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• Recent Posts

  • Aichi Police online announcement about Junkai Renraku door-to-door cop visits. Happening in your neighborhood?
  • Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column 63, May 14, 2013: “Police, media must consider plight of those caught in linguistic dragnet”
  • DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 13, 2013 PART 2: New eBooks by Debito on sale now
  • DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 13, 2013
  • eBook GUIDEBOOK for RELOCATION and ASSIMILATION to JAPAN now on sale, US $19.99 or local currency equivalent
  • JDP: Abe criticizes rise of hate speech in Japan, calls it “dishonorable” and counter to “The Japanese Way of thinking”. My, how disingenuous.
  • Tangent on Sexual Minorities: Gay marriage trends worldwide, and how Japan’s Douseiaisha do it: Donald Keene’s marriage by Koseki adoption
  • NYT Editorial: Japan’s “Unnecessary Nationalism”, re the trappings of GOJ’s rightward swing
  • BBC, Yomiuri etc.: LDP now pushing revisionistic, jingoistic and militaristic agenda from above and below, with “Return of Sovereignty Day”, booths at Niconico Douga geek festival
  • NYT: Violating IOC rules, Tokyo Gov Inose bad-mouths other 2020 Olympic bidders, particularly Istanbul for being “Islamic”
  • Japan Times: “Student seeking Kyoto flat told: No foreigners allowed”, and how NJ tie themselves in mental knots
  • RocketNews: Automatic PR Status awarded to grads of Kyoto universities? Positive proposal by Kyoto Governor that will come to naught
  • Harbingers of further insularity: J international marriages way down, as are J students studying abroad
  • Discussion: “Bignose” on Cute “Kobito-zukan” comic characters for kids and NJ control fantasies?
  • New book: “Human Trafficking Around the World: Hidden in Plain Sight” by Hepburn & Simon (Columbia UP, 2013). Includes Japan.
  • TV Tokyo bangumi: “Why did you come to Japan?” interviews NJ arrivals at Narita, reifies mainstream media discourse of NJ as tourists, not residents
  • Now on Amazon Kindle and Barnes&Noble NOOK: Debito’s eBook novel “IN APPROPRIATE”, on child abductions after divorce in Japan: $9.99
  • New eBook: “JAPANESE ONLY: The Otaru Onsens Case”, 10th Anniv Edition with new Intro and Postscript, now on Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook $9.99
  • JT: Japan’s minimum retirement age to increase to 65 by 2025
  • Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Col 62, Apr 2, 2013: “Tweak the immigration debate and demand an upgrade to denizen class”
  • DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MARCH 31, 2013
  • JT on “Kyakkan Setsu vs. Nibun Setsu”: Grey zones in compensation for “work hours” in Japan
  • Asahi: Business leaders call for law to allow firing of workers without justification: i.e., the gaijinization of all workplaces
  • SITYS: GOJ’s new “Points System” to attract “higher-skilled” NJ being reviewed due to dearth of applications, impossibly high hurdles
  • JT/Kyodo: Record high applicants for J refugee status. Why media fixation on refugees? Because they are a bellwether of Japan’s “legitimacy as a competent, advanced, Western democracy”
  • Interesting cases: naturalized Japanese sues city councilor fiance who jilted her for Korean ethnicity, Pakistani parents file criminal complaint for injurious school bullying, Hatoyama Yukio officially called “traitor” for not toeing official party line on Senkaku/Nanjing issues
  • For the record: Correction to Asia Times article on cyberbullying in Japan that mentions Debito and Debito.org by name
  • My latest academic paper on Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus: “Japan’s Rightward Swing and the Tottori Prefecture Human Rights Ordinance”
  • Prof. Kashiwazaki Chikako: Japan’s Nationality Law and immigration policy deviates from current international legal norm
  • Tangent: Tsutsumi Mika’s crooked Jewish character “Goldberg” in her “USA Poverty Superpower” manga. Ironic, again, given that…
  • Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Col 61 March 5, 2013: “Child’s quibble with U.S. ‘poverty superpower’ propaganda unravels a sobering story about insular Japan”
  • Letters from J human rights groups to the visiting Olympic Committee re Tokyo 2020: Discrimination in Japan violates IOC Charter
  • Feb 9 2013 Tokyo Shin-Ohkubo Anti-Korean demonstrator slogans: “Good or Bad, Kill All Koreans” etc.
  • DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MARCH 4, 2013
  • Amazing new Cabinet survey finds “81% welcome ‘foreigners’ of Japanese descent”. Festival of cognitive dissonance!
  • Another genre of discriminatory sign: Genky Stores in Gifu threaten NJ shoplifters with arrest and employment reprisal. Odd, what with J shoplifting increasing
  • Racist flyer from Osaka Pref Police, this time with stereotypical drawings of black people
  • Wash Post: US teacher in Japan under attack from Internet bullies for lessons on Japan’s history of racial discrimination
  • Donald Richie passes away at age 88. Saluting one of our pioneering Japanologist brethren
  • The 25-year “Special Reconstruction Tax” of Jan 1, 2013 — yet another GOJ leech on the Japan workers’ payroll?
  • Mainichi: NJ medical intern death from overwork finally officially recognized as karoushi after 2 years
  • Full retraction and direct apology to Eido Inoue
  • Quoted in Die Zeit newspaper: “Japan: Old and Xenophobic” (German with machine translation)
  • Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column 60, Feb 4, 2013: “Keep Abe’s hawks in check or Japan and Asia will suffer”
  • BBC on Japan’s remilitarization: Island disputes justifying quiet buildup in Japan’s aircraft carriers, xenophobia in J youth
  • DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 4, 2013
  • Sankei Sports etc: J soccer player Nakamura Yuuki quits Slovakian club, feels victimized by “racial discrimination”; my, how ironic!
  • Proposal: Establishing a Debito.org YouTube Channel?
  • NHK on Fukushima: Offering all-expense-paid junkets to NJ journalists, interviews for NJ residents who experienced disasters. What’s the catch?
  • Update: JA and PTA’s Chagurin Magazine responds to protests re Tsutsumi Mika’s “Children within the Poverty Country of America” article for 6th-Grade kids
  • Book Review: “At Home Abroad” by Adam Komisarof, a survey of assimilation/integration strategies into Japan (interviews include Keene, Richie, Kahl, Pakkun, and Arudou)
  • Interesting lawsuits: French “Flyjin” sues employer NHK for firing her during Fukushima Crisis, 8 US sailors sue TEPCO for lying about radiation dangers
  • Asahi: Media-fostered xenophobia forces prefectural countermeasures against NJ buying “strategic land”
  • NYT: Xenophobia in Environmental Ministry re exclusionary Fukushima decontam efforts: “Japanese soil is different”, “NJ assistance might scare local grandmas”
  • Call for help from JALT PALE group for Publications Chair
  • US Senator Daniel Inouye dies, Mazie Hirono Becomes First U.S. Senator Born in Japan; contrast with do-nothing self-gaijinizing Tsurunen
  • Beate Sirota Gordon, one architect of the Postwar Japanese Constitution, dies at 89, her goals uncompleted if not currently being undone
  • Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column 59: The year for NJ in 2012: a Top 10
  • DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 31, 2012
  • Next Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column 59, “Top Ten Human Rights Events for 2012″, out January 1, 2013
  • Japan now a place to avoid for international labor migration? NHK: Even Burmese refugees refusing GOJ invitations, electing to stay in Thai refugee camp!
  • Good news: Rightist sentenced to a year in jail for harassing company using Korean actress in their advertising
  • Wishing everyone a happy holiday season and end-year 2012
  • Al Jazeera: “The mighty downfall of Japan’s tech giants” due to the lack of diversity in thought and innovation
  • “Japanese Only” hospital Keira Orthopaedic Surgery in Shintoku, Tokachi, Hokkaido. Alleged language barrier supersedes Hippocratic Oath for clinic, despite links to METI medical tourism
  • Japan’s lurch to the right has happened, as predicted. DPJ routed, LDP and Ishihara ascendant in Dec 2012 LH Election
  • Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column 58, Dec. 11, 2012: “Do Japan a favor: Don’t stop being a critic”
  • DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 10, 2012
  • Irony: GOJ pushes citizen ID law despite outcry over J privacy rights. Sadly, never similar concerns for NJ privacy, natch.
  • 2nd Edition of HANDBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS, MIGRANTS, & IMMIGRANTS to Japan on sale Dec 2012, updated
  • PTA-recommended “Chagurin” mag puts propaganda article “Children within the Poverty Country of America” in Japan’s 6th-Grader classrooms
  • Kyodo: UN HRC prods Japan on sex slaves, gallows. But the elephant in the room still remains no law against racial discrimination in Japan
  • SITYS: IC Chips in new NJ Gaijin Cards are remotely scannable, as witnessed in USG’s Faraday Envelopes to protect cardholders’ privacy
  • NYT on Donald Keene “becoming one of them”, in an underresearched article that eulogizes the man before time
  • Archiving Tottori’s 2005 Jinken Ordinance (the first and only one ever passed, then UNpassed, penalizing racial discrimination in Japan) to keep it in the historical record
  • Interesting debate on martial arts as newly required course in JHS under Japan’s Basic Education Law reforms
  • BBC: Japan’s pseudoscience linking personality traits to blood types. I say it dumbs society down.
  • My Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column 57, November 6, 2012: “If bully Ishihara wants one last stand, bring it on”
  • DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 6, 2012
  • AP: Where Japan’s Post-Fukushima rebuild cash really went: Corruption and coverup on grand scale in a crisis that even TEPCO admits “could have been avoided”
  • Wash Post: A declining Japan loses its once-hopeful champions (including Ezra Vogel!) — as Japan is eclipsed by an ascendant China
  • Ishihara resigns Tokyo Governorship, seeks Diet seat as new party head. I say bring it on.
  • BV: “Victimizing the Young, Featherbedding the Old?” On how Japan’s elite bureaucratic rot is adversely affecting Japan’s children
  • Sakanaka in Japan Times: Japan as we know it is doomed, only immigrants can save it
  • Kyodo: NJ on welfare (unlike Japanese on welfare) now need to pay pension premiums, says Japan Pension Service
  • ZakSPA!: “Laughable” stories about “Halfs” in Japan, complete with racialized illustration
  • Shuukan Kin’youbi: Protests against NJ businesses in Tokyo turn ugly, yet J media compares Chinese protests against J businesses to Kristallnacht
  • The first version of my Oct 2012 JT JUST BE CAUSE column (rejected for publication) blogged for your comments, on “sanctioned reality”: Do you “get” it?
  • Japan Times: Japan Post Office unilaterally decides old “Gaijin Cards” no longer acceptable ID, despite still valid under MOJ
  • Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column 56 on the Senkakus/Takeshima Disputes: “Revisionists marching Japan back to a dangerous place”
  • DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER OCTOBER 1 2012
  • “From the Shadows” documentary on Japan’s child abductions debuts in Philly Film Festival Oct 23 & 27, tickets on sale now
  • Mainichi: Japan’s only human rights museum likely closing after Osaka Gov Hashimoto defunds, says doesn’t teach Japan’s “hopes & dreams”
  • AP Interview: Japan Nuke Probe Head Kurokawa defends his report, also apportions blame to NJ for Fukushima disaster!
  • Success, of a sort, as a “Gaijin Mask” maker amends their racist product to “Gaikokujin Masks”. Same racialized marketing, though.
  • Kyodo: J airport “random body searches” start October. On “int’l passengers”, naturally, so not so random, considering police precedents of racial profiling
  • Weird “Japanese Only” advertisement in U Hawaii Manoa Ka Leo student newspaper by Covance asking for medical-experiment volunteers
  • Discussion: JDG, Harumi Befu et.al on the end of Japan’s internationalization and swing towards remilitarization
  • Diet session ends, Hague Convention on Int’l Child Abductions endorsement bill not passed
  • Kyodo: “Foreign caregiver program faces tightening”: Death knell of program as J media finds ways to blame the gaijin?

• Books by ARUDOU Debito

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• Referential Sites

  • “JAPANESE ONLY” T-shirts
  • "The Community in Japan" — a group for J residents to join and get advice
  • Activists' Page — site for people wanting to make Japan a better place for everyone
  • ARUDOU Debito's other publications
  • Having trouble? "What to do if…" artery site
  • Residents' Page — site for people who live or want to live in Japan
  • Rogues' Gallery of "Japanese Only" exclusionary places in Japan
  • 日本語ページ

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