■５月１１日（月）２１：００〜２１：５４
テレビ朝日『ビートたけしのTVタックル』http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/tvtackle/
「ニッポンは天国？地獄？在日外国人決起集会」
「経済危機」に続いて「新型インフルエンザ」の恐怖に世界中が大混乱の中、国際社会で今こそ日本が果たすべき役割とは? 今夜は韓国、ブラジル、中国から来た在日外国人の皆さんとともに徹底討論してまいります。
永住権を持つ外国人の地方選挙への参政権を認めようという「外国人参政権」ですが、賛成・反対が入り乱れている今、日本の進むべき方向性とは?
また、不況のあおりで仕事も住居も失ってしまった外国人労働者たちの処遇について、厚生省の日系人帰国支援制度３０万円が「手切れ金」だとの声もあり、日本政府の対応が問われています。
The Tokyo Shinbun reports that the 300,000 yen Repatriation Bribe for Nikkei (with consequent bar on reentry on the same special “Long-Term Resident” (teijuusha) status) is to be amended, to shorten the length of exile to the end of March 2012. After that, Nikkei are welcome to reapply for the same status and come back to work in Japan.
Anyone know whether Japan has a pension treaty with the Nikkei-origin countries so their work contributions overseas will be counted as part of their Japanese pension for the duration of their exile, or in case they don’t get their visa renewed to come back from exile?
As a Sunday Tangent, here is the speech which probably sealed Obama’s image as a serious thinker and candidate: his 2008 remarks on race.
To me it is a very sophisticated version of MLK’s “I have a Dream” speech — few speeches have taken such a complex issue, i.e. race in America, and dealt with it with such insight, balance, and disarmingness. We need more of this insight in discourse about race in Japan. Unfortunately, too many people would prefer to think that there is NO issue of race in Japan. We’ll get to that. Meanwhile, read and savor the full text of Obama’s speech on race, and glean what you can about the approach to the issue. Ultimately, I believe, this got him elected.
Kirk Masden unearths an opening segment of controversial TV Asahi show “Koko Ga Hen Da Yo Nihonjin”, a show long off the air but definitely not forgotten. Remember the format? A group of 100 NJ panelists in tiered seating being egged on to make a ruckus and, according to Kirk’s analysis, being portrayed as scary. He shudders to think that people might take this show (which is still being seen a lot on YouTube) as something serious or indicative of NJ or foreign societies. See his critique of the show (and mine) from this blog entry. Tell us what you think.
How has a government policy for a developed country disintegrated into something so ludicrous, where even officially sanctioned exclusionism has a hierarchy?…
Put bluntly, the policy is: train one percent (5,000) to stay; bribe the rest to go and become some other country’s problem. In fact, the government stands to save a great deal of money by paying the nikkei a pittance in plane fares and repatriation fees, while keeping their many years of pension contributions (usually about 15% of monthly salary). By using this economic sleight-of hand, offering desperate people short-term cash if they foresake their long-term investments, this anti-assimilation policy becomes profitable for the government, while beggaring foreigners’ retirements…
This is what happens when people are brought into a country by official government policy, yet for unofficial purposes at odds with official pledges. Japan has no immigration policy. It then becomes awkward for the government to make official pronouncements on how the new workforce is contributing to the economy, or why it should be allowed to stay. So the workforce remains in societal limbo. Then when things go wrong — in this case a tectonic macroeconomic shift — and the policy fails, it is the foreigners, not the government, who bear the brunt.
BBC: The advice centre used to get 200 inquiries a month. Now they have 1,000, many from Brazilian workers who have been laid off.
Wellington Shibuya is one of them. He not only prays in a local church. After losing his home, this is also where he sleeps.
Now he is taking an offer from Japan’s Government of 300,000 yen, around 3,000 dollars, to go back to Brazil.
But the Government help comes with a catch. He won’t be allowed back into Japan on the same easy terms to seek work.
Effectively it is a one way ticket.
“They told us ‘come, come, welcome to Japan’,” he says in halting Japanese. “‘We’ll give you a job, a place to live. Welcome, welcome.’ Now they don’t have a job for us, they’re saying ‘we’ll give you a little money, but don’t come back. Bye bye’.”
Supporters of the scheme say the Government had to do something to help people in need far from home.
審議真っ最中！
ここが問題！入管法・入管特例法改定案＆住基法改定案
5月13日(水) 院内集会 第4弾
「特別永住者にとってプラスになるか？」
【日時】 5月13日(水) 14:00〜15:00
【場所】 衆議院第二議員会館 第一会議室
【主催】 「在留カードに異議あり！」NGO実行委員会
◆ますます広がる批判と不安の声に耳を傾けて！
【4回目のテーマ】「永住者・特別永住者にとって今回の法改定は」
【集会内容】○NGOからの問題提起
田中宏さん（外国人人権法連絡会共同代表）／佐藤信行さん（RAIK）
Wash Post: Armed with thermographic guns, Japanese health inspectors in surgical gowns, goggles and masks boarded United Flight 803 from Washington Dulles. They prowled the aisles, pointing their fever-seeking machines at jet-lagged faces.
Asia was stung in 2003 by an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which killed about 800 people and caused temporary harm to the economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Malaysia. As a result, governments and health bureaucracies across the region are ready and willing to move aggressively against swine flu.
For jumbo jets arriving from North America, a shortage of health inspectors [in Japan] has meant that considerable time is being spent by passengers in parked airplanes. Thousands of travelers have waited for hours in their seats before inspectors could clear them to pass through immigration.
“We’re just about managing to handle the situation with a limited number of inspectors,” a government official told the Yomiuri newspaper. “But I wonder what will happen if more outbreaks occur in other countries.”…
COMMENT: My critique of this situation might surprise you… But then it turns out, according to the Mainichi and Kyodo, that unprofessional hospitals are turning away people with fevers or a foreign friend! Read on.
Continuing in the eye-blinkingly ludicrous trend of issuing government residency documents to things that can’t actually reside anywhere, we have the fifth in the series, behind Tama-Chan the sealion in Yokohama (2003), Tetsuwan Atomu in Niiza (2003), Crayon Shin-chan in Kusakabe (2004), and Lucky Star in Washinomiya (2008), of a juuminhyou Residency Certificate now being granted to a photogenic sea otter in Kushiro, Hokkaido.
Juuminhyou been impossible to issue, despite decades of protest, to taxpaying foreign residents because “they aren’t Japanese citizens” (and because they aren’t listed on the juumin kihon daichou, NJ aren’t even counted within many local government population tallies!). Oh, well, seafaring mammals and anime characters aren’t citizens either, but they can be “special residents” and bring in merchandising yen. Why I otter…!
We now have GOJ proposals to put NJ on juuminhyou at long last. But not before time (we’re looking at 2012 before this happens), and after far too much of this spoon-biting idiocy.
Kambayashi: Media outlets here have been heralding an apparent jump in the approval ratings of Prime Minister Taro Aso’s Cabinet, with a recent poll by major daily The Sankei Shimbun and the Fuji News Network suggesting that 28.2 percent of Japanese approve of the government’s performance, up from 20.8 percent in late March. But what the media doesn’t want to talk about is the 60 percent of those surveyed who still disapprove of the Cabinet.
Aso continues to struggle to win over the rest of the Japanese public because of his lack of leadership and because of his predilection for embarrassing himself. But this begs the question: why was such a weak and controversial politician able to climb to the top of the political heap in the first place?…
Why doesn’t the media do its job? One reason is that it is common knowledge that, in the quirky world of Japanese journalism, when a politician is awarded an influential post, the reporter covering that politician earns a promotion.
Yasushi Kawasaki, himself a former political reporter for NHK, told me that many political reporters become politicians of a sort themselves, seeking to bolster their backroom influence. Major news organizations are “in collusion with those in power.”
A little post for the holidays: I was cycling on my way to work on May 1 and going through Odori Park, where the 80th Annual Hokkaido May Day labor union rallies were taking place. They’re fun affairs (you get the pretentious lefties spouting off about protecting human rights, but then with no sense of irony whatsoever refuse to give me a flyer as I’m walking past…), and it’s always interesting to see who’s speaking. In addition to Hokkaido Governor Takahashi and Sapporo City Mayor Ueda, we got… wait for it… Suzuki Muneo and Ozawa Ichiro! Who hijacked May Day for their own purposes.
ANTI-NJ POLICY PROPOSALS, AND CONCOMITANT PROTESTS
1) Amnesty Intl May 24 Tokyo protest against Diet bills under deliberation to further police NJ residents
2) Japan Times: DPJ slams new Gaijin Cards and further tightening of NJ policing
3) Asahi: Domestic resistance to new IC Gaijin Cards
4) TIME Mag, Asahi, NY Times: “Japan to Immigrants: Thanks, but go home”
5) Economist.com blog piles on re Nikkei Repatriation Bribe
6) What if the GOJ was not a barrier to multiculturalism?
Asahi on Multiethnic Japan in LA’s Little Tokyo
MORE ASSISTANCE AND MIXED SIGNALS
7) The GOJ’s economic stimulus plan (teigaku kyuufukin):
Tokyo pamphlet on how to get your tax kickback
8 ) “Tokyo Reader” on odd rental contracts for apartments:
“lease” vs. “loan for use”? Plus Kyoutaku escrow for disputes
9) Economist on Japan buying LNG from Sakhalin (finally!) and Hokkaido’s missed opportunities
10) From the archives: How criminals fool the police: talk like foreigners!
11) Japan Times: Police surprisingly mellow when dealing with Japanese shoplifting
… and finally…
12) Get Japan Times next Tuesday May 5:
My next JUST BE CAUSE column out on Fujimori’s 31-year sentencing.
Terrie’s Take: The central government is reportedly looking at modifying the dates of some public holidays, so as to ensure that they fall on days that allow 3-day weekends and thus encourage employees to take time off work and travel with their families. To ensure that Dads actually do take off their extra days of leave — which currently they don’t 50% of the time, the government is also considering changing accounting rules so that any unused employee leave will have to be accounted for as a liability, and be financially provisioned for in company accounts.
And another historical time capsule pre-economic crash about holidaying habits of Japan last year from Terrie again included.
Asahi: The review of the proposed new section of the laws controlling residency of foreigners in Japan under exit and entry laws for foreigners is currently taking place in the Legal Subcommittee of the Lower House. Although on one hand it is expected that the law will have the effect of reducing illegal residency in Japan, on the other hand criticism is being heard that this law “Can be seen as nothing more than making foreigners (residing in Japan) an object of surveillance”…
Negative reactions, mainly from human rights NPO groups that support foreigners are very strong. Numerous faults with the law, have been pointed out one after the other–The requirement that foreigners carry the residency card with them at all times is excessive, criminal penalties for not carrying it are too heavy, canceling residency privileges because of errors in reporting address or because of getting married without reporting it are too severe, the human rights of foreigners who are attempting to flee from domestic violence are not protected, refugees, whose necessarily must undergo a lengthy administrative process are not covered by this law and their status is left vague (and other problems).
Hatate Akira, head of the group “Freedom and human rights coalition” has attacked the very philosophical basis of the law saying that “This new level of surveillance (of foreigners) will lead to increased discrimination” In response to this, the Japan Democratic Party has proposed dropping from the law the requirement to carry this identity card and the imposition of criminal penalties for not doing so, as well as other modifications…
Here’s a nice roundup from Amnesty International about upcoming GOJ proposals for further policing NJ residents, and what you can do to protest them. Amnesty International says:
Say no to immigration law revision!
An assembly and rally will be held to protest amendments to the law.
Everyone is welcome to attend!
Date : May 24th (Sun) 14:00-15:30
Assembly 16:00-17:00 Rally
Place : Koutsu Biru (Tokyo, Minato-ku, Shimbashi5-15-5) 6minutes’ walk from Shimbashi station (JR Line, Karasumori-guchi)
This is information from Amnesty International Japan regarding controversial bills under discussion in the Diet to impose tighter control on foreign residents. Brochures with background on the issue in different languages are available in this blog entry:
One of the best bits of good news that came out last year regarding the international community in Japan was the teigaku kyuufukin — the 12,000 yen per person (plus 8000 yen on top of that per dependent and oldie) economic stimulus bribe that the GOJ thinks will boost domestic consumption.
Regardless of whether you think it makes any economic sense (I should think a holiday from the 5% Consumption Tax would go a lot farther to stimulate consumer consumption, and I bet it would cost a lot less to administrate), it’s good that registered NJ residents regardless of visa also qualify (they almost didn’t, and really didn’t last time they came out with this kind of scheme in 1999; it barely amounted to much more than bribes for electoral yoroshikus back then either).
But when and how do NJ get it now? What follows is how the stimulus is being administrated in one part of Tokyo, courtesy of Ben. Eight pages, the first four are bilingual, the rest are directed at citizens. Your administrative taxes at work.
Tokyo Reader: I am currently in a dialogue with company HT. Over the winter, HT looks to have lowered rents on the 1K apartments. What used to be advertised as 150,000 yen a month is now 135,000 yen. (I say “used to be advertised” because there is some evidence that different parties are paying different rents, having nothing to do with a discount system.)
Since I had been paying the higher rent, I proposed paying the new advertised price. According to the Land & House Lease Law (“LHLL”), Article 32, a tenant can propose a rent reduction when there is evidence that rents in a given neighborhood have declined. The landlord may disagree and then a mandatory arbitration panel is supposed to decide the matter.
Company HT insists that my 1K is somehow special that it requires the higher price (150,000 yen). Funny is that when I moved into the building, there was no such tiered pricing. Further, Company HT claims that my lease is not covered by the Land & House Lease Law, but rather is a “Loan for use” under Civil Code, Article 593…
Michael Fox: Can anything be done if your rent is increased unfairly? Or what if people moving into your building are paying less? Good news, there is a designated process for alleviating overcharges…
If negotiation fails, the next step is to deposit the money into escrow (kyoutaku 供託）with the local government. The papers for such procedure can be obtained from the Legal Affairs Department (Houmukyoku法務局) of your city/town office.
Economist piles on re Nikkei Repatriation Bribe: Japan’s policy results from a perception that the stock of jobs is fixed, so if you remove the foreign population more jobs go to natives. But low-skill immigrants often do jobs natives will not. Some argue that without immigrants these undesirable jobs would pay more and then natives would take them. But that simply encourages employers to outsource these jobs to another country (which means the wages are spent elsewhere). When it comes to jobs that can physically not be sent abroad, it raises the costs of production which can mean fewer high-skill, well-paid jobs.
Mainichi Daily News July 19, 2000 talks about a killer gang that effected foreign accents to throw police off their scent. This is not the first time I’ve found cases of NJ being blamed for J crime. Check out three cases (Mainichi 2004 and 2006). where biker gangs told their victims to blame foreigners, a murderer and his accomplice tried to say a “blond” guy killed his mother, and an idiot trucker, who overslept late for work, tried to claim that a gang of foreigners kidnapped him! How many other crimes have been pinned on foreigners in this way, one wonders.
Just got a call from the insurance company that insures my car, answering my request for information regarding how open-door their policies are towards customers of varied backgrounds.
Nisshin Fire and Marine Insurance Company (Nisshin Kasai Kaijou Hoken 日新火災海上保険) KK allows insurance for NJ regardless of Japanese language ability. If that is lacking, the customer just has to bring along an interpreter.
Of course, this should not be blog-entry-worthy news. The default should be acceptance of customers and their money. But we do hear at Debito.org of companies that refuse NJ flat out because they assume that NJ cannot communicate in Japanese, therefore they cannot get into contractual relationships.
Some examples:
Shounan Shinkin Bank in Chigasaki
Hokkoku Shinbun in Ishikawa Prefecture (yes, a newspaper!)
AXA Direct Insurance (later amended its CNN advertising to accept NJ)
Just wanted to put the word out there that there is a good company to steer your business towards.
Expanding the scope of the fight for human rights beyond Japan’s borders, here’s what’s happening on a macro scale: The UN “Olympics” on human rights (held quite infrequently) has become a right mess, from what I saw of Ahmadinejad’s speech live on CNN Monday night (there was nasty invective marbling whatever salient points he was there to make; generated more heat than light). Here is the UN’s point of view. Doesn’t give me a lot of hope for seeing Japan’s issues as all that urgent.
My computer is in the shop for an upgrade this week. That means that I don’t have a computer at home, and I won’t be able to access email, skype, or Debito.org online during the evenings until probably the end of this weekend.
That said, I will be online every day of course during regular business hours JST, as I have computer access from work. So blog updates will happen later than usual, and commenters will have to wait a little longer before I can read and approve their posts. My apologies for that. I’ll still be blogging daily, as usual, however. Thanks to everyone as always for reading and contributing to Debito.org!
JAPAN SLOWLY RUNNING DOWN
1) Economist: First mention of Japan’s “two lost decades”:
Calls into question efficacy of “Japan Inc” business model
2) Mainichi: Kofu Laundry taken to cleaners over abuses of Chinese “trainees”
3) See I told you so #2: Oct-Jan 1000 “Trainees” repatriated, returning to debts.
4) Yomiuri: NJ students brought to J universities by the bushelful, but given little job assistance
5) In contrast: Korea Times: South Korea proposes dual citizenship
HISTORY AND HISTORICAL EVENTS
6) Japan Times on the Calderon Noriko Case: “The Battle for Japan’s Future” and fascist demo on YouTube
7) Calderon Case: Two protesters against right-wing demo arrested, supporters group established
8 ) Sunday Tangent: NPR interview with late scholar John Hope Franklin: feel the parallels
9) Peru’s Fujimori really gets his: 25 years jail for death squads
PLEAS FOR HELP
10) Michael Collison Case: “Fired from Interac after death of infant daughter”
11) Friend requests advice on how to approach JHS PTA, regarding repainting rundown school
12) Filmmaker requests interviewees for documentary on NJ visa overstayers
… and finally…
13) Sapporo Screening of documentary SOUR STRAWBERRIES Thurs Apr 23 7PM HIBA
14) Japan Times on Tokyo Takadanobaba SOUR STRAWBERRIES screening
Korea Times Editorial: It’s good news for foreigners that they can get Korean citizenship without giving up their own nationality from the latter part of this year at the earliest. The Ministry of Justice plans to present a bill to the National Assembly by June in a move to offer dual citizenship to foreigners with ample potential to contribute to national development. The plan is to allow dual citizenship on a limited basis to cope with the worsening brain-drain problem and attract talented foreigners into the country.
It was inevitable that the country would ease its ban on dual citizenship in the era of globalization and a multicultural society. We believe the ministry has made the right decision to improve our national competitiveness by drawing more talented foreign professionals to the country. In fact, the rigid single-nationality regulation has been an impediment to foreigners’ activities and their life here. Thus, the possible softening of the regulation will enable more foreigners to better contribute to Korean society.
According to official statistics, 170,000 people have given up their Korean citizenship over the last 10 years, while only 50,000 have obtained it. This means that the county suffers from a brain drain of more than 10,000 people every year. In separate developments, South Korea is steadily becoming a multicultural society. The number of foreign residents in the country has already reached one million, accounting for over 2 percent of the total population. And the ratio is likely to hit 5 percent in 2020.
COMMENT: Your homework: Compare and contrast with Japan.
Adrian Francis: I am an Australian documentary filmmaker living in Tokyo. I am currently researching a documentary about illegal workers in Japan. Their plight has been in the spotlight in recent months due to the Calderon family case, and more generally, against a background debate about the role of immigration in present and future Japan. Like the Calderons, many illegal workers in Japan are important contributors to this country, but are not acknowledged as such by the police, a sensationalist media, or official government policy. My aim is to make a film that can give illegal workers themselves some kind of voice in a public discussion about their role.
At this stage I’m thinking purely in terms of research. I understand that this is a highly sensitive topic, and for the people themsleves it could potentially involve deportation or incarceration. If you, or someone you know is in this situation, I would very much like to hear about your/their experiences. I would be happy to communicate in any form that is most comfortable – email, phone, or in person.
The Community: This is an email I got through a left-leaning mailing list which describes a ‘Foreigner Expulsion’ demonstration that happened in Saitama, which passed right by the elementary school of the Philipino Calderon family whose case has recently come to national attention.
Apparently a ‘kyuuenkai’ (support group) has been set up for two people arrested protesting against the demo. Here is their blog, and an example of the blog by the rightists…
What follows is a story of a person, in his own words, who dealt with a language company called Interac in Yokohama, which disciplined him for being late for classes despite his explanation that his pregnant wife was undergoing complications. The baby eventually died. And Interac said they would not be renewing his contract. Read on. Suggest the labor unions be informed of this.
Yomiuri: According to the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO), the number of foreign students studying in Japan at universities, graduate schools and junior colleges has been on the rise in recent years. As of May 1 last year, a record 123,829 foreign students were studying in Japan, up 5,331 from the previous year. About 60 percent of the foreign students came from China, followed by students from South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, according to JASSO.
Many students from Asia hope to work in Japan. However, only 10,262 students were able to obtain working visas in 2007 after finding jobs. Many students ended up returning to their home countries after failing to find work.
The employment situation for foreign students has gone from bad to worse due to the economic downturn. According to the Tokyo Employment Service Center for Foreigners–a job-placement office for foreign residents–there were 252 job listings targeting foreign students graduating in March available at the center as of Jan. 31, down 54 from the same period last year.
COMMENT: Continuing with the theme of “bringing people over but not taking care of them” (a la the “Trainees” and the Nikkei), here we have GOJ entities beefing enrollment of depopulated Japanese universities with NJ students, then leaving them twisting in the wind when it comes to job searches.
Sunday Tangent: An interview with the late John Hope Franklin, historian of the Negro experience in North America. I excerpt a section where he’s trying to buy a house in Brooklyn. Should ring some bells with any NJ trying to rent a place and/or get credit in Japan. One more historical template for why we need a law against racial discrimination here too.
Mainichi: The Kofu Labor Standards Inspection Office has sent documents to public prosecutors accusing a dry-cleaning company president of violating labor and wage laws by making Chinese trainees work for pay below the minimum wage…
Uchida was reported to prosecutors over the alleged failure to pay about 11.15 million yen to six female trainees from China aged in their 20s and 30s, during the period between February 2007 and July 2008.
The office also reported a 37-year-old certified social insurance labor consultant from Chuo, Yamanashi Prefecture, to public prosecutors accusing him of assisting in the violation of both laws by providing assistance to Uchida and other related parties.
Yomiuri: The Justice Ministry says it has found irregularities at a 452 companies and organizations that hosted foreign trainees last year.
Officials of the ministry said it had confirmed that the companies and organizations violated labor laws, such as by paying lower-than-minimum wages to foreign trainees. Of the total, 169 cases of entities making trainees work unpaid overtime were found and 155 cases concerned other labor law violations such as payment of illegally low wages.
Mainichi: More than 1,000 foreign trainees involved in government programs were forced to return home as sponsor companies have been suffering from the deteriorating economy, a government survey has revealed… “Most of the trainees took out a loan of about 700,000 yen to 1 million yen to come to Japan,” said a representative of Advocacy Network for Foreign Trainees in Tokyo’s Taito Ward. “If they return home before their contract period ends, they will be left in debt.
COMMENT: Here come the stats. The “Trainees” (mostly Chinese workers in Japanese farms and factories), which I discussed in part in my most recent Japan Times article, are being sent home in large numbers, to face debts. Oh well, they’re not Nikkei. They don’t get any assistance. Just the promise of a “review” by May 2009, something people have been clamoring for since at least November 2006! Yet it only took a month or so for the GOJ to come up with and inaugurate something to help the Nikkei, after all (see above JT article). But again, wrong blood.
I think we’ll see a drop in the number of registered NJ for the first time in more than four decades this year. Maybe that’ll be See I told you so #3. I hope I’m wrong this time, however.
LIMA, Peru (AP) — Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison Tuesday for death squad killings and kidnappings during his 1990s struggle against Shining Path insurgents.
The court convicted the 70-year-old former leader, who was widely credited for rescuing Peru from the brink of economic and political collapse, of “crimes against humanity” including two operations by the military hit squad that claimed 25 lives…
Fujimori, who proclaimed his innocence in a roar when the 15-month televised trial began, barely looked up, uttering only four words — “I move to nullify” — before turning, waving to his children, and walking out of the courtroom at the Lima police base where he has been held and tried since his 2007 extradition from Chile…
Fujimori’s congresswoman daughter, Keiko, called the conviction foreordained and “full of hate and vengeance.” She said it would only strengthen her candidacy for the 2011 presidential race.
“Fujimorism will continue to advance. Today we’re first in the polls and will continue to be so,” she said outside the courtroom. She has vowed to pardon her father if elected.
Dear Debito.org: I’m looking for advice here. I went to my child’s JHS today for about the 4th time in the last year. Again I was struck and depressed by how dingy it looked. It got me to thinking that the kids don’t take pride in the place and this leads to and has led to a lot of serious problems.
I came home and wrote the following and am wondering if it or I can do any good. Can I translate this and say this, to the School and Principal? to the School Board?, to the Mayor?, publicly to the PTA at their general meeting in 2 weeks? Is it too rude? Could you say it more diplomatically? How? Would you? Could you? Does it have a chance of succeeding?
Please feel free to comment on any one of the paragraphs numbered below.
Table of Contents:
NEWS:
1) See I told you so #1: Newcomer PR outnumber Oldcomer Zainichis as of 2007
2) NPA enforcing Hotel Management Law against exclusionary Prince Hotel Tokyo
3) Yomiuri: NPA finally cracking down on Internet BBS threats and defamation
4) Mainichi: Tourism to Japan plunges by over 40% compared to last year
5) Metropolis Mag on how to get your housing deposit (shikikin) back
BLUES:
6) GOJ bribes Nikkei NJ with Golden Parachutes: Go home and don’t come back
7) Ekonomisuto March 10 2009 re worsening job and living conditions for Nikkei Brazilians et al.
8 ) Mainichi: Lawson hiring more NJ, offering Vietnamese scholarships
9) Japan Times on Japan’s emerging NJ policing laws. Nichibenren: “violation of human rights”
10) Mark in Yayoi on cop checkpoint #123, and “Cops”-style TV show transcript
11) Japanese also fingerprinted, at Narita, voluntarily, for “convenience” (not terrorism or crime)
REVIEWS:
12) Thoughts on Suo Masayuki’s movie “I just didn’t do it”: A must-see.
13) Audience reactions to documentary SOUR STRAWBERRIES roadshow March 21-April 1
Next showing Sapporo Apr 23, organizing next roadshow August-September
14) Debito.org has citations in 37 books, according to Amazon
15) The definition of “Gaijin” according to Tokyu Hands Nov 17, 2008
… and finally… THE MUSE:
16) Complete tangent: 1940 Herblock cartoon on inaction towards Hitler
A rather unusual request from overseas today. I received word from some Americans that have a Japanese World War II artifact they would like to repatriate. Here’s their communique, forwarded with permission, altered for privacy, and a picture of a flag from a group of fighting men.
A quick positive review from Japan Visitor site on documentary SOUR STRAWBERRIES — Japan’s Hidden Guest Workers. Excerpt here.
If you’d like a showing in your area like the one mentioned above, be in touch with me at debito@debito.org. Planning another nationwide tour between late August and early September.
Next showing March 23, L-Plaza, Sapporo
A quick tangent for this Saturday: A 1940 Herblock cartoon I found (one of my favorites ever) demonstrating how people will make dithering arguments against the inevitable: in the cartoon’s case against doing something to stop Hitler. Now compare that with the dithering arguments against doing something to stop racial discrimination in Japan, with a law against it.
On the heels of yesterday’s post depicting Japan’s latest wheeze to cover up it’s failed Nikkei import labor policy, here’s a bit of good news: Somebody trying to do their bit to help keep unemployed NJs’ heads above water. Lawson convenience stores.
I smiled until I saw how small the numbers being employed full time were, despite the “quadrupling” claimed in the first paragraph. But every little bit helps. So does Lawson’s offer for scholarships for Vietnamese exchange students (see Japanese below).
Many times when I go into convenience stores in the Tokyo area, I’m surprised how many Chinese staff I see. Anyway, patronize Lawson if they’re trying to do good for the stricken NJ community.
Japan began offering money Wednesday for unemployed foreigners of Japanese ancestry to go home, mostly to Brazil and Peru, to stave off what officials said posed a serious unemployment problem.
Thousands of foreigners of Japanese ancestry, who had been hired on temporary or referral contracts, have lost their jobs recently, mostly at manufacturers such as Toyota Motor Corp. and its affiliates, which are struggling to cope with a global downturn…
The government will give 300,000 yen ($3,000) to an unemployed foreigner of Japanese ancestry who wishes to leave the country, and 200,000 ($2,000) each to family members, the ministry said. But they must forgo returning to Japan. The budget for the aid is still undecided, it said.
COMMENT: Here’s the ultimate betrayal: Hey Gaijin, er, Nikkei! Here’s a pile of money. Leave and don’t come back. So what if it only applies to people with Japanese blood (not, for example, Chinese). And so what if we’ve invited you over here for up to two decades, taken your taxes and most of your lives over here as work units, and fired you first when the economy went sour. Just go home. You’re now a burden on Us Japanese. You don’t belong here, regardless of how much you’ve invested in our society and saved our factories from being priced out of the market. You don’t deserve our welfare benefits, job training, or other social benefits that are entitled to real residents and contributors to this country.
Yomiuri: Police on Friday sent papers to prosecutors on six people suspected of defaming or threatening to physically harm comedian Smiley Kikuchi in messages they posted on his blog after groundlessly concluding he was involved in the murder of a high school girl in 1989…
It is the first time a case has been built simultaneously against multiple flamers over mass attacks on a blog. The police’s reaction represents a strong warning against making online comments that cross the line from freedom of expression to defamation or threats.
COMMENT: Now if only Japan’s police would only enforce past pertinent Civil Court decisions…
Mainichi: With more and more foreign residents facing employment and immigration problems due to the ongoing recession, the Ministry of Justice is creating new “One Stop Centers” for foreign residents in the Kanto and Tokai regions to handle queries in one place…
The number of native and Japan-born Koreans with special permanent residency, who have lived in Japan since the pre-war period, has been declining. However, the number of Chinese and Filipinos, as well as foreigners of Japanese descent whose employment was liberalized under the 1990 revision to the Law on Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition, has surged. In 2007, the number of these so-called “new comers” exceeded that of special permanent residents for the first time (440,000 vs. 430,000).
COMMENT: Believe Immigration’s plausibly pleasant intentions if you like, but I’ll remain a little skeptical for the moment. Still mentioned is that hackneyed and ludicrous concern about garbage separation, after all, demonstrating that the GOJ is still dealing in trivialities; it might take a little while before the government sees what true assimilation actually means. It’s not just giving information to NJ. It’s also raising awareness amongst the Japanese public about why NJ are here in the first place.
Some various and sundry thoughts on audience reactions to the excellent SOUR STRAWBERRIES documentary as we finish up the last screenings (thinking about another August-September tour, so book me if you’re interested), and consider what the movie may mean in the context of international labor migration. In sum, SOUR STRAWBERRIES may be a testiment to the last days of Japan’s internationalized industrial prowess, as people are being turfed out because no matter how many years and how much contribution, they don’t belong. Have to wait and see. But to me it’s clear the GOJ is still not getting beyond seeing NJ as work units as opposed to workers and people. Especially in these times of economic hardship. I’m seeing it for myself as the movie tours.
Debito.org went down in the middle of the night close to two days ago. Sysadmin tells me it was a technical problem with the ISP. It also seems to have nuked most emails I’ve gotten in the interim, so apologies to anyone who sent and bounced. Sorry for the delay. One more screening of SOUR STRAWBERRIES, in Kumamoto on Tuesday. Otherwise, I’m thinking about another tour in late August/early September. If you’d like the movie with commentary and an event, please contact me at debito@debito.org. If you just want a copy of the movie, click on the last gray avatar above. Bests, Debito in Okayama
Here’s the definition of “gaijin” not according to me (a la my Japan Times columns), but rather according to the marketplace. Here’s a photo sent in by an alert shopper, from Tokyu Hands November 17, 2008.
Note what makes a prototypical “gaijin” by Japanese marketing standards: blue eyes, big nose, cleft chin, and outgoing manner. Not to mention English-speaking. Yep, we’re all like that. Anyone for buying some bucked-tooth Lennon-glasses to portray Asians in the same manner? Naw, that would get you in trouble with the anti-defamation leagues overseas. Seems to me we need a league like that over here…
Turning the keyboard over to Mark in Yayoi, who has just been stopped for the 123rd time by the Japanese police for an ID Check.
This time, however, he was stopped and demanded a bag search. Although NJ are not protected against random ID checks (if he shows, you must show), random searches are in fact something protected against by the Constitution (Article 35) if you don’t feel like cooperating. But tell the cops that. He did. See what happened.
THAT SHIKIKIN FEELING
METROPOLIS MAGAZINE (TOKYO) DELVES INTO THE CONFUSING WORLD OF APARTMENT DEPOSITS—AND HOW TO GET THEM BACK
You may feel like you’ve had to wrestle with all kinds of bureaucracy to land that perfect 1DK apartment, but the fun and games don’t end when the contract is stamped. Moving out can present a whole new world of hassle. For many tenants, both foreign and Japanese, the hard-earned shikikin (deposit) they paid when they moved in becomes nothing but a distant memory, as landlords have their way with the cash and return only the change to the renter.
Kazutaka Hayakawa works for the NPO Shinshu Matsumoto Alps Wind, a group that specializes in helping get that deposit back. Here he offers up the basics on renters’ rights…
Writing you from Tokyo, just a quick post. I’m on the road from now until April 1, stopping in Tokyo, Tsukuba, Nagoya, Shiga Hikone, Osaka, Okayama, and Kumamoto. Showing an hourlong documentary on Japan’s hidden NJ labor force, SOUR STRAWBERRIES, in case you haven’t heard, at venues there. Come and see it if you like. Screening schedule here.
So in the interim I’m not sure when I’ll be online (every morning provided I have internet access, and probably most evenings after the movie and beers with friends), but I’ll try to approve posts as quickly as possible. I also can’t guarantee a daily update with a new post and commentary, but I’ll try.
If people have essays they want put up (Mark in Yayoi sent me a doozy today), please pass them by me. And you’ll get another Japan Times article (not a 700-word JUST BE CAUSE column, but a 1500 word ZEIT GIST article) next Tuesday March 24 if you’re feeling lonely.
I’m going to be on the road from tomorrow showing documentary SOUR STRAWBERRIES across Japan, so indulge me this evening as I talk about something that impressed me today about the power of the Internet.
It started during a search on Amazon.com this evening, when I found an amazing avenue for researching insides of books for excerpts.
I realized I could go through and see just how often Debito.org is being cited as a resource in respectable print publications. I soon found myself busy: 37 books refer in some way to me by name or things archived here. I cite them all below from most recent publication on down.
Amazing. Debito.org as a domain has been going strong since 1997, and it’s taken some time to establish a degree of credibility. But judging by the concentration of citations in recent years, the cred seems to be compounding.
Asahi: Police sent papers to prosecutors Tuesday against the operator of a Tokyo hotel that refused entry to the Japan Teachers Union for its annual convention, fearing protests by right-wing groups.
Police said Prince Hotels Inc., its president, Yukihiro Watanabe, 61, the 52-year-old general manager of three Prince group hotels, and managers of the company’s administration and reception departments are suspected of violating the Hotel Business Law.
Comment: This is a good precedent. The police are at last enforcing the Hotel Management Law, which says you can’t refuse people unless there are no rooms, there’s a threat to public health, or a threat to public morals. But hotels sometimes refuse foreigners, even have signs up to that effect. They can’t legally do that, but last time I took it before the local police box in Ohkubo, they told me they wouldn’t enforce the law. Not in this case.
Something interesting I found last week: An NPA wanted poster for murderers, put up in banks, post offices, and police boxes nationwide. One of the listed suspects is Ichihashi Tatsuya, the suspected murderer of Lindsay Ann Hawker, former NOVA English teacher, found beaten, suffocated, and buried in a tub of sand on his apartment balcony back in 2007. Police bungled their investigation, and he escaped on foot down a fire escape without even his shoes. He’s still at large. Hence the wanted poster.
Funnily enough, unlike everyone else on that poster, Ichihashi is not wanted on a charge of “murder”. It’s rendered as “abandonment of a corpse” (shitai iki). Even more funnily enough, that’s the same charge levelled at Nozaki Hiroshi (the dismemberer of a Filipina in 2000, who got out after only 3 years to stow more Filipina body parts in a locker in 2008), and at Obara Jouji, convicted serial rapist and dismemberer of Lucie Blackman. Seems like these crimes, if they involve NJ, are crimes to their dead bodies, not crimes of making them dead.
Beginning to see a pattern? I am. And I’ll be writing about it in the Japan Times next Tuesday.