (perhaps because the LDP has never been so soundly the non-victor). Note how the major issue Aso mentions above, other than the usual fluff about serving the people, is his stance against North Korea. Maybe that in the end is not “the essence of conservative politics”, but of LDP politics: scare the electorate into accepting the status quo, since who know what lies ahead if you ever diverge from the precedented path? Fortunately, it didn’t sell this election.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4323

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… and finally…

13) Sunday Tangent: Fascinating DaiTouA WWII propaganda

Nothing to do with the election per se, but I don’t know where else to put it. As nothing more meant to this than an interesting historical diversion on a rainy Sunday, here are some screen captures sent to me by friend Martin, who recently asked me to look over a screenplay for a movie about WWII Japanese pilots and the Pacific War. Interesting stuff.

Japanese WWII propaganda, from children’s textbooks explaining the purpose of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (DaiTouA), and from psychological warfare leaflets to undermine the morale and sanity of the enemy.

https://www.debito.org/?p=3947

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All for this Newsletter. There are a number of other posts backed up thanks to summer vacation (when Debito.org was still going strong), so you’ll get another two Newsletters in relatively quick succession. Enjoy!
Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 16, 2009 ENDS

mytest

UPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito

(This newsletter comes out a week late because I had trouble sending stuff to my mailing lists while on the road.  Sorry.  Now back home, out it goes.  Debito in Sapporo)

Hi All.  It’s been more than a month since my last Newsletter (I’m down in Nagoya on business, typing from my hotel room), so a lot has built up.  Here is one thread you might find interesting:

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER SEPT 8, 2009

SPECIAL ON McDONALDS JAPAN’S BURGER-PROMOTING CHARACTER “MR JAMES”

Table of Contents:

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

Intro to the issue:

1)  McDonalds Japan’s new creepy “Mr James” burger campaign, featuring katakana-speaking gaijin

2)  Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column Sept 1 2009 on why “Mr James” is a problem

Protest begins:

3)  NPO FRANCA protest letter to McDonald’s USA HQ re “Mr James”

4)  NPO FRANCA’s downloadable protest letter in Japanese

5)  “I Hate ‘Mr James’ Facebook page created (not by me), now at 232 members

Reactions:

6)  South China Morning Post on “Mr James” , quotes FRANCA

7)  San Francisco Chronicle on McDonald’s Japan “Mr James” campaign, and similar ethnically-insensitive sales campaigns overseas

8 ) TIME Magazine on “Mr James”, misses point

9)  McDonald’s Japan CR Director Kawaminami Junichi responds to FRANCA, no apologies or retractions

Repercussions:

10) McDonald’s Japan “Mr James”: Reports of improvements

11) Sports drink uses katakana- and KANJI speaking alien:

Contrast with McDonald’s “Mr James” katakana-only character

12) Quick follow-up letter to McDonald’s USA “Contact us” website re “Mr James”:

Compare to Subway Sandwiches’ J-speaking NJ shills

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

By Arudou Debito, Nagoya, Japan (debito@debito.org, www.debito.org)

Freely Forwardable

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Intro to the issue:

1)  McDonalds Japan’s new creepy “Mr James” burger campaign, featuring katakana-speaking gaijin

Here’s a campaign by one of the world’s largest multinational corporations, McDonald’s, promoting stereotypes in a way quite untoward in this day and age (and no doubt would raise hackles with anti-defamation leagues if McD’s tried it in, say, its country of origin).

The new NIPPON ALL STARS campaign (which seems to have kicked off a few days ago, on August 10, with its Tamago Double Mac), features a bespectacled, somewhat nerdy, gaijin speaking in broken katakana (i.e. accented) Japanese. “Mr James” is his name (following the convention of forcing all Western foreigners to be called by their first names, as opposed to last name plus -san, proper etiquette). And boy is he happy with Japan, with life, with the taste of Japanese-variety burgers at McDonalds. Hell, they’re so good that even this nerdy-looking gaijin (full-body cardboard cutouts available at every McD’s) approves of them through his poor accented broken Japanese.

You even get a “James Tamaran (“it’s so good I can’t stand it!”) Card” and a chance to win from a million dollar pool if you succumb to his sales pitch. It’s more than a little creepy.

Here are some scans, taken of materials photographed and collected at McDonald’s Yodobashi Camera Sapporo August 13, 2009 (click on image to expand in browser):

https://www.debito.org/?p=4136

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2)  Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column Sept 1 2009 on why “Mr James” is a problem

Japan Times Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2009

JUST BE CAUSE

Meet Mr. James, gaijin clown

Not everyone is laughing at McDonald’s Japan’s latest wheeze, a hapless foreigner who’ll never fit in

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090901ad.html

By DEBITO ARUDOU

“Director’s Cut” with links to sources at https://www.debito.org/?p=4303:

If you want to sell stuff, it helps to have a recognizable “mascot” representing your company.  Disney has Mickey Mouse, Sanrio Hello Kitty, Studio Ghibli Totoro.  These imaginary characters grace many a product and ad campaign.

However, McDonald’s Japan dropped a clanger on August 10 with its new burger meister:  “Mr. James”.

Fronting the “Nippon All Stars” campaign (American hamburgers with a Japanese twist) for three months is a bespectacled grinning Caucasian wearing mismatched red shirt and chinos.  Created by ad agency Dentsu, “Mr. James” is touring the burghers of Japan, offering money for photo ops.  His blog effuses perpetual wonderment at all things Japanese.  His obsession is McDonald’s:  he’s a burger nerd.

Not necessarily a problem so far.  But some non-Japanese residents have protested that this (human, not imaginary) character perpetuates Japanese stereotypes about other humans  foreigners.

“Mr. James” (defying standard etiquette of addressing adults with “last name plus -san”, reflecting how Japanese manners aren’t always applied to Caucasians) effuses in fluent katakana only.  Everything is in broken accented Japanese.  “Watakushi nippon daisuki” etc.

What’s the matter?  Put the shoe on the other foot:  Imagine McDonald’s, a multinational long promoting cultural diversity, launching a new “McAsia Menu” in America, featuring a deep-bowing grimacing Asian in a bathrobe and platform sandals saying, “Me likee McFlied Lice!”, or “So solly, prease skosh honorable teriyaki sandrich?”

This would of course occasion protest from minority groups and the Japanese embassy (as happened in Hungary in 2003, regarding a racist TV show).

And rightly so.  But so far the media reaction towards “Mr. James” has been mixed.  The Japanese press has ignored it.  The Western press has been nonplussed.  Respectable websites have quoted some Asian-Americans’ acidulous Schadenfreude:  “Karma’s a bitch.”  As in, Asians have suffered Western stereotyping long enough, so this is cosmic retribution towards Caucasians.

Others fail to see beyond the weird or exotic (of course; not everyone lives here or understands what straight katakana does to Japanese speech).  Still others think it’s just humor, so let it go:  Get a life, you humorless killjoys.

But this overlooks what activists are trying to do:  Give a point of view that goes against the mainstream  because Japanese media generally stereotypes foreigners in an unbalanced and unfair manner.  Mr. James is but the most recent incarnation, and an offensive one at that.

I personally have three tests for whether stereotyping is offensive or unfair:

1) Does it suit the purposes of humor and satire, or is it just mean-spirited?

2) Has it any redeeming social value?

3) Is there turnabout in fair play?

Regarding 1), yes, I grant that “Mr. James” is disarmingly funny.  However, it still takes mean cheap shots at foreigners for a purported lack of language ability.  Allow me to elaborate from decades of personal experience what this stereotype does:

When asked if the Japanese language is difficult, I say it isn’t.  What’s difficult is talking to Japanese people.  One has to overcome so much ingrained baggage  often instilled from childhood in approved textbooks  that foreigners, particularly the non-Asians, are “guests and outsiders”  illiterate, inscrutable, and incomprehensible.  Thanks to this, I daresay in the majority of random interactions, foreigners who do not “look Japanese” have to prove every day to new listeners that they speak Japanese just fine.

It’s like having to untangle your headphones before you listen to music.  Every.  Single.  Time.  And “Mr. James” just pulls the knots tighter.

Now 2) Redeeming social value.  For example, when we see stereotyped characters on TV show “The Simpsons”, fun is poked.  But eventually the characters become humanized, part of the neighborhood in The Simpsons’ universe.  Is “Mr. James” similarly humanized and included?

Well, “Mr. James” has a backstory, but it’s one of “bedazzled tourist and guest”.  It’s not one of inclusiveness:  no matter how hard he tries (especially since McDonald’s rendered his every utterance in katakana), he’ll never be Japanese.  He is the perpetual “other”.

Nothing new, since “othering foreigners” into a skin of differences is a national pastime.  But it’s not pleasant for Caucasians who actually live here, and now have to deal with the reconfirmed “Mister First-Name-Outsider-speaking-incomprehensibly” stereotype in public as far down as children (one of McDonald’s target customers).  Besides, how many will get the online backstory?  Most will only spot his banners and full-body cutouts and see him as a flat cartoon, not a potential neighbor.

Will McDonald’s ever wink to the audience that it’s “all in fun”, and let on that “Mr. James” is a member of this society after all his hard work fitting in and fawning?  Highly unlikely.  Because by design he doesn’t belong here.

That leads us to 3) “fair play”.  Is everyone “fair game” for stereotyping, and do the stereotyped have the chance to reply and balance views?  I would argue no.  The Japanese media very rarely gives a voice to non-Japanese residents, offering their perspective on life in Japan unadulterated.  In fact, the image most often transmitted is that Japan is that of the hackneyed “unique island society”  and foreigners, however long-established, even married to Japan, have enormous difficulty fitting in and expressing themselves.

To test “fair play”, imagine if roles were reversed, with a Caucasian in Japan unilaterally poking fun at Japanese?  I can, from experience.  Outrage, even cries of racism.  Domestic media isn’t fair, and most non-Japanese who try to balance their praise with critique or criticism get tossed aside as “Japan-haters”.  Only “Japan-lovers”, as “Mr. James” is to the core, need apply as foreign shills.

In sum, the “Mr. James” character is a “gaijin”  the embodiment of an epithet.  Something for Japanese to feel comfortable with, even if non-Japanese bear the brunt.  McDonald’s Japan is pandering to Japanese stereotypes without offering any sense of balance or inclusion.

You are welcome to disagree and see this as not worth protesting.  I’m just making the case for protest and beginning a discussion.  What I don’t quite get is why people, especially those affected by this campaign, snarl:  “I personally don’t find ‘Mr. James’ offensive, so shut up.”

That’s the thing about how one “takes offense”.  It’s not just subjective.  It’s subliminally contextual as well.  Read history.  Any number of media icons once seen as inoffensive now cause cringes:  The Yellow Kid.  Gollywogs.  Minstrel shows.  Jose Jimenez.  Aunt Jemima.  Little Black Sambo.  Stepin Fetchit.  Fu Manchu.  Charlie Chan.  Mr. Moto.  Plenty more.  You watch and wonder what people were thinking back then.

Yet these characters survived for decades as mainstream icons, regardless of how overgeneralizing or degrading they might be to the ethnicities they portrayed.  That’s because those ethnicities did not speak up, or were not heard when they did.  So apparently nobody “took offense”.

Times change.  Minorities assembled into pressure groups and shifted the very parameters of the debate.  Raising public awareness of how stereotyping affects them is precisely what made the stereotypes cringeworthy.  Even when there are lapses, such as Abercrombie and Fitch’s “two Wongs can make it white” Chinese-laundry shirts in 2002, minorities complain and product lines get discontinued.

Protesters want the same thing to happen to “Mr. James” in 2009.  That’s what’s so weird:  Did McDonald’s seriously think there are no Caucasian minorities in Japan who might be affected or bothered?  That a multinational company, with decades of experience selling goods to other societies, can show this degree of insensitivity?  That nobody would cringe at the very sight of “Mr. James”?

Let me quote Ben Shearon, one officer of the newly-registered lobbying group FRANCA (Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens Association; which, in the interests of full disclosure, your correspondent chairs):

“The people complaining about this ad live in Japan, pay taxes here, and in some cases have naturalized and become Japanese citizens.  We find this campaign reinforces unwelcome stereotypes that affect our lives here.  I have been denied housing, bank loans, and even entry to businesses specifically because of my race/nationality.

“By pandering to the ‘hapless foreigner’ stereotype, McDonald’s is reinforcing the idea that non-Japanese cannot speak Japanese or conduct themselves properly in Japan.  A multinational corporation like McDonald’s should be more careful about the subliminal messages they put out, and we are just trying to bring that to their attention.”

That’s it.  We’ve made our case.  Still think that “Mr. James” is not worth protesting?  That’s your prerogative.  But don’t tell people who feel adversely affected by media campaigns to just suck it up.  That’s not how minorities finally gain recognition and a voice as residents in a society.

McDonald’s Japan should have known better, and it is reacting to the pressure:  A letter in English (responding to FRANCA’s letter sent in Japanese, naturally) has Director of Corporate Relations Junichi Kawaminami claiming, “no offence was meant” (oh, so that’s okay then), but not apologizing or promising any changes.  Meanwhile, certain restaurants in areas with concentrations of non-Japanese don’t seem to be carrying the “Mr James” campaign.

And suddenly “Mr. James’s” blog has hiragana too.  Maybe after enough complaints he’ll be a quick study in kanji.  If he’s not cringed out of commission.  And rightly so.

ENDS

Links to sources at https://www.debito.org/?p=4303

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

Protest begins:

3)  NPO FRANCA protest letter to McDonald’s USA HQ re “Mr James”

To McDonald’s USA corporate headquarters:

To Whom It May Concern:

We write to you on behalf of FRANCA, a human rights group concerned with the rights of non-Japanese residents in Japan. Our goals are: 1) To eliminate negative public images and stereotypes of non-Japanese and multi-cultural Japanese; 2) To eliminate discrimination by race, nationality, ethnicity, and national origin; 3) To highlight the benefits of immigration and a multi-cultural society. FRANCA works to achieve these goals through sustainable and effective lobbying, networking and public relations campaigns aimed at educating the public. More about us at www.francajapan.org.

We wish to bring to your attention a sales campaign launched this month by McDonald’s Japan that we find extremely problematic.

The “Mr. James” character, representing the “Nippon All Stars” hamburger campaign, features a spectacled Caucasian narrating his love for Japan and Japan’s version of McDonald’s’ hamburgers. Our association finds the following things problematic:

https://www.debito.org/?p=4153

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4)  NPO FRANCA’s downloadable protest letter in Japanese

Here is the Japanese translation for FRANCA letter protesting the “Mr James” burger campaign currently underway at McDonald’s Japan. You can see the original English here.

Please feel free to copy and send this letter to McDonald’s yourself via their feedback inlets on their website. Better yet, take it to your local McDonald’s doing this campaign, ask for the manager, and hand them this letter to express your disgruntlement. You can download the Word version of it here:

https://www.debito.org/FRANCAMrJamesJpublic.doc

Please also consider not buying food at McDonald’s for the duration of this (three-month) campaign. Maybe tell the manager that when you submit your letter.

Talked to the media yesterday. An article on this issue should be appearing in the South China Morning Post tomorrow (Friday). It’s already appeared on Consumerist.com…

https://www.debito.org/?p=4167

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

5)  “I Hate ‘Mr James'” Facebook page created (not by me), now at 232 members

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=136293508102

Join if you like.

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

Reactions:

6)  South China Morning Post on “Mr James”, quotes FRANCA

“McDonald’s has obviously put a lot of money into this campaign as there are full-length posters and banners in every restaurant that I see as well as by the side of roads here, and the company is apparently not concerned that they are offending people and hope we continue to buy their burgers,” Franca chairman Debito Arudou, a naturalised Japanese born in the United States, said.

“This is untenable in a Japan with ethnic minority residents,” he said. “They are being ill-portrayed by this stereotype and their lives may be affected by this careless campaign by one of the world’s most influential multinational companies.”

McDonald’s Japan confirmed that it had received complaints about the campaign and said it was examining the matter. Similar complaints to its US headquarters have been referred back to the Japanese firm.

“What really angers me is that no one involved in the process here thought that anyone would take offence to see a caricature such as this advertising their company,” Mr Arudou said. “Can you imagine the outrage there would be in the US or any other country if a restaurant chain used an image of a Japanese man with big, round glasses, buck teeth, geta sandals and a kimono telling people to `buy flied lice, is velly good! “That’s the sort of thing that gets embassies and global human rights’ groups angry and involved,” he said.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4176

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

7)  San Francisco Chronicle on McDonald’s Japan “Mr James” campaign, and similar ethnically-insensitive sales campaigns overseas

SF Chronicle: “What’s the matter [with this depiction]? Put the shoe on the other foot,” wrote foreigner-rights advocate Debito Arudou (nee David Ardwinckle) [sic] in a column for The Japan Times. “Imagine McDonald’s, a multinational that has long promoted cultural diversity, launching a McAsia menu in America, featuring a deep-bowing, grimacing Asian in a bathrobe and platform sandals saying, ‘Me likee McFlied Lice!’ or, ‘So solly, prease skosh honorable teriyaki sandrich?'”

McHatin’ It

Of course, in the past, McDonald’s has essentially done just that. During last year’s Olympics, it unveiled a commercial featuring two Chinese kids engaged in high-flying wire-fu combat in an ancient temple, dueling it out with fists and feet and chopsticks over the last McNugget in the pack.

Seeing that ad brought back memories of McDonald’s limited-edition “Shanghai” Chicken McNuggets, which briefly appeared on menus back in 1986. Served in a red takeout box stamped with cartoon-Chinese lettering, they came with a fortune cookie, chopsticks and three absurdly non-Shanghainese dippings: “duck sauce,” hot mustard and  teriyaki sauce.

Worst of all, to complete the pseudo-Sino experience, the chain’s employees were forced to wear conical McCoolie hats  a bit of irony given their minimum-wage status  while commercials ended with mascot-clown Ronald McDonald throwing a karate chop to faux Asian music.

Lame, ignorant campaigns like this one may seem innocuous. But they give people license to mock and exclude people based on racial or cultural difference, which in turn can lead down a slippery slope to more troubling outcomes…

https://www.debito.org/?p=4319

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8 ) TIME Magazine on “Mr James”, misses point

TIME Magazine: But elsewhere, Mr. James, dressed in his buttoned-up red polo shirt, tie and khakis, is seen as playing to Japan’s xenophobic tendencies. Annoyed expats have described the character as “white, dorky” and speaking “mangled Japanese.” The chair of The Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens’ Association of Japan, Arudo Debito  a naturalized Japanese citizen born David Aldwinckle  has officially protested the Mr. James campaign with a letter to McDonald’s Corporation headquarters in Illinois. Soon after the ads started to roll out, somebody set up an “I hate Mr. James” Facebook group, which now has 67 members.

Debito considers the characterization of “a clumsy sycophantic ‘nerd'” an embarrassment. “If this were in a different country, and we had a Japanese in a [summer kimono] and [wooden sandals] saying ‘Me like Mcflied lice, please eato,’ we’d have the same sort of anti-defamation league speaking out and saying this is disparaging to Asians or Japanese,” says Debito. He says the campaign’s portrayal of non-Japanese as “unquestioningly supportive and culturally ignorant” will only make life more difficult for foreigners in Japan.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4227

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9)  McDonald’s Japan CR Director Kawaminami Junichi responds to FRANCA, no apologies or retractions

NPO FRANCA received this morning a response from McDonald’s Japan Director of Corporate Relations, a Mr Kawaminami Junichi, regarding our protest letters in English and Japanese on the “Mr James” sales campaign.

I appreciate him taking time to respond, but he toes the line he narrated to various world media stressing the lack of intention to offend, again without discussing any of the possible ill-effects to NJ residents from stereotyping.

He also only answered in English, which is a bit of a disappointment. I presume he doesn’t want the discussion to expand to the Japanese debate arenas. Letter follows below.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4243

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Repercussions:

10) McDonald’s Japan “Mr James”: Reports of improvements

McDonald’s Japan seems to be tweaking the “Mr James” campaign in a more positive direction: 1) Losing the katakana tray inserts, 2) Giving him a more endearing backstory, 3) Having him speak in hiragana too, not just katakana, 4) Not featuring him in more international neighborhoods of Japan. Readers, confirm, deny, or expand?

These are all evidence that McDonald’s Japan is taking complaints about this campaign seriously. But I still say the campaign must be suspended entirely. They may be trying to make him a character with more redeeming characteristics. But he’s still, in my book, a gaijin  an epithet made flesh; that’s how he was designed, and now McDonald’s Japan, for better or worse, is saddled with him.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4192

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11) Sports drink uses katakana- and KANJI speaking alien:

Contrast with McDonald’s “Mr James” katakana-only character

At a convenience store (Lawsons) in deep south Shikoku, we have a sports drink company which uses an alien character to promote its products. Visual:

Note that like McDonald’s Japan “Mr James” Character, he too speaks katakana.

But UNlike “Mr James”, even the space alien speaks kanji!

Somebody please explain to me again why space aliens but not Caucasians are allowed to speak in more natural Japanese? We can’t use the “island society” mentality against fellow humans, can we?

Either way, this helps to show just how alienating this “Mr James” campaign actually is.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4306

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12) Quick follow-up letter to McDonald’s USA “Contact us” website re “Mr James”:

Compare to Subway Sandwiches’ J-speaking NJ shills

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

Hello McDonald’s USA (excerpt):

You might be interested to read my column in the Japan Times talking about what’s wrong with McDonald’s Japan’s “Mr James” Campaign. Also articles in SF Chronicle, TIME, SCMP, and more. Perhaps it’s time to consider pulling the plug on this campaign before it embarrasses your organization any further?

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

UPDATE: Even Subway Sandwiches lets their NJ character shills speak in proper Japanese. Why not McDonald’s Japan?

UPDATE 2: McDonald’s USA responded within 24 hours with another “Dear John” letter, the same one sent verbatim to all complainants, stressing the lack of intent to offend and that we should take it up with McD’s Japan. Taraimawashi.

https://www.debito.org/?p=4337

Guess I won’t be eating McDonald’s again.  Pity.  I grew up with the stuff.  They lost a longtime customer.

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That’s all for this Newsletter.  More to come soon enough since we have more than a month’s backlog.  If you can’t wait, visit www.debito.org!

Thanks for reading!

Arudou Debito in Nagoya, Japan

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER SEPT 8, 2009 ENDS