BUY OUR HANDBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS, MIGRANTS, AND IMMIGRANTS TO JAPAN

(Akashi Shoten Inc, English and furigana Japanese, on sale from March 15, 2008)
Table of Contents, advance reviews, and March 2008 nationwide book tour schedule here.

"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reforms. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of struggle... If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will..."

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy of daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

Originally, I started this website in 1996 as a collection of mailing-list essays I thought might be interesting to others. Now, with over 2000 writings and materials, it has grown into something I never anticipated--a backlog of issues I helped raise and put into action. What follows are reports I wrote about problems that I thought deserve attention--if Japan truly is to broach the subject of its own imminent internationalization.

Speaking of networks, if you are interested in joining people like us to raise awareness of some of the topics below, see The Community Website (a network for budding local activists) and sister organization United for a Multicultural Japan (UMJ--which deals with more serious, national-level problems). Help us help out.

Search Tips: I don't have a search function on this site, although Google might be of some assistance. Google has consistently provided the most hits on this site of any search engine. For a speedier search, I recommend you insert the word "debito" all in lower case, then a comma, then your key word or topic. That works for me. I try to have "www.debito.org" at the very top of all my new and revised sites. If it's something I wrote that has been published, I keep an up-to-date archive at my PUBLICATIONS PAGE so stop by there too.

(If you are looking for information about THE NEW LAWSUIT AGAINST THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT (October 2005) CLICK HERE)

Or how about Japan's version of "Little Black Sambo", republished April 2005? Click on the picture for the full text in Japanese.

A quick commercial:

ADVANCE REVIEWS:

• "A reasoned and spirited denunciation of national prejudice, discrimination, and bigotry. It's not that the Japanese have all that much more of it than anyone else, but that they lack an interface to fight it. This lively accounting will help them find it." ---Donald Richie
• "An important, trailblazing work that will go down in the annals of civil activist journals... Will be the book of reference on the subject for decades to come and should be required reading for anyone studying social protest." --Robert Whiting, author, The Meaning of Ichiro, You've Gotta have Wa, and Tokyo Underworld.
• "A powerful, poignant, and path-breaking docu-narrative." ---Ivan Hall, author, Cartels of the Mind and Bamboozled.

Now back to this site. Click on a link in the Headings Section immediately following to page down to a teaser summary on the issue. If you prefer only published works, click here. If you want more information in real time, check out my BLOG.

EVERGREEN TOPICS (i.e. issues which are forever fresh, worth having a look at no matter what)
In a pickle? WHAT TO DO IF... -- Japan's Record in the United Nations regarding Domestic Human Rights -- "Treatment of Japan's International Residents--Problems and Solutions" Handout -- Website on Otaru and Hokkaido Onsens etc. issue (where customers, including international children, are excluded merely because they are "foreign") at the Otaru Lawsuit Website -- Blacklist and Greenlist of Japanese Universities -- Advice to Academics bout employment in Japanese Universities -- What to do if the Japanese police target you for an Arbitrary Gaijin Card Check -- JALT PALE Journals on employment issues -- Juuminhyou Mondai (How to stop the government from continuing to make foreigners legally into nonresidents) -- Catalog of Activism and Discrimination in Japan at The Community Website -- Arrest and Detention periods under Japanese law --

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS AND ARTICLES
This site is the one updated most frequently, so stop by here if you want my most recent writings and speeches...

Are you in a tight situation? No time to navigate the entire debito.org site? Here is an easy FAQ site of important topics:

WHAT TO DO IF... (click on a link to go directly to that heading on the site)
...you are asked for your "Gaijin Card".
..you are stopped by the Japanese police.
..you are arrested by the Japanese police.
..you overstay your visa.
..you see a "Japanese Only" sign.
..you are refused service at a business catering to the general public.
..you are turned away at a hotel.
..you want to protest something you see as discriminatory.
..you want to take somebody to court.
..you want to get a job (or a better job) in Japanese academia.
..you are having a labor dispute in the workplace.
..you are swindled in a business deal.
..you need a lawyer.
..you want to get Permanent Residency (eijuuken).
..you want to become a Japanese citizen.
..you want to run for office.
..you want to build a house.
..you want to get a divorce.
..you want to do some awareness raising.

And more. Updated and added to frequently. Don't see exactly what you're looking for? Start at the very top of the "What to do if" site and see what new headings are on offer.

Japan has a very mixed record on human rights, especially towards ethnic minorities, non-citizens, and other people born of distinction within its society. When signing the UN's International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in 1995, Japan promised to take measures (including legislation) at all levels of government to eliminate racial discrimination "without delay". Despite this, Japan to this day remains the only developed country without any form of a law at any level outlawing discrimination by race.

Japan officially maintains that its legal system provides adequate protection against and redress for racial discrimination, therefore a specific law against it is unnecessary. But as demonstrated in

• 1) the Otaru Onsens Case (where "foreigners", including naturalized Japanese citizens and their international children, were refused entry to a series of public baths in Otaru between 1993 and 2001, while the Otaru City Government was exonerated in court for refusing to take any effective measures to stop it; case is still on appeal),
• 2) statements by Tokyo Governor ISHIHARA Shintarou (who wrote in May 2001 that Chinese have criminal tendencies due to their "ethnic DNA", and called upon Japan's Self Defense Forces in April 2000 to round up all "illegal foreigners" on sight in the event of a natural disaster), and
• 3) The Community Website (where an archive of domestic discrimination against non-citizens by race or appearance has been compiled over several years),

the government's claims of sufficient protection from and redress for racial discrimination are simply not true.

The UN is aware of this situation. This information site, focussing on the interaction between the GOJ and the CERD Committee, will demonstrate how Japan's government wilfully abdicates its international responsibilities, and lay bare what ideology is used to justify it. The website author has compiled three reports in one place for ease of reference and readability, with notes and links added by the author to highlight contentious points. The author hopes a wider knowledge of the situation may persuade a recalcitrant Japanese government to keep its international promises, and enshrine in law the fundamentals of a society with more opportunities for all its members and residents--regardless of race, color, historical or national origin, or other criteria socially preordained by birth.
http://www.debito.org/japanvsun.html

UPDATE (JULY 2005)
"As a world power in an era of globalization, Japan has to expand to the outside world. But its society is still closed, spiritually and intellectually centered."
--Doudou Diene of Senegal, special rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, who will arrive in Japan this weekend to assess the situation of minorities and foreigners in Japanese society. (Kyodo News, Friday, July 1, 2005)

CLICK HERE TO SEE FULL REPORT AND EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF THIS UNPRECEDENTED ON-SITE SURVEY OF JAPAN'S HUMAN RIGHTS BY THE UNITED NATIONS:

The world has now entered the 21st Century, with the promises and problems of global and "borderless" societies. Japan too has itself found itself in the throes of an inevitable internationalization, with record numbers of resident foreigners, registered and unregistered, year on year. Yet even though international residents pay taxes and contribute to Japanese society the same as citizens, there are several societal and legal barriers to them enjoying equal rights and social treatment. In fact, overt exclusionism remains largely unremedied, often by Japanese Government (GOJ) design. This info site, the text of a handout I distribute at all of my speeches, will describe several social and structural problems that warrantattention, and in the end propose some m odest solutions to make Japanese society easier for everyone regardless of nationality to live in.

It may come as a surprise to hear that Japan, hospitable enough to guests and foreign tourists, have some establishments which simply state, "You're a foreigner, so you can't come in and be our customer." No, we are not talking about prurient establishments like telephone clubs or soaplands. As far back as 1994 and to the present day, some private businesses (because public-sector businesses legally cannot exclude foreign taxpayers) including "onsen" hot springs in Otaru, Nemuro, and Wakkanai, Hokkaido, as well as some family-oriented restaurants and bars in places like Naha, Okinawa, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, and Okhotsk Monbetsu, Hokkaido, continue to refuse entry and service to all people the management deems "foreign". Managers cite as justification their past difficulties with foreign clientele and the tyranny of their xenophobic customer base. This policy, however, excludes innocents--barring acculturated Japanese-speaking foreign spouses of international marriages and foreign-looking Japanese citizens. Although this practice is at least in violation of the UN Convention Against Racial Discrimination (which Japan ratified in 1996), the Japanese authorities at local, regional, or national levels have taken no legal action against these establishments to get them to open their doors, stating that there are no Japanese laws which specifically outlaw discrimination on the basis of race or national origin. The story on this issue broke on in the Japanese press on September 21, 1999, and even today most of the primary excluders continue to deny foreigners the right to spend their money like any other consumer in Japan. In fact, the situation has gotten worse--more seaport towns or places with a high confluence of foreigners are excluding--one (Monbetsu) with the cooperation of a local restaurateur's group (inshokuten kumiai), making up common signs for over 100 places which reserve entry for Japanese only!

Now for the big news. It became clear that race, not merely nationality, is indeed the crux of the discrimination. After Caucasian Dave Aldwinckle became Arudou Debito with Japanese citizenship, he was still excluded from entry at Yunohana Onsen in Otaru (despite showing acknowledged proof via his driver licence) on October 31, 2000. Why? Because, the management claimed, he would drive away customers due to his foreign appearance. This bodes ill for other fellow foreign-looking Japanese citizens, such as children of international marriages in Japan, and is a clear violation of Article 14 of the Japanese Constitution. More briefing below,but this is why some excluded friends and I filed a LAWSUIT against not only the excluding onsen, but also Otaru City for negligence.

The actual Lawsuit Decision was handed down on Nov 11, 2002, with the Sapporo District Court ruling that Yunohana's policy constituted both racial discrimination and illegal behavior. The Decision, however, split hairs on why the practice was illegal, and exonerated Otaru City from any obligation to legislate against discrimination--in clear violation of the UN Convention on Racial Discrimination. The High Court affirmed this decision on Sept 16, 2004. The case is now on appeal to the Supreme Court. More information here.

Changes in the Japanese laws (the Sentaku Ninkisei Hou of 1997) now clearly permit Japanese educational institutions--including those that are technically "part of the civil service" (the National and Public Universities)--to hire non-citizens as tenured faculty. Still, too many schools, including most of the National Universities, continue on their old paths, segregating foreigners from regular faculty through a contract system, hiring them as either gaikokujin kyoushi (one-year renewable) or gaikokujin kyouin (three-year renewable), or some permutation thereof. Contracts not only create a perpetual "temp" status for foreigners (since these contracts, for the most part, preclude the possibility of tenure review, or participation in regular communication channels like the kyouin kaigi), but also provide an escape clause, in the finest of ninkisei traditions, for the school to use to axe foreigners who get too expensive or uppity. As this system generally only applies to gaikokujin, it is by definition discriminatory--on the basis of nationality, not qualification. On the other hand, systematic segregation of overseas Japanese academics hardly happens to the same degree as this in any other OECD country. Only in Japan. This must stop, and those Japanese universities which refuse to stop should be known about.

• The universities which continue to discriminate are listed on the BLACKLIST here.
• The universities which have stopped are listed on the GREENLIST here.
  All substantiation and references are listed on each list respectively.

The Japanese academic job market, never very open to overseas educators, is becoming even more abusable, as demonstrated by court cases which have created legal loopholes exclusively for foreigners. In addition, recent moves by the Ministry of Education are making it so universities (perennially made financial alcoholics by government grants) get a taste for contracting full-time Japanese as well (once forbidden by Civil Servant and Labor Standards laws) by providing full-time contracted "researchers", salaries and more paid for by the taxpayer. This establishes precedents for "gaijinizing" all Japanese educatiors as well, and eliminating tenure from the academic job market. I suggest to those who are considering a post at a Japanese university to reconsider. I suggest to those non-Japanese already working in Japan to stay here and watch out for their rights.

Why such polarized advice? Read these URLs and see why:

• A BACKGROUND PRIMER IS HERE
• THE OPEN LETTER TO EDUCATORS OUTSIDE JAPAN IS HERE
• THE OPEN LETTER TO EDUCATORS WITHIN JAPAN IS HERE
• If you really must come to Japan or are in between jobs here: TEN QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK YOUR EMPLOYER BEFORE TAKING A JOB IN A JAPANESE UNIVERSITY ARE HERE
• Don't be fleeced and sent home. Know how to tell the difference between the stable and the temp jobs. Basic criteria for judgment are here. An abridged version which appeared in Tokyo Classified, May 15, 1999, pg. 25, is here as a jpeg, as well as a full-blown academic essay published in JALT's The Language Teacher magazine, July, 1999, pp. 14-16.
• NINKISEI UPDATE AND ROUNDUP, co-authored with Fox and Shiozawa, published in JALT's The Language Teacher, issue dated August, 1999.
• ACADEMIC APARTHEID UPDATE OCT 2005:  This essay outlines the loopholes within the labor laws provided by contract employment, which employers are increasingly learning to exploit.  It also tells you what you can do about it--join a labor union, as that is the only option left.
  

(NOTE: To save bandwidth by avoiding duplication, note that some of these letters are linked within a larger JALT publication called the PALE Journal, which catalogs employment abuses. Click here to scroll down to past PALE issues.)

In November 1998, I got stopped for an ID check by Tokyo Metropolitan Police in Haneda Airport for no apparent reason. Lodging a harassment complaint, I entered into personal negotiations with Haneda authorities and the police themselves. Their express reason for being stopping me? Because I am a foreigner, they said, and therefore suspicious. Also because they can--in the line of duty. I then hit the Japanese law books to find out our legal rights. Turns out what they did was illegal under UN treaties that Japan is signatory to, and not entirely legal under domestic Japanese law either. And it is something they would hardly ever do to a Japanese because, legally, they cannot.

This is an information site which describes the mindset the police have towards people they see as foreigners, and provides detailed quotations of the law and observations on your legal rights. I suggest you print up and carry the letter of the law around with you to display whenever the police get obstructionist.

• Part One: Background to the Issue
• Part Two: The Letter of the Law in English, Japanese, and Romaji.
• Parts Three through Six: What to do if the police overdo it (see also the following section)
• BRIEF: CLIP & KEEP: Your rights if stopped by J cops for an ID Check
• Download wallet-sized version of text of laws regarding Gaijin Card Checks here (pdf format)
• Download color-coded wallet-sized version of text of laws regarding Gaijin Card Checks here (pdf format)
• Click here to read Japan Times Community Page article dated July 27, 2004, which came out of this report.

If the Japanese police decide to detain and interrogate you, you can be in big trouble. There is no 24-hour period of Habeas Corpus in Japan. You can legally be denied legal counsel and Consular assistance, as well as contact with the outside world and the mass media, for 48 hours. Moreover, the police themselves are managing the complaints. For what it's worth. Do your best not to get arrested in this company, or else legally you truly are at the mercy of the Japanese police.

Also, here is an account of what can go on in detention centers when one is called in for questioning. This is not an example of "non-Japanese" specifically being discriminated against per se, since most people "detained for questioning" may have to endure this regardless of nationality. But given the fact that non-Japanese are being singled out in recent years by Japanese police for criminal suspicion, chances are that this kind of detention will happen to you sooner than it will happen to a regular-looking Japanese.

• REPORT: "TWELVE DAYS OF DETENTION" and other reports from detainees about police interrogations in Japan.
• REPORT:  "23 DAYS OF DETENTION", about a German resident's experience of being arrested, interrogated, then released, merely for being a foreign neighbor of a suspected foreign drug dealer.
• WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LODGE COMPLAINTS about police treatment with both the police and the Ministry of Justice, for what it's worth. (The answer: nothing.)
• YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS before and during incarceration in Japan:
• http://www.debito.org/ arrestperiods.html
• http://www.debito.org/instantcheckpoints2. html
• Other helpful outside contacts here
• WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE ARRESTED, according to the Federation of Bar Associations (Nichibenren), in English: http:// www.nichibenren.or.jp/en/index.html
• Site of particular interest: The TOUBAN BENGOSHI system (duty attorneys, which you can ask for when you need legal representation during incarceration) In English. http:// www.nichibenren.or.jp/en/legal/arrest_01.html
• CONDITIONS IN JAPANESE PRISONS: Deaths and abuses of power. Although things like these can (and do) occur in prisons all over the world, for the record, this site is to make sure you are aware that Japan is not exceptional. And abuses have occurred to a degree where even the Ministry of Justice has begun pushes for reform and greater accountability. Be advised. Stay out of a Japanese prison. Japan Times (March-April 2003) articles here.
• JAPAN TIMES (Oct 13, 2005) ON DETENTIONS AND EXTRALEGAL POWERS OF THE JAPANESE POLICE FORCES.  This article is an excellent summary on what's wrong with Japan's criminal justice system. To wit: presumption of guilt, extreme police powers of detention, jurisprudential incentives for using them, lack of transparency, records or accountability during investigation, and a successful outcome of a case hinging on arrest and conviction, not necessarily on proving guilt or innocence.  This has long since reached an extreme: Almost anything that goes to trial in a Japanese criminal court results in a conviction.
   
  I have discussed this in the past (see http://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#arrested and http://www.debito.org/arrestperiods.html ), but the lesson to take home is:  You get detained by police in Japan, you will get grilled.  And if during the weeks of grilling you give the police what they want (a signed confession), you will go to jail--regardless of how much duress they put you under to extract it.  This is especially necessary for you to know as Japan's police continue to use racial profiling and foreigner targeting as public policy. The chances of you being put under the desk lamp have never been higher.
  

"JAPANESE ONLY" My first books (not including textbooks), on the Otaru Onsen Racial Discrimination Case, are currently on sale in Japanese (English version on sale from Nov 2004). Published by human rights specialists Akashi Shoten KK. More information, reviews, and ordering details here.

H.I.S. TRAVEL AGENCY ADMITS SEPARATE AIRLINE TICKET PRICING STRUCTURES FOR FOREIGNERS AND JAPANESE

In March 2006, I received a mail claiming that two of Japan's largest travel agencies catering to the foreign community, H.I.S. and No. 1 Travel, charge foreigners substantially more than Japanese for the same seat--to the tune of NRT to LAX RT 57,000 yen for Japanese, 70,000 yen for foreigners!  A call to the appropriate government ministry indicates this practice is not permitted.  A customer service rep for H.I.S. later sends me an email saying that management has decided to stop this practice, which means it existed.  However, their website (available here in screen captures) still indicates that they do in fact require Japanese citizenship for certain tickets.  This can't be permitted by the IATA.  Be careful when doing business with travel agents in Japan.  Information site here.

From early 2004 onwards, anonymous poster(s) began systematically copying and pasting statements on a Japanese Internet Bulletin Board System (BBS) called "2-Channel", accessed by hundreds of thousands of people daily, about Plaintiff Arudou Debito.  Calling him inter alia a "White Supremacist", the posts, which were added to just about any BBS thread regarding foreigners in Japan, attributed to him by name several fabricated statements, such as "he said he supports massacres of Iraqis", "he said he supports discrimination against non-Whites, as he believes the Japanese are an inferior race", with the clear aim of impugning his character and damaging his credibility in his campaign for racial equality in Japan.  Repeated requests both by electronic and registered mail were made by Plaintiff and his lawyers to remove these materials from the online archive, but were completely ignored by the Administrator of 2-Channel, a Mr Nishimura Hiroyuki.   The posts in question to this day have been left up to spread further across the Internet.  After Plaintiff sued for defamation of character, Defendant also ignored all court communiques and never appeared in before the judge to offer any explanation or defense.  On January 20, 2006, Hokkaido's Iwamizawa District Court ruled in favor of Plaintiff, awarding him 1,100,000 yen in damages for negligence in the face of libel.

This case has been fully archived (with documents submitted to court and court decision in Japanese, my reports and kansoubun in Japanese, and related newspaper articles) at http://www.debito.org/2channelsojou.html

Hokkaido Terebi (HTB) puts out a casting call: "Macho Black and White Males, Beautiful Blonde Female, wanted to make prank telephone calls in English" for a TV show. After protests from all over, HTB very conscientiously withdraws the program.

See? It pays to speak out! Read report on what happened here.

These are my thoughts on the annual meeting of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (Nichibenren), with its main plenary session discussing legislating human rights for foreign residents of Japan. Conclusion: It started off well, but then it foundered: Presentations meandered, Nichibenren seemed to revert to type (i.e. establishmentarianism), and the media focused on a different session entirely in its reportage. Not a great morale-booster for the NGOs. See what I mean by clicking here.

On February 16, 2004, the Ministry of Justice's Department of Immigration unveiled a website (http:// www.immi-moj.go.jp/zyouhou/index.html) for the public to notify authorities of the whereabouts of foreign "illegal overstayers". While at first glance this measure may seem sensible, further inspection of the site reveals three flaws: 1) There are no clear criteria delineated for what constitutes an "illegal" foreigner, 2) Preset reasons for informing on foreigners include "hatred", "fear", and "no reason at all", and 3) Informants need not give any verifiable details about themselves, alleviating them of the burden of responsibility for their comments. More than a dozen domestic human rights groups, including Amnesty International, decried this site as "racist", "xenophobic", and "discriminatory". After over a thousand complaints, the site was amended at the end of March to remove the preset reasons and tone down the rhetoric. Given that the National Police Agency and related organs of law enforcement are surprisingly unaccountable to public opinion and press scrutiny, and have been shamelessly discriminatory when dealing with issues of internationalization and foreign residents, this backpedaling is quite remarkable--and demonstrates that activism can bring about positive results. The site, however, as of this writing, remains up. Looking forward to a similar site where you can rat on people for more serious crimes, such as drug dealing, domestic violence, child abuse, motorcycle ganging, etc. Not just for being here and causing "public anxiety" by looking foreign. Articles substantiating these events follow (cartoon at right drawn by me from Japan Times article dated March 30, 2004, link below).

1) Downloadable discrimination:
The Immigration Bureau's new snitching Web site is both short-sighted and wide open to all manner of abuses
By Arudou Debito, The Japan Times: March 30, 2004
2) Groups demand end to cyber-informing on foreigners via email
Kyodo News, March 18, 2004
3) Human Rights Groups protest Immigration site as "cyber xenophobia"
Reuters, March 19, 2004
4) Suspicious minds: Japan is hoping to boost foreign investment and tourism by promoting the country as a land of hospitality. However, institutional racism and the media's tendency to blame foreigners for rising crime means many visitors find themselves less than welcome
THE GUARDIAN, March 10, 2004
5) Labor-Japan: Rights activists rap tougher immigration measures
Inter Press Service, 10 March 2004
6) PROGRESS: Ministry of Justice plugs gaps in 'racist' telltale site
Mainichi Shimbun, April 1, 2004
7) PROGRESS AGAIN: KOBE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT FORMALLY PROTESTS
Kobe protests e-snitching on immigrants
Yomiuri Shimbun, April 15, 2004
Amnesty International also renews calls for site's abolition
Japan Today, April 14, 2004
8) Hyogo Governor calls for Snitch Site's Abolition
Japan Times, April 18, 2004
More articles and updates at the site...

As evidenced by the Rogues' Gallery website, businesses in certain places around Japan have put up "No Foreigners" exclusionary signs, for nearly ten years in places. Yet the local authorities have turned a blind eye--despite constitutional and international treaty obligations expressly forbidding this practice. So as concerned citizens and residents, Olaf Karthaus and Arudou Debito et al. have decided to submit a petition (chinjou) of our own to the negligent city and prefectural assemblies calling for the establishment of an ordinance (jourei) which will outlaw this practice (with penalties for offenders) . Read the text of the Ordinance here in English and Japanese. Signatories welcome.

NEWS FLASH: IN RESPONSE TO THIS ACTION, JAPANESE NEWSPAPER ARTICLES FROM OKHOTSK SHINBUN (Jan 10, 2004) AND HOKKAIDO SHINBUN (Jan 30, 2004) ANNOUNCE IMPENDING CHINJOU SUBMISSIONS, AND MONBETSU'S DAI-SAN SECTOR "Yukemuri Monbetsu Tokkari no Yu" BATHHOUSE ANNOUNCES ITS INTENTION TO TAKE DOWN ITS EXCLUSIONARY SIGNS. SUCCESS!

UPDATE:  TOTTORI PREFECTURE BECOMES THE FIRST ORGAN OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT (or of any level of government period, for that matter) IN JAPAN TO PASS AN ORDINANCE AGAINST RACIAL DISCRIMINATION. (Japan Times article October 13, 2005)

We're making headway!

Japan is seen nowadays as a land of societal peace--except for those foreign criminals coming in and spoiling things (an attitude seen most starkly during the anti-"hooligan" putsches for World Cup 2002.) This is why it is so ironic how lenient the police are towards Japanese "hooligans", who act up predictably and violently during an annual event known as Seijin no Hi ("Coming of Age Day") every January. Ceremonies are held by local governments nationwide for people turned twenty, Japan's legal age for adulthood. Twenty, however, is also Japan's legal age for drinking, and in recent years this has fomented a volatile cocktail of drunken disruptions. Yet, as newspaper articles contained in this essay show, so long as they are not foreigners causing a ruckus, police tend to turn a blind eye. Read on and see what I mean.

It's odd how governments work sometimes. Several former Hansen's Disease patients got refused entry to a private-sector onsen in Kumamoto in mid-November, 2003. Fortunately (given Japan'sshameful history as the last country in the world with leper concentration camps!), the government came down on them like a ton of bricks and forced the hotel to apologize within days. Well and good. Yet with the Otaru Onsens Case, in which foreigners (and foreign-looking Japanese) have suffered signposted exclusion for well over a decade, the onsens have yet to apologize, or even be forced to take their "JAPANESE ONLY" signs down (short of taking them to court for years of litigation)--precisely because the baths are "private sector". Although being a foreigner and being a former Hansen's Disease victim is incomparable in terms of degree of pain and suffering, one would hope the Japanese government would be a bit more enlightened about keeping all forms of discrimination at bay as per its international treaty promises. But no. Read a quick essay about this issue here. Meanwhile, thanks to government negligence, the problem mutates further in Monbetsu, Hokkaido. Read on:

SUMMARY
Monbetsu, a seaport city on the northeast Okhotsk Seacoast of Hokkaido, Japan, has since 1995 had "JAPANESE ONLY STORE" signs displayed on as many as 100 bar and restaurant doors. Produced by the local Restaurateurs' Association, these signs, rendered in Russian only, have been used to exclude all "foreign" clientele, regardless of connection either to Russia or to Japan. Although the Ministry of Justice's Bureau of Human Rights demanded in July 2000 that this signposted discrimination cease immediately, a fact-finding mission, carried out Nov 15, 2003 by Olaf Karthaus and Arudou Debito, revealed that signs are still up more than three years later. In fact, other businesses, such as a restaurant, a karaoke parlor, and a public bath funded by tax monies (a "Dai-San Sector" enterprise), have put up new exclusionary signs of their own. However, enforcement is haphazard--foreigners (and foreign-looking Japanese) can be admitted if they speak Japanese, or are accompanied by a Japanese speaker. Nevertheless, our requests to have the signs taken down were rejected for the time being. Karthaus and Arudou will be returning in the winter months to resubmit a Petition (chinjou) to the Monbetsu City Government asking for the establishment of an anti-discrimination Ordinance (jourei), which if passed will make this activity, currently not unlawful in Japan, illegal in this municipality. INFORMATION SITE WITH NAMES, DATES, PLACES, PHOTOS AND ARTICLES HERE.

July 2003 was a busy month for the bigots in Japan. Statements from the uppermost levels of Japan's political arenas demonstrated that any opportunity is a good one for painting dire pictures of foreign crime. Especially if they might get some new public policy out of it.

On July 12, Dietmember Etoh Takami claimed that "one million foreigners" in Japan are "murderers and thieves". Then on July 11, the Koizumi Cabinet linked a heinous killing of a Nagasaki child by another (Japanese) preteen with "Brazilian youth crime". On July 28, after appointing a cop as vice-governor, Tokyo Governor Ishihara went on a tour and bashed Ikebukuro as a hotbed of foreign crime. All this has caused immense social damage in Japan--to the point where a government survey reveals that only about half (and markedly dropping) of Japanese respondents believe that foreigners deserve their human rights protected!

Yet what happens when Japanese go abroad? On July 17, the Japanese Government announced that crimes by Japanese abroad are rising,too! By September, however, even the Europoean Union reported that after seventeen commissioned studies, there was no evidence that increased immigration led to an increase in the crime rate. Read all about it in this essay.

Consequently:

For those who read and watch the Japanese press, these are scary times. Foreign crime is allegedly on the rise, members of the new Koizumi Cabinet are making clear policy statements against it, and the National Police Agency is ready for a new push. This despite incontrovertible evidence that foreign crime both as an absolute and a rate is miniscule compared to that of Japanese crime. However, the English-language media is ignoring this impending policy putsch (which may dramatically affect their readership's civil liberties in Japan), instead focussing on economic reform (probably to avoid scaring away foreign investors). What is going on? That is what this essay will discuss. With things on the move in the highest levels of government, now is the time to woolgather before things become entrenched as law, and I hope that the journalists out there will see the issues involved as worthy of overseas attention.

Speaking of policy initiatives:

The National Research Institute of Police Science (NRIPS), a branch of Japan's National Police Agency, has on its website (http://www.nrips.go.jp) a policy proposal to create a crime "index" of "foreignness" in its forensic science. An attempt to foil allegedly rampant foreign crime, NRIPS claims that it can test minute samples of blood and semen from crime scenes to determine the nationality of the perpetrator. However, their science is faulty by assuming that "Japaneseness" is a matter of race--expressly stating that Japanese DNA is racially and biologically "different". In fact, Japan's gene pool has historical traces of Korean, Chinese, Ainu, Ryukyuan, Brazilian, Peruvian etc. in it, not including the children of 40,000 international marriages per annum and 300,000 naturalized citizens since 1968. Therefore, this test may say something about the "racial background" of the suspect, but it cannot determine the presence or absence of Japanese nationality.

While snake-oil science like this should amount to no more than snickers for putting one over on the taxpayer yet again (Japan already has DNA tests, making the 21 million yen requested for this policy an utter waste), this proposal is not a harmless white elephant. It may misconstrue data, at the expense of Japan's international minorities. "False positives" (i.e. test results indicating that racially-diverse Japanese suspects are "foreign") could erroneously inflate the "foreign crime rate", further fueling Japan's current scapegoating of foreigners as criminals. The social irresponsibility of the National Police Agency must be pointed out for what it is--racism--by proposing social policy, using race as an analytical paradigm, based on faulty concepts and fallacious attributions.

THE TEXT OF THIS POLICY, WITH CRITIQUE AND INFORMATION LINKS, IS HERE

Okay, time for the hard data:

FOREIGN CRIME STATS IN JAPAN 1993-2003 according to the official National Police Agency's "Office for Policy Taken Against Foreign Crime" (警察庁来日外国人犯罪等対策室), with some comparison with Japanese crime rates and a critique of the flaws in the NPA's data collection method. Have a look.

Yes, this is an essay from experience. My wife got elected to the town council in Nanporo, Hokkaido, in April 2003. Advice on how to run a grass-roots campaign is available at http:// www.debito.org/nanporo2003elections.html, with links to other elected candidates who also have strong international connections.

On that note:

Tsurunen Marutei, 63, a naturalized Japanese citizen, is the first non-Asian, non-native-born member of the Japanese Diet. Tsurunen consented to an interview by Arudou Debito, a fellow naturalized Japanese, in a rare example of two non-natives talking about Japan's future from a "outsiders'" point of view, on March 4, 2002. Full text in Japanese and English translation here.

Here are some thoughts I had on Japan's society and government reaction to the whole Iraq hostage mess (where three Japanese were held prisoner in Iraq, threatened with death if Japan didn't withdraw its Self Defense Forces, and then released after (the media says) Muslim clerics appealed for clemency, or (the domestic internet bulletin boards reckon) a hefty backdoor ransom was paid. I dashed these thoughts out first to my Japanese lists, about what I commonly call the "Little Lindbergh Effect" (where a society, in the aftermath of a national shock, passes a preemptive law which ultimately oversteps its intentions--in Lindbergh's case, a near-automatic death penalty if a kidnapped child hostage dies; in the present day, hastily passing the PATRIOT Act after Sept 11 only 45 days after the event). In Japan's case, politicians are proposing to make hostages pay their rescue costs, but it has greater potential for policy overreach--not only to control the movements of its citizens abroad, but also to curtail the activities of volunteer organizations at home... See what I mean by clicking here.

DAVE ALDWINCKLE GRANTED JAPANESE CITIZENSHIP ON OCT 10, 2000, BECOMES "ARUDOU DEBITO"

We all know Japan is full of surprises. This one's a doozy. After all I've been up to over here with the onsens issue and speaking out in public, the Japanese government actually granted my request to naturalize--and this after only an eleven-month wait! So now here we are, jubilant with a new Japanese name, Arudou Debito, and pondering how it will change the future both for me and for residents who look like me. Here is a report (Naturalization Part Five--click here to see the other Four parts) on the immediate impacts of the decision vis-a-vis Japanese officialdom, with some rumination on potential intellectual fault lines and speculation on what's to come.

• Nov 6, 2000 Hokkaido Shinbun article verifying this event (English translation and Japanese jpeg)
• Nov 8, 2000 Japan Times and Oct 27, 2000 Otaru Doshin on recent developments in general in English (Otaru Doshin Japanese jpeg)
• A website with information and background on exclusion of foreigners all around Japan.

And if that isn't enough, we happened to bring a tape recorder along with us to record the event and the conversation at Yunohana on October 31.

• For the original Japanese transcript of these taped proceedings, see http:// www.debito.org/yunohanakyakuhon103100.html
• For an English translation and Romajinized Japanese version, see http://www.debito.org/ yunohanatranscript103100.html

Finally, a New York Times article on Debito's recent naturalization mentions the refusal incident inter alia at http:// www.nytimes.com/2000/11/29/world/29JAPA.html (You will need to register, but as far as I know registration is free. Or if you trust me, you can see the text of the article here at http://www.debito.org/nyt112900. html)

1. Read report with dates, places, addresses, and photographs here.
2. UPDATES 2002-04, with the Japanese government's lukewarm reaction, and the American Consulate Sapporo, claiming "this is not an issue of human rights", refusing to take any action, which ultimately, in an odd string of events, led to me giving up my US passport.

By law, since foreigners are by definition not citizens, we cannot have a "Residency Certificate" (juuminhyou, in kanji: 住民票), ergo we do not actually "reside" in Japan. Not only is this an affront to our contribution to society (even though we pay resident taxes like anyone else), this legal loophole has created a number of systemic horror stories for non-Japanese--such as your Japanese spouse looking legally unmarried and your children bastards.

However, by law, it turns we can do something about this--get listed on our spouse's juuminhyou as a footnote. Know your rights; read this article and find out how. Jpegs of the pertinent legal edict and my wife's new juuminhyou also included. [NB: These documents were issued before I received my Japanese citizenship, of course.]

You can also see the root of this problem--the fact that I am not listed as a "person" in the "names rank" at the bottom of our family's Family Registry (koseki touhon). Excerpts of my wife's koseki touhon are here, demonstrating that I am the spouse of my wife and father of my children, but not a "husband" in the appropriate name column--despite having our marriage recognized in Japan as legal as any other marriage by citizens.

JUUMINHYOU UPDATE: A QUIET REVOLUTION IN PROGRESS
Not more than six months after this came up as a topic, many people have been emailing me with the good news: the legal loophole works! In fact, people (usually male non-Japanese, mind) have gotten their names listed on their spouse's juuminhyou AUTOMATICALLY! The bureaucrats even had a copy of my wife's papers right there that they had downloaded! Spooky! Since then, other people have written in saying that this site has helped get them juuminhyoued. Consider doing it yourself.

Meanwhile, this issue is attracting more and more attention. See my "Watashi no Shiten" article in the Asahi Shinbun of Nov 8, 2003 (Japanese). Also Japan Times article here (January 20, 2002).

Japan has had some very alienating fingerprinting laws, which were instituted after WWII to control and track foreigners. Several people took an active stance against this practice in the 1980's, some even taking their case before the Japan Supreme Court. One activist, columnist Kathy Morikawa, gave HIBA (Hokkaido International Business Association) a very thorough talk on her long march in November, 1998. As I was then Secretary of HIBA, I wrote up a report for the HIBA NEWS. Because of heroes like her, Permanent Residents like me can get away with signatures on our Gaijin Cards, and the whole fingerprinting system may be abolished in the near future. Entire text of newspaper article on the abolition of the system on this URL.

• UPDATE: Brief article on the abolition in the New York Times, Aug 13, 1999.
• MAINICHI DAILY NEWS on Japan's reintroduction of fingerprinting of entrant foreigners, as an "counterterrorist measure" (after all, only foreigners are terrorists...) (Dec 5, 2004)

Part One: "GAIJIN WA NIHONGO GA KATAKOTO NO HOU GA II YO NE"
Kume Hiroshi, flippant Anchorman of popular program NEWS STATION on TV Asahi, made a glib comment about non-Japanese that causes outrage amongst the foreign community in Japan. I respond by telephoning the network to lodge a complaint, only to be brushed aside. But it doesn't end there. A story of protest from a newly self-aware minority in Japan--the non-Japanese residents.

Part Two: THE RISE AND FALL OF AN ISSUE
After a meteoric rise (pity meteors don't rise), the issue faces the nay-sayers. Fukuzawa contrarians begin to chisel away at the legitimacy of complaining. "What's wrong with the word 'gaijin' anyway? Aren't we being 'politically correct' here?" My observations are on how non-Japanese aren't used to working together as a minority group, and find themselves unable to cooperate with one another.

Part Three: GAIJIN IS A DISCRIMINATORY WORD
In response to the naysayers above, I describe exactly what the word "gaijin" means and why it is in fact a racist term.

Part Four: KUME ISSUE ESCAPES INTERNET, HITS WORLD PRESS

a) Front page article in Chicago Sunday Tribune
b) Daily Yomiuri's William Penn comments in "Televiews"
c) Resultant TV broadcast on NEWS STATION Nov 28, 1996
d) Christmas Day article in The Daily Yomiuri--with angry denials of censorship from TV Asahi producers

A public swimming pool in a country village in Japan (Azuma-mura) had a bad experience with some "foreigners" roughhousing (or worse) in their pool, so they decided to ban all foreigners from their waters. Great logic. Exceptthat it is illegal for a public place to do this to fellow taxpayers. Fortunately, people didn't take this lying down (A precursor to The Community geared up its press machines and made an issue of it. See the Issho Kikaku Website for more). Anyway, this article talks more about it. I didn't write it. I just got quoted in it.

Ever wondered how hard it is to become a Japanese citizen? What are the requirements? I compare both America and Japan in this essay that may or may not inspire you to change your citizenship.

a) Requirements for naturalization into Japan and America (plus some referential articles about other countries)
b) Jpegs (in Japanese) of original information pamphlet on requirements for Japanese natururalization (cover and back) (inside)
c) The 100 Questions on America the US Immigration and Naturalization Service asks its applicants to screen them.
d) Or if you are less ambitious, a brief overview of requirements for getting your PERMANENT RESIDENCE IN JAPAN.
e) The US State Department's policy on Dual Nationality (it is possible), and how one can lose American citizenship: jpeg pages one and two.

MY NATURALIZATION INTO JAPAN

Yup, I did it. Became a Japanese Citizen. How? Read. Why? Ditto.

• PART ONE: MOTIVES AND PRELIMINARY STEPS
• PART TWO: AMERICANS PENALIZED IF THEY RENOUNCE U.S. CITIZENSHIP
• PART THREE: QUALMS I HAD WITH CHANGING MY NAME AND THE ADVICE I GOT ON IT FROM CYBERSPACE
• PART FOUR: FILING THE PAPERS OCT 23, 1999
• PART FIVE: "ARUDOU DEBITO, OMEDETOU!" OCT 10, 2000--MY JAPANESE CITIZENSHIP IS GRANTED
• NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE, "Turning Japanese--it takes more than a passport" (Nov 29, 2000, page 4), gives more details on my case. It may be seen on the NYT website at http:// www.nytimes.com/2000/11/29/world/29JAPA.html or else as text here.
• PART SIX: HOW TO GIVE UP AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP Yes, I did. What could have inspired such a rash act? A little coercion from the US State Department, in what I felt was an attempt to stop me from pursuing an international incident of racial discrimination near an American air base. The procedures involved, the actual documents (even my cancelled passport) scanned, and the motivations are all available here

JAPAN TIMES ON NATURALIZATION:

Friday, April 20, 2001, Part one:
FOREIGNERS FACE LONG SLOG TO JAPANESE CITIZENSHIP
http://www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20010420a4.htm (English)
(includes statement from me on naturalization procedures)

Saturday, April 21, 2001, Part two:
KOREANS WEIGH MERITS OF GAINING JAPANESE CITIZENSHIP
http://www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20010421a3.htm (English)
(includes statement from my Korean friend on his rejection for parking tickets)

And just for fun, to show how quickly a person's mind can change, I dug up and URLed an essay I wrote in 1995 arguing that assimilation into Japan is practically impossible! Time capsule on my old attitudes towards assimilation available here.

• April 1999 (color jpeg) on why Japanese society will undergo a sea change in the not-too-distant future--as more foreigners are staying, having children, and even naturalizing. The very image of "Japaneseness" (black hair, brown eyes) may have to be revised.
• May 1999 (color jpeg) describes how difficult the procedures are for naturalization into Japan.
• nd from cyberspace
• How it all went in the end

In a government program designed to save Japanese universities money, Japan's government has been systematically denying tenure to its non-Japanese educators. Called ninkisei (任期制),< I> or "term limitation system", this form of "academic apartheid" has been destroying the livelihoods of academics on the basis of nationality, not qualification. But this is only the start--a dress rehearsal for a systemwide abolishment of tenure in general for Japan, where the Japanese Ministry of Education (Monbushou) can fire people at will and clean the left-wing out of Japan's education system.

A primer on the issue

(including the "smoking gun"--jpegs of original Nov 1995 Shingikai Report in Japanese, as well as an English-language article on the damage done)

Rebuttals

• A Japanese academic speaks out in favor of ninkisei
• and then My Rebuttal

Follow-ups

• A possible change in government policy towards hiring foreigners in the Japanese public service
• The end-1996 debate in the Japanese press and English-language press, as Monbushou's scope expands to include Japanese academics as well (jpegs)
• GAIJIN RIGHTS UPDATE Good news. Japan's Supreme Court just ruled (Jan 1997) that even ILLEGAL foreigners in Japan have rights to compensation. This is an article from the Japan Times on the decision, which bodes well for non-Japanese who are here legally but are being fired by Japanese government fiat.
• If you have been on a contract, renewed several times, then are suddenly facing dismissal, you can find out more about your rights in this essay by Steve van Dresser, "The Employment Rights of Repeatedly Renewed Private Sector Contract Workers" here (written 1999, previously of the now-defunct Issho Kikaku website).

Scholarly publications on the subject (from JPRI et al):

• ACADEMIC APARTHEID IN JAPAN by Dr Ivan Hall
• ACADEMIC APARTHEID UPDATE ONE by Dr Hall again
• AMBASSADOR MONDALE'S PUBLIC LETTER ON THIS ISSUE
• ACADEMIC APARTHEID UPDATE TWO by the JPRI Staff
• The Japan Foreign Press Club's take (jpeg pages one and two)
• and for the contrarian who disbelieves anything without an official letterhead, a jpeg of a FAX OF SUPPORT WE RECEIVED FROM FORMER AMBASSADOR MONDALE
• 1997 Statement from JALT (Japan Association for Language Teaching) President Gene Van Troyer on discrimination in Japan
• JALT'S THE LANGUAGE TEACHER MAGAZINE, July 1999, on Job Search Tips in the Time of Ninkisei
• JALT'S THE LANGUAGE TEACHER MAGAZINE, August 1999, on with a revised fin-de-siecle Ninkisei Roundup
• Arudou Debito Presentation on WHY JALT SHOULD TAKE A STAND ON THE NINKISEI ISSUE, presented at JALT Hokkaido's Annual Conference, May 20, 2001. (Rejected for publication by cautious JALT Hokkaido Proceedings, accepted for publication in JALT's The Language Teacher in 2002)
• Second Arudou Debito Presentation: Monbushou is introducing ninkisei for all Japanese too, by getting universities used to the idea of full-time contract workers through a government program providing free "researchers" for any university who wants to take them. This is not small potatoes--Monbushou is asking the government for a budget of US $400 million in 2002, and in the period 1998-2000, the number of universities agreeing to this freebie has gone up sixfold. It's only a matter of time. Presented at JALT Kitakyushu, November 23, 2001.

• AN EXCERPT FROM THE REVIEW AND MY REBUKE
• THE CAUTIONARY LETTER FROM JJS AND MY RESPONSE
• MY OPINION HOW A "QUALITY" REVIEW OUGHT TO BE DONE

• Who and what exactly PALE is
• PALE APR 98
• PALE AUG 98
• PALE < A HREF="PALE1298.html">DEC 98
• PALE APR 99
• PALE AUTUMN 99
• PALE SPRING 2000
• PALE SPRING 2001

(see also the FOREIGN ACADEMICS IN JAPAN page on Issho Kikaku for even more comment, debates, articles and resources. To find out what JALT is, click here.)

THE RAMIFICATIONS OF NINKISEI: THE GWENDOLYN GALLAGHER CASE (Autumn 1997 to the present day)

• How I got involved in the first place: at JALT's PALE N-SIG 1997 Roundtable at Hamamatsu; speaking on the topic and then doing a write-up on the proceedings.
• PUBLIC LETTERS OF PROTEST FROM ASAHIKAWA DAIGAKU'S UNION AND ONE ASAHIKAWA DAI PROFESSOR, with my response
• Evidence that, contrary to the claims of the above parties, Gwen was indeed fired on the basis of non-freshness and over-Japanization: (Asahikawa Daigaku's court affidavit cover, page 7, page 8)

GALLAGHER CASE UPDATE FEB 2000

A District Court Judge in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, ruled on Feb 1, 2000 that a university is legally permitted to dismiss a non-Japanese academic because he or she is "too Japanized", explicitly citing as evidence in the hanketsu decision that living here too long and being married to a Japanese spouse renders an educator unable to teach about foreign culture.

Dubious? Original Hanketsu pages in Japanese here: cover, page sixty-three and sixty-four in jpeg form. Full update writeup in English, plus suggestions on what you can do to help here.

GALLAGHER CASE UPDATE FEB 2001
Gallagher lost her appeal. Now it is a matter for the Supreme Court. No word yet whether they will deliberate the case. More details as they become available.
GALLAGHER CASE NOV 2002: After a long wait, the Japanese Supreme Court decided not to hear her case. This is where the case ends. Details unclear at this time.

CASE CLOSED: KORST DECISION HANDED DOWN BY NAHA DISTRICT COURT JULY 12, 1998. Click here to read final update.

TEN QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK YOUR EMPLOYER BEFORE TAKING A JOB IN A JAPANESE UNIVERSITY

The Japanese university system is full of pitfalls. Most (yes, most) full-time foreign educators in Japan suffer or have suffered from temporary job status in a system that differentiates not on the basis of qualification, but nationality. Don't be fleeced and sent home. Know how to tell the difference between the stable and the temp jobs. Basic criteria for judgment are here. An abridged version which appeared in Tokyo Classified, May 15, 1999, pg. 25, is here as a jpeg only.

Japan's political system is, ostensibly and constitutionally, a representative democracy, which by design should lend a voice to the people. On April 16, 2001, as a Japanese citizen with voting rights, I decided to test this theory, and see how Japan's political parties would react if I asked them to do their job: produce laws to protect all citizens and residents against a large and growing social problem of Racial Discrimination. I dropped by the Sapporo HQs of the LDP, Minshutou, JCP, and Koumeitou with a draft bill (courtesy of NGO Issho Kikaku) in hand. The responses were interesting, and illuminating when the LDP Hokkaido Assembly Rep Mr Satou Tokio even went so far as to say, "Japan doesn't need laws"--right in front of the TV cameras!

I moved to a small town in November 1997 after buying and building on a piece of land, and that alone was the subject of several essays. However, little did I know just what kind of a neighborhood I was moving into--one where demographics were threatening to unseat a corrupt mayor. This essay will explore how social movements work in Japan, how Japanese political machines react to them, how the mass media is controlled and exploited, and how one person can make a surprising amount of difference.

• Essay One, on the background to the issue and the start of the social movement.
• Essay Two, on how political campaigns are held in Japan, with the results of the election.

UPDATE: Nanporo's mayoral and councillor elections were on April 27, 2003. Reports:

• PART ONE: How "people power" is thwarted by Japan's electoral laws, effectively stopping individuals from holding fora to increase communication between candidate and electorate.
• PART TWO: How to run for a town council election in Japan. And win.

My little town of Nanporo pinned its future to a public-private consortium, the Dai-San Sector, to create a golf course that would bring in the tourists. This enterprise turned out to be Frankenstein's Monster, as the mayor, who, as you read above, was thrown out of office for his corrupt activities through this company, refused to step down as CEO, and, thanks to arcane D3S rules, could not be audited out of existence. Want to see the postmodern Japanese bubble keizai in action? Read this expose, one of the most important essays I have ever written.

A study of the darker side of Fortress Japan. Japan refused to import US apples for fear of disease. A local botanist doing his job reports to the overseas scientific community that the disease in question already exists in Japan, showing the Japanese government had been telling big fat lies. Subsequently, the scientist, hung out to dry by the government and his community, commits suicide.

• Working backwards--articles from the front pages of the Los Angeles Times (with partial jpeg inside) and the Finger Lakes Times, my hometown newspaper (partial jpeg only)
• BACKGROUND: how I got personally involved, and, as a primer on common perceptions of the issue, the ignorant apple debate on The Dead Fukuzawa Society.
• the perspective of the Washington State Apple growers, with links to their home page.

UPDATE: WTO RULES AGAINST JAPAN ON APPLE TRADE BARRIERS. Click here to read press release.

• My very first essay to the now-defunct Dead Fukuzawa Society--a diatribe on how Japan's government blundered in its rescue efforts
• My second Fukuzawa essay--a narrative on my going to Kobe as a volunteer.
• After stupid Leader in The Economist (jpeg) refuses to lay due blame, my angry response got published in The Economist (jpeg)
• Letter (jpeg) on Kobe published in sanitized Japanese in the Hokkaido Shinbun, followed by my original, more critical draft in my Japanese (English translation here)
• Report (jpeg) on my volunteer expeiences, published again in sanitized Japanese in the Hokkaido Shinbun (unsanitized Japanese version here, both translated into English here)

KOBE EARTHQUAKE UPDATE ONE
Viewing the damage after the 1994 California Earthquake, Japanese government officials officiously scoffed, "This couldn't happen in Japan." One year to the day later it DID happen, in Kobe. Two years later, California's back to normal, while Kobe, according to this article from a friend, remains mired in botched relief efforts. A 1998 indictment of a system which is still not serving its citizens properly.

KOBE EARTHQUAKE UPDATE TWO
On a trip to Kobe in 1999, I get introduced to some people in a park who are still squatting and refusing to obey the government's demands that they move. Why? Read and find out.