Gregory Clark argues in Japan Times that “Antiforeigner discrimination is a right for Japanese people”

Posted on January 16, 2009February 21, 2015 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Y’know, life is never boring. Here’s yet another piece about the Otaru Onsens Case in yesterday’s Japan Times. This time from that person with a demonstrably bad record of dealing with the facts, Gregory Clark.

Clark provides no surprises as he rides his “bathhouse fanatics” hobby horse once again, and gets (as he has since 1999) the same old facts wrong. Actually, he gets even more facts wrong this time: despite calling himself “closely involved” in the case, he gets the very name of the exclusionary onsen wrong. He even forgets once again (after repeated past public corrections that were even printed in the Japan Times) that there was more than one plaintiff in the successful lawsuit. And that one of those plaintiffs is a Japanese.

The rest is self-hating anti-gaijin invective with errors and illogic galore. If the Japan Times isn’t bothering with fact checks anymore, they should just put this bigoted old fool out to pasture. Clark is not worth the trouble to print or debate with anymore.

Still tracing his arc to irrelevancy, Arudou Debito in Sapporo
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Excerpt follows. Full article (new updated link 2015) at:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2009/01/15/commentary/antiforeigner-discrimination-is-a-right-for-japanese-people/

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Antiforeigner discrimination is a right for Japanese people (excerpt)

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20090115gc.html

By GREGORY CLARK

“Japan girai” — dislike of Japan — is an allergy that seems to afflict many Westerners here. If someone handing out Japanese-language flyers assumes they cannot read Japanese and ignores them, they cry racial discrimination. If they are left sitting alone in a train, they assume that is because the racist Japanese do not want to sit next to foreigners. If someone does sit next to them and tries to speak to them in English, they claim more discrimination, this time because it is assumed they cannot speak Japanese….

Recently they have revived the story of how they bravely abolished antiforeigner discrimination from bathhouses in the port town of Otaru in Hokkaido. Since I was closely involved, allow me to throw some extra light on that affair.

An onsen manager who allegedly had earlier been driven to near bankruptcy by badly behaved Russian sailors had decided this time to bar all foreigners from his new enterprise. The activist [sic] then filed a suit for mental distress and won ¥3 million in damages. In the Zeit Gist and letter pages of this newspaper, some have criticized these excessively zealous moves by the activists. These critics in turn have been labeled as favoring Nazi-style discrimination and mob rule. Maybe it is time to bring some reality to this debate.

Otaru had been playing host to well over 20,000 Russian sailors a year, most arriving in small rust-bucket ships to deliver timber and pick up secondhand cars. I visited the wharves there, and as proof I harbor no anti-Russian feeling let me add that I speak Russian and enjoyed talking to these earthy, rough-hewn people in their own language. Even so, the idea of them demanding freedom to walk into any onsen bathhouse of their choice, especially to a high-class onsen like Yunohara [sic], is absurd…

It is time we admitted that at times the Japanese have the right to discriminate against some foreigners. If they do not, and Japan ends up like our padlocked, mutually suspicious Western societies, we will all be the losers.

Gregory Clark is vice president of Akita International University. A Japanese translation of this article will appear onwww.gregoryclark.net.

The Japan Times: Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009

Full article at:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20090115gc.html

Sankei: manual to help NJ “illegal overstays” evade police: 「不法滞在者向け職質逃れマニュアル出回る」

Posted on January 15, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Mark in Yayoi sends me his translation of an article (entitled below via Google Search as 「不法滞在者向け職質逃れマニュアル出回る」) regarding some mail-in manual regarding “illegal overstaying” NJ evading police inquisition. I include his report in full below and the original Japanese article at the very bottom.

MY QUICK COMMENT: This kind of guidebook is inevitable. We already have manuals for all manner of screwing over other people (most notably in my researches I found manuals for exploiting the very nasty divorce system in Japan so that ex-wives can squeeze the most money out of their ex-husbands). Not much mention, however, about how the police have created the market for this manual thanks to their Instant Police ID Checkpoints and self-indulgent Bicycle Checks.

It’s also annoying that the Sankei has this persistent habit of whipping up fear of NJ (such as exaggerating crime statistics on their front pages; the Sankei exclusively publishes Tokyo Gov. Ishihara’s inflammatory “Nihon Yo” column, after all, which had two segments talking about “ethnic DNA” and the Chinese propensity to commit crime) and taking unprofessional and cheap ethnic shots at them as well. They are, after all, in my view farther-right than even the Yomiuri in terms of daily papers, so that’s par for the course. It’s sad, however, that this newspaper is encouraging police to view even “polite” NJ as suspicious. Can’t win, can we?

Thanks for the translation, Mark. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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From: Mark in Yayoi. Subject: Sankei article, 1/13, “Fuhou Taizaisha ni ‘Yami no Shinan’ (A ‘Secret Orientation’ for Illegal Aliens)” Date: January 14, 2009 11:33:19 PM JST To: debito@debito.org

Finished the translation! I added the original Japanese in brackets wherever I thought it might be useful.

Interestingly, the word “gaikokujin” isn’t used at all (except in one imagining of a police officer’s thoughts). The illegal aliens are called “fuhou taizaisha”. Feel free to change this to “illegal overstayers” if you like; I wasn’t sure which to use, since someone who came to Japan with no visa at all isn’t actually ‘over’-staying; but then on the other hand, ‘fuhou taizaisha’ doesn’t actually specifically state the the “stayer” is foreign.

I also like how they call the streetside police interrogations “voluntary”; we all know what happens when you express a disinclination to talk with a police officer!

***

“Carry a bag, don’t stint on hairstyling, and report your alien card as ‘lost’!”

— A Secret Orientation for Illegal Aliens —

[the word for ‘secret orientation’ is ‘yami no shinan’, where ‘shinan’ is an old Chinese device that would show people which direction was south. Ninety degrees away from the eastern direction to which English speakers “orient” themselves.]

SANKEI SHINBUN January 13, 2009. Original Japanese at very bottom

Translation by Mark in Yayoi

“We’ll teach you how to get away when the police stop you on the street!”

This is the catch copy for a manual that is now circulating, instructing illegal aliens on how to escape from police questioning. Supposedly it was sold through newspapers and free magazines aimed at Chinese and Koreans in Japan. Organized Crime Bureau No. 1 of the National Police Agency has obtained this manual, and is sending warnings to each police station. The police are strengthening their vigilance as these newspapers, carrying illegal advertisements, are becoming breeding grounds for crime [hanzai no onshou].

—– [Sidebar text:] Police questioning: Voluntary questioning [nin’i no shitsumon] carried out by police officers, calling out to and stopping people who have the possibility of being connected with a crime. In many cases, this leads to sudden arrests of suspects, and early resolutions and deterrence of crime. [Response is] not mandatory [kyouseiryoku wa naku], and [the person being questioned] can maintain silence. —–

* Making use of psychology

The manual obtained by the bureau is entitled “Techniques to Preserve Your Safety: Keep Yourself Safe!” [“jibun no anzen o mamoru technique: jibun no anzen wa jibun de mamorou!”]. Buyers send e-mail to an address listed in the newspaper advertisement and transfer Y3800 to a specific bank account, and the manual is e-mailed back.

The return e-mail advertised “methods derived from loopholes in the law [hou no fubi no sukima] and human psychology”.

“It’s important to always carry a bag. If you’re going to play the part of a salaryman, play it completely. Have you ever seen a Japanese salaryman without a bag?”

“Next is your hairstyle. Japanese salons are expensive, but this is an investment in yourself. You should spend the money and not skimp.”

The manual begins with one’s outward appearance, and continues on to how to escape when a police officer asks to ‘see your Alien Registration Card’.

“Go to the police box in an area you pass through frequently and file a ‘lost item report’ [funshitsu todoke], saying, ‘I lost my entire wallet. I’ve also filed a report at that [other] police box.’ This will make it look not like you have no visa, but that you’ve merely lost [your papers].”

“Here is another interesting technique. File a ‘lost item report’ at all the police boxes in the area. Then, on the same day, go to one of them and get the report erased, saying that ‘the person who found my wallet got in touch with me’. In the evening, when you pass that police box, greet them [aisatsu] yourself and say ‘my wallet has been returned’. By saying hello to them three times a day, they’ll think of you as one of the area’s ‘polite foreigners [reigi tadashii gaikokujin da na]’, and you’ll be able to walk by without fear.”

The Bureau has circulated an internal memo to police stations warning that illegal aliens are using these methods to escape detection, and have advised the police to take care in questioning people [shokumu shitsumon jou no chuui o yobikaketa]. There is no applicable law, however, making sale of this manual a crime.

***

That’s the end of the part about overstayers/illegal aliens. The article then goes on to discuss an advertisement for non-approved drugs appearing in one of these papers, with the drugs being sold without permission, and how two Chinese people (one man and one woman) were arrested. Managers at this and six other papers were later questioned, and saying that they didn’t know that this was against the law. The papers were forced to write letters of apology. A spokesman for the bureau then goes on to say that ‘there must be other no-good advertisements [akushitsu na koukoku] in these papers’, and that he would like to proactively [sekkyokuteki ni] find the illegal cases.

I don’t normally read the Sankei and just stumbled upon this one coincidentally. Does this paper have a consistent position on the police, their approaches to foreigners, or on foreigners in general?

[Answer: Yes it does, See my comment preceding this article.]

Mark in Yayoi

ENDS

Original Japanese:

不法滞在者向け職質逃れマニュアル出回る
産經新聞　2009.1.13 01:01

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/affairs/crime/090113/crm0901130102001-n1.htm
「歩いていて警察に止められたとき、うまく逃げられる方法を教えます」−。そんなうたい文句で、警察の職務質問を逃れる方法を指南する不法滞在者向けマニュアルが出回っている。在日中国人、在日韓国人向けの新聞やフリーペーパーに広告を出して販売されていたという。警視庁組織犯罪対策１課はマニュアルを入手、各警察署に注意を呼びかける一方、これらの新聞に違法広告が掲載されるなど犯罪の温床になっているケースもあり、警戒を強めている。
「心理利用」
同課が入手したのは「自分の安全を守るテクニック〜自分の安全は自分で守ろう！！」と題されたマニュアル。新聞広告に掲載された連絡先にメールを送り、専用口座に購入代金３８００円を振り込むと、マニュアルが添付されたメールが返送される仕組みだ。
返送メールには「法の不備のすき間と人間の心理を利用して考え出した方法」と宣伝されていた。
《大事なのはカバンを持つこと。サラリーマンを演じるのなら、完璧（かんぺき）に演じたほうが良いです。カバン持たない日本人サラリーマンを見かけたことありますか？》
《次は髪形です。日本の美容院は高いですが、自分への投資ですから節約せずにパンと使ったほうがいいでしょう》

マニュアルは、こうした“外見上”の注意に始まり、実際に警察に「外国人登録証を見せてほしい」と職務質問された際の逃れ方に至る。
《自分がよく通る場所の交番に行って「紛失届」を出しておき、「この前、財布ごとなくしました。あっちの交番に紛失届も出しています」と答えます。ビザがないのではなく、なくしただけの状況になります》
《もうひとつ面白いテクニックもあります。地域の全部の交番に「紛失届」を出します。出したその日にまた交番に行って「すみません、財布を拾った人から連絡がありました」と「紛失届」を消します。夜その交番を通るときに、必ず「財布戻ってきたのです」と自分からあいさつします。１日３回あいさつをすることによって、貴方は住んでいる地域の警察に「礼儀正しい外国人だな」と覚えられ、そのあとからは普通に歩いても何の心配もありません》
同課は、こうした方法で摘発を逃れようとする不法滞在者がいることを各警察署に内部文書で伝え、職務質問上の注意を呼びかけた。しかし、マニュアル販売の行為を処罰するには適用法令がないという。

積極摘発も
ただ、こうした新聞には違法な広告も掲載され、摘発につながった例もある。
同課は昨年８月、在日中国人向けの新聞やフリーペーパーに未承認の医薬品の広告を載せ、無許可で販売したとして、薬事法違反の疑いで在日中国人の男女を逮捕した。
同１０、１１月にはこの広告を載せた新聞社など７社の中国人幹部から事情を聴いた。幹部らは「違法とは知らなかった」などと答えたため、薬事法違反の共犯や幇助（ほうじよ）での立件は見送ったが、始末書を出させ警告した。
同課は「ほかにも悪質な広告はあるだろう。警戒していきたい」と話し、違法なケースでは積極的に摘発する方針だ。

ENDS

Kyodo: Special unemployment office being studied for NJ workers with PR

Posted on January 14, 2009January 14, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s some very mixed news. The GOJ will study how to offer help unemployed NJ to make sure inter alia their kids stay in school. Thanks, but then it limits the scope to Permanent Residents. Probably a lot more of the NJ getting fired are factory workers here on visas (Trainee, Researcher, etc) that give the employer the means to pay them poorly and fire them at will already. So why not help them too? Oh, they and their kids don’t count the same, I guess. Considering how hard and arbitrary it can be to get PR in the first place, this is hardly fair. Expand the study group to help anyone with a valid visa. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Gov’t to set up office to support foreign residents who lose jobs

Japan Today/Kyodo News Friday 09th January, 03:01 PM JST

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/govt-to-set-up-office-to-support-foreign-residents-who-lose-jobs

TOKYO —

The Japanese government will establish an office to study measures to support foreign nationals with permanent residency status who lose their jobs amid the recession, Yuko Obuchi, state minister on Japan’s declining child population, said Friday. ‘‘We would like to expedite studying measures needed based on reports from people concerned on their actual difficulties and needs,’’ she said at a press conference.

Last month, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said Japan will provide support to foreign nationals with permanent residency who have lost their jobs and are suffering economic hardship amid the deteriorating economy. ‘‘Japanese people are facing difficulties under current employment conditions, and foreigners must be facing more difficulties,’’ Kawamura said, adding that the government will set up a team to tackle the issue. The measures are expected to include one to help them find jobs and another to help foreign children attend schools, Kawamura said.

ENDS

Japan Times on international trends towards allowing citizens to become multinational

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. In yet another excellent article from the Japan Times (with information on what countries are in Japan’s league of strict jus sanguinis) indicating how the worldwide trend has been towards granting people, or allowing them to keep, dual nationality. The GOJ and their online apologists are running out of excuses. Debito in Sapporo

—————————-

THE MANY FACES OF CITIZENSHIP
Multinationalism remains far from acceptance in Japan
By SETSUKO KAMIYA, Staff writer
THE JAPAN TIMES, Sunday, January 4, 2009 Third in a series

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090104f1.html

In a country notorious for its exclusive immigration policy, the question of whether to allow Japanese to hold dual citizenship became a surprisingly hot policy topic last year after members of the ruling party breached the issue.

In many other parts of the world, it’s a matter that has already been discussed in great depth, and observers agree that an increasing number of countries are moving toward allowing citizens to become multinational.

As of 2000, around 90 countries and territories permitted dual citizenship either fully or with exceptional permission, according to the “Backgrounder,” published by the Center for Immigration Studies in the United States, and “Citizenship Laws of the World” by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Since the reports came out, several countries have lifted bans on dual nationality. As a consequence, there are more than 90 countries backing dual nationality by default today.

“The trend is dramatic and nearly unidirectional. A clear majority of countries now accepts dual citizenship,” said Peter Spiro, an expert on multi nationality issues at Temple University Beasley School of Law.

“Plural citizenship has quietly become a defining feature of globalization.”

Countries such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom who go by the principle of jus soli, which gives nationality to everyone born on their soil and territories, have long been lenient in permitting dual citizenship.

The shift is also being seen in countries that have traditionally adhered to jus sanguinis, which says that a child’s nationality is determined by his parent’s citizenship.

The change in jus sanguinis countries first grew prominent in European countries, followed by some South American and Asian states, largely as a result of economic globalization and the expansion in people’s mobility over the past few decades.

Europe’s general acceptance of dual nationality is stated in the 1997 European Convention on Nationality, which stipulates that while member states can define their own citizens, they must at least allow children of international marriages and immigrants to hold dual nationality.

This was a major shift from traditional attitudes in the region, stated in a 1963 convention that supported the single nationality principle.

Atsushi Kondo, a law professor at Meijo University, explained that the economic growth after World War II and the formation of the European Union are two major reasons driving the change.

After WWII, the western European countries, who had been a source of emigrants, began accepting foreigners in their labor forces to deal with the rise in economic development they were enjoying.

Contrary to the initial presumption of European states that immigrant workers will eventually pack up and leave at some point, many foreigners have stayed longer and settled. They not only brought in more family members to their new homes, but married citizens of those countries as well, Kondo said.

As more immigrants virtually became permanent residents, many governments eventually reached the conclusion that securing the rights of foreigners and integrating them with society was unavoidable if they were to bring about a fair and democratic society, he explained.

“These countries have become aware that leaving the status of foreigners unstable was violating their human rights and making society unfair” and wanted to avoid that, Kondo said.

Meanwhile, countries whose citizens are migrating to other countries have also granted dual citizenship to the Diaspora.

Among them are many Latin American countries, who took this step in the 1990s because many of their citizens were immigrating to the U.S.

For example, Colombia acknowledged dual nationality in 1991, the Dominican Republic in 1994, Brazil in 1996 and Mexico in 1998.

Joining the club in recent years have been Asian countries, such as the Philippines, India and Vietnam.

Since September 2003, native Filipinos who have become citizens of other countries through naturalization have been able to reacquire Filipino citizenship by taking the oath of allegiance to their motherland.

In 2005, India began granting people of Indian origin living in other countries, except Pakistan and Bangladesh, “Overseas Citizenship of India” if their habitual resident countries recognize dual citizenship.

While voting rights are not given, OCI holders will be allowed multiple-entry visas and hold equal economic, financial and educational benefits.

And from this year, some 3.5 million Vietnamese living abroad will also be able to obtain citizenship thanks to legislation passed by the Vietnamese parliament in November allowing dual nationality.

Last year, South Korea began reviewing ways to permit Koreans to hold dual nationalities under certain conditions. This is in line with the policies that President Lee Myung Bak has said he wanted to actualize.

Spiro of Temple University, who recently wrote the book “Beyond Citizenship,” said states that are major producers of immigrants have been looking into cementing ties with emigrant populations, largely for economic reasons.

“Embracing dual nationality is like a tool for harnessing the economic power of external citizens,” Spiro said.

“Instead of forcing emigrants to make a choice, or treating them like traitors to the homeland, emigrants can both integrate with their new place of residence at the same time that they maintain the citizenship tie with their homeland,” he noted.

While simultaneously holding citizenship in more than one country can bring more opportunities to individuals, it also brings risks, such as mandatory military service or taxation obligations.

But both Spiro and Kondo said many countries have reconciled this on the basis of residence.

For example, in European countries, if one holds citizenship in two countries where military service is mandatory, the person only need serve one of them, usually the country in which they reside.

People with dual nationality are also warned about the risk of running into trouble or accidents when one of the two countries does not acknowledge dual citizenship. In those circumstances, the other government is limited in what it can do for the person.

Kondo, however, said that in many cases, especially emergencies, many governments take humanitarian actions and make claims to the other country in a peaceful manner to secure the safety of the citizen.

Jus sanguinis countries like Japan have traditionally been less tolerant of dual nationality because people tend to regard themselves as an exclusively racially homogeneous, Kondo explained.

While Japan does not allow dual citizenship, people can acquire more than one nationality upon birth if the parents are a Japanese and a foreigner, or if a Japanese couple have a baby in countries where citizenship is given to those born on their soil.

For babies, nationality depends on birthplace, parents

In such cases, Japanese nationality law stipulates that the child must select one of the nationalities permanently before turning 22 years old.

While the law is rigid about this rule, the reality is that the Justice minister has never strictly imposed it on anyone who actually has two nationalities.

“It’s not favorable to force a citizen to choose one among his parents,” Kondo said.

“It will take a very, very long time before Japan becomes a jus soli country, but at least it is possible to gradually set the bar lower” and accept dual citizens as other countries have done, he said.

Even in countries like the U.S., for example, there are voices calling for scaling back birthright citizenship to children of illegal immigrants.

However, Spiro said that there is very little real political support in U.S. for opposing dual citizenship.

This is partly due to the rise of dual citizens among powerful political constituencies, such as Irish-, Italian- and Jewish-Americans, but also because dual citizens pose very little threat of any description to local society, he said.

“The U.S. and many European nations now understand that dual citizenship doesn’t pose much of a threat . . . In many states, the acceptance is now nearly absolute,” Spiro said.
The Japan Times: Sunday, Jan. 4, 2009
ENDS

AFP and Yomiuri: How to get around J border fingerprinting: tape!

Posted on January 12, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s an update about that old fingerprinting at the border thingie “to prevent terrorism, infectious diseases, and foreign crime”. Here’s one way how you get around it: special tape on your fingers! Two articles on this below.

Also, just so that people are aware that your fingerprints are NOT cross-checked immediately within the database: I have a friend who always uses different fingers when he comes back into Japan (index fingers one time, middle fingers the next, alternating; Immigration can’t see), and he has NEVER been snagged (on the spot or later) for having different fingerprints from one time to the next. Try it yourself and see. Anyway, if people are getting caught, it’s for passports, not fingerprints. Arudou Debito
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SKorean fools finger printing system at Japan airport: reports

AFP/Yahoo News Thu Jan 1, 2:57 pm ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090101/wl_asia_afp/japantechnologyimmigrationcrimesecurity/print;_ylt=AshZztNCR4sXOCZVxQrpbtHuOrgF

TOKYO (AFP) – A South Korean woman barred from entering Japan last year passed through its immigration screening system by using tape on her fingers to fool a fingerprint reading machine, reports said Thursday.

The biometric system was installed in 30 airports in 2007 to improve security and prevent terrorists from entering into Japan, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.

The woman, who has a deportation record, told investigators that she placed special tapes on her fingers to pass through a fingerprint reader, according to Kyodo News.

Japan spent more than four billion yen (44 million dollars) to install the system, which reads the index fingerprints of visitors and instantly cross-checks them with a database of international fugitives and foreigners with deportation records, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.

The South Korean woman was deported in July 2007 for illegally staying in Japan after she worked as a bar hostess in Nagano in central Japan, Kyodo said, citing justice ministry sources.

She was not allowed to re-enter Japan for five years after deportation but the Tokyo immigration bureau found her in August 2008 again in Nagano, Kyodo said.

A South Korean broker is believed to have supplied her with the tapes and a fake passport, the Yomiuri said, adding that officials believe many more foreigners might have entered Japan using the same technique.

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

The abovementioned Yomiuri article, courtesy of Jeff K and Tony K:

S. Korean woman ‘tricked’ airport fingerprint scan

The Yomiuri Shimbun, Jan 1, 2009

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20090101TDY01303.htm

A South Korean woman entered Japan on a fake passport in April 2008 by slipping through a state-of-the-art biometric immigration control system using special tape on her fingers to alter her fingerprints, it was learned Wednesday.

According to sources, the woman, 51, was deported from Japan in 2007 for staying illegally. However, she was found in August 2008 to have reentered the country and was detained by the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau.

The woman was quoted as telling the immigration bureau that she put special tape on her index fingers to cheat the fingerprint scanner at immigration.

The biometric system was introduced at 30 airports around the country in November 2007, and was aimed mainly at preventing entry by international terrorists. A scanner reads the index fingerprints of both hands and instantly crosschecks these with a database of international fugitives and foreigners with deportation records.

The sources said the fact that the woman was so easily able to beat the sophisticated computer system will force the government into a drastic review of its counterterrorist measures and the current screening immigration system.

The immigration bureau reported to the Justice Ministry that a considerable number of South Koreans might have entered Japan illegally using the same technique, as a South Korean broker is believed to have helped the woman enter Japan. The ministry also has begun an investigation into the case.

According to immigration officials, the bureau held the woman in mid-July 2007 for working illegally in the city of Nagano as a hostess after her tourist visa expired. She was banned from reentering Japan for five years and deported to South Korea from Narita Airport.

However, the bureau was tipped off by an anonymous source in early August last year that the woman had been seen again in Nagano. The bureau found she was living in an apartment in the city and detained her again on suspicion of violating the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law.

According to the immigration officials, the woman had a forged passport stating that she had passed immigration checks at Aomori Airport in Aomori Prefecture at the end of April last year.

During questioning, the woman allegedly told the immigration bureau that she had bought a forged passport from a South Korean broker who told her to purchase an air ticket for Aomori Airport.

The woman also was quoted as saying that the broker gave her the special tape with someone else’s fingerprints on, and that she slipped past the biometric recognition system by holding her taped index fingers over the scanner.

According to an analysis by the bureau, regular adhesive tape does not work, as the scanner fails to read any prints. The results have led the immigration bureau to suspect that the woman might have used a special tape bearing someone else’s fingerprints.

Although the bureau detained the woman at an immigration facility for further questioning, she did not provide information that pinpointed what the tape is made of or the South Korean broker before she was deported again in mid-September.

The bureau has compiled a report based on her statements and submitted it to the Justice Ministry. The report says it is conceivable such tape exists and that the South Korean broker might have helped a considerable number of foreigners enter Japan using it.

According to the ministry, the immigration section at Aomori Airport kept images of the woman’s fingerprints, but they were imperfect and did not match the genuine fingerprints of the woman.

(Jan. 1, 2009)

ends

Another excellent JT article on dual nationality and the conflicts within

Posted on January 10, 2009January 10, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s another article from the toshiake excellent series in the Japan Times on Japan’s loopy nationality laws: This time talking about what some people who are the projects of J-NJ unions in Japan face in terms of legality and societal treatment. It raises the question we’ve been asking here on Debito.org for more than a decade now: Why do we have to force these people to give up part of themselves to be Japanese? What good does it do them, and how does it serve the interests of the State to put people through this identity ordeal? Enough already. Allow dual nationality and be sensible. You’ll get more Nobel Prizes. Arudou Debito

PS: Note how Sunny Yasuda below felt rotten being called a “gaijin”, much better after being at least qualified as some sort of Japanese. It’s that word again. SITYS.

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THE MANY FACES OF CITIZENSHIP
Benefits in offing for those allowed multiple citizenship
The Japan Times: Saturday, Jan. 3, 2009
By ALEX MARTIN, Staff writer

Second in a series

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090103f1.html

Sunny Yasuda can only vaguely remember his father. By the time he was born in Tokyo in 1975, his parents’ marriage was on the verge of collapse, and his Indian father soon returned to his homeland, leaving his Japanese mother on her own to raise their three children.

My place: Sunny Yasuda stands in front of the restaurant he manages in Tokyo on Monday. ALEX MARTIN

Yasuda cannot speak English, Hindi or any Indian languages, and as far as upbringing is concerned, is Japanese in every single aspect except for his appearance — his tanned complexion and South Asian features reflect his mixed background, something he recalls has always forced him to be an outsider when he was growing up.

And like so many other offspring of international relationships, Yasuda has experienced his share of dealing with Japan’s Nationality Law, which forbids retention of multiple citizenships to those over 22 — a rule the government cannot enforce due to technical difficulties, and an ambiguity that affects the lives and identity of many with similar backgrounds to Yasuda.

“I was the unlucky one,” Yasuda joked, when recalling how his older brother and sister both filed for Japanese nationality soon after Jan. 1, 1985, when the law was amended to allow Japanese nationality to children born in Japan to Japanese mothers.

Inheritance of citizenship was previously based on paternal lineage, and Yasuda and his siblings were all registered as Indian nationals upon birth.

“They had a choice, I didn’t,” Yasuda said, referring to the difference between him and his older brother and sister.

Those aged over 15 during the three years after the new law came into effect were considered eligible to apply without parental consent, and Yasuda’s siblings satisfied the requirement.

Yasuda, however, was 9 at the time, and needed both his father’s and mother’s written approval, which he could not obtain. His parents never officially filed for divorce — if they had, his mother’s consent would have been enough. His father had long since left the country and had effectively ceased contact with the family.

“Even if I had dual nationalities, I think I’d still have opted to be Japanese. I was told that you had to decide on one before you turned 20 or 21, and that’s what my brother and sister did,” he said.

Yasuda became a naturalized Japanese citizen when he was 17, soon after he attained permanent residency status. “We’re all Japanese now.”

“You know, you just ask yourself, ‘What’s the point?’ ” Yasuda said, recalling why he gave up his father’s nationality.

“I’d never been to India, and I only met my father once or twice when I was a kid. I heard he’s already passed away,” he said.

Still, Yasuda believes that people like himself, who were ignorant of the law or their cultural backgrounds due to the environment they grew up in, should be offered another chance.

“India’s in my blood. Yeah, I grew up in Japan, but it’s still a part of my roots. If I’d had the chance now, I would definitely want Indian nationality. It’ll give me new chances, new potentials, whether it be work-related or not,” he said, recalling how he had always been forced to be conscious of his racial heritage.

“Whatever job I took, wherever I went, I’d always start off as the ‘gaijin’ (foreigner),” said Yasuda, who has been working in bars and restaurants since finishing junior high school. He said that began to change when he was around 20.

“I think it was around then that I noticed a lot more foreigners in town. People began complimenting me for being a ‘half’ (of mixed descent), and I guess that sort of turned things around for me, changed my attitude, helped me feel positive,” he said, adding that if he ever has children, he would be sure to educate them about the culture of their grandfather’s country.

The number of international marriages in Japan has steadily increased over the years, peaking in 2006 at 44,701, accounting for 6.5 percent of all marriages that year according to health ministry statistics. The number of children born with multiple nationalities is believed to have been increasing accordingly, with unofficial government estimates predicting that there were 530,000 as of 2006.

Take the case of a 25-year-old Tokyo-based freelance Web and graphic designer born to a Japanese mother and British father. The man, who declined to be identified, decided to retain his dual nationality status even after he turned 22, when those with multiple nationalities are advised to officially give up one or the other.

The man initially only had British citizenship until his parents filed for his Japanese nationality following the 1985 amendment. He grew up receiving a Japanese education until high school, when he decided to transfer to a school in the U.K., eventually attending university there before returning to Japan.

“I’ve got two passports under two separate names. One has my Japanese name, the other my English name. How could authorities determine if it’s the same person?” the designer asked, adding that even if they did find out that he still kept both, there would be nothing they could do to force on him a decision — it would be tantamount to intervening in the internal affairs of the other nation.

He noted, however, that if he were forced to renounce either one of his nationalities, he would keep his British citizenship.

“Practically speaking, I could probably file for permanent residency in Japan relatively easily, having lived here for so long,” he said, adding that he felt being European would be more useful in his life.

“You know, I think this law is sort of like an urban legend,” he added, referring to the ambiguity of the age limit that some comply with but many are said to ignore, and the public’s lack of knowledge regarding the facts of the law.

“I’ve been paying my Japanese taxes, pension fees, I’ve got voting rights — I’d protest if authorities came to me now and took my Japanese nationality away,” he said, adding that he didn’t understand why Japan, with no mandatory military draft, disapproves of multiple nationalities.

This sentiment was echoed by a 30-year-old woman born in Japan to an American father and Japanese mother.

“I don’t understand the downside for Japan to allow dual nationalities. With a shrinking population and workforce, I would think they would want to encourage as many people as possible to live and work in Japan,” said the woman, a production specialist working for a Japanese game maker in San Francisco.

She, like her U.S.-born twin brother and sister, is a U.S. citizen, with permanent resident status in Japan. Her youngest brother, however, was born after 1985 and retains both nationalities.

“The real discrepancy (in the family) is between (my youngest brother) and me. We were both born in Japan to the same parents, but I was born 10 years earlier than him,” she said, explaining how her parents considered getting Japanese nationalities for their three older children after 1985, but in the end felt it was more hassle than it was worth.

The woman said that because she doesn’t have Japanese citizenship, she had to return to Nagoya, her home city, every few years to renew her re-entry permit, something her youngest brother doesn’t have to do.

“Another thing that bothers me recently is the right to vote,” she added. “As someone who’s spent the great majority of her life in Japan and has every other privilege as a Japanese person, I think it makes sense that I should have a voice on the decisions being made in government that would affect my life.”

In Mika Yuki’s case, however, it wasn’t the 1985 amendment that prompted her family to file for her Japanese nationality.

Her father originally came from Hong Kong. After marrying his Japanese wife and having fathered Yuki, he became a naturalized Japanese citizen in 1986, and on the same day, applied for her Japanese citizenship, passing on his newfound nationality to his daughter, who was born as a British national.

“I’ve never visited England in my life, and was never too conscious of my British nationality,” said Yuki, 26, who spent her high school and college years in the United States before returning to Japan to work at her father’s jewelry company in Tokyo.

She said that although she does consider Japan her home, she never strongly felt Japanese. Spending part of her youth in the U.S., she recalls how she always felt slightly out of place in both Japan and the U.S.

“I’ve thought about nationality and about its significance many times,” she said. “But in the end, it doesn’t really matter where I was born. I belong where my family is.”

Yuki said she was not even sure if she still retained her British citizenship. “I was told that eventually I would have to decide on one nationality over the other, but with the 1997 (handover) of Hong Kong to China, I’m not sure what’s happened to it,” she said.

The British Embassy in Tokyo said that those who haven’t applied for a British National (Overseas) nationality — a tailor-made nationality for Hong Kong residents with British Dependent Territories citizen status — by 1997 would have automatically lost their former British nationality.

Then there’s the case of a 27-year-old Japanese woman. In 2006, she filed marriage papers with her British husband, and the couple had a daughter the following year. The mother currently juggles her career with raising her 1-year-old.

The daughter is Japanese, something improbable before 1985. Her parents haven’t applied for her to obtain British citizenship just yet, although they plan on doing so soon — it could be done any time since the U.K. recognizes dual nationality.

It will be another 20 years before the girl might have to decide — if the current Nationality Law remains unchanged — on one nationality over the other. However, it is impossible to tell how she would perceive her identity when she reaches that age.

“In order for (my daughter) to embrace her international background as something to be proud of, I think it’s necessary that she be able to permanently keep her dual nationalities,” the mother said.

ENDS

Japan Times Zeit Gist followup on Dec’s Otaru Onsen lawsuit analysis

Posted on January 9, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Last month the Japan Times put a cat amongst the pigeons last December with a Zeit Gist column about the Otaru Onsens Case, decrying the court ruling against racial discrimination as something undermining Japanese society.

It caused quite a stir, according to my editor, with most of the comments coming in critical of the thesis. Some of the responses were worth a reprint as a follow-up column, and that came out last Tuesday. Have a read. And yes, I briefly responded too (although only on this site as a comment), which I paste at the very bottom below. Love the illustration, as always. Arudou Debito

THE ZEIT GIST

Otaru ruling beats ‘mob rule’

The Japan Times: Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090106zg.html

Dan O’Keeffe defends court’s 2002 decision in ‘onsen’ case

By DAN O’KEEFFE

Paul de Vries’ treatise on group accountability in Japanese society (“Back to the baths: Otaru revisited,” Zeit Gist, Dec. 2) offered a new take on the now familiar story of the court case between Japan’s naturalized enfant terrible, Debito Arudou, and the managers of the Yunohana public bath in Otaru, Hokkaido. De Vries presented a “thin edge of the wedge” argument for the ultimate unraveling of Japanese society if certain groups are no longer allowed to practice overt discrimination in the name of making Japan “cohesive and safe.”

However, by using the crutch of group discrimination to prop up the old utilitarian bulwark that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, De Vries simply makes the case that the prejudices of the majority outweigh the rights of the minority. Call it “group accountability,” call it “might means right,” call it “mob rule” — whichever way you spin it, it is simply a form of institutionalized bullying that limits Japan’s ability to create a dynamic, enlightened society for the 21st century.

De Vries’ primary objection to the Arudou judgment is that “the case was fought and won on the issue of racial discrimination when the policy being employed by the Yunohana onsen could more accurately be described as the racial application of ‘group accountability.’ “

“Racial application of group accountability” sounds so much nicer than boring old “racial discrimination,” doesn’t it? The question is whether there really is any difference between the two. Sadly, De Vries offers no logical reasons why we should see his preferred version of these two (identical) concepts as being anything other than a new name for the same old discredited idea. To deny access to public facilities to an innocent individual because of the color of their skin is simply wrong, regardless of who is doing it or what their motives are.

The judge in the Arudou case rightly recognized that the managers of the bath were using race as their sole means of determining who would be able to access their facility. That Arudou, a Japanese citizen, was denied entry shows that the management of the facility was not interested in denying entry to non-Japanese per se, they were in fact trying to exclude people on the basis of how they look. To find for the defendant, the judge in this case would have had to be convinced that it is acceptable to deny access to a public facility to an individual not based on the way he or she behaves, their capacity to pay, or even their nationality, but solely on the way they look.

Leaving aside the morally reprehensible aspects of this idea, there is also the farcical notion of who gets to decide just what constitutes “Japanese-looking.” Black hair and brown eyes are in plentiful supply in many parts of the world, as are epicanthic folds (where a fold of the upper eyelid covers the inner corner of the eye). In the popular mind, Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi looked “Japanese enough” to play Sayuri in the movie “Memoirs of a Geisha,” but would she be Japanese enough to make it past the sentries at Yunohana onsen? How about Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh? How about Mickey Rooney dressed as Mr. Yunioshi from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”?

Clearly, there is no objective basis for deciding who looks Japanese, just as there is no basis for using racial features as a pretext for a denial of rights. How one looks doesn’t determine how one will behave. The management at Yunohana onsen was using a ridiculous standard to tackle their problem and the judgment against them reflected that.

De Vries tells us that individuals should be prepared to sacrifice certain freedoms in the name of social cohesion. It all sounds very nice and honorable and somewhat in the vein of great social thinkers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but only superficially. Where Rousseau saw individual submission to a “general will” as an essential part of the social contract in a civil society, he also saw the need for individual liberty to be enshrined in the fabric of a community. In his 1762 “Of The Social Contract,” Rousseau wrote that the group must “receive each individual as an indivisible part of the whole.”

Under De Vries’ model, individuals are forced to offer the same submission to the will of the dominant, but they must do so without the protections and privileges of individual rights and freedoms. Irrespective of cultural differences, group accountability has largely been rejected in the West because it is intellectually lazy and it doesn’t work. Just because it’s common here doesn’t make it right.

De Vries tells us that we needn’t worry when Japanese apply such group accountability, even on a blatantly racial basis, because they do so with a benevolently “even hand.” Despite the scant comfort this brings to those on the receiving end, even this turns out to be little more than wishful thinking.

De Vries wonders at the lack of comment from the foreign community regarding the introduction of women-only carriages on commuter trains since 2002. He cites a lack of outcry as evidence that men understand that such a case of group accountability is reasonable. What De Vries has failed to take into account is that women-only carriages do not prevent anyone from accessing a public utility: Men simply redistribute themselves among the remaining carriages, an act which would not be considered a sanction or punishment by any reasonable person. De Vries draws a long bow in arguing that this is an example of group accountability when no one is punished. Presumably one could use the same confused logic to rail against women’s toilets, single-sex schools and the WNBA. Moreover, moving the potential victims rather than actually tackling the problem of molestation hardly holds anyone to account, group or otherwise.

Tellingly, De Vries was silent on the matter of how it came to be that there are so many “chikan” (gropers) on Japanese trains, especially since he goes to great lengths to tell us that “the fear of random violence is relatively low” in Japan.

De Vries again fires wide of the mark with his reference to the mandatory fingerprinting and photographing of foreign nationals upon entry to Japan. Given that the actions of Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese Red Army and various politically motivated assassins have shown that any terrorist threat against Japan is far more likely to be a homegrown one, can the targeting of foreign nationals for fingerprinting really be legitimized by the concept of group accountability? Further, where is the group accountability of Japanese themselves in these cases?

It is clear that De Vries thinks it perfectly rational for Japanese authorities to lump all non-Japanese, be they Chinese or Chilean, American or Armenian, Irish or Amish, into one enormous clade and treat them as equally prone to criminality and violence, as opposed to peaceful, law-abiding Japanese. This is patently absurd, as if all Japan’s troublemakers come from elsewhere.

As with the Yunohana onsen case, simply banning or punishing a whole group of people on racial grounds fails to target only those who break the rules (drunken bathers, terrorists) but succeeds in impinging on the rights of a large number of innocent people. If you want to prevent drunken people from ruining your onsen, then deny entry to people who are intoxicated — a simple breathalyzer test will suffice. Similarly, if you want to catch criminals entering the country via an airport, fingerprint everyone arriving: You’ll catch a lot more criminals that way and no one will be discriminated against.

The reality is, however, that the Japanese government would not insist on fingerprinting all arriving passengers regardless of nationality because of the uproar it would cause among Japanese people — Japanese people who can vote. This is the crux of the argument against group accountability: It allows the powerful to dictate to the weak. By singling out foreigners for fingerprinting, the authorities were imposing a regulation on a section of the community that had no means of voicing its displeasure other than the various petitions and forums that De Vries found so “unbelievable.”

As De Vries also points out, group accountability circumvents the rule of law. This encourages mob rule and bullying. In Japan, this manifests itself in ways ranging from the violent hazing of military personnel and the trauma of “park debut” for young mothers, to “karoshi” (death through overwork). Group accountability isolates, divides and discriminates. None of this helps Japan progress and develop as a cohesive society.

The history of human societies is a litany of division and stratification, be it on ethnic, caste, religious or economic lines. Time and again, the one thing that has brought about positive change and integration has been a respect for individual rights and a rejection of group accountability. It is the lesson of Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Luther King.

By protecting individual rights and demanding corresponding individual responsibilities, societies offer each and every member the chance to live their lives productively and with dignity. If De Vries’ forthcoming book discusses what Japan can teach the world, the lesson may well be how not to do it.

Dan O’Keeffe is a faculty member at Osaka Electro-Communication University. Send comments on this issue and story ideas to community@japantimes.co.jp

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Back to the baths: readers responses

Following are a couple of responses to “Back to the baths: Otaru revisited” (Zeit Gist, Dec. 2).

Substitution speaks volumes

I often think it is useful to substitute alternative racial groups when someone writes something, to see whether it is a racist statement or not. Here we go for the final paragraph of Mr. De Vries’ article:

“And this brings us to the point that (Debito) Arudou ignores or simply fails to see. Group accountability is Ghettos are not employed in Japan Nazi Germany simply for the sake of pushing people around. It is They are employed for the purpose of making Japan the Fatherland cohesive and safe. It is a major reason why Japan Germany, unlike the U.S., is a nation in which the fear of random violence is relatively low. If Arudou succeeds in his quest, Japan Germany will become one more nation in which the individual is to be feared. That is an outrageously high price to pay for the occasional racial, national, generational or gender race-driven slight human-rights abuse.”

Some people may complain about my use of the example of Jews in Nazi Germany, but would the story be significantly improved if we used another group, another injustice? How about African-Americans in pre-civil rights movement America, or blacks in South Africa under apartheid, or Aborigines in Australia, or something even simpler and closer to home, like the continuing struggle for equal rights for women in almost every country in the world?

One wonders just what Mr. De Vries is afraid of from his fellow man. I am not afraid. Arudou-san is apparently not afraid. No, Mr De Vries is simply using an imaginary perceived threat to justify the subjugation of the rights of one group by another.

Not all discrimination is wrong. We all discriminate for and against people for a variety of reasons — we can’t help it; it’s built into our brains. We instinctively make patterns linking people to events, both positive and negative, even when those associations are false. However, that doesn’t make it right to allow or promote legal discrimination on the basis of something so arbitrary as race or sex. It is important to remember what laws are there for — to protect the weak from the strong, the minorities from the majorities, and even occasionally the majorities from themselves.

Louis J. Irving
Sendai

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Article made me rethink ideas

What a great article! I have been giving some thought to Westerners’ reaction to what I now know — thanks to you — as “group accountability.” I’ve tried to take sides — for or against the Japanese government — but I hadn’t been able to come to a clear conclusion.

Sure, the Japanese demonstrate a certain amount of xenophobia, but if I take a second to look at my nation of origin (Quebec, Canada), we are quite the same in our own way. Immigrants in Canada are supposedly widely accepted, but they’re still labeled as “immigrants” anyway, and I had to come and live here to realize that.

One perennial hot topic is Japan’s past “war efforts.” It took me six years to start reconsidering some firm opinions that I held (the horrors committed were very “Japanese”; their arrogance was unique to them; their occupation of other countries and the use of forced labor in factories and brothels are unforgivable, etc.), but then I realize that my very own country did just as bad in its own time, and so did our neighbors.

Your article clarified many things for me. I look forward to reading your book.

Pierre Nadeau
Shimizu, Wakayama Pref.

The Japan Times: Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009

ENDS

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Debito here. How I responded to the De Vries article some weeks ago:

Hi Blog. Sorry to keep you waiting. A few opinions in addition to yours (thanks to everyone for commenting on Debito.org):

I’ll start with my conclusion. Look, as Ken said above, this article is basically incoherent. We have a flawed academic theory (which somehow groups people into two rigid ideological categories — 2.5 categories if you slice this into “American standards” as well) regarding social sanction and control, and proceeds on faith that this pseudo-dichotomy actually exists. As evidence, we have citations of women-only train carriages and border fingerprinting — both fundamentally dissimilar in content, origin, and enforcement to the onsens case. And presto, the conclusion is we must maintain this dichotomy (and condemn the Japanese judiciary for chipping away at it) for the sake of Japan’s safety and social cohesion.

Get it? Sorry, I don’t. That’s why I’m not going to do a paragraph-by-paragraph commentary on what is essentially ideological nonsense.

But I will mention some glaring errors and omissions in the article:

1) “Pushed to the brink of ruin… by the behavior of Russian sailors”. Not quite. Earth Cure KK’s original sauna did go bankrupt (shortly after it opened Yunohana in 1998), but it’s not as if the Russian sailors descended on the former. The sauna in fact courted Russian business, and according to sources in Otaru offered information to them at portside. The sauna’s location was, quite simply, bad, being on the higher floor of a bar district, and went bankrupt like plenty of other decrepit bathhouses are around Japan. And as other bathhouses around Otaru noted, “Why did Yunohana [which never let in any foreigners and thus never, despite the claims of the article, suffered any damage] feel so special as to need signs up? We didn’t put up signs and still stayed in business.” Because it’s easier to blame the foreigner for one’s own business problems; as was the fashion for some at the time.

Proof in hindsight: Now the signs are down, Yunohana as a franchise has profited enough to open three more branches around this part of Hokkaido, so nuts to the idea the company was ever in any danger of going bankrupt due to rampaging NJ. There are simply some people who do not like foreigners in this world, and some of them just happen to be running businesses. That’s why other developed countries have actual laws to stop them, unlike Japan. It had nothing to do with grandiloquent theories like “group accountability”.

2) This theory assumes the “group” being held accountable has clearly-defined dichotomous borders that are easily enforced. The article neglects to make clear that other members of the “group”, as in Japanese citizens, were also being turned away from places like Yunohana — and I’m not referring only to myself. I’m referring to other Japanese children (and not just one of mine). Hence given the overlap of internationalization, the theory, even if possibly correct, is in practice unenforceable.

3) And it is moot anyway. There is no mention of international treaty (the ICERD) which Japan effected in 1996, where it promised to enforce standard UN-sanctioned international norms and rules to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination. These are not “American” standards, as the article claims. These are world standards that the GOJ has acknowledged as the rules of play in this situation. The end.

4) The court decisions (there were in fact two, plus a Supreme Court dismissal) in any case does a) admit there was racial discrimination, but b) that RD was not the illegal activity. It was c) “unrational discrimination” based upon the judges’ interpretation of Japanese Civil Law, not the ICERD per se. Thus the standards being applied are in fact Japanese. Read the court documents. Everything is online. And in book form. In two languages.

There are more errors, but never mind. If the writer were to do a bit more homework about the facts of the case at hand, instead of trying to squash a landmark legal case into his own ideological framework, I think we might have had a more interesting discussion. But working backwards from a conclusion (especially when it’s a dogma) rarely results in good science, alas. Maybe his advertised book will offer something with better analytical power. Arudou Debito

ends

Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Jan 6 2009 reviewing 2008’s human rights advances

Posted on January 8, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Morning Blog. Here’s my latest Japan Times column, which came out last Tuesday. Links to sources provided. Debito

JUST BE CAUSE
2008: THE YEAR IN HUMAN RIGHTS
By Arudou Debito, Article 11 for JBC Column
Published January 6, 2009 Draft Seven as submitted to editor.
Published version at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090106ad.html

As we start 2009, let’s recharge the batteries by reviewing last year’s good news. Here is my list of top human rights advancements for 2008, in ascending order:

6) The U Hoden Lawsuit Victory (Dec. 21, 2007, but close enough): The plaintiff is a Chinese-born professor at Japan Women’s University, who sued for damages on behalf of his Japanese grade-school daughter. Abused by classmates for her Chinese roots, she suffered at school and was medically diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Professor U took the parents of the bullies to court and won.

WHY THIS MATTERS: In an era when elementary schools are seeing the byproduct of Japan’s frequent international marriages, this ruling sets a positive precedent both for insensitive local Boards of Education and parents who want to protect their kids.
https://www.debito.org/?p=874

5) Strawberry Fields Forever (Feb. 11): Fifteen Chinese Trainees sued strawberry farms in Tochigi Prefecture for unpaid wages, unfair dismissal, and an attempted repatriation by force. Thanks to Zentoitsu Workers Union, they were awarded 2 million yen each in back pay and overtime, a formal apology, and reinstatement in their jobs.

WHY THIS MATTERS: This is another good precedent treating NJ laborers (who as Trainees aren’t covered by labor laws) the same as Japanese workers. It is also the namesake of German documentary “Sour Strawberries” (www.vimeo.com/2276295), premiering in Japan in March.
https://www.debito.org/?p=1018 and https://www.debito.org/?p=1221

4) The increasing international awareness of Japan as a haven for international child abductions. It’s one of Japan’s worst-kept secrets, but not for much longer: Japan’s laws governing access for both parents to children after divorce are weak to non-existent. Consequently, in the case of international breakups, one parent (usually the foreigner) loses his or her kids. As this newspaper has reported, even overseas court decisions awarding custody to the NJ parent are ignored by Japanese courts. All the Japanese parent has to do is abduct their child to Japan and they’re scot-free. Fortunately, international media this year (America’s ABC News, UK’s Guardian, and Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald) have joined Canada’s media and government in exposing this situation.

WHY THIS MATTERS: Our government has finally acknowledged this as a problem for domestic marriages too, and made overtures to sign the Hague Convention on Child Abduction (for what that’s worth) by 2010. More in upcoming documentary “From The Shadows” (www.fromtheshadowsmovie.com).
https://www.debito.org/?p=1660
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080826zg.html

https://www.debito.org/?s=child+abduction

3) Opening the 12,000 yen “financial stimulus” to all registered NJ (Dec. 20). The “teigaku kyufukin” first started out as a clear bribe to voters to yoroshiku the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Then complaints were raised about the other taxpayers who aren’t citizens, so Permanent Residents and NJ married to Japanese became eligible. Finally, just before Christmas, all registered NJ were included.

WHY THIS MATTERS: Even if this “stimulus” is ineffective, it’s a wall-smasher: Japan’s public policy is usually worded as applying to “kokumin”, or citizens only. It’s the first time a government cash-back program (a 1999 coupon scheme only included Permanent Residents) has included all non-citizen taxpayers, and recognized their importance to the Japanese economy.
https://www.debito.org/?p=2104
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20081113a1.html

2) Revision of Japan’s Nationality Law. If a Japanese father impregnated a NJ out of wedlock, the father had to recognize paternity before birth or the child would not get Japanese nationality. The Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional on June 4, noting how lack of citizenship causes “discriminatory treatment”.

WHY THIS MATTERS: Tens of thousands of international children have lost their legal right to Japanese citizenship (or even, depending on the mother’s nationality, become stateless!) just because a man was too shy to own up to his seed, or didn’t acknowledge paternity in time. This ruling led to a change in the laws last December.
https://www.debito.org/?p=1715
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/11/21/japan-revision-of-the-nationality-law/
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090101a1.html

1) The government officially declaring the Ainu an indigenous people (June 6).

WHY THIS MATTERS: Because it not only affects the Ainu. This finally shows how wrong the official pronouncements that “Japan is a monocultural monoethnic society” have been. It also voids knock-on arguments that enforce ideological conformity for the “insiders” and exclusionism for the foreigners. On Sept. 28, it even became a political issue, forcing an unprecedented cabinet resignation of Nariaki Nakayama for mouthing off about “ethnic homogeneity” (among other things). Even blue-blood PM Aso had better think twice before contradicting the Diet’s consensus on this issue.

Let’s see what 2009 brings. Proposals to watch: a) the possible abolition of Gaijin Cards, b) the registration of NJ residents with their Japanese families, and c) dual nationality. Stay tuned to www.debito.org, and Happy New Year, everyone!
735 WORDS

Debito Arudou is coauthor of the “Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants, and Immigrants.” Just Be Cause appears on the first Community Page of the month. Send comments to community@japantimes.co.jp

Economist on Japanese immigration and conservatism giving way

Posted on January 7, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s a roundup from The Economist on how conservatives just don’t have the answers regarding Japan’s future anymore (with their wan and waning hope that immigration can somehow be avoided). Good also that this article is coming from The Economist, as it has over the past eighteen months done mediocre stuff on Japan’s future demographics without mentioning immigration at all. And when it later mentioned NJ labor in follow-up writings, it merely inserted one token sentence reflecting the Japan conservatives’ viewpoint. It seems even the conservatism within my favorite newsmagazine is also giving ground. Bravo. Arudou Debito

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

Japanese immigration

Don’t bring me your huddled masses

Dec 30th 2008 | NISHI-KOIZUMI
From The Economist print edition, courtesy of AM

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12867328

Not what the conservatives want, yet some people are beginning to imagine a more mixed Japan

INFLAMMATORY remarks by Japan’s speak-from-the-hip conservative politicians—among them the prime minister for now, Taro Aso—embroil them in endless controversy with neighbours over Japan’s wartime past. In their defence, conservatives often say that what really concerns them is the future, in which they want Japan to punch its weight in the world. The question is, what weight? Japan’s population, currently 127m and falling, is set to shrink by a third over the next 50 years. The working-age population is falling at a faster rate; the huge baby-boom generation born between 1947 and 1949, the shock troops of Japan’s economic miracle, are now retiring, leaving fewer workers to support a growing proportion of elderly.

Conservatives have few answers. They call for incentives to keep women at home to breed (though poor career prospects for mothers are a big factor behind a precipitous fall in the fertility rate). Robot workers offer more hope to some: two-fifths of all the world’s industrial robots are in Japan. They have the advantage of being neither foreign nor delinquent, words which in Japan trip together off the tongue. Yet robots can do only so much.

The answer is self-evident, but conservatives rarely debate it. Their notion of a strong Japan—ie, a populous, vibrant country—is feasible only with many more immigrants than the current 2.2m, or just 1.7% of the population. (This includes 400,000 second- or third-generation Koreans who have chosen to keep Korean nationality but who are Japanese in nearly every respect.) The number of immigrants has grown by half in the past decade, but the proportion is still well below any other big rich country. Further, immigrants enter only as short-term residents; permanent residency is normally granted only after ten years of best behaviour.

Politicians and the media invoke the certainty of social instability should the number of foreigners rise. The justice ministry attributes high rates of serious crime to foreigners—though, when pressed, admits these are committed by illegal immigrants rather than legal ones. Newspaper editorials often give warning of the difficulties of assimilation.

For the first time, however, an 80-strong group of economically liberal politicians in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), led by Hidenao Nakagawa, a former LDP secretary-general, is promoting a bold immigration policy. It calls for the number of foreigners to rise to 10m over the next half century, and for many of these immigrants to become naturalised Japanese. It wants the number of foreign students in Japan, currently 132,000, to rise to 1m. And it calls for whole families to be admitted, not just foreign workers as often at present.

The plan’s author, Hidenori Sakanaka, a former Tokyo immigration chief and now head of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute, envisages a multicultural Japan in which, he says, reverence for the imperial family is an option rather than a defining trait of Japaneseness. It’s a fine proposal, but not very likely to fly in the current political climate, especially at a time when the opposition Democratic Party of Japan is fretting about the impact of immigration on pay for Japanese workers.

Still, a declining workforce is changing once-fixed views. Small- and medium-sized companies were the first, during the late 1980s, to call for more immigrant workers as a way to remain competitive. The country recruited Brazilians and Peruvians of Japanese descent to work in the industrial clusters around Tokyo and Nagoya in Aichi prefecture that serve the country’s giant carmakers and electronics firms.

Now the Keidanren, the association of big, dyed-in-the-wool manufacturers, is shifting its position. This autumn it called for a more active immigration policy to bring in highly skilled foreign workers, whose present number the Keidanren puts at a mere 180,000.

It also called for a revamp of Japan’s three-year training programmes, a big source of foreign workers. These are supposed to involve a year’s training and then two years’ on-the-job experience. In practice, they provide cheap labour (mainly from Asia) for the garment industry, farming and fish-processing. Workers, says Tsuyoshi Hirabayashi of the justice ministry, are often abused by employers demanding long hours and paying much less than the legal minimum wage. Meanwhile, foreigners coming to the end of the scheme often leave the country to return illegally. Mr Sakanaka calls for the training programme to be abolished.

Japanese conservatives, and many others, point to the South Americans of Japanese descent as a failed experiment. Even with Japanese names, they say, the incomers still stand out. Yet in Nishi-Koizumi in Gunma prefecture, just north of Tokyo, a town dominated by a Sanyo electronics plant, the picture is different. In the family-owned factory of Kazuya Sakamoto, which for decades has supplied parts to Sanyo, three-fifths of the 300 workers are foreigners, mainly Japanese-Brazilians.

The town is certainly down at heel by comparison with the nearby capital, though it has a mildly exotic flavour in other respects, including five tattoo parlours on the main street. Yet without foreigners, says Mr Sakamoto, it is very hard to imagine there would be a town—or his family company—at all. His father was the first to recruit foreigners, and the town changed the hospitals and the local schools to suit: there are special classes in Portuguese to bring overseas children up to speed in some subjects. The result, says Mr Sakamoto, is that foreign workers send word home about the opportunities, and other good workers follow. In future, he thinks, the country should be much more welcoming to young people from around Asia.

What this new impetus for change will achieve in the near term is another matter. Not only is policymaking absent and reformism on the defensive but the global slump is hitting Japanese industry particularly hard, and foreign workers foremost. In November industrial output fell by a record 8.1% compared to the previous month, and unemployment rose to 3.9%.

Mr Sakamoto says he has stopped recruiting for now, but plans no redundancies. Yet sackings of Brazilians have begun at the Toyota and Sony plants in Aichi prefecture. Some workers, says a Brazilian pastor there, have been thrown out of their flats too, with no money to return home. In Hamamatsu city, south of Tokyo, demand for foreign workers is shrinking so fast that a Brazilian school which had 180 students in 2002 closed down at the end of December; its numbers had fallen to 30. Much is made of Japan’s lifetime-employment system, but that hardly applies to foreigners.

ENDS

Interview with Debito on TkyoSam’s Vlog: Shizzle!

Posted on January 6, 2009January 9, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Recently I sat down with Sam (a prolific vlogger, or video blogger), who turned his passport-sized camera on me for a bit of the young lingo and beer and chicken basket. What you don’t see is how afterwards we repaired with a group of friends for a lot more beers and some fascinating conversation with a drunk that Sam handled admirably. Sam grew up on manga and anime, and talks like those characters fluently (which is perfect for reducing any other pop-culture-immersed J-drunk into titters and tears). Yoyoyo, word! Feel the generation gap of the Bubble-Era-Older-Hand meets J-Pop Awsum Dude. Shizzle! And it’s a fun interview too.

Start here:

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=BtPPWgKSjm4&feature=channel_page

Debito

Japan Times on NJ workers: No money for food or return flight

Posted on January 5, 2009January 9, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s a quick word from Eric Johnston on how the recession is biting deep into the NJ workforce. From, where else, the only source that does investigative journalism on a regular basis with full-time reporters on the ground. Debito

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Hard times for foreign workers

Laid off by the thousands, some don’t have money for food, let alone enough to return home

By ERIC JOHNSTON Staff writer

The Japan Times: Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081224f1.html

First of two parts

On the street: Chago Iwasa, a third-generation Japanese-Brazilian (center) hangs out with friends in front of a Brazilian food store in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, in October. Iwasa lost his job at an auto parts company. KYODO PHOTO

OSAKA — With the global economic downturn, many Japanese workers face a not very Merry Christmas or Happy New Year as they lose their jobs or see wages or hours cut.

But the bad economy is hitting the country’s foreign workers particularly hard, with nongovernmental organization volunteers warning that many who have been laid off face not only losing their homes and access to education in their mother tongue, but also that emergency food rations are now being distributed to the most desperate cases.

“Of the nearly 300 people who attend my church, between 30 and 40 of them have already lost their jobs, and I expect more will soon be laid off as companies choose not to renew their contracts. Many of those who have lost their jobs have no place to live or get through the winter,” said Laelso Santos, pastor at a church in Karia, Aichi Prefecture, and the head of Maos Amigas, an NGO assisting foreign workers and their families.

“We’re currently distributing about 300 kg of food per month to foreigners nationwide who are out of work. I’m afraid the amount of food aid needed will increase as the number of out-of-work foreigners increases,” Santos said.

Over the past few months, layoffs among foreigners nationwide, especially those who are temp workers employed by auto parts manufacturing plants in the Kanto and Chubu regions, continue to grow as Toyota and other leading automobile firms struggle with declining demand. Many now out of work would return home if they could, but the rising cost of airplane tickets due to increased fuel surcharges makes it difficult.

“A lot of Brazilians who have lost their jobs would return if they could. But a ticket back costs nearly ¥200,000, which is money they don’t have,” Santos said.

Even those who at least for the moment still have jobs and want to stay are finding it difficult.

Erica Muramoto, a Gunma Prefecture-based Brazilian who teaches Japanese as a second language, arrived in Japan with her two children in 2001, a year after her husband, a Japanese-Brazilian, found work at Nihon Seiko, a car parts manufacturer.

“My husband and the rest of the foreign staff have just gotten a two-month contract that finishes at the end of January. After that, he doesn’t know what will happen to him or to his friends,” Muramoto said.

“I’m still working, but sadly some Nikkei Brazilian (Japanese-Brazilian) families here in Gunma are in trouble, and are almost without a place to live or without food,” she said, echoing the concerns of the Aichi-based Santos.

Of Japan’s roughly 2.2 million registered foreigners, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry estimates about 930,000 were working legally or illegally as of the end of 2006. In some towns in the Chubu region, where many Japanese-Brazilians and others work in small auto parts manufacturers, foreigners constitute a significant percentage of the total population.

Nearly 11 percent of the 55,000 residents of Minokamo, Gifu Prefecture, are registered foreigners. Most are from Brazil, the Philippines or China. Minokamo currently serves as secretariat for a group of 26 municipalities throughout the country with a high proportion of foreign residents. On Dec. 17, the group called on the central government to provide emergency employment and lifestyle assistance to their foreign workers and their families.

A few days later, the central government announced that the plan to spur consumption by handing out cash payments nationwide would include foreigners.

Fumika Odajima, a Minokamo-based spokeswoman for the 26 municipalities, said Monday there was still no word on what further assistance, if any, the central government would provide in response to the group’s aid request.

Central government money, specifically for foreign residents, is needed because the local governments say they are struggling to meet the financial needs of growing numbers of jobless Japanese residents and have neither the financial nor personnel resources to adequately handle the needs of large numbers of jobless foreigners and their families.

In the meantime, they are offering services like language assistance because improved language skills would increase the foreigners’ chances of getting a job.

“In Minokamo, from early January, we’ll offer beginning and intermediate Japanese lessons to foreign residents seeking new jobs, and try to introduce them to potential employers,” Odajima said.

But the effectiveness of such efforts in a worsening economy is questionable and does little to solve the immediate crisis facing Japan’s laid-off foreign workers.

“Of course, Japanese workers who get laid off are suffering as well. But unlike foreign workers, most Japanese have friends and relatives they can turn to for immediate financial help, at least enough to ensure they have enough to eat,” Santos said. “(The foreign workers) desperately need financial help for their daily lives now, not for things like language assistance.”

The Japan Times: Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008

Go back to The Japan Times Online

AP/Guardian on Japan’s steepest population fall yet, excludes NJ from tally

Posted on January 4, 2009January 9, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s a bit of a sloppy article from the AP that the Guardian republished unusually without much of a fact-checking (don’t understand the relevance of the throwaway sentence at the end about J fathers and paternity, or of homebound mothers). Worse yet, it seems the AP has just accepted the GOJ’s assessment of “population” as “births minus deaths” without analysis. Meaning the population is just denoted as Japanese citizens (unless you include of course babies born to NJ-NJ couples, but they don’t get juuminhyou anyway and aren’t included in local govt. tallies of population either). Er, how about including net inflows of NJ from overseas (which have been positive for more than four decades)? Or of naturalized citizens, which the Yomiuri reported some months ago contributed to an actual rise in population? Sloppy, unreflective, and inaccurate assessments of the taxpayer base. Arudou Debito
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Japan sees biggest population fall

Associated Press in Tokyo
Friday 2 January 2009
Article history
Courtesy of TK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/02/japan-population

Japan‘s population had its sharpest decline ever last year as deaths outnumbered births, posing an escalating economic threat to growth prospects amid a global recession.

With low birthrates and long lifespans, Japan’s shrinking population is ageing more quickly than any other economic power.

Health ministry records estimated the population fell by 51,000 in 2008. The number of deaths hit a record of 1.14 million … the highest since the government began compiling the data in 1947, and the number of births totalled 1.09 million.

Japan’s births outnumbered deaths until 2005, when the trend was reversed. About one-fifth of Japan’s 126 million people are now aged 65 or over.

Japanese increasingly marry at a later age, and working women wait to have children. The survey showed the number of births last year increased by just 0.02% from a year earlier.

The ministry forecast that Japan’s fertility rate – the average number of children born to a woman aged between 15 and 49 – would rise slightly to 1.36 in 2008 from 1.34 in 2007. Exact figures for 2008 were unavailable. The country’s fertility rate is far lower than that of the US, 2.10, and France, 1.98.

In recent years, the government has tried to encourage women to have more babies. But it is rare for fathers to take paternity in Japan, where traditional values tend to keep mothers at home.

Excellent Japan Times roundup on debate on J Nationality Law and proposed dual citizenship

Posted on January 3, 2009January 9, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s an excellent Japan Times roundup of the debate which came out of nowhere last year regarding Japan’s loopy nationality laws, which were once based on what I would call a “culture of no”, as in rather arbitrary ways to disqualify people (as in babies not getting J citizenship if the J father didn’t recognize patrimony before birth). A Supreme Court decision last year called that unconstitutional, and forced rare legislation from the bench to rectify that late in 2008. Now the scope of inclusivity has widened as Dietmember Kouno Taro (drawing on the shock of a former Japanese citizen getting a Nobel Prize, and a confused Japanese media trying to claim him as ours) advocates allowing Japanese to hold more than one citizenship. Bravo. About time.

The article below sets out the discussions and goalposts for this year regarding this proposal (using arguments that have appeared on Debito.org for years now). In a year when there will apparently be a record-number of candidates running in the general election (which MUST happen this year, despite PM Aso’s best efforts to keep leadership for himself), there is a good possibility it might come to pass, especially if the opposition DPJ party actually takes power.

2009 looks to be an interesting year indeed, as one more cornerstone of legal exclusionism in Japan looks set to crack. Arudou Debito

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THE MANY FACES OF CITIZENSHIP
Debate on multiple nationalities to heat up

Diet battle lines being drawn in wake of law change and amid Kono effort to rectify dual citizenship situation

By MINORU MATSUTANI, Staff writer

The Japan Times: Thursday, Jan. 1, 2009

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090101a1.html

First in a series

The issue of nationality had never been discussed more seriously than it was in 2008.

Big decision ahead: Students of an international school in Tokyo gather for an event. Some will have to choose their nationality in some 10 years if the current Nationality Law prevails. THE JAPAN TIMES PHOTO

In a specific legal challenge in June, the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to deny Japanese citizenship to children of unwed Filipino mothers whose Japanese fathers had not acknowledged paternity before their birth. Lawmakers quickly went to work to pass a revised Nationality Law in December.

Now, Taro Kono, a Lower House member of the Liberal Democratic Party, the larger of the two-party ruling coalition, is trying to iron out another wrinkle in the law that became apparent in October when it was learned that Tokyo-born Nobel Prize winner Yoichiro Nambu had given up his Japanese nationality to obtain U.S. citizenship.

People like Nambu follow the letter of the law with respect to the Constitution’s Article 14, which requires that Japanese renounce other nationalities by the age of 22 if they wish to keep Japanese citizenship. Yet, according to Kono, there are 600,000 to 700,000 Japanese 22 or older with two nationalities, if not more. In other words, fewer than 10 percent of Japanese with more than one nationality make that choice by the time they turn 22, Kono said.

“The current system puts honest people and those who appear in the media at a disadvantage,” Kono said. In November, he submitted a proposal to an LDP panel he heads calling for the Nationality Law to be revised to allow Japanese to hold other nationalities.

The Justice Ministry acknowledges there are Japanese with other nationalities but does not press them to choose only one.

“Technically, the justice minister can order us to crack down on multiple-nationality holders. But none of the past ministers has,” said Katsuyoshi Otani, who is in charge of nationality affairs at the ministry. By law, someone ordered by the minister to choose a single nationality has a month to do so before Japanese citizenship is automatically revoked.

Lawmakers are divided on Kono’s proposal, which also requires that royalty, Diet members, Cabinet ministers, diplomats, certain members of the Self-Defense Forces and judges hold only Japanese nationality. Liberals stress the need for Japan to globalize, while conservatives express concern that opening up too much will diminish the country’s sense of unity.

Shinkun Haku, a member of the Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition party, supports the proposal.

Born to a Japanese mother and a South Korean father, Haku became a naturalized Japanese citizen in January 2003 and won a seat in the Upper House the following year.

Kono’s multiple citizenship plan

• The government allows Japanese nationals to be citizens of other countries.

• Japanese holding other nationalities must declare this to the local authorities where their Japanese residency is registered. Those who fail to do so may be fined or lose their Japanese citizenship.

• Japanese can obtain citizenship elsewhere, except for locations Japan does not recognize, and continue to hold Japanese nationality as long as the other countries allow multiple nationalities.

• People from countries other than North Korea or other areas lacking Japanese diplomatic recognition can obtain Japanese nationality without losing their original citizenship as long as their home countries allow multiple nationalities.

• The Imperial family, Diet members, Cabinet ministers, diplomats, certain members of the Self-Defense Forces or court judges can only hold Japanese nationality.

• Japanese who become presidents, lawmakers, Cabinet ministers, diplomats, soldiers, court judges or members of royalty of other countries will lose their Japanese nationality.

• Japanese who have a Japanese parent and hold multiple nationalities will lose their Japanese citizenship if they have not lived in Japan for 365 days or more by the time they turn 22.

• If Japan goes to war against a country, Japanese public servants cannot hold citizenship in that country.

• Japanese holding other nationalities will lose their Japanese citizenship if they apply for and join the military of other countries.

He was not allowed to have Japanese nationality at birth because the children of a foreign father and Japanese mother were barred from having Japanese nationality until the Nationality Law was revised in 1985.

Multiple-nationality holders were also then required to choose one nationality before their 22nd birthday. Before then, Japanese could be citizens of other countries as well.

Those with multiple nationalities who were 20 or older as of Jan. 1, 1985, were supposed to declare a single choice to local authorities by the end of 1986, and if they had not, it would be assumed they had chosen Japanese citizenship and abandoned any others. Those with a Japanese mother and foreign father who were under age 20 as of Jan. 1, 1985, had until the end of 1987 to settle on a nationality.

Japan is the only developed country that does not automatically grant citizenship to babies born within its territory, allow its nationals to have multiple citizenship or let foreigners vote in local-level elections, Haku said.

“I am not criticizing Japan for that, but now we have 2 million registered foreigners, and one in every 30 babies born here has at least one foreign parent. We are in the midst of globalization whether we like it or not,” Haku said. “We have to discuss very seriously how we should involve foreign residents in building our society.”

He is urging Japanese to change their outlook. “For example, we shouldn’t think we ought to give foreigners local government voting rights out of pity. We should think Japan can become a better country by doing so,” Haku said.

Other lawmakers oppose Kono’s proposal, especially those troubled by the revised Article 3 of the Nationality Law. It previously only granted citizenship to a child born out of wedlock to a foreign mother and a Japanese father if the man admitted paternity before birth, but not after.

LDP lawmaker Hideki Makihara fears that granting nationality easily will bring more problems than benefits.

“I think the immigration policy of many European countries has failed as they have had some serious problems” regarding foreign residents, Makihara said. “We need to be very prudent.”

Makihara also noted that citizens who gave up their non-Japanese nationality will feel cheated if Japan allows multiple nationalities, because “there is no guarantee they will regain their renounced citizenships.”

The proposed revision has also stirred nationalists to action. During Diet deliberations on the bill in November and early December, anonymous bloggers posted messages expressing their concern that foreigners may approach Japanese men to falsely claim paternity in illicit bids to gain citizenship.

Although the bill cleared the Diet on Dec. 5, LDP lawmaker Takeo Hiranuma established a lawmaker group scrutinizing the Nationality Law to prevent bogus claims.

While the LDP is divided on the revision of Article 3, the party is also busy dealing with other important issues. This could mean Kono’s proposal will not be deliberated seriously anytime soon, political scientist Hirotada Asakawa said.

With Prime Minister Taro Aso’s approval rate declining and the global economy in serious recession, Aso wants to impress voters by swiftly passing bills on the supplementary budget for the current fiscal year that would finance a ¥2 trillion cash handout program during the Diet session starting later this month, Asakawa said. The LDP then has to pass the budget for the next fiscal year during the same Diet session.

“These issues are enough of a handful. The LDP will also have to prepare for an anticipated Lower House election, which could happen who knows when,” he said. “In such a crucial time, the LDP will not want to discuss Kono’s proposal, which is likely to divide the LDP.”

Nevertheless, many lawmakers seem to agree that the current situation, in which many Japanese unlawfully hold multiple nationalities, needs to be fixed.

The case of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, born to a Japanese couple who emigrated to Peru early last century, is an extreme but forceful example. Kokumin Shinto (People’s New Party) asked Fujimori, who holds Peruvian and Japanese nationalities, in June 2007 to run for the Upper House election when he was detained in Chile. He ran in and lost. After Fujimori fled to Japan in exile, Tokyo declared he has Japanese citizenship, because of his parental roots.

What if he had won a Diet seat?

“Japan escaped by a hair’s breadth as Fujimori lost the election,” Kono said. “I have no idea what lawmakers would have done (if Fujimori had won). Legislation was a step behind the reality.”

To be sure, the proposal has a long way to go to be legalized. A typical process would be that the panel deliberates, finalizes and submits it to LDP executives, who would then decide whether to create a bill to be submitted to the Diet. However, it is unknown if Kono can sway his party.

“I have created a draft for everybody, not just lawmakers, to discuss the nationality issue,” Kono said. “I want to tell Japanese nationals, ‘Let’s discuss it.’ “

The Japan Times: Thursday, Jan. 1, 2009

Happy New Year: Retrospective: 10 things that made me think in 2008

Posted on January 2, 2009January 9, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

TEN THINGS THAT CAUSED DEEP THOUGHTS IN 2008: A RETROSPECTIVE

Hi Blog. Happy New Year. To open 2009, here’s my annual essay where I note ten things that caused me to think quite a bit last year. Some things I partook in (books and media and whatnot) might also be interesting for you to delve into as well. For what they’re worth, and in no particular order, here goes:

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10) IIJIMA AI’S DEATH: It’s not something that I would admit to Japanese female friends (who pretty much uniformly dislike Ai for what she represents — a porn star that somehow escaped into regular TV land — and for, I might add, her power over men), but I am a fan. Have been for most of my years here in Japan. It’s not just because I followed her from her days exposing her backside on the successor to TV show “11PM” (there’s a blast from the past for you readers here from the bubble years!), “Gilgamesh Nights”, enjoying the contrast between her and pneumatic Hosokawa Fumie (who appealed to the J-men who liked their women less spicy). It’s not just because she was to me pretty all over. I really liked her personality (yes, the singular): unafraid of men — unafraid of just about anything, apparently. I enjoyed her stints as a regular tarento on shows like “Sunday Japon” (where lucky devil Dave Spector sitting behind her got to smell her hair on a weekly basis) even after it did not involve disrobing: She had an unabashed charm that was both abrasive and funny; you never knew what she was going to say next (or write next: she had a decent blog and a surprise bestseller in “Platonic Sex”). She was somebody I would have liked to have had a conversation with. Now with her death from an apparent suicide near Xmas, that’s impossible, and I’m saddened. She was too young (36), and I doubt she found much contentment in life aside from money and media attention; I wonder if it was the wrong kind of attention that did her in in the end.

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9) CYCLING FROM MIYAZAKI TO KURASHIKI: Every Golden Week I embark on my get-back-in-shape-after-the-long-Hokkaido-winter sojourn, where I go somewhere warm and cycle to a big airport. This year, starting from Miyazaki for the second year in a row, I jumped on my mountain bike and went up the northern shore, getting close to Oita before taking a ferry to that funny little peninsula reaching out from Shikoku, then cycled along the coast to Matsuyama, took the odd series of bridges (which have bike paths!) comprising the Shimanami Kaidou to near Hiroshima, then pedaled the odd coast of southern Okayama to Kurashiki, where showers, booze with good friends (who I think still don’t believe I really cycled from that far south), and Scrabble galore awaited. The biggest shock (for me): I cycled an average of 100 kms a day for six days. It was easy. Yes, easy. I’m about to turn 44 and as long as my kiester is properly padded, I can pedal all day. Just plug in the iPod, alternate between podcasts and pump-up music, and I feel like I can go anywhere. Let’s hope that I don’t get a heart attack on one of these trips when age finally catches up with me.

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8) FRANCA: Stands for Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens Association (www.francajapan.org), and the idea came forth when long-term NJ residents, furious at being fingerprinted again from November 2007, asked to form a group that would represent their interests. We’ve been taking it slow over the year and building up awareness and interest, but this year I realized (with the Tohoku region in particular) after a series of speeches that I don’t need to tow this movement along (as I have with other projects I’ve taken up, such as the Kunibengodan). There is a critical mass of people here who don’t see themselves as “guests”, and are ready to stand up for themselves and claim their due as taxpayers and contributors to Japanese society. Next step: formally registering the group as an NPO with the Japanese government. Readers out there who are used to running businesses (I’m not) are welcome to step forward and help make this organization a paying job for them.

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7) TOYOKO G8 SUMMIT: Yes, it could have been a bonanza for Hokkaido. Yes, it could have put us on the map like the 1972 Olympics did. But a G8 Summit is not designed for popular participation or investment in infrastructure like an Olympics. Summits are events where Secret Service Sherpas parachute in, seal off the entire community, and make sure the riff-raff (as in the electorate, who might have something to say as part of the democratic process) don’t get in and spoil the world leaders’ elaborately-crafted dinner and publicity parties and junkets for their entourages. What was the payoff for Hokkaido? Not much: The media center they built was soon knocked down (“ecologically recycled”), and people like me couldn’t even get a job as a local-hire interpreter (the Sherpas bring their own; again, it’s a hermetic system), and by the grace of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs those allowed in (the media) stayed in officially-approved hotels (who raised their prices appreciably to gouge reporters: More on life behind the Summit walls in by reporter Eric Johnston at https://www.debito.org/?p=1812).

Worst of all was Japan’s bad habit of using international events to convert bits of Japan into a police state, spending far more money than anyone else in the G8 on policing and security. (See my Japan Times article on this at https://www.debito.org/?p=1767) And with a racial-profiling element to their “anti-terrorist” activities. I (as well as lots of other people) discovered that when walking through Chitose Airport while non-Asian. In sum, the G8 Summit inconvenienced thousands of people, and wasted millions of dollars on something that could have been done with a conference video call. Made me doubt the efficacy of world leaders meeting at all, especially when the Summit didn’t prevent the financial meltdown months later.

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6) CALIFORNIA TRIP 2008: I spent all of August and two weeks of September on tour both for business and book promotion. Not only did I get back to see what even the bluest state in America had become under 8 years of Bush II (one mixed-up place, abandoning Gov. Gray Davis for Schwartzenegger thanks to Enron; more below), I also managed to plug back into what could have been my life had I stayed a California Boy in the Bay Area. It wasn’t my choice to begin with (I was born near Berkeley, and moved to the US East Coast at age five when my mother remarried), but I’m still not sure which would have been the better life. More at https://www.debito.org/?p=1905

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5) DVDS: ENRON — THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM, and MICHAEL MOORE’S “SICKO”. These are the two most powerful movies I saw all year. ENRON doesn’t just talk about the fall of a company — it even manages to show how business gone wild through true laissez-faire (not to mention outright tolerance of lying) destroys economies and people. It is also the most interesting movie about accounting I have ever seen (just edging out Itami Juzo’s MARUSA NO ONNA movies). SICKO is the other side of that coin on a more interpersonal level, since similar unethical pricing and qualification schemes and unfettered management of inelastic demand (be it electric power or medical care) destroys lives all the same. One documentary was an excellent postmortem, the other was a harbinger, singlehandedly putting universal health care back on the US political agenda. Watch them and think about how markets and government should work.

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4) BOOKS: Francis Wheen’s KARL MARX and HOW MUMBO-JUMBO CONQUERED THE WORLD. Francis Wheen writes like the smartest kid in the class (I never thought anyone could summarize Marx’s Das Kapital in one paragraph), and makes you want to read more of anything he writes. He puts a very human face on Marx, as well as on the actors creating the Grand Illusion of free-market capitalism and equitable societal development. (The biggest dupe of the Postwar Twentieth Century: “the trickle-down effect”.) Wheen is as lucid as Bertrand Russell at times (and more amusing) as he traces the arc of economic, political, and social theory for the past forty years. It’s a wonderful debug. But don’t expect a mentoring from this author (I doubt he himself would welcome the role), for he prescribes little in return. Wheen has that veddy British tendency to whale on people by criticizing them intelligently, if not a bit cuttingly, but not offer much ideology of his own for others to criticize back. It isn’t until you get to the very end, where in a couple of succinct paragraphs he reveals his dogma: Put reason above emotion and non-science in all respects (even when he gets a bit emotional himself). He has faith that “truth is great and will prevail”. Provided that people can be educated enough to think for themselves, and not be duped by the world’s ideological snake-oil salesmen. Reading Wheen is a valuable antidote to them. I still think, in the end, Bertrand Russell did it better, but Wheen does it more accessibly and practically for today’s marketplace of ideas.

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3) JAPAN TIMES COLUMN: Last March, my JUST BE CAUSE monthly column started with a focus on human rights. So far, so good: Not running out of topics and it’s amazing just how much debate a mere 700 words can spark (viz. the “gaijin” trilogy of essays over the summer). I also felt like people looked at me differently once this column started going — not just a “blogger” anymore, but an actual pundit in a national newspaper. If that’s a complimentary status to have, I’ll try to earn readers’ respect over the next few years. I hope I’m serving well enough now. Next column out January 6.

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2) “HANDBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS, MIGRANTS, AND IMMIGRANTS”, co-authored with Akira Higuchi. This was where it all fell into place. No longer was I just being labeled a “troublemaker” who sues people at a drop of a hat, and writes books about lawsuits as some form of catharsis. No such dismissal could be made about HANDBOOK, a bilingual bestseller (in the small human-rights book market), clearly written as a means to help people make better lives here in Japan. It garnered not a single mixed or negative review. As a person who seems cause controversy just by exhaling, I’m just not used to the unqualified positive. I hope the book serves well in future too.

And at the end (again, this list was in no particular order): The Booby Prize for biggest disappointment mediawise of the year:

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1) KEN BURNS’ “THE WAR” DOCUMENTARY: I will watch anything by Ken Burns, the director who revolutionized the historical documentary with his daylong THE CIVIL WAR some decades ago. I own everything he’s got out on DVD (and yes, there are a few turkeys: THE CONGRESS is one). But my appetite was whetted when NPR reviewer David Bianculli called THE WAR (about World War II from an American perspective) “his best”. I watched it after viewing the even longer British-produced (and now History Channel staple) THE WORLD AT WAR series, made nearly forty years ago.

I understand Burns’s production was about how a world war affected the US domestically, but his presentation rankled for the first time ever. Not only was the music and tone of the documentary in places quite inappropriate (upbeat contemporary songs for wartime scenes, for example), but the feeling was cloying, even jingoistic at times, as if boostering for Americana in the face of an international war (TWAW only pandered to its British audience once: it’s overuse of “Banzai” as Japan invaded British territories in South East Asia.) Unforgivable was the closing line of the final episode:

“This film is dedicated to all those who fought and won that necessary war on our behalf.”

I see. Well, maybe I’ve been too influenced by Japan’s need to see everyone (even the aggressor nations, such as itself) as the victims of war. But a film about a world war should not just herald those who won it. It should salute those who died in it, who suffered in it, regardless of side. History already overwhelmingly favors the victors of war. Why would a historian like Burns repeat that error by just honoring one side, as if those who suffered the historical accident of being on the wrong side do not deserve a modicum of respect for doing what many simply had to do? There is the victimization, the tragedy of group madness and legally-enforced conformity that leads to war anyway. It’s not all winners vs. losers, good vs. evil, is it? Let’s be a bit more sophisticated in our paid tributes, shall we?

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Alright, these are the things that made me think quite a bit this year. Thanks for reading those thoughts, and have a Happy New Year 2009. Arudou Debito

Debito.org Poll on most important human rights advancement in 2008

Posted on December 31, 2008December 31, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here is a good poll to round out the end of the year.

What do you think is the most significant human rights advancement in Japan in 2008? (all issues on this blog)

The coveted Akutagawa Book Prize going to a non-native author.

The U Hoden Case awarding damages to a bullied Chinese-Japanese schoolgirl.

The successful Zainichi student complaint lodged against exclusionary Nihon U debate club.

The successful lawsuit against Tochigi strawberry farms who underpaid and fired Chinese trainees.

The GOJ declaring the Ainu an official indigenous people.

The 12,000 yen “economic stimulus” bribe opened to all NJ taxpayers.

The increasing international awareness of Japan as a haven for child abductions after divorce.

The Supreme Court declaring unconstitutional the patrimony acknowledgment requirement for citizenship.

Something else / None of the above.

Can’t say / Don’t know etc.

Vote at the blue right-hand corner of this blog page (i.e. not directly above–the click bubbles are purely cosmetic). Do a keyword search within the Debito.org Blog if you want to know more about each issue (they’re all discussed).

If you think I’ve left something out, please add something in the Comments Section below…

Finally, check out my next Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column due out January 6 (Jan 7 outside the metropolises) when I rank them in order of importance.

Yoi otoshi o, everyone, and thanks for reading and supporting Debito.org in 2008. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Bloggers Gathering Jan 17 Tokyo (RSVP by Jan 8)

Posted on December 30, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Forwarding from TPR. I was invited too but sadly I’m not in the Tokyo area that long (only Jan 1 to 8). Ah well. Attend if you like. Debito back in Sapporo

A gathering for bloggers and blog enthusiasts is being planned in Tokyo for the evening of January 17, and we would like to extend the invitation to any and all visitors who may wish to come. Bloggers from Observing Japan, Shisaku, Global Talk 21, Mutant Frog, Coming Anarchy, Trans-Pacific Radio and more will be amongst the crowd.

All of us are hoping to meet with other bloggers and readers for an evening of food an drink. If you would like to attend, please send an email to transpacificradio@gmail.com before January 8th. Please let us know how many folks you would like to bring along with you. Although we have a place in mind for the get-together, we will wait to see what the final numbers are like before confirming. We expect that the gathering will be held in either Shibuya or Shinjuku. After we have confirmed the numbers and location, we will send you an email letting you know exactly where and when (probably about 6pm) we will be meeting up on the 17th.

We hope to see you all on the 17th of January!

Japan Times on future J housing markets, tax regimes, and why J houses are built so crappily

Posted on December 29, 2008December 29, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s another excellent article from Philip Brasor of the Japan Times, regarding future Japan housing markets and taxation laws (and why houses in Japan aren’t built to last, or be resaleable). Should cause a twinge or two in the homeowners out there, myself included. Arudou Debito in a lovely, durable, but largely unappraisable house in Monbetsu.

MEDIA MIX

The Japanese art of useless homes

The Japan Times: Sunday, Dec. 21, 2008

By PHILIP BRASOR

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20081221pb.html

Last spring, when the effects of the American sub-prime loan disaster were being felt but the world economy was still relatively OK, there was an article in the Asahi Shimbun written by one of the paper’s financial reporters who recalled several years earlier a visit from a friend living in the United States.

The friend worked for a real-estate company and he told the writer just before he returned to America that he and his colleagues appreciated the Japanese people, because they were investing in U.S. mortgages as securities, and therefore helping poorer Americans borrow money at low rates so that they could buy better houses.

The writer mentioned this episode to point out the irony of the situation, since it was the failure of those securitized mortgages that led to the burst of the U.S. real-estate bubble and the current worldwide recession. However, there’s a deeper irony to the story: The Japanese people, whose housing is, for the most part, inferior in quality to that of American housing, were making it possible for Americans to purchase nice homes. But who is helping the Japanese buy nice homes?

The Japanese government would like everybody to think that they are. Last week, they announced new tax deductions for people who take out housing loans. It’s the biggest-ever tax cut for homeowners and encourages the construction of “long-life” structures that will supposedly improve the housing market. This latter idea, which is being called the “200-year housing plan,” has been around since May 2007, when it was formulated by a research panel set up by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and headed by Yasuo Fukuda, who would become prime minister later that year.

At the time, Fukuda explained something everybody knew at least intuitively: Japanese homes were not made to last. After the war, the government promoted affordable housing so that everyone could own a home, with the result being “cheap, poor quality” structures that had to be replaced after 30 years. Since the houses themselves lost value quickly, people only invested in land, which invariably became over-valued. With the price of land so high, people couldn’t afford better quality homes, and cheap, poor quality structures became the norm.

What Fukuda didn’t mention is that the housing industry was addicted to this cycle, which is referred to as “scrap and build.” The average new house loses its value completely 15 years after it’s occupied. Consequently, Japanese people only want new houses and condominiums, because they believe that previously owned ones are junk. In order to change this mind-set, the Fukuda panel came up with the idea of promoting the construction of homes meant to last a long time, so that the structures themselves can be worthwhile investments.

But it wasn’t until these latest tax cuts were announced that the plan moved toward realization. According to current tax rules, a person who borrows money to buy a home can deduct up to ¥1.6 million of the loan from his or her taxes over a 10-year period after moving in. The new rules, which go into effect Jan. 1, increase the maximum tax deduction to ¥6 million over 10 years. And people who buy homes that qualify as long-life structures can deduct up to ¥1 million more from their taxes.

These figures are maximum amounts. The majority of home-buyers will receive lower tax cuts, because they are based on the balance of the loan, and every few years the ceiling for the maximum balance allowed for the deduction drops. Moreover, many homeowners pay relatively low taxes because of their income and other deductions, and regardless of the balance left on their loan, they can’t deduct more than they actually pay in income tax.

The cuts are being touted as a benefit to citizens, but just like the scrap-and-build strategy, they mainly benefit the housing industry, which is stuck with a huge inventory of unsold new homes that grows larger every day. And this new long-life housing rule also applies to condominiums, so don’t be surprised if, in the spring, the government announces the criteria for long-life housing and all those new, expensive and very vacant high-rise “mansions” looming over Tokyo’s waterfront qualify.

There’s less largess for people who already own homes, almost half of which were built before earthquake standards were introduced in the 1980s. The new tax cuts don’t apply to them. If they want to add energy-saving or “barrier-free” features, 10 percent of the construction costs can be deducted, but they don’t get deductions for home-improvement loans. In 1988, the government set “durable housing” standards to evaluate homes for resale, but almost no one takes advantage of them. According to the Asahi, right now only 543 houses and 1,063 condos on the market have been evaluated.

The long-life housing scheme will probably have a minimum effect, because only the rich will be able to afford such homes. The plan could hold promise over time if the yet-to-be-determined criteria optimize people’s desires. The reason homes in the West keep their value longer is that most were conceived as places to live, not consumer goods, which is what they represent in Japan. Designs for affordable housing in Japan are determined by the developer’s potential profit margins rather than the potential customer’s comfort: Just think of the boxy, impractical layouts of most condominiums, which allow developers to squeeze more units into a limited space.

In the long run, these policies will make little difference. According to the Population Research Center, if the current birthrate persists, 100 years from now there will be 45 million people in Japan, which is fewer persons than there are houses right now. It’s impossible to say whether the quality of those houses in 2108 will be good or bad, but they sure will be cheap.

The Japan Times: Sunday, Dec. 21, 2008

Japan Times Zeit Gist on Chinese/Japanese bilingual education in Japan

Posted on December 28, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Further festive good news: A rupo in the Japan Times Community Page from a member of the Chinese Diaspora in Japan, on the Chinese Diaspora in Japan. And how some are being educated to believe that they are bicultural, bilingual, and binational. Good. Debito in Monbetsu

HOME

THE ZEIT GIST

School bridges China-Japan gap

Historic Yokohama institute seeks to nurture Chinese values, equip pupils for life in Japan

By EMILY CHO

Special to The Japan Times

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20081223zg.html

At first glance it seems to be a typical lunch break at a local Japanese school: Boys rambunctiously chasing one another and yanking at each other’s white polo shirts, little girls twirling so hard in their pleated gray skirts that they fall down with squeals of glee.

Bilingual, trilingual: Classes at Yokohama Yamate Chinese School are taught in both Mandarin and Japanese. Students learn English from fifth grade.EMILY CHO PHOTO

But look closer and you notice that although the signs on the wall are familiar, the Chinese characters are written in simplified form, unlike Japanese “kanji.” A group of lanky adolescent boys in navy blazers start kicking around a fuchsia-feathered shuttlecock, or “jianzi,” instead of a soccer ball.

“Ne ne, ore ne, hao chi de bing gan aru yo ne!” a little boy shouts, holding some biscuits up like a prize as he switches fluidly back and forth between Mandarin and Japanese.

Welcome to the Yokohama Yamate Chinese School, which boasts a more-than-century-old cultural tapestry steeped in Chinese values deeply interwoven with Japanese influences.

The Yokohama Chinese School was established in 1898 by Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China, during his exile from the mainland. The school aimed to assuage the worries of parents that their children might lose their Chinese identity growing up in Japan.

In 1952 the school split into two factions due to the political tensions between mainland China and Taiwan. The supporters of Communist China broke off to form the Yokohama Yamate Chinese School at another site, while the supporters of Taiwan stayed behind at what became the Yokohama Overseas Chinese School. Both schools claim to be the first Chinese school in Japan. Of the five Chinese schools in the country, only the Yokohama Yamate Chinese School and the Kobe Chinese School are oriented toward the mainland.

One of the main differences between the two types of schools is that simplified Chinese is taught instead of traditional Chinese in pro-mainland China schools. They also teach Pinyin, a romanization system for standard Chinese, while the Taiwan-oriented schools teach Zhuyin, which uses phonetic symbols. However, the Taiwan-oriented schools are starting to teach simplified Chinese and Pinyin to offer a more well-rounded education.

Of the Yamate school’s 413 students, 30 percent are Chinese nationals, with the rest having Japanese citizenship. Ten percent of the student body is ethnically Japanese.

“Chinese people feel the need to be infused with the Chinese culture, logic and ideology,” Principal Pan Minsheng explains. “The Japanese people enroll because they realize what a big and powerful force China is. China and Japan are also closely intertwined in many aspects of life, politics and culture. It is therefore beneficial for them to learn more about the Chinese culture.”

Although separated only by a narrow strip of water, war and occupation have left China and Japan divided by a wider gulf, exacerbated by ongoing political, historical and territorial tensions. However, this year marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship, and great efforts are being made in both countries to build on growing ties. Perhaps both sides are finally heeding the wisdom of the Chinese proverb that says, “A good neighbor is a found treasure.”

During his state visit to Japan in May — the first by a Chinese president in a decade — Hu Jintao set aside time for the school, perhaps recognizing that the students may come to play a critical role in bridging the gap of understanding between Japan and China.

At the end of a worn-out hallway decorated with hand-painted artworks, Pan pulls open a sliding door to reveal a class of children reading out loud with perfect pronunciation from Chinese textbooks. Shutting the door behind him, Pan then pulls open another sliding panel; in this class the students are bantering with their teacher and each other in fluent Japanese.

In the school’s kindergarten, children are mainly taught in Japanese, while primary and secondary-level classes are taught in Japanese or Chinese depending on the subject. English is also taught from the fifth grade. Chinese schools also encourage student-initiated learning, where the children learn as much from themselves and fellow classmates as from teachers and textbooks.

“As you can see, in this class they are all learning Japanese,” explains Pan. “The students are proactive and discuss among themselves. They are learning when communicating with each other.”

He points to the nearest table, where two students are quietly eavesdropping on our conversation. “Hey! Discuss!” he barks good-naturedly, getting giggles in response.

The Yamate school only teaches up to junior-high level, but according to Pan all students go on to pass entrance exams for high-level Japanese senior high schools and transition easily into the Japanese school system.

Unlike other international schools in Japan, which tend to focus on readying students for life outside Japan, Chinese schools like Yokohama Yamate aim to prepare their students for Japanese society, while keeping their Chinese cultural identity intact. In effect, the school aims to teach each its students how to be both Chinese and Japanese.

When asked where they were from, a crowd of fourth-graders eagerly shared their varied answers.

“I’m Japanese, and Chinese,” said a serious-looking boy named Bozhi, a first-generation Japanese-born Chinese.

“We’re from China!” proclaimed two girls, Zhenxin and Chongmei, and another boy named Fangwei. All three were born in China and are being raised in Japan.

Mandarin and Japanese poured forth in a strangely comfortable cadence among the boisterous bunch, and there was no preference for either language. But the younger students tended to favor one language over the other, depending on which is spoken at home.

“I’m Japanese. I like Japanese class the best because it’s easy. I got 99 on my last test,” confided Akiyama, a shy 6-year-old who speaks Japanese at home to her Japanese father and Chinese mother.

A cheeky boy runs up to the principal and tugs his sleeve insistently. “He hit me, he hit me!” he hollers. The principal ruffles the boy’s hair. “This little boy can speak Cantonese too. He speaks three languages!” he says proudly.

The Yokohama Yamate school, like all other Chinese schools, encourages a tightknit community environment. The atmosphere in the school seems to be almost familial between faculty and students.

In the courtyard, a young teenage boy is seen playing down his basketball abilities with the eager primary students. All over the school, similar interactions suggest a close bond between the students.

“All the students clean their classrooms on their own,” says Pan. “But for the first-graders, the older students cleans the classroom for them.”

Mrs. Ogawa, a Japanese mother who sent her two daughters to the school, appreciates the strong bonds it fosters. Her husband worked in China for a brief stint, and upon his return the couple formed friendships with Chinese people.

“We thought that if it was possible, we should let our child mix with Chinese people from a young age and let them know that there are all sorts of people in the world, not just Japanese,” she explains. “It will make them more flexible and open-minded.”

Despite the fact that the majority of the parents are Chinese, Ogawa says she has never felt out of place. She even picked up basic Mandarin so she could pronounce the names of her daughters’ Chinese friends and teachers.

Looking at the sea of enthusiastic young faces, it is as impossible to pick out which student is Japanese or Chinese as it is irrelevant. Within the walls of the school there is no differentiation between the two ethnicities, only the celebration of both.

“In the school, we are all parents — we have the same worries and the same happiness. Japanese people have to mingle with the Chinese to truly understand them,” says Ogawa. “It is important to form opinions from interpersonal relationships, not just from what you see on television. At the end of the day, we aren’t that different after all.”

Send comments on this issue and story ideas to community@japantimes.co.jp

The Japan Times: Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2008

History tangent: Japan Times FYI on Hokkaido development

Posted on December 27, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I’m on the road for a couple of days (we’ve been whalloped with snow, and I anticipate a long drive to the Okhotsk Sea Coast tomorrow), so let me send you a little something interesting. A nice concise history of Hokkaido from the Japan Times. Fills in quite a few blanks about how and why we up in Japan’s Great White North got here in the first place. Arudou Debito traversing this spine of Hokkaido to Monbetsu

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FYI

HOKKAIDO HISTORY

Japan’s last frontier took time to tame, cultivate image

By AKEMI NAKAMURA

Staff writer

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080708i1.html

Japan Times Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Hokkaido, where the Group of Eight summit is taking place in Toyako, is known for its hot springs, ski resorts, seafood and magnificent scenery.

Dual roles: A family of “tondenhei” farmer-soldiers pose in front of their house in Akkeshi, Hokkaido, in the late 1880s. COURTESY OF HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITY LIBRARY PHOTO

Only 140 years ago, when Japan jumped on the modernization bandwagon, the prefecture was the new frontier.

Following are some questions and answers about the history of Hokkaido:

When did the development of Hokkaido begin?

The Meiji government started promoting cultivation in Hokkaido in 1868, when it took over power from the Tokugawa shogunate. Cultivation was deemed necessary as part of the government effort to modernize all of Japan and amid awareness that Russia appeared to have designs on the territory, large areas of which had not yet been explored.

The government allocated 4 percent to 5 percent of the national budget for developing Hokkaido over 10 years starting in 1872, according to “Hokkaido no Rekishi” (“The History of Hokkaido”), published in 2000.

What was the situation in Hokkaido before the Meiji Restoration of 1868?

Hokkaido had been inhabited by the Ainu for centuries. They had a separate culture from the Japanese, and lived by fishing, hunting and trading.

The region had been called Ezochi, meaning “the land for people who did not obey the government,” until the name was changed into Hokkaido (“northern sea route”) in 1869.

During the Kamakura shogunate (1185-1333), a penal colony was established at the southern part of the Oshima Peninsula and samurai warriors were stationed there to oversee the prisoners.

During the Edo Period (1603-1868), the Matsumae domain ruled the southern area, and the shogunate officially entitled them to monopolize trade with the Ainu. In the late Edo Period, ordinary Japanese, some from the Tohoku region, started moving to coastal areas outside the Matsumae-regulated area to fish for herring.

When the shogunate ended its 220-year closed-door policy in 1854, under pressure from Britain, France, the Netherlands, the United States and Russia, Hakodate became one of the first two ports to open to the West.

The port was also spotlighted when Tokugawa rule ended in 1868. Some 2,800 people faithful to the shogun, led by naval officer Takeaki Enomoto, arrived at the port with eight ships from Edo, now Tokyo. After occupying Goryokaku fortress in Hakodate, he declared Hokkaido an independent country, but the rebels were defeated by Meiji government forces in 1869.

How did the Meiji government develop Hokkaido in the 19th century?

The government promoted immigration there from Honshu to farm land.

It also created industries, building beer breweries and plants to make miso, soy sauce and silk. Coal mining also started in Horonai, now the city of Mikasa, in 1881. Railways were also built to transport coal to ports, including Otaru.

To promote agriculture and other industries, dozens of Western engineers and researchers were invited to teach advanced technologies and educate young Japanese.

One notable foreigner was William S. Clark, president of Massachusetts Agricultural College, who was invited in 1876 to be vice president of Sapporo Agricultural College, now Hokkaido University.

Many of the foreigners were Americans, probably because Japan tried to learn from the U.S. about developing its frontier, experts say.

Ainu were forced to work as farmers and abandon their culture and lifestyles for assimilation by Japanese society, further increasing the discrimination against them.

How many people moved to Hokkaido?

The first group of 500 settlers arrived there in September 1869 from Tokyo, followed by thousands of people, including farmers, samurai descendants and gentry.

About 1.9 million people moved to Hokkaido between 1890 and 1936, according to the prefectural government. Many were from the Tohoku and Hokuriku regions.

How did the early Japanese settlers fare on the island?

Nearly half engaged in farming vegetables, including potatoes, and buckwheat for “soba” noodles, and soy beans.

But farming in the cold forested north was not easy. People had to clear the land by logging. It sometimes took several years to harvest sufficient crops to make a living.

Rice planting began to spread in the 1880s after strains were improved to grow in the local soil.

There were 7,337 households, or 39,901 people who migrated as “tondenhei,” who worked as farmer-soldiers, or their family members, from 1875 and 1899 under a government system established in 1873.

Housing, food and farm implements were provided. The tondenhei also underwent military training and were deployed to various places to maintain order and prepare for a Russian invasion.

Other immigrants engaged in fishing, trading and other industries.

What major postwar events occurred in Hokkaido?

After Japan’s surrender, some 17,000 Japanese who lived on small islands off Hokkaido — Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islets — were expelled after the islands were seized by Soviet forces.

Tokyo still claims the Russian-held islands as part of Japan, and the territorial row still tops its diplomatic agenda with Moscow. The dispute has prevented the two nations from concluding a peace treaty to end the war.

After the collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s, Hokkaido saw tough times.

The failure of Hokkaido Takushoku Bank in November 1997 hit the local economy hard. The regional bank, which was founded in 1900, went under mainly because it extended loans to ailing companies recklessly during the bubble economy between the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Last year, the Yubari Municipal Government was designated by the government as officially bankrupt. This ended its autonomy and the central government is now managing its rehabilitation efforts.

Yubari has a population of 13,000, which is roughly one-tenth of its peak when it prospered as a coal mining town. The city is also known for its film festival and pricey melons.

It was the first time in 15 years the government declared a municipality bankrupt.

However, with the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, in which Japan won gold, silver and bronze in the 70-meter jump, Hokkaido became a tourist draw.

In July 2005, a 70,000-plus-hectare area straddling the towns of Shari and Rausu on the Shiretoko Peninsula was designated as a World Heritage site by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Asahiyama Zoo drawn many tourists from around the nation, thanks to its unique animal displays.

Ski resorts and hot springs in Hokakido have become popular attractions for foreign tourists from Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Australia.

The Weekly FYI appears Tuesdays (Wednesday in some areas). Readers are encouraged to send ideas, questions and opinions to National News Desk

ENDS

Xmas List: Ten things Japan does best

Posted on December 25, 2008January 16, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Merry Christmas.

As another distraction (hey, even The Economist Newsmagazine has a special Christmas Issue every year with all manner of off-topic articles), here’s my Xmas present to readers: Ten things that I think Japan does best.

(Please feel free to comment if you think I’ve left anything out. My personal Ground Rules: Skip over things like cars and semiconductors and consumer electronics and steel, because they are obvious even to those who have never set foot in Japan, moreover are not very interesting to write about. Stick to things that require extensive experience and knowledge of Japan — that way we get a more interesting set of opinions. Hey, it’s the blogosphere.)

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TOP TEN THINGS JAPAN DOES BEST, OR WORLD-CLASS (in ascending order):

TEN) SEAFOOD. As you know, food in Japan is high quality just about everywhere (even school cafeterias offer more than just edible fare). But good food is not unique to Japan — there are many world cuisines (Chinese, Italian, Thai, Indian, French…). Where Japan particularly excels is in seafood — both in preparation and in training on how to eat it.

One of the things about being surrounded by coast in teeming waters and not much meat (animal husbandry here has only been around for a century or so) is that you HAVE to eat what’s on offer in the ocean. You make do. Fortunately, Japan doesn’t just “make do” — it has discovered how to eat just about anything from the sea — even algae — deliciously! Once you get used to it (which doesn’t take long), you start lobbing things in your gob without holding your nose. Sure, I still order fish and chips whenever I go into an Irish pub in Japan. But that’s a heavy-salt and malt-vinegar soul-food break from the seafood I’m eating on a near-daily basis anyway. Because it’s so good in Japan.

And Japanese, justifiably, eat more seafood than anyone else.

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NINE) PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. Japan has its own problems with moving people around (to wit: overcrowding on subways, chikan molestation, and, er… that’s about all the downsides I can come up with). But even in Hokkaido, I can find a way, be it bus, train, and finally taxi if necessary, to get somewhere, including the boonies, if I have enough time. In other countries, I keep running into, “How are you going to get there if you don’t have a car?” situations. There’s often no other option there. Besides, even with the problems mentioned above, how many other cities the size of Tokyo can move this many people around on a daily basis (okay, London, and perhaps Mexico City)? Yet do it on such a clean (oops, that’s New York City out), reasonably comprehensible (oops, that’s Paris out) and cheap (oops, that’s Taipei out) basis? And extend it essentially across the country (okay, that’s Greater London and beyond out) so safely (oops, that’s India out)? Not many. I drive, but I’m increasingly realizing that I probably don’t need to (and I definitely wouldn’t if I lived in Tokyo). It’s a matter of time and convenience, and Japan has made a very good effort to make transit times approach and excel car ownership, probably as much as anywhere else in the world.

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

EIGHT) ONOMATOPOEIA. Where to start on this one. No matter how many words I learn (and it helps if I have the kanji to get the root meaning), I am absolutely blind to the feeling of gitaigo and giseigo/giongo, Japanese onomatopoeic expressions. We all know guttari and gussuri and bon’yari and gakkari. But how the hell will I ever hear pori pori when I scratch the inside of my nose or rero rero when licking something, or gabiin when agape, or bosun when something, well, ejaculates? As inflexible as I find Japanese words, given how highly-contexualized the language seems to be (just hunting for that magic word to open the veto gate in any bureaucratic negotiation is a memory-taxing nightmare), there is incredible expressiveness in just a couple of repeated kana that I doubt I will ever master. My loss. Japanese is a language rich in expressiveness, and onomatopoeia is a huge part of it.

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

SEVEN) PACKAGING. We hear about the Japanese department stores (Mitsukoshi first comes to mind) that essentially cocoon your purchase in more paper and plastic than is necessary (I too have to refuse half the plastics when just getting fast food and convenience store goods). That’s the downside. The upside is that when you really DO need cushioning for transportation, Japan really comes through.

Walk into any regular post office: You can buy a box and find tape and other packaging goods going for cheap or free. Go to a 100 yen shop and you’ll find spare newspapers lying about for you to package your just-purchased glass goods for the journey home. And then there’s Mitsukoshi…

Allow me to illustrate with another example: In September I came home from the US (having tried to send through the USPS some bulk items home in advance: talk about a rip-off; everything cost quite a bit and took its time getting here) and was glad to arrive in Narita (for a change!). Because the trucking delivery companies (Yamato, Pelican, etc) were just poised for me to fill one of their boxes (they had a selection) with goods I didn’t want to shlep around Japan during my September two-week book tour. In less than 30 minutes, Yamato had helped me pack, bubble wrap, and send off for a very reasonable price a bunch of sundries back north. If you don’t know how to pack, leave it to the experts. Over here, it’s part of the service. Because if it’s not boxed properly, it’s not presentable.

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

SIX) CALLIGRAPHY GOODS. Here’s something I bet many haven’t considered: Germany and Japan are two otaku countries that are just plain nuts about how to write things with style. I’m used to crappy American Bic ballpoint pens that seize up in the same groove (and inexplicably ONLY in that groove, no matter how many times you go back and rewrite) or just decide to quit mid-cartridge. Plus I’m not used to fountain pens (I clench the pen too far down the neck and get ink on my hands), and I cannot see the use of spending a few dozen dollars or so (or even much more — there seems to be a Rolex league for pens out there) for something I might leave in a pocket or on a table somewhere or lend to somebody, whatever.

The attitude is diametric in Japan, where I have friends who specifically prowl stationery stores just to find a particular model (with special buttons to advance the pencil lead, or twirl cartridges that give you up to six different colors or pen/pencil combinations, or ink that comes out in multicolors like Aquafresh toothpaste) that they’ve seen advertised in some stationery magazine (yes, magazines devoted to bunbougu!). Poohie to those who think pens should be disposable. I too find myself prowling my students during writing assignments to see what they’re twirling (rather gracefully) while thinking. You’re just not going to get this much attention to fine-point durable pens in many other countries, when you consider how precisely people have to write (what with the finesse of kanji), plus this rich a society with near-unbelievable attention to detail. Germany, perhaps. But definitely Japan.

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

FIVE) GROUP PROJECTS AND ATO KATAZUKE. Sure, we hear the downside of how working in groups makes situations inflexible and slow. But the good news is that when things work here, they really work, especially when the division of labor becomes automatic when faced with a project. Two examples come to mind:

One is whenever I was involved in setting up speeches and getting politically active in my former hometown of Nanporo (three essays on this here, here, and here). We’d rent a room at the local kumin center for a speech or town meeting, and a couple of friends on their own volition would always up early to help set up chairs and tables. Then when the proceedings were done, just about everyone would lend a hand in putting everything back exactly as they had found it before going home. I’ve done presentations overseas and found this phenomenon less frequent, if not nonexistent. “Hey, we paid an entry fee — you take care of the chairs. That’s what we paid you for,” is more the attitude. Sucks.

But my favorite example is when I was cycling between Sapporo and Abashiri via Wakkanai (yes, look at the map, it’s quite a ways) a few years ago. Here I was, soaking away in Japan’s northernmost onsen (Doumu), having accomplished the marathon cycle to Wakkanai (the last 68 kms between Teshio and Wakkanai is dry, so pack your own water — and pray for a tailwind). Suddenly, all the other cyclists (all half my age) and I had struck up a conversation about all the trials we went through getting up here too. An hour later, they were asking me where I was staying, and I pointed to the grassy knoll over yonder that looked like public space where I had set up my tent. They asked if they could join me (who was I to refuse?) and within minutes we had a tent city, and a bunch of kids who were perfect strangers not an hour ago deciding who was to make the fire, who would make the hot water, who would go on a beer run, who would collect the money for bento. etc etc. I couldn’t stay awake for the full project (I have a strict regimen: in bed by 8PM, up by 5AM when cycling; I’m old.), but this is the magic of people who automatically slot into roles when groups form, especially when those people are determined to have fun.

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

FOUR) PUBLIC TOILETS. One of the first things I miss about Japan whenever I go abroad are the public lavatories. Sure, they exist overseas; but they are frequently hard to find (I think shoppers overseas must have enormous bladders), and the free ones usually look like they’ve been been through Lebanon or Somalia. Japan, however, is uncanny at its ability to keep its toilets clean and unstinky. And free (take that, you French!). Sure, I hate it when I’m turtle-heading and can only find Japan’s squatter-types. But I also hate being trapped behind a door where chance entrants can see my trousers dangling around my ankles and peep through the cracks in the toilet-stall partition; I pucker. Besides, whenever I’m on the road for several weeks in Japan and need a time-out, I just head for the nearest handicapped toilet, steer in my Monolith suitcase, and camp for fifteen minutes. Ah, a room to myself; it’s like a love hotel for my tuckus. With the added bonus of:

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

THREE) TOILET CULTURE IN GENERAL. The Western flush toilet has survived remarkably unchanged since the days of Thomas Crapper. Like musket innovations in the 1600s, it took the Japanese to innovate toilets to include washlets (a quantum leap for those who tend to swaddle toilet paper until the bog chokes), with those lovely heated seats (overseas the flash-frozen toilet seats, not a shower or a cup of coffee, shocked me awake every morning) and hand-wash spouts on top of the tank.

Hey, when you’re not ashamed of your poop (it’s fair-game dinner-table conversation in Japan’s Working Class), you get creative. Japan, remember, is the place that shamelessly produced female urinals (which I cannot imagine anyone using; this is a nation where women waste immense amounts of water flushing while peeing to cover up the noise of their discharge; so add another innovation: flush-sounding noisemakers in their stead. But I digress…)

Anyway, shut the door, enjoy complete privacy (except for the grunting person next door; Japanese quack scientists claim that Japanese have the most fibrous turds in the world, therefore the lavatory lobby argues we cannot import toilets from overseas; no comment). And if somebody knocks to see if it’s occupied, just knock back twice; no voice needed (which helps when I do dumps at my university near students I’ll be teaching in a few minutes). Just be thankful if you skipped those traumatic years in Japanese grade school, when crapping is associated with smelliness, and kids wind up constipated just because they don’t want to make a stink.

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

TWO) SEXUALITY. Here’s where I’m going to get into trouble, but I’ll say it: Japan in terms of sexuality is surprisingly liberal. I’m not just talking about the love hotels (not sleazy or embarrassing, and privacy is at a high standard, notwithstanding the hidden cameras behind some mirrors). Nor am I just talking about the porn or near-porn (artists here love the female form and know how to depict it perfectly in line, see below) one sees on a daily basis. I’m talking about attitude. People keep sexual liaisons here quite quiet, as long as it’s not a matter of celebrity (which means it’s fair game, like just about anywhere in the world anyway).

Case in point: People don’t “take it upon themselves” to tell others “for their own good” that their boyfriend/girlfriend is sleeping with others (in fact, multiple partners here seem to be a national sport, especially when people are not married. Actually, I take that back…) Sex is a private thing, and the sore lack of sex education here notwithstanding (the learning curve here is pretty steep, and seems to inch younger every year), it’s between consenting people and only between them. Kubi o tsukomanai koto.

Sex is also something that people engage in, without requirement of marriage or love (whatever that means), or fear of birth control or abortion, etc. — all those things that force people into making irrational and life-changing decisions that they’ll regret later. In modern Japan, where average marriage ages just keep getting older, sex is just sex. As long as people are informed about possible outcomes (AIDS, STDs, etc) and precautions, I think that’s the attitude that one should have. And Japan has it, and provides safe, clean, and often informed outlets for it.

And if you think this is only a recent thing, compare the US with Japan in The United States vs. One Package of Japanese Pessaries [as in contraceptive diaphragms] (1936), where Japan could develop this form of contraception but the US couldn’t, due in part to the Comstock Act. Other countries have liberal attitudes too, of course (Scandinavia and Holland come to mind). But I’m here, and I see it. Like it or not (more for the NJ male of either sexual orientation, less the NJ female, admittedly), Japan a very sexy country.

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

ONE) ANIME. I’ve long admired Japanimation and comic art. Even though I never went all that deep; I still subscribe to 2000 AD and JUDGE DREDD THE MEGAZINE (British comics, think equal-opportunity former DANDY and BEANO reader too), as I have since both comics started, the former back in 1977, where I picked up the inaugural copy of 2000 AD from a London newsagent at age 12. But there’s just no resisting Japan’s clean lines, its sense of space and forcefulness, and its storyboard style of storytelling.

I knew for a long time that Japan’s Manga were underrated and deserved more attention overseas. Nowadays, Manga and Anime seem to be one of Japan’s largest cultural exports (the words have even entered the English language), with knockoffs surfacing all over Cartoon Network (I’ll admit it: I’m a big fan of POWERPUFF GIRLS, SAMURAI JACK, and just about anything by Genndy Tartakovsky). Resistance is futile.

But one of the knock-on effects of a society so consumed by comic art is that the general standards for line and face in the Japanese public are very high. I come from a society where the standard deviation for drawing talent is very high: you either get Pat Oliphants or stick figures, excellence or hopelessness. In Japan, however, consider this example:

I once gave a final exam where I had drawn a room on the answer sheet, and to test their spacial vocabulary skills, I said, “Under the table, draw Doraemon.” There were about 100 students. But EVERY student, save two, drew a clearly-recognizable Doraemon, many complete with spinner and collar bell and philtrum and whiskers. Some drew him airborne bumping his head on the table. Others had him can-canning, or waving his wand. I was overjoyed. The creativity (okay, cookie-cutter standardization for you cynical readers) within a set style was common to 98% of the students. Try getting people overseas to draw a recognizable Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Mickey Mouse, even just Felix the Cat, and you’ll see how comparatively low and underpracticed drawing skills tend to be.

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

…AND JUST ONE MORE:

ZERO) SILLY CUTE. Nobody quite combines silly and cute quite like Japan does. Yes, Alex Kerr lamented how the culture of cute was paving over genuine time-tested Japanese culture in his book LOST JAPAN (this is how bluenose Kyoto rubs off on people). But if you allow yourself not to get too curmudgeonly about it, there are lots of giggles and laughs to be had.

Where else are you going to get Marimokkori (they’re algae balls, for crissakes, with capes and endowments of a nonfinancial nature!)? Try resisting the Hello Kitty goods when she’s adopting regional clothes (love Pirika Kitty and the super-tacky Susukino Kitty) or dining habits. Lots more characters and amusing crap in Japan, just look around. And they’re even finding markets overseas.

The reverse isn’t as true. Disney notwithstanding (and even that has gotten ironic in recent decades to broaden its audience), the West just can’t do cute or silly without sarcasm seeping in. Even those who shoot for it: France’s Barbapappa just comes off as “easy to draw”, not cute. Finland’s oddly-shaped Moomin even has that evil-looking Myy character (Finland is just plain weird anyway). Even the BBC’s Teletubbies (which will give you a hernia if you argue their cuteness; they’re apparently good to watch while stoned) had a short shelf life. They would have lasted longer if they’d gotten a J-makeover and a firm J-market.

The way I see it: Camp is imbued with a sense of irony. Tacky and Kitsch both come off as cheap. And all eventually become tiresome. But Japan just keeps up the cute and silly and manages to (thanks to a lack of sarcasm here) remain unironic, with a straight face throughout. Hey, it’s cute, what’s not to like? As long as you keep the permutations coming, you never quite get sick of it. Because it’s tacky, kitschy, and campy all at the same time, but only we non-natives seem to realize it.

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

That’s the ten best. Merry Christmas, Debito.org readers. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

German movie SOUR STRAWBERRIES preview, with Debito interview

Posted on December 24, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I’ve been interviewed for a couple of documentary movies in the past. The first one came out in Germany a few months ago. Entitled SOUR STRAWBERRIES, about labor migration (“Japan’s hidden ‘guest workers'”) and human rights in Japan, one of the directors, Tilman Koenig, has this to say (in excerpt):

We had a German version of the documentary already done in September, and showed it in some cinemas arround here and had some very good reviews in newspapers. At this time we are working on the English and especially the Japanese version. Daniel [one of the other directors] will come to Japan in March 2009, so we are planning to show the documentary several times in March. The documentary is 58 Minutes long (45h of raw material) in the actual version…

The five-minute coming attractions reel is here, in English and Japanese:

http://www.vimeo.com/2276295

I’m thrilled to report that the interview with me was even in the coming attractions (watch to the end from the link above), which featured a little visit to Kabukichou where we uncovered some of the JAPANESE ONLY signs. Apparently a little tete-a-tete I had with one of the exclusionary shopkeeps was also included in full in the final cut.

If I hear word of where those screenings will be in March, I’ll let readers of Debito.org know. Happy Xmas Eve, everyone. Debito

Humor: Cracked Mag Online on unappetizing restaurants

Posted on December 23, 2008December 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Morning Blog. More humor for a national holiday: Some restaurants (according to Cracked Magazine, which I thought was a poor second cousin to Mad Magazine, until I started reading the cutting online version) that defeat their purpose by offering food in very unappetizing ways:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/9-restaurants-designed-to-ruin-your-appetite/

Now I don’t believe for a second that there is a place in Roppongi that allows you to diddle your meal before you eat it (in fact, I found this site due to a trackback to Debito.org exposing the source as the deep-sixed Mainichi Waiwai). But it’s still a good read, and I love the (what seems to be verified) idea of airborne meals even if it is a hoax. The entire idea is like the scene in the Bunuel movie “The Phantom of Liberty” switching meals and toilets (in fact, one of the featured restaurants specifically plays on that theme). It makes you think about something you do, often without really thinking about it, three times a day.

By the way, foreshadowing: The end of the year is a good time for reflection, and lists. I’m working on the top ten best and worst of Japan, as well as ten things that changed my world this year. I’ll have them out between Xmas and New Years. And my next Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column (due out January 6) will be on Japan’s top ten most important human rights advances in 2008. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Humor: Robin Williams stand-up comedy on Obama’s election

Posted on December 22, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. More festivities for the end of days. Here’s a very funny stand-up piece by Robin Williams (introduced by an oddly wheelchair-bound former Minister of Silly Walks) regarding Obama’s election and the outgoing Bush Administration. Courtesy again of Dave Spector. Enjoy. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

http://politicalirony.com/2008/11/30/robin-williams-on-obamas-election/

All registered NJ will in fact now get the 12,000 “economic stimulus” bribe

Posted on December 21, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Good news. After dallying with thoughts of excluding NJ taxpayers, then allowing only those NJ with Permanent Residency and Japanese spouses, the GOJ has just announced that all registered NJ will get the 12,000 yen-plus economic stimulus bribe. Seasons Greetings.

This is probably the first time NJ have ever been treated equally positively with citizens (save for, perhaps, access to Hello Work unemployment agency) with a voter stimulus package. See, it pays to complain. Articles courtesy of Wes and Sendaiben. Debito in Sapporo

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Gov’t to extend cash handouts to 2 mil registered foreign residents
Kyodo News Sunday 21st December, 07:00 AM JST
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/govt-to-extend-cash-handouts-to-2-mil-registered-foreign-residents

TOKYO — The government said Saturday it has decided to recognize 2 million foreigners registered as residents with local governments as of next Feb 1 as eligible for cash benefits it will hand out next year as a fiscal measure to spur private consumption.

The government will recognize foreigners registered as residents on the foreign registry as of Feb 1, 2009 as qualified recipients of the cash handout under the 2 trillion yen program, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

Among the 2 million recipients are permanent foreign residents, such as North and South Korean residents in Japan, as well as foreign workers of Japanese ancestry who have residential permits as migrant workers, the ministry said.

Foreigners studying at Japanese schools as well as foreigners accepted as trainees by Japanese companies are also recognized as qualified recipients.

Foreign tourists, foreigners overstaying their visas and other illegal aliens will not be recognized as legitimate recipients, the ministry said.

The administration of Prime Minister Taro Aso approved on Saturday a second supplementary budget that includes the handouts as its main pillar.

The ministry said Feb 1 is the set date for deciding on eligibility for the handouts for both Japanese citizens and registered foreigners. The number of recipients, including foreigners, will total 129 million.

Japanese citizens and foreigners will basically be given 12,000 yen per person, but an extra 8,000 yen will be given to recipients up to and including 18 years old as of the standard date, as well as to recipients 65 years old or older.

Local government officials will check on such recipients’ ages when the cash handouts are disbursed. This means that those receiving additional payouts must be young people born on Feb 2, 1990, or later and elderly people born on Feb 2, 1944, or before.

Feb 2 became the defining date because Japanese law adds one more year to a person’s legal age at midnight on the day before he or she is born, the ministry said.

Consequently, people whose 65th birthday falls on next Feb 2 are counted among qualified recipients of the cash.

The older qualified recipients will total 28 million, while young recipients up to and including 18 years old will number 22 million persons.

But babies who will be born exactly on next Feb 2 or after will not be recognized as qualified recipients, because the government is designating Feb 1 as the defining date for eligibility, it said.

The cash will be handed out through the offices of the local governments at which Japanese citizens or foreigners are registered as residents.

The payments assume that the second extra budget and other relevant bills will pass the Diet. They also assume that local assemblies will pass budgetary bills to cover expenses for administering the payments.

It is not yet known, therefore, whether the government will be able to hand out the cash benefits prior to next March 31 because deliberations on these bills may drag on.

ENDS

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定額給付金：支給基準日は来年２月１日　総務省

毎日新聞　2008年12月20日　18時39分（最終更新　12月21日　1時53分）

http://mainichi.jp/select/seiji/news/20081221k0000m010020000c.html

　総務省は２０日、定額給付金の支給基準日を来年２月１日にすると発表した。市区町村は２月１日時点の住民基本台帳を支給の基礎とする。基準日は来年１月１日か２月１日のいずれかで調整していたが、引っ越したにもかかわらず転居を市区町村に届けていない場合などを想定し、混乱を避けるには一定の期間が必要と判断した。

　定額給付金は１人１万２０００円で、６５歳以上の高齢者と１８歳以下の子供に対しては８０００円加算される。

　２月１日が基準日になったことにより、２月１日までに生まれた子供は支給対象になるが、２日以降では受け取れない。出生届の提出は２日以降であっても、受け取りに問題は生じない。支給をめぐっては、基準日に死亡するケースなども考えられるが、詳細な扱いはさらに検討する。

　加算に関しては、年齢計算に関する法律などの関係から「６５歳以上」には１９４４（昭和１９）年２月２日以前生まれの人が該当し、「１８歳以下」は９０年２月２日以降に生まれた人が対象になる。

　また外国人は、観光などの短期滞在や不法滞在者を除き、原則全員（約２０００万人）が支給対象になる。永住外国人や日本人の配偶者に加え、就労や留学目的で滞在する在留資格を持つ外国人なども受け取れる。外国人登録原票に基づき支給され、世帯主ではなくそれぞれが申請することになる。

　政府は０８年度第２次補正予算案として、給付金関係として事務経費８２５億円を含む総額２兆３９５億円を計上した。【石川貴教】

　■基準日にかかわるポイント

　▽支給窓口は来年２月１日現在で住民登録している市区町村

　▽支給対象に含まれるのは来年２月１日生まれまで

　▽８０００円加算の対象は（１）１９４４年２月２日以前生まれの高齢者（６５歳以上）（２）９０年２月２日以降生まれの子供（１８歳未満）

ends

Humor: “Beware of the Doghouse”: For you men with thoughtless gifts

Posted on December 20, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. First off-topic festive humor entry, particularly for hetero men readers out there:

What follows is a link to the “Beware of the Doghouse” website, something well worth looking at because it’s a smart, funny, and well-produced five-minute mini-movie about men who don’t think deeply enough about what sort of gift to give their wife/female partner.

http://bewareofthedoghouse.com/

Click on the movie projector at the site and let things spool away. I watched the video three times in succession, it was so good. Thanks to Dave Spector for sending me the link.

You’d also never guess who created it. I won’t spoil the surprise, but afterwards you just might realize how effective a marketing tool the Internet is becoming (this is too long and edgy for most TV, for example, and would cost too much to put anywhere else but online).

Just be careful about watching it with a woman. She will definitely relate to the female characters. And if you’re not careful, she might even add your name and picture to The Doghouse. (Yes, she can, you know.)

Enjoy! Debito in Sapporo

Start of Holiday Season: blog becomes less frequent and more festive

Posted on December 20, 2008December 20, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Morning Blog. With the holidays coming up (I bet many people are taking Monday off too and getting ready to travel), I’m sure you have better things to do than read socially-conscious stuff on a blog. Eat, drink, and be merry, and I’ll do the same (in more moderation; I’m already fat). I’ll try not to do daily updates, and will put up more amusing, off-topic, stuff between Xmas and New Years. Enjoy yourselves and we’ll get back to business in January. Happy holidays, everyone! Arudou Debito (stuck in Sapporo; Hokkaido economics don’t help one get out for Xmas)

Kyodo: NJ to be registered as family members (residents?) by 2012

Posted on December 19, 2008December 19, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Good news if this actually comes to fruition: The ludicrous system of registering NJ separately from J in residency certificates (juuminhyou) may be coming to an end. According a Kyodo article (that is too deficient in detail — Japan Times, do another article in depth, please!), we’ll start seeing NJ registered with their families in three years. And hopefully as real, bonafide residents too (even though this is still not clear thanks to Kyodo blurbing). At least we’ll see the end of the ridiculous gaikokujin touroku zumi shoumeisho and the invisible NJ husbands and wives. More on why the current registry situation is problematic here, including NJ being left out for tax-rebates, and not being included in official local government tallies of population. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

The Japan Times, Friday, Dec. 19, 2008

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081219a4.html

New registry rules for foreigners proposed

Kyodo News, courtesy of AW and Sendaiben

A government panel Thursday recommended creating a new system by 2012 to register foreign residents on a household basis, replacing the current individual-basis system, to better oversee their living conditions.

Japanese nationals are registered on a household basis.

In a report, the panel of experts under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications also recommended scrapping the current two-tier system in which the Justice Ministry handles immigration and stay permits, while local governments handle registrations of foreign residents, and called for a unified control system.

Based on the recommendation report, the internal affairs ministry will submit a bill for the envisaged foreigner registry system to an ordinary Diet session next year, ministry officials said.

The proposed steps are expected to help improve the welfare, education and other public services for foreign residents, but critics warn it could lead to increased surveillance.

The number of non-Japanese residents has topped 2 million, more than doubling in the past 20 years.

Under the current system, non-Japanese residents are registered with local governments on an individual basis. The new system is designed to register them on a household basis and the information will be shared by local governments across Japan.

An advisory panel to the justice minister recommended in March that local governments abolish the issuance of foreign registration certificates.

ENDS

Mainichi: USA to require visitors to register online before boarding planes

Posted on December 18, 2008December 18, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. This is only tangentally related to Debito.org (it’s about traffic going from Japan to the US), but as the Americans do policywise, so often does the Japanese Government. Here we have the last gasps of the Bush Administration trying to stick it to foreign visitors (fingerprinting and photography weren’t enough; the GOJ then copied it and went even farther), what with requiring people now to register online before they visit, or even get a boarding pass. As Japanese officials mildly protesteth (see Japan Times article below), the USG didn’t even bother with much of a publicity campaign for their program, leaving the burden on the airlines and the airports to deal with it. Let’s hope 1) this really puts off people travelling to the US, and 2) the GOJ doesn’t feel the itch to copy. Three articles follow — the Mainichi in English and Japanese, then the Japan Times with even better information. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Travelers to U.S. required to register online prior to boarding under new system

(Mainichi Japan) December 17, 2008, Courtesy of Jeff K

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20081217p2a00m0na002000c.html

Visitors traveling to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program will be required to register online prior to boarding from next January under the new Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).

Due to concerns that passengers unaware of the system will be unable to board their flights — largely due to a lack of proactive action by the Japanese government — the Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan (SAAJ) will be launching a new PR campaign to inform passengers about the system at Narita Airport on Thursday.

Currently, visitors are required to complete a visa exemption form while en route to declare any drugs possessed or criminal convictions. The ESTA — which will come into operation from Jan. 12 — will require prospective travelers to complete a survey of 20 or so similar questions online at least 72 hours prior to boarding. Carriers will then check each passport by its passport number to ensure the holder has permission to travel to the U.S. Those without authorization will be refused a boarding pass.

Once issued, the holder is allowed to travel to the U.S. for two years or until the passport expires, whichever comes first.

There are already computer terminals allowing Internet access at Narita Airport; however, there are no plans to have any more installed prior to the introduction of ESTA. And while Japan Airlines (JAL) and All Nippon Airways (ANA) have carried an explanation of the new system on their Web sites since July, fears over late applications or ignorance of the new system have prompted SAAJ to launch a campaign of leaflets and announcements at Narita Airport on Thursday.

ENDS

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

米入国審査：ネットで事前申請　忘れると搭乗不可－－来月１２日から

◇関係団体、ＰＲ

毎日新聞　2008年12月16日　東京夕刊

http://mainichi.jp/enta/travel/archive/news/2008/12/16/20081216dde001040039000c.html

米国にビザを持たず短期滞在（９０日以内）で入国する場合、来年１月１２日から、一部を事前にインターネットで申請して承認を受ける制度が導入される。しかし、この事前手続きが旅行者らにあまり知られていないため、空港に来て旅客機に搭乗できないなどのトラブルが続出することが懸念されている。国も積極的に広報しておらず、国内航空会社でつくる「定期航空協会」は１８日、成田空港でＰＲ活動を行う。【窪田弘由記】

◇空港混乱の恐れ

現在は薬物所持や逮捕歴などについての質問が書かれた「査証免除用フォーム」と呼ばれる紙に機内などで回答し、入国審査の際に手渡している。

米国は、来年１月１２日からテロリストらの入国を防止するため「米国電子渡航認証システム」（ＥＳＴＡ）を導入。こうした犯罪歴などにかかわる質問の一部について、事前にインターネットのサイトで回答し、米当局から承認を受ける手続きが必要になった。

具体的な申請方法は、米国土安全保障省の専用サイト（https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov）＝日本語版もあり＝にアクセスし、パスポート番号や過去の逮捕歴など約２０項目の質問について入力する。パスポートが有効期限内なら、承認は２年間有効。

米当局は搭乗の７２時間（３日）前までに手続きするよう求めている。航空各社は搭乗手続きの際、承認されているかをパスポートからチェックし、出発時間までに承認がない客は搭乗させない方針。成田空港にはインターネットに接続できる端末が一部には用意されてはいるが、航空各社は現時点では事前申請のために新たな端末は置かない方針。

出発直前の申請では認められないケースも出るといい、「空港で客とトラブルになる可能性もある」と懸念する。日本航空と全日空は７月から順次、自社のホームページでシステムの説明をしている。しかし、旅行客らの反応は鈍く、制度の浸透に不安があることから、定期航空協会は１８日午前９時、成田空港第１ターミナルで客室乗務員らがリーフレットを配って呼びかける。

◇「９・１１」で義務化

米国電子渡航認証システムの導入は、０１年９月の米同時多発テロを受けて制定された「９・１１委員会勧告実施法」に基づき義務づけられた。米国土安全保障省は概要を今年６月に発表。チャートフ長官は「渡航者が脅威をもたらすかどうかを、航空機に搭乗する前あるいは船舶が入港する前に審査することで、我が国と旅行者の安全を強化する」と説明。義務化を前に、８月からは自主的な申請も受け付けている。米国の駐日大使館も、大使館のサイトで概要説明している。【花岡洋二】

ends

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

New U.S. travel authorization plan has airlines on edge before launch
By ALEX MARTIN, Staff writer

The Japan Times Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081218a1.htmlA new border control system the United States will start using to screen short-term foreign travelers in January remains relatively unknown less than a month before launch, and people in the airline and tourism industries are worried the lack of awareness will wreak havoc at airports nationwide.

The new Electronic System for Travel Authorization requires travelers from Visa Waiver Countries who wish to stay in the U.S. for 90 days or less to use the Internet to apply for permission to enter the country three days before departure. Travelers with visas are not affected.

Those who come to the airport without ESTA authorization are likely to be forced to reschedule their flights or cancel, which is causing growing concern among airlines and travel agencies.

The system takes effect Jan. 12 and will replace the written application process used by those seeking visa-free stays. It will be valid for two years or until the applicant’s passport expires.

Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security initially announced plans for the ESTA system in June, public awareness still appears low, airlines and travel agencies said Wednesday.

“Airlines have been conducting PR activities through their Web sites and in-flight magazines, but it still seems little known to most people,” said Toshiya Shimada of the Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan.

The application is about 20 questions long and asks applicants if they have a criminal record or a history of drug abuse, and requests other basic biographical information. It must be submitted no later than 72 hours prior to departure

Shimada said the airline group, which includes Japan Airlines Corp. and All Nippon Airways Co., will distribute leaflets Thursday at Narita airport to boost awareness of the new system because the U.S. government doesn’t appear to be doing much to get the word out.

“We’d have appreciated it if the American Embassy had conducted a large-scale publicity campaign, but that doesn’t seem to be happening,” Shimada said, emphasizing that airlines stand to be the hardest hit by any confusion arising from ESTA.

The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said it has held briefings, two press conferences and several TV interviews in Japan to explain ESTA to the Japanese media and the travel agencies. It also said it has seen a noticeable bounce in advance applications and is encouraging travelers to prepare in advance.

Naoko Shimura of travel agency H.I.S. Co. agreed with Shimada and said the ESTA Web site itself threatens to pose difficulties for travelers with little computer skills.

“Since the online authorization involves personal information, we generally have our customers fill it out by themselves,” she said, noting the elderly and those unaccustomed to the Internet may find the process difficult.

According to the U.S. Embassy’s Web site, ESTA approval will be almost instantaneous in most cases. But in cases where applications are left pending, travelers will have to check the ESTA Web site for updates on their applications for the next 72 hours.

If an application is denied, it will prohibit the passenger from traveling under the VWP but will not affect one’s visa eligibility.

In the case of last-minute applications, Narita International Airport employee Eiichiro Takasu said Internet access is available through the airport’s wireless LAN network, provided that travelers have computers and a valid Internet service provider.

“JAL and ANA said they would provide their own PCs, although I’m unaware of the situation with other airlines,” he said.
ENDS

Tokyo High Court overrules lower court regarding murder of Lucie Blackman: Obara Joji now guilty of “dismemberment and abandonment of a body”

Posted on December 17, 2008December 17, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Serial rapist and sexual predator Obara Joji yesterday had his “innocent on the grounds of lack of evidence” lower court decision overturned by the Tokyo High Court, with Lucie Blackman’s rape and murder now added to his long list of crimes against women. A hair was split between actual murder and just doing nasty things to her corpse, but for people outraged about the rather odd consideration of evidence in this case (which I in the past have indicated might have something to do with a J crime against a NJ, as opposed to the opposite), this is a victory of sorts. Given that Obara got away with a heckuva lot before he was finally nailed (including some pretty hapless police investigation), I wonder if the outcome of his cases will be much of a deterrent to other sociopathic predators out there. Anyway, this verdict is better than upholding the previous one, of course. Two articles follow. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Guilty verdict ends Blackman family’s fight for justice
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/guilty-verdict-ends-blackman-familys-fight-for-justice-1192828.html
By David McNeill in Tokyo
The Independent. Wednesday, 17 December 2008

A Japanese businessman has been convicted of abducting Lucie Blackman and mutilating her body, ending an eight-year campaign by her family.

The millionaire property developer Joji Obara was cleared last year of raping and killing the 21-year-old British bar hostess in Japan in 2000. Yesterday the High Court in Tokyo agreed that there was insufficient evidence to convict him on these charges but ruled that Obara dismembered and abandoned her body.

Ms Blackman’s family said they were “delighted” by the higher court’s judgment but added that they were left with a bitter taste in the mouth after their long fight for justice through Japan’s drawn-out legal system.

Her mother, Jane Steare, sat weeping yards from Obara in court as the verdict was read out, an experience she called “very, very harrowing”. It was her first sighting of the man who used a chainsaw to mutilate her daughter’s body, which he then dumped in a cave south-west of Tokyo. On a previous court appearance, Obara had failed to show up.

After the verdict, she said: “At last we have two guilty verdicts and a life sentence for the crimes Obara committed against my wonderful Lucie. He’s got a life sentence and I think justice has been done.”

Her father, Tim Blackman, who lives on the Isle of Wight, said: “Although the result is not the absolute decision we had hoped for, it is still an obvious recognition of guilt. After such a long time it is clear that it was necessary for this protracted process to get any degree of result and some form of justice for Lucie, but it still leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.”

Ms Blackman’s sister, Sophie, 26, said: “It is not important exactly what he was charged with – what matters is that he is finally taking responsibility after all this time. I’m delighted.”

Ms Blackman, a former flight attendant, went to Japan in May 2000 and found a job as a hostess at a Tokyo nightclub. She vanished in July that year after telephoning her flatmate to say she was going out for the afternoon with a man. Her remains were found in a cave near Obara’s beachside condominium in February 2001 following an extensive search.

In April last year Tokyo District Court acquitted Obara of involvement in Ms Blackman’s death. But he was ordered to spend life in prison for a string of rapes and causing the death of an Australian woman. Tokyo High Court also upheld this sentence yesterday. Judge Hiroshi Kadono held that Obara’s actions left no room for leniency and said: “His action of damaging and abandoning her body was ruthless and did not even give the slightest consideration to her dignity.”

Police found hundreds of home-made videos in the businessman’s flat, showing him having sex with unconscious women, many of whom he met while cruising the Tokyo entertainment district where Ms Blackman worked.

However, although strong circumstantial evidence, including proof that he bought the chainsaw, apparently linked him to the death of the former air stewardess, there was no video recording of her rape.

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

The Japan Times, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008
High court: Obara buried Blackman
Serial rapist’s life term is upheld; abduction added to convictions
By SETSUKO KAMIYA Staff writer
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081217a1.html

The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday sentenced serial rapist Joji Obara to life in prison for kidnapping Briton Lucie Blackman and mutilating her corpse eight years ago, after a lower court acquitted him of the charges.

The high court also upheld the Tokyo District Court’s life sentence for Obara, 56, for nine other rape cases, including that of an Australian woman who died from an overdose of sleeping drugs Obara slipped her before the assault.

Dressed in a dark suit and brown-framed glasses, Obara nervously wiped his face with a blue handkerchief before the judge read out the 1 1/2-hour decision. As the ruling was being announced, Obara stared at the floor and remained motionless.

Obara was charged with six cases of rape, two cases of rape resulting in bodily injury, and rape resulting in the death of Australian hostess Carita Ridgway.

In the Blackman case, he was charged with kidnapping with intent to rape, attempted rape, and damaging and disposing of a body. He was not charged with murder or manslaughter, however, due to lack of evidence.

Prosecutors demanded a life term.

Presiding Judge Hiroshi Kadono said that while the court couldn’t find direct evidence that Obara raped Blackman, there was enough circumstantial evidence to conclude he abducted the 21-year-old from her residence in Shibuya Ward with the intention of drugging and raping her in July 2000.

The court also said that there was enough evidence to believe that Blackman died for some reason after Obara drugged her in his condominium in Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture, and that he dismembered her with a chain saw and buried her body parts in a cave near another condo he owned on the Miura coastline.

But the court said it was unable to determine exactly where Obara dismembered her corpse, except that it was in the vicinity of his condo.

The court also rejected Obara’s appeal in the Ridgway case and determined her death was caused by the chloroform Obara forced her to inhale, which caused her to die from fulminant hepatitis in 1992.

Afterward, Ridgway’s family issued a statement saying they welcomed the ruling.

“It is hoped that this finally brings an end to a process that began over eight years ago. The process has been prolonged because Obara refused to accept his guilt and has had access to significant financial resources which he used to fund his attempts to escape justice,” they said.

In April 2007, the Tokyo District Court sentenced Obara to life in prison for a string of nine rapes between 1992 and 2000, including Ridgway’s.

But the court acquitted him of all charges in the Blackman case, ruling that the circumstantial evidence linking him to her dismemberment and burial was not convincing enough to link him directly to her death.

Although the evidence included some 200 videotapes showing Obara engaging in sexual acts with his victims, Blackman was not among them, and the court said other evidence could not prove Obara was involved in any way with Blackman.

During appeal sessions that began in March, prosecutors said there was sufficient evidence showing Obara was involved in the Briton’s death.

Blackman’s dismembered corpse was found in February 2001 in a Miura cave near one of his condos. The prosecution argued that Obara raped her at his Zushi condo several kilometers away.

Prosecutors said he bought a chain saw shortly after the ex-British Airways flight attendant vanished in July 2000.

ENDS

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 16, 2008

Posted on December 16, 2008January 9, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 16, 2008
Table of Contents:
////////////////////////////////////////////////////
THINK OF THE CHILDREN…
1) Terrie’s Take on how NJ workers are the first to go in adverse economic conditions
2) Mainichi: Brazilian ethnic school closing due to NJ job cuts
3) Jason’s blog on next employment steps in Japan for NJ
4) Japan Times: Eric Johnston on Gunma NGO stopping ijime towards NJ students
5) AP: US court rules Japan has jurisdiction in child joint custody case
6) Sydney Morning Herald: Little Hope for Japan’s Abandoned Fathers

OTHER THINKS:
7) Grauniad: Japan comes down hard on Greenpeace whaling activists
8) Thoughts on seeing the Dalai Lama at the FCCJ Nov 3, 2008
9) Economist.com: Bilateral agreements to give US servicemen immunity from Japanese criminal procedure

… and finally…
10) Travelling around Japan in New Years’ and March. Want me to come speak?
////////////////////////////////////////////////////

By Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan
www.debito.org, debito@debito.org
Freely Forwardable

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

THINK OF THE CHILDREN….

1) Terrie’s Take on how NJ workers are the first to go in adverse economic conditions

Terrie’s Take November 3, 2008:

First to go have been the foreign workers in overseas plants. Two weeks ago, Nissan announced that it would cut its workforce by 1,680 people at its Barcelona assembly plant one of two major plants the company has in Europe. This is almost 1/3 of all the people working at that facility and represents the halting of one of the 3 production shifts. Sales of vehicles in Spain have plunged 24% in the last 9 months, and when the numbers finally come out at the end of the year, we expect that sales for this current quarter might be almost non-existent. Indeed, Peugeot has said that it expects a 17% fall in auto sales in Q4 in Western Europe. We think the final numbers will be worse and Japanese firms will share blood shed.

Certainly Toyota knows this, and so the company is laying off another category of “outsiders” non-permanent workers at its factories here in Japan. Apparently the company employs 6,800 contract workers, also known as fixed-term workers, a number which is 2,000 down from March and 4,000 down from the peak of 10,800 employed in 2004. Back then, non-permanents accounted for 30% of the company’s total workforce. The thing about these contract workers is that so long as they are employed for less than 36 months, then the company can flexibility lay them off in times of hardship as will many other companies around the country now that Toyota has set the pace.

In addition, in Q2, June-August this year, Toyota laid off an extra 8,000 temporary workers for a total of around 10,000 redundancies so far this year. Are you seeing these numbers in the major newspapers? Not really. This is probably because Japan’s number one advertiser is sitting on an estimated JPY4trn (US$40bn) of cash reserves (not including other assets) which make it difficult for the company to defend its actions in the Japanese context of being needed to be seen to be looking after your own. In this respect, the message clearly is that you need to be a full-time employee to be considered “one of the Toyota family”. Otherwise you’re just a squatter

So, given that there are at least 755,000 foreigners (as of 2006) working here in Japan, and probably another 350,000 or so working illegally, you can bet that this group will be another at-risk segment to lose their jobs. The AP article says that the government HELLO WORK centers used to get about 700 foreigners looking for jobs each month, but in August due to the massive layoffs by auto manufacturers, the numbers of foreign newly jobless people doubled to 1,500 a month. Local officials note that the number of Japanese applicants has not changed appreciably (yet) so clearly Toyota, Honda, and Yamaha are dumping on their Brazilian-Japanese and Chinese workers first.

https://www.debito.org/?p=2084

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2) Mainichi: Brazilian ethnic school closing due to NJ job cuts

Terrie Lloyd mentioned above about how the NJ workers are the first to go in any wave of job cuts (no wonder very few NJ ever get promotion beyond “temp”-style contract labor, despite working for years at full-time jobs). Now here’s an article in the Mainichi about how that’s having a negative impact on the NJ community, particularly the education of their children. Ethnic schools are starting to close as tuition dries up. What next for the NJ communities, always contributing yet kept as a mere appendage to the “real members” of this society?

https://www.debito.org/?p=2086

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3) Jason’s blog on next employment steps in Japan for NJ

A blog called “Jason’s Random Thoughts” has a thoughtful post for those NJ facing restructuring in Japan. Since it’s a recent theme on Debito.org, I thought I’d post an excerpt and a link here. I’ve posted (a bit irreverently) before on what sort of jobs are available for NJ, particularly those of the former Eikaiwa ilk. Link to that here. As for those of you seriously facing a job loss and a reassessment of your life in Japan with the economic downturn, Jason’s blog post is food for thought. Excerpt:

For almost two years we have heard how companies are shutting down all over the world in response to a slowing economy. Whether this is the ultimate result of corporate greed, globalization, out-sourcing, or something that can be understood only by leading economists, one thing is clear: our current employment is no guarantee of future security. Of course, facing the prospect of unemployment is scary for everyone, but it’s particularly painful when living in a foreign country

https://www.debito.org/?p=2090

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4) Japan Times: Eric Johnston on Gunma NGO stopping ijime towards NJ students

Japan Times on bullying of NJ schoolchildren and an NGO’s effort to stop it:

Nationwide, there are more than 25,000 foreign children in schools. The majority are believed to be Brazilians, followed by Chinese. Truancy among foreign children, who are often bullied because they are different or don’t speak Japanese, has become a concern in recent years, especially in prefectures like Gunma and in the Chubu region where large numbers of foreigners reside.

Local governments and the central government both say more needs to be done to integrate foreign children into Japanese schools. But they are often at odds over what exactly should be done and who should take the lead. The central government has long urged local governments to do more, while cash-strapped local governments say there is little more they can do unless Tokyo formulates a national policy and provides funds for assistance.

Human rights activists note a fundamental reason for truancy among foreign children is that they are not required by law to attend public school, which means those who drop out due to bullying or other reasons are not legally obliged to return. The education ministry’s position is that while public schools cannot turn away foreign children, they don’t have to make sure they’re in class.

“Revising the Compulsory Education Law to insure foreign children are covered is a top priority for Japan,” NGO leader McMahill said…

https://www.debito.org/?p=2092

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5) AP: US court rules Japan has jurisdiction in child joint custody case

AP: The Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s courts have no jurisdiction over a custody dispute involving a 6-year-old boy, leaving the issue to a Japanese court.

In the ruling issued Friday, the court said a Douglas County district judge had no authority to grant joint custody of the boy to his divorced parents, even though the boy was born in Nebraska and had lived here while in the U.S.

The court determined that under custody law, the child’s residence is considered to be in Japan.

COMMENT: We should hope the Japanese courts would be so impartial. But they aren’t. Contrast with the Murray Wood Case, where international children kidnapped from British Columbia (whose courts granted the Canadian father custody) were deemed unremovable from Japan. And are American courts so ignorant to not know (or was Mr Carter’s legal defense so inept to not point out) that Japan does not recognize joint custody, full stop? Mr Carter will not get a fair trial in Japan. No child kidnapped to Japan as of yet has been returned to the NJ parent by a Japanese court. He’s lost his kid. Full stop.

https://www.debito.org/?p=2081

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6) Sydney Morning Herald: Little Hope for Japan’s Abandoned Fathers

The story about Japan as a safe haven for internationally abducted kids spreads from Canada to the US to Australia, this time in the Sydney Morning Herald. And this time, the crank lawyer, a Mr Onuki, who claimed that “90 per cent of cases in which the Japanese women return to Japan, the man is at fault, such as with domestic violence and child abuse”, finally gets a response (which the Mainichi printed without counter, thanks). Meanwhile, the GOJ just keeps on dithering on the Hague Convention. It’s one of Japan’s worst-kept secrets. But not for long at this rate. Keep on exposing.

https://www.debito.org/?p=2095

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OTHER THINKS…

7) Grauniad: Japan comes down hard on Greenpeace whaling activists

Grauniad on how the GOJ will treat activists it wants to make an example of: Subject them to the full force of the NPA:

Two Greenpeace activists who face years in prison for investigating corruption in Japan’s whaling industry have condemned their arrests as politically motivated on the eve of an unprecedented campaign to end the country’s whale hunts.

Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki were arrested in June, two months after intercepting 23kg of whale meat at a warehouse in northern Japan that they said had been stolen by crew members from the Japanese whaling fleet’s mother ship for sale on the black market.

They are now waiting to stand trial early next year, and if convicted face up to 10 years in prison.

“At the time I was arrested I wasn’t too concerned as I was focusing on our investigation,” Sato, 31, told the Guardian yesterday at the Tokyo offices of his legal team.

“But if we are convicted, then of course I will be worried about my wife and child. It would also raise serious questions about Japan’s commitment to human rights. We have already been detained for 26 days, which is very unusual for someone facing first-time charges of theft.”

The ferocity with which prosecutors have made their case against Sato and Suzuki has astonished Greenpeace officials and human rights activists.

During their time in police custody, the men say they were strapped to chairs and interrogated for up to 12 hours a day. No lawyers were present and the interviews were not recorded…

https://www.debito.org/?p=2087

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8) Thoughts on seeing the Dalai Lama at the FCCJ Nov 3, 2008

Some thoughts about seeing one of the world’s masters of activism: The Dalai Lama at the FCCJ on November 3, 2008. How he’s able to be an activist yet retain a largely positive image, and be listened to worldwide despite the antipathetic media from the world’s most populous country. And I add some subsidiary thoughts on the media’s role, however unintentional, in bleaching the message’s effectiveness.

https://www.debito.org/?p=2091

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9) Economist.com: Bilateral agreements to give US servicemen immunity from Japanese criminal procedure

Economist.com: In Jane’s view, the first rape went unpunished: Mr Deans remains at large. So she turned her attention to the “second rape”. She sued the Kanagawa police for a bungled investigation that denied her proper justice. In December 2007 the court ruled against her, stating that the police had fulfilled their responsibilities. She appealed the decision.

Jane’s ordeal underscores the clumsiness of Japan’s police force. In several recent high-profile cases, the police have coerced confessions from suspects. It also highlights the lack of a tradition of individual rights in the country, and the often thinly reasoned rulings of Japanese courts. And it fits the pattern that in many crimes by American servicemen, the Japanese authorities fail to press charges.

But the reason why cases like Jane’s are not prosecuted may have less to do with incompetent police and more because of a secret agreement between America and Japan in 1953 that has recently come to light.

In September 2008, Shoji Niihara, a researcher on Japanese-American relations, uncovered previously classified documents in the U.S. National Archives. They show that in 1953, soon after Dwight Eisenhower assumed the presidency, John Foster Dulles, his secretary of state, embarked on a massive programme to get countries to waive their jurisdiction in cases of crimes by American servicemen.

https://www.debito.org/?p=2089

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

… and finally…

10) Travelling around Japan in New Years’ and March. Want me to come speak? Join me for beers?

I’m planning a winter schedule. So far, I have two definite dates for speeches:

===================================
UPCOMING SPEECHES 2009

Tues March 17, 2009, evening speech in Tokyo at Amnesty International AITEN group (TBD)
Thurs March 19, 2009, 1PM to 3PM, Shiga University, annual guest speaker at their Japanese popular culture course for exchange students. (CONFIRMED)
===================================
https://www.debito.org/?page_id=1672

Once I get a couple of firm dates, I usually cast the net about to see if anyone is interested in having me speak on a topic of their choice (see what’s been done at https://www.debito.org/publications.html#SPEECHES ) on surrounding dates. This way, people can save on travel expenses (it’s not cheap getting out of Hokkaido).

Interested? Please drop me a line at debito@debito.org.

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

That should do it for this Newsletter. We’ll probably get one more out as a holiday special before the end of the year. Thanks for reading!
Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org
www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 16, 2008 ENDS

Sydney Morning Herald: Little hope for Japan’s Abandoned Fathers

Posted on December 16, 2008May 27, 2010 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. The story about Japan as a safe haven for internationally abducted kids spreads from Canada to the US to Australia, this time in the Sydney Morning Herald. And this time, the crank lawyer, a Mr Onuki, who claimed that “90 per cent of cases in which the Japanese women return to Japan, the man is at fault, such as with domestic violence and child abuse”, finally gets a response (the Mainichi printed it without counter, the rotters). Meanwhile, the GOJ just keeps on dithering on the Hague Convention. It’s one of Japan’s worst-kept secrets. But not for long at this rate. Keep on exposing. Courtesy of Paul Wong. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Little hope for Japan’s forsaken fathers

Abandoned … George Obiso, at his Gold Coast home, has held onto the books and videos his children left behind when their mother abducted them.
Photo: Steve Holland

The Sydney Morning Herald, December 8, 2008

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/little-hope-for-japans-forsaken-fathers/2008/12/07/1228584656277.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Denial of child abduction as a crime is hurting those left behind, writes Justin Norrie in Tokyo.

FOUR years ago George Obiso’s former wife took his two young sons on a six-week holiday to Japan and never came back.Mr Obiso, 42, still recalls anxiously watching the clock in his Gold Coast home as he waited for their mother, Sachi Shimada, to return them on the designated day.

“I waited and waited. I kept listening out for their voices at the door, but they never came. Sachi had no intention of ever bringing them back,” says Mr Obiso, of Southport, who had split from his Japanese wife the previous year after she became depressed and withdrawn.

“Her family moved out of their Yokohama home, disconnected the phone and disappeared somewhere into Japan, so I couldn’t find them or even talk to my sons.

“It’s been four years. I’ve missed a large part of their childhood and I’m starting to doubt I’ll ever see them again. It’s been a horrible, horrible nightmare.”

Even if he found Anthony, now 12, and Jorge jnr, 8, Mr Obiso would be unlikely to get much sympathy from Japan’s family law courts. For almost 30 years, Japan has resisted pressure from other Group of Seven nations to sign the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction; as such its judiciary does not recognise parental child abduction as a crime.

Mr Obiso is one of hundreds of “left-behind” parents from international marriages whose children have been abducted by a spouse who in effect enjoys immunity in Japan from prosecution by local authorities.

The Hague convention, which has been signed by every other developed country, requires the “prompt return of children who have been abducted from their country of habitual residence”. Since it took effect, foreign parents have spent millions of dollars working their way through Japan’s bureaucratic court system in an effort to see their children again and take them home. No court has ever ruled in their favour.

Many more Japanese parents have been affected. There is no tradition of dual access, so when parents separate, one gets custody while the other typically never sees the children again.

Colin Jones, a professor at Doshisha University Law School in Kyoto, believes that Japan is essentially “a haven for parental child abduction”. This is largely because Japanese courts are entrenched in a national bureaucracy whose goal is to ratify “the status quo, particularly in child custody and visitation cases, where courts have few, if any, powers to enforce change”.

Because there is no substantive law defining the best interests of the child in cases of parental separation, ratifying the status quo invariably means deciding in favour of the parent who already has custody.

The problem is compounded in cases where there are allegations of abuse, as Paul Wong can attest. After the death of his Japanese wife, Akemi, from cancer in 2005, the US lawyer, 42, left his daughter Kaya, now 5, with her maternal grandparents in Kyoto and made fortnightly visits from Hong Kong, where he was working, while he looked for a job in Tokyo.

“I promised my wife before she died I would make sure Kaya knew her Japanese cultural heritage and her grandparents, so I decided to honour that and live with her in Japan,” he says. “Just as I was about to move to Tokyo, Akemi’s parents hit me with a lawsuit alleging I had sexually assaulted my own daughter. The lawsuit was full of so many crazy, disgusting lies. Akemi’s friends told me they blamed me for her death, and that’s why they wanted to take Kaya away.”

The court found the claims could not be substantiated by evidence, but ruled that custody should be given to the grandparents anyway.

“This has done irreparable harm not just to me, but to a sweet, innocent child,” says Mr Wong. “It’s gut-wrenching, but I simply can’t give up hope.”

Japanese family lawyers say allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence are common in parental child abduction cases. In a recent article in Mainichi Shimbun, a prominent family lawyer, Kensuke Onuki, said he opposed Japan signing the convention because “in more than 90 per cent of cases in which the Japanese women return to Japan, the man is at fault, such as with domestic violence and child abuse”. Whereas women can’t easily provide evidence of the abuse, he says, the men rarely have trouble drumming up attention in the media.

For fathers like Mr Wong, this claim “is insulting. It simply doesn’t make sense. If it’s the voices of foreign fathers that get heard, then why is it that not one foreigner has had his child returned to him? Not one – ever.”

“A lot of people are getting fed up with the way Japan is running around the world lobbying for diplomatic support over the few Japanese abductees to North Korea, when the country is permitting hundreds of its own citizens to do the same thing to foreign parents in broad daylight.”

In September, after a newspaper report claimed Japan would sign the convention as soon as 2010, the Australian embassy in Tokyo sent a “formal government-to-government communication … commending them and offering assistance,” an embassy official said.

But Japan’s Foreign Ministry subsequently distanced itself from the report. A spokesman said the Government was still considering signing the convention but had not made a decision.

ENDS

Oyako-Net Candlelight vigil for abducted children to Japan after divorce Dec 18 7PM Shinjuku

Posted on December 15, 2008December 15, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Oyako-Net’s World Wide Candle Light Vigil in Tokyo
Let’s get together and send our love to our estranged children!

When: Dec 18, 2008 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Where: In front of Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku
http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/TMG/map..htm

(If you have a trouble in finding us, please contact Mashito-san 090-6139-8609.)
Please bring a search light and a picture of your child..

The police will not allow neither to use candles nor to organize a public assembly with more than a few people in the park.

No freedom of speech, nor freedom of assembly.

We cannot enjoy basic human rights in this country.
(Today, Dec 10, is the World Human Rights Day when the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights was adopted and proclaimed 60 years ago.)

We will keep fighting until the day when children will enjoy their rights to be loved by both parents.

Please join us & Please spread the word!
Ayumi Temlock

Pet peeve: How media casting choices based upon ethnicity contribute to cultural ignorance.

Posted on December 15, 2008December 16, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I thought I’d write today about one of my pet peeves: people substituting ethnicity for skills, and adding to the general public’s ignorance about Japan.

What pulled my chain this time: I watched an hourlong Discovery Channel program early last Sunday morning at midnight (a show called “Japan Revealed” in a series entitled “Discovery Atlas”), and on it they had a show full of stereotypes. From where I started watching, we went for a dive amongst some underwater ruins off Yonaguni Island which are purportedly older than the Egyptian Pyramids. Then suddenly we were jerked across the archipelago to attend a series about robots fighting (along with some hooey about how Japanese religion sees souls in everything, therefore Japanese like robots more). Then next we veered into a segment about Ama pearl divers and their dying tradition, and then careened into a bit about some fisherman trying to catch his once-or-twice-a-year big tuna “by tradition” (including “traditional” radar fish tracking, of course; with little time devoted to the majority of thousands of tuna actually brought to Tsukiji by “less traditional methods” — like imports). Then we coasted into a tattoo artist’s parlor for a lowdown on how radical one master artist has become by defying tradition — mixing seasons on his Yakuza body canvasses. At this point, I said, “What’s next? Geisha?” Yup. We skimmed a few stones over a fan dance, and then concluded how Japan’s special appreciation for nature and tradition and modernity makes it a special place (oh, brother).

I wish they’d just stuck with the underwater ruins off Yonaguni (which the show claimed could “rewrite world history”), and stopped retreading the same old hackneyed (and, crucially, unrevealing) images about Japan.

But what really got me revved up were the production values. Every time they had somebody talking in Japanese, the English voiceover came across as Hollywoodesque Ah-so-istic (think Mr Moto, Mr Miyagi, Grasshopper, or a few notches below Tokyo Rose in skill level). Moreover, who was the narrator? Masi Oka, one star of TV show “Heroes“, who showed his inability to speak Japanese reflecting even a rudimentary knowledge of Japan (saying words like “YaKUUza” and “Two-ki-ji”). He was hired not only for star power, but also ethnicity. Only Asians can talk about Asia, I guess.

You might be able to justify this kind of casting for comedy or satire, I suppose. Hire a token Asian and you can get away with poking more fun at Asia. But there are limits. People like Gedde Watanabe and Sab Shimono narrated the famous Simpsons’ “Mr Sparkle” episode (where Hokkaido soap factories, natch, were prominently featured 😉 ). Fine. But their Japanese was terrible, and I mean lousy (not even “Kitchen-Japanese” level). At least King of the Hill hired native speaker Matsuda Seiko (albeit to say one word: “Dansu!”) for their controversial (and, I have to admit, very funny) “Returning Japanese” Tokyo Trip episode. And even taboo-humor South Park shows a lot of moxie (and surprising depth: obviously they were coached both in terms of content and vocals by a native, I think Trey Parker’s boyfriend) in their episodes about video games and the marketing of Pokemon (“chinpoko-mon“: Love it).

But the Discovery Channel should be held to higher standards, especially if they’re doing a documentary to help people somehow “discover” a country in an hour. Instead, the program rankled, as though I was watching a condensed version of equally-irritating “Karate Kid” (indicatively retitled “Besuto Kiddo” for the Japanese market), or, put in a different light, (British) Robin Hood being played by (a very American) Kevin Costner (which caused no end of consternation in the UK). Let’s at least have less poetic license in nonfiction, please.

In the interests of full disclosure, I’ll give one more inside reason why this irks me: In 1991, as I was about to graduate from grad school, I did a lot of job interviews for American companies (particularly the kitchen-sink importers around San Diego, since at the time that was where I wanted to stay, not work in Los Angeles, Chicago, or the East Coast). Since I was trained in doing business in Japan, and spoke Japanese, I was hopeful that I would be on an equal footing with other job candidates. However, the Nikkei Americans in my classes, some of whom spoke no better (or, in some cases, worse) Japanese than I did, were making the case in their interviews and cover letters that their Asian roots were an asset. “Asians don’t like negotiating with foreign faces. Wouldn’t you prefer to hire a person with the right face for the job?” wrote one in paraphrase. The (non-Asian) employers bought into it. And I lost out to the Nikkei. So for the record: Japan has no monopoly on racism; it’s just a shame that the Americans couldn’t see beyond theirs when their “culturally-relativistic” weak spots got manipulated thusly.

I wound up coming back to Japan and getting much better employment in the end, so all’s well in retrospect. But I still dislike seeing casters with high public exposure choosing people not according to skill or knowledge level, instead rather whether or not they “look Asian”. Ethnicity should not be seen as a skill, or viewed as some kind of ideological conveyer belt into “The Ethnic Mind”. It’s not. Especially when those people haven’t even bothered to learn “The Ethnic Language”. That’s a personality quirk I have which comes out every now and again, when I see just how much this dynamic contributes to further stereotyping and ignorance towards Japan, videlicet this deeply-flawed Discovery Channel documentary.

Let’s have better-informed commentary about cultural issues, shall we, by choosing properly-qualified people? End of rant. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

PS: “Japan Revealed”‘s official website at http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/atlas/japan/japan.html

Japan Times: Eric Johnston on Gunma NGO stopping ijime towards NJ students

Posted on December 14, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s an article from the JT regarding bullying of NJ schoolchildren, and grassroots efforts to ameliorate it. Yet another helpful bit of journalism from the Japan Times, well done. Get in touch with these people if you’re having a problem in school. Debito in Sapporo

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

An NGO reaches out to bullied foreign kids

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081128f2.html

By ERIC JOHNSTON Staff writer

The Japan Times Friday, Nov. 28, 2008

KYOTO — Bullying is widely recognized as a problem affecting Japanese children. But non-Japanese kids and their parents who are also harassed can have a particularly hard time finding either sympathy or practical advice in their native language.

Now, the Gunma Prefecture-based nongovernmental organization Multilingual Education Research Institute is reaching out to non-Japanese parents and students throughout Japan, as well as to concerned Japanese who want to stop the bullying of foreign children.

The Ijime (Bullying) Zero campaign provides a number of services, including a telephone hotline and a Web page with advice in English, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.

“No one in Japanese education is talking about the xenophobic aspects of bullying. There is a need to train people to be aware and to do something,” said Cheiron McMahill, president of the International Community School in Tamamura, Gunma Prefecture, and head of the institute.

McMahill noted that while the government assists Japanese victims of bullying, there are fewer resources for foreign children in their native language. To fill the void, the institute is using its Ijime Zero campaign to offer three kinds of assistance.

First is a multilingual forum where foreign children and their families can disclose their concerns and help each other. Second, educators nationwide, Japanese and non-Japanese alike, who have foreign students can get information and assistance on dealing with bullies. Third, anybody who wishes may borrow, for the price of return postage, multilingual literature and DVDs on dealing with bullies. About 3,000 items are available for lending, McMahill said.

“Revising the Compulsory Education Law to insure foreign children are covered is a top priority for Japan,” McMahill said.

Last year, a government survey revealed that at least 1 percent of foreign children living in Japan did not attend school, but because the whereabouts of 17.5 percent of children in Japan registered as foreigners was unknown, the real truancy figure is probably much higher.

“The different languages that foreign children speak need to be seen as a resource for Japanese society as a whole, not as a problem to be solved. Having foreign children in the classroom helps Japanese children become more multicultural, and that will pay benefits for all when they grow up and go out into the world,” McMahill said.

For more information on the Ijime Zero campaign and the kinds of assistance available to international parents and children, visit the Multilingual Education Research Institute’s Web site atwww.ijimezero.org

ENDS

Thoughts on seeing the Dalai Lama at the FCCJ Nov 3, 2008

Posted on December 13, 2008December 13, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I meant to write down a few thoughts earlier, but today’s a light day, so I might as well use it productively, and get to something I’ve been meaning to write about for some time now: learning activism from the experts.

I attended the Dalai Lama’s speech at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan on November 3, 2008. As a person who loves public speaking and presentations, I thought I’d just offer what I gleaned from a world-famous speaker and public figure:

In his two-hour speech with Q&A, he demonstrated many of the hallmarks of an effective activist: Optimistic, poignant, informed with the points he wanted to get across that day, yet self-effacing, making jokes (and laughing at them if necessary), moreover avuncular and retiring (something the more elderly activists have in their favor). He was sure to deny his divinity (this was what some members of a skeptical Western audience I believe expected), even have his given name included as part of the FCCJ’s program. While making a number of subsidiary points, even aiming for a few laughs, he still got his main (and important) points across. See them from an article in the Japan Times here.

But that’s the thing about activism: how tied our hands are when trying to get our message across to a worldwide audience. There is no substitute for seeing people do their thing live and in full. I’ve noticed time and time again the difference between “live and Memorex”, or, rather, live vs. filtered through the media.

I first noticed that when PM Koizumi gave his first Diet speech after September 11, 2001, in which he first announced his anti-terrorism plans in the Upper House on September 28. I was there in the Gallery listening live. It was a rousing speech, delivered with panache and conviction. And although I am very unhappy with what eventually came out of this anti-terrorism putsch (particularly because it singled out NJ as terrorists), I was also discomfited with how his speech was chopped up and served to the public by the media.

Almost always what reaches the public is a pale imitation of what was said and, often more importantly, how it was said: Quotes lifted out of context or without surrounding disclaimers and qualifiers. Editorial constraints or bents bleaching out the humanity of the speaker (or even, sometimes, the accuracy of the speech itself). It’s the Telephone Game, where the more steps removed the speaker and the end-listener are, the more distortion enters the message.

It’s not necessarily anyone’s fault. In a busy world where we cannot be everywhere at once, it’s generally impossible to get information directly through the source unfiltered and unscathed. This is probably not the media’s intention, but we as listeners have to be skeptical of media, or at least of getting our information entirely from one source.

I experienced that firsthand and repeatedly in how we and our arguments were portrayed in the media in the Otaru Onsens Case (that’s why we have a website for people to have direct access). We were winning the debate, then losing (thanks to government undercurrents and policies targeting NJ for political and budgetary reasons), then we ultimately won — both in court and largely in the court of public opinion. But not handily enough for us to make sure it never happened again — by getting that law we wanted against racial discrimination. An anti-discrimination law with enforcement mechanisms is truly the Brass Ring. I’m just not equal to the task.

But somebody like the Dalai Lama is. I’m trying to learn from the best, and the Dalai Lama is clearly doing better than average. He’s got a pretty good image worldwide despite an entire antipathetic newsagency speaking to a fifth of the world’s population. In sum, as I saw at the FCCJ, The Dalai Lama a master of controlling his Truth Octane. He’s active while avuncular, critical yet not alienating — and he gives his information with the right amount of sugar-coating. In other words, he makes activism fun, yet still gets his message across.

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

PS: For another wonderful example of how disarming the Dalai Lama is, check out Pio D’Emilia’s report on him for Sky24, Italian TV last Nov 2. Never mind about it being in Italian: The trick is to make yourself more accessible despite language barriers. That happens, as you’ll see in the opening segment.

http://tg24.sky.it/tg24/mondo/2008/11/02/Dalai_Lama_a_SKY_TG24_Deluso_per_i_rapporti_con_la_Cina.html

ends

Jason’s blog on next employment steps in Japan for NJ

Posted on December 12, 2008December 12, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. A blog called “Jason’s Random Thoughts” has a thoughtful post for those NJ facing restructuring in Japan. Since it’s a recent theme on Debito.org, I thought I’d post an excerpt and a link here.

I’ve posted (a bit irreverently) before on what sort of jobs are available for NJ, particularly those of the former Eikaiwa ilk. Read that here. As for those of you seriously facing a job loss and a reassessment of your life in Japan with the economic downturn, Jason’s blog post is food for thought. Props to Sendaiben.

Excerpt:

For almost two years we have heard how companies are shutting down all over the world in response to a slowing economy. Whether this is the ultimate result of corporate greed, globalization, out-sourcing, or something that can be understood only by leading economists, one thing is clear: our current employment is no guarantee of future security. Of course, facing the prospect of unemployment is scary for everyone, but it’s particularly painful when living in a foreign country.

Here in Japan, a number of private language schools have shut down due to this slowing economy, and others are struggling. The larger companies are starting to offer discounts as high as 40%, and language instructors are beginning to lower their private lesson rates in a bid to stave off their own financial troubles. But how long can a person do this before it’s no longer realistically viable?

This aside; hundreds of thousands of foreigners will be forced to ask one or both of the following questions:

Is it time to go back?

Am I prepared to take “living in Japan” to the next level if the current job disappears?

I’ve been thinking about the second question far more than the first, as I have no intentions on leaving Japan. Reiko and I are quite happy here, and we hope to stay for at least another quarter century before considering relocating. But many colleagues and acquaintances have been leaving the country in droves since the fall of Nova. Not only has it become more difficult to find work as a language instructor, but it has become next to impossible for many to secure a nice contract position that offers a healthy completion bonus.

So what options do foreign workers have if they wish to continue to live and work in Japan?

Assessing Our Strengths

Rest at http://www.j2fi.net/2008/12/10/unemployed-gaijin/

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Economist.com: Bilateral agreements to give US servicemen immunity from Japanese criminal procedure

Posted on December 11, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I’ve covered this case on Debito.org before, but here’s something with a little more depth from The Economist Newsmagazine. Seems that some perpetrators are more privileged than others. Greenpeace activists get zapped while American servicemen, according to the article below, get off lightly in Japanese police work and jurisprudence. By bilateral geopolitical agreement. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Dec 10th 2008
From Economist.com, Courtesy AW

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12756824

Crime without punishment in Japan

THIS story is of no material importance to Japan. It is the story of Jane. And it is a story of a very small, dark sliver of 20th century geopolitics that festers still.

Jane is an attractive, blonde 40-something Australian, resident for many years in Japan and a mother of three boys. She is also the victim of a rape. Jane is not her real name.

She is actually the victim of two violations. The physical one was committed on April 6th 2002 near the American naval base at Yokosuka by Bloke T. Deans, an American serviceman. He violently raped her in her car.

What Jane refers to as her “second rape” happened afterwards, when she reported the crime to the Kanagawa prefectural police. There, she alleges that she was interrogated for hours by six policemen, who mocked her. At a later meeting, they laughed and made crude sexual comments. She was initially denied medical treatment, water and food. Jane was denied a receptacle to keep a urine sample—key forensic evidence in a rape. After four hours, all she could do was relieve herself on a cold police toilet and cry. The police made no attempt to preserve sperm or DNA on her body.

Her torment at the hands of the police so amplified the trauma of the evening that she actually tried to dial emergency services to report that she was being held against her will at the station, but an officer ripped the phone from her hand. Ultimately she was kept in custody for some 12 hours following the crime, before having to drive herself home.

The police located the assailant, Mr Deans, of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, but for reasons that remained unclear, no charges were filed against him.

Jane, however, filed and won a civil case against him: a Tokyo court ordered him to pay ¥3m (around $30,000) in November 2004. But unbeknownst to Jane or the court, soon after the suit was filed, the American navy had quietly discharged Mr Deans, who returned to America and disappeared. Later, she received compensation from Japan’s Ministry of Defence, out of a discreet fund for civilian victims of crimes by American military personnel.

In Jane’s view, the first rape went unpunished: Mr Deans remains at large. So she turned her attention to the “second rape”. She sued the Kanagawa police for a bungled investigation that denied her proper justice. In December 2007 the court ruled against her, stating that the police had fulfilled their responsibilities. She appealed the decision.

On October 28th 1953, a Japanese official, Minoru Tsuda, made a formal declaration to the United States (not intended for public disclosure), stating, “The Japanese authorities do not normally intend to exercise the primary right of jurisdiction over members of the United States Armed Forces, the civilian component, or their dependents subject to the military law of the United States, other than in cases considered to be of material importance to Japan.”

In other words, Japan agreed to ignore almost all crimes by American servicemen, under the hope that the military itself would prosecute such offences—but with no means of redress if it did not.

This helps explain the perplexing, toothless approach of the Japanese police and prosecutors even today in cases of crimes by American military personnel. When Mr Niihara first made the documents public in October, a senior Japanese official denied any such agreement, but in words so mealy-mouthed that it raised suspicion.

Japan’s landmark accord with the United States over troops stationed in the country, called the Status of Forces Agreement, was signed in 1960. Article XVII.1b states: “The authorities of Japan shall have jurisdiction over the members of the United States armed forces, the civilian component, and their dependents with respect to offences committed within the territory of Japan and punishable by the law of Japan.”

But in practice the Japanese do not exercise their authority. Jane’s case was just one of many in which the Japanese authorities opted to look the other way. This has nothing to do with the specifics of her case; it stems from an intergovernmental security protocol negotiated a half-century earlier.

Why did America fight so hard in 1953 to maintain control of criminal cases involving its boys? The documents do not say, but provide a clue: in numerous settings, American officials express unease that American servicemen commit roughly 30 serious crimes each month. Having 350 soldiers sent to Japanese jails each year would have been bad for America’s image. According to a separate document, America struck similar, secret agreements with the governments of Canada, Italy, Ireland and Denmark.

When Jane talks to reporters, she wears stylish, bug-eyed, mirrored sunglasses that seem more shields than fashion statement. It is futile protection—a tangible symbol of her quest for anonymity, akin to her pseudonymity.

On December 10th 2008, the Tokyo High Court ruled on Jane’s appeal in the suit against the Kanagawa police. Judge Toshifumi Minami entered the court, told her “You lost. And the financial burden of the case lies with you,” and then left. A 20-page ruling, considered short, sheds little insight into how the court reached its decision. Jane plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. “I lost—but they lost too,” she said.

Jane will always bear indelible, invisible scars. But this is of no material importance to Japan. Or America.
ENDS

NUGW’s Louis Carlet on recent labor union moves

Posted on December 10, 2008September 29, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I don’t usually post these notifications (which come near daily from one of Japan’s most active labor unions, the National Union of General Workers) here. But this one is meaty and timely enough to warrant everyone’s attention. Have a look and see if there’s anything here you’d like to check out. I fully support Louis Carlet and labor unions in Japan, and if you’re not in one, you’re not going to have your employment rights protected in Japan protected, full stop. More on why I can say that with such conviction here.

Over to Louis. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

From: nugw DOT carlet AT ezweb.ne.jp
Subject: [Nambu FWC] Berlitz Sues Union Execs
Date: December 9, 2008 4:52:57 PM JST
To: action AT nambufwc DOT org

Sisters and Brothers

Three weeks after we sued Berlitz for illegal strike-breaking, management has sued two Nambu executives and all five Begunto execs for damages caused by what Berlitz claims is an illegal strike.
Execs received subpoenas today to appear before court. Management prefers to pursue frivolous litigation rather than settle 2008 shunto demands for a 4.6% base-pay hike and a one-month bonus.

Management hopes to intimidate and divide us, but we will stand together to fight these suits and protect our right to strike. Email me and ask what you can do to help our Begunto brothers and sisters.

Meanwhile come to the following events.

1 Little Garden Labor Commission Talks
Friday Dec. 12 at 10:00am at Tokyo Labor Commission

Take Oedo Line to Tochomae Station, Exit 3A, up two escalators, pass parsport office, up Elevator Bank H to 34th floor. Check bulletin board for Life Communications Corp and “roh” for room number.

The union has Little Garden on the ropes. Not only has management agreed to reinstate Joyce and pay partial back wages, they have also agreed to help with her visa, pay a penalty if she doesn’t get the visa, to deduct her monthly dues from wages, to give us a union-only bulletin board and even to let the union hold annual recruiting orientations at Little Garden.
Come and support Joyce during what may be final resolution talks. There has been a surprising new development in this case as well.

2 Govt Talks on Foreigners’ Rights

Monday, Dec. 15, 9am to 5:30pm. Upper House Bldg – Sangi-in Kaikan. Take Marunouchi Line to Kokkai-Gijidomae Station. Free simultaneous interpreting with machines provided.

Ever want to speak your mind to the government? Now’s our chance. We will talk tough directly with the various ministries (actually mid-level bureaucrats) regarding abuse of the foreign trainee/intern system as well as fingerprinting, teacher’s labor rights, and many other issues that affect foreign residents.

3 [Anonymous teacher’s] Second Court Date

Thursday Dec. 18 at 10am. Tokyo District Court – Take Marunouchi Line to Kasumigaseki Station, Exit A1. TDC is right there. Go to 13th floor. Room number to be announced.

As many of you know Anonymous Teacher’s first court date was anti-climactic because St. Mary’s management didn’t show up. They are unlikely to make that mistake again so come out and show AT your support.

4 Berlitz Labor Commission

Dec. 22 at 3:45pm at South Exit of JR Shinjuku Station

AND

Same day at 4:45pm at Tokyo Labor Commission

Take Oedo Line to Tochomae Station, Exit 3A, up two escalators, pass parsport office, up Elevator Bank H to 34th floor. Check bulletin board for Berlitz Japan and “roh” for room number.

Come on down to the first hearing in the now-famous Union vs. Berlitz strike-busting case.

Berlitz claims our historic strike is illegal. We say Berlitz strike-busting is illegal … AND unconstitutional.

Come support our heroic, striking sisters and brothers at Berlitz and watch the sparks fly (albeit in a subdued, orderly and courtroom like manner).
The hearing at the commission starts just before 5pm but we may have an action near Shinjuku Station just prior so come to both.

See You All There!

Louis Carlet
NUGW Tokyo Nambu
========================
Nambu 2008 Bonenkai/Oyster Bar
2000 yen, Nambu HQ Shimbashi
Thursday December 18 6:30pm-
—
NUGW Tokyo Nambu – Nambu FWC
http://nambufwc.org

Grauniad: Japan comes down hard on Greenpeace whaling activists

Posted on December 10, 2008December 10, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I haven’t really gotten into the whaling issue on this blog (my take in essence is that regardless of numbers it’s not a farmable species, so don’t treat it as one). But let me bring up this article as an example of how Japan can treat activists it wants to make an example of: the GOJ sics the NPA on them and lets them “prosecute” (or, rather, interrogate and incriminate) them to the fullest extent of the law. Such as it is. Have a read. Courtesy of TK. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Greenpeace launches major anti-whaling campaign in Japan

Two activists who face years in prison say their arrests were politically motivated

By Justin McCurry in Tokyo

The Manchester Guardian, Tuesday December 9 2008 00.01 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/09/japan-whale-hunting

Greenpeace activist Junichi Sato holds a piece of whale meat during a news conference in Tokyo May 15, 2008 Photograph: Kyodo/ /Reuters

Two Greenpeace activists who face years in prison for investigating corruption in Japan‘s whaling industry have condemned their arrests as politically motivated on the eve of an unprecedented campaign to end the country’s whale hunts.

They are now waiting to stand trial early next year, and if convicted face up to 10 years in prison.

“At the time I was arrested I wasn’t too concerned as I was focusing on our investigation,” Sato, 31, told the Guardian yesterday at the Tokyo offices of his legal team.

The ferocity with which prosecutors have made their case against Sato and Suzuki has astonished Greenpeace officials and human rights activists.

During their time in police custody, the men say they were strapped to chairs and interrogated for up to 12 hours a day. No lawyers were present and the interviews were not recorded.

Under their bail terms they are not allowed to be in the same room and can only talk to fellow activists in the presence of their lawyers. One of the men says that he and his family were watched by plain-clothes police officers while dining out at a restaurant.

In May, after a four-month undercover investigation dubbed Operation Silver Bullet, Greenpeace said it had evidence to prove that at least 23 Nisshin Maru crew members had smuggled more than 90 boxes of salted whale meat from the vessel, disguising its as “personal baggage”.

The intercepted consignment, they said, was proof that the whaling crew was defrauding the Japanese taxpayer with the full knowledge of Kyodo Senpaku, which operates the fleet.

Kyodo Senpaku, however, insisted that the packages were simply “gifts” for crewmen who had spent months at sea in freezing conditions.

When Sato displayed the meat, worth up to 350,000 yen, at a press conference in June he was convinced he had delivered a decisive blow to Japan’s whaling industry, which receives at least 5 billion yen a year in government subsidies.

Instead, he and Suzuki were arrested in early-morning raids on their homes on the same day that prosecutors decided not to pursue their embezzlement claims.

In a separate interview yesterday, Suzuki recalled his ordeal at the hands of police in Aomori prefecture, northern Japan, where his alleged crime took place.

He said: “They asked me the same questions over and over again and even compared me with the Aum Supreme Truth,” the doomsday cult that carried out a deadly gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.

“I was expecting the police to investigate our embezzlement allegations, but looking back I was being optimistic. I was so angry when I heard the case against the whalers had been dropped.”

Suzuki, 41, whose wife is expecting their second child in May, responded by going on hunger strike for nine days and refusing to talk to his interrogators for four more. “By the end I could see that they were worried I might die,” he said.

Sato describes himself as a “political prisoner”, the victim of authorities who he says routinely denounce Greenpeace and the more radical marine conservation group, Sea Shepherd, as terrorists.

“By exaggerating the danger we pose they will get support from the Japanese public, who don’t know the truth about whaling but support so-called anti-terrorist measures,” he said.

Senior Greenpeace officials now suspect the Tokyo metropolitan government, led by rightwing governor Shintaro Ishihara, will attempt to remove its non-profit status, effectively closing down its Japan operations.

Both men support Greenpeace’s decision not to pursue Japan’s whaling fleet across the freezing waters of the Southern ocean this year as it attempts to cull around 1,000 whales in the name of scientific research.

“We need international pressure, but that’s not enough,” Sato said. “We also need people inside Japan to speak out against whaling.

“The media here doesn’t report the truth, so the Japanese people have no idea about the negative impact it’s having on our diplomatic relations with countries like Australia and New Zealand.”

Japan is permitted to catch whales for “lethal research” into their breeding, migratory and other habits, thanks to a contentious provision in the International Whaling Commission’s 1986 ban on commercial whaling.

During its recent scientific hunt, which ended in April, Japan’s fleet had hoped to catch 850 minke whales but returned with only 551 after being frustrated by activists from Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd.

Greenpeace’s new campaign comes as pressure mounts on Japan to drop the charges against Suzuki and Sato.

Amnesty International has condemned the arrests, the pair’s case has been raised in the House of Commons and almost 300,000 people have signed an online petition demanding that the charges against them be dropped.

Today, senior Greenpeace officials will present a protest letter to Taro Aso, the Japanese prime minister, before protesting in front of parliament. In the coming days demonstrations will be held outside Japanese embassies in 20 countries.

Sato and Suzuki are forbidden from playing any part in the protests, but despite the growing uncertainty about their future, they are unrepentant.

“Since my arrest I have not lied once about what I did,” Suzuki said. “But the whalers have had to make up one story after another. Their lies will come back to haunt them soon.”

ENDS

Mainichi: Brazilian ethnic school closing due to NJ job cuts

Posted on December 9, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Spent the afternoon asleep, feeling a bit better, thanks. Not used to being sick (only have gege illnesses once every few years or so), so it was a bit of a shock. Anyway, let me get to the article I meant to blog today:

I mentioned yesterday about how the NJ workers are the first to go in any wave of job cuts (no wonder — very few NJ ever get promotion beyond “temp”-style contract labor, despite working for years at full-time jobs). Now here’s an article in the Mainichi about how that’s having a negative impact on the NJ community, particularly the education of their children. Ethnic schools are starting to close as tuition dries up. What next for the NJ communities, always contributing yet kept as a mere appendage to the “real members” of this society? Courtesy of Silvio M.

Arudou Debito convalescing.

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

Japan’s economic woes force Brazilian school to drop out
Mainichi Daily News, December 5, 2008

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2008/12/05/20081205p2a00m0na006000c.html

Students at Escola Prof Benedito in Naka-ku, Hamamatsu. (Mainichi)

HAMAMATSU, Shizuoka — A Brazilian school in Hamamatsu, a city with a large population of foreign laborers, will be closing its doors at the end of this month. Escola Prof Benedito fell into financial crisis as the sharp decline in the economy forced many of its students’ parents out of factory jobs, leaving them unable to pay tuition.

As of Thursday, Escola Prof Benedito had 30 students between the ages of four and 15. Like most Brazilian schools in Japan, it is unaccredited and receives no public funding from local and national governments, operating on a monthly tuition of approximately 26,000 yen that it collects from each student.

Unpaid tuition began to increase in September when a growing number of parents started experiencing layoffs, and by October, the school had fallen into a serious financial rut. At the end of that month, the school found that 15 of its students — or half the student population — were planning to move back to Brazil or transfer to a less costly public school next year.

Principal Benedito Vilela Garcia, 55, says about his decision to close the school, “I’ve determined that the situation will be worse next year. Closing the school at the end of December, the same time the Brazilian school year ends, will cause the least trouble for students under the circumstances.”

Garcia started the school in his apartment in Hamamatsu in 1996. At its peak in 2002, the school had around 180 students. In 2006, the school purchased and relocated to the five-story building it currently occupies.

“It makes me sad when the children ask me why we’re closing.” The principal himself is planning to sell the building and return to Brazil with his family next January.

ENDS

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

ブラジル人学校：年内で閉鎖…親が失業、月謝払えず　浜松
毎日新聞　2008年12月5日
http://mainichi.jp/select/wadai/news/20081205k0000m040154000c.html

　外国人労働者が多い浜松市で１２年の歴史を持つブラジル人学校「エスコーラ・プロフ・ベネジット」が、１２月末で閉鎖する。急速な景気悪化で、工場の派遣労働者などとして働く保護者の多くが職を失い、経営難に陥った。【平林由梨】

　４日現在、同校には４歳から１５歳の児童・生徒３０人が通う。ほとんどのブラジル人学校と同じく無認可で、国や自治体からの公的支援は受けておらず、生徒１人あたり約２万６０００円の月謝で運営している。

　解雇される保護者が増えた９月ごろから月謝の滞納が多くなり、１０月は深刻な赤字になった。１０月下旬、保護者に来年の予定を聞いたところ、半数の１５人がブラジルに帰国予定か、学費が安い公立学校への転入を考えていることが分かった。

　ベネジット・ビレラ・ガルシア校長（５５）は「来年はもっと悪くなると予想できた。（ブラジルの）学年末を迎える１２月末で学校を閉めるのが子供たちに一番迷惑がかからない」と閉鎖を決断した。

　ガルシア校長は９６年、浜松市の自宅アパートで学校を始めた。ピークの０２年には約１８０人の児童・生徒を抱えた。０６年には、現在地に５階建てビルを買って移転した。

　「子供たちに『なぜやめるの』と聞かれると、悲しくなる」。肩を落とす校長自身も来年１月、ビルを売って家族とブラジルへ帰国するという。
ends

Down with flu: Taking a day off

Posted on December 9, 2008July 17, 2012 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I’m feeling pretty poorly today (headache, dizziness, even nausea; not sure what it is, maybe the current flu bug), so I’m going to devote today to some sincere bedrest and hopefully get over whatever’s ailing me ASAP. Lemme take a day off blogging. Thanks, Debito

Terrie’s Take on how NJ workers are the first to go in adverse economic conditions

Posted on December 8, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I’ve been sitting on this information for over a month, sorry, but here’s another article from the ever-informative Terrie’s Take, regarding how the economic downturn is influencing Japanese companies’ employment decisions.

As might be expected, at the first sign of any trouble, the first to be fired are the NJ workers. Those brought in under a questionable visa regime from 1990 to save Japanese industry from “hollowing out”, turns out the cost-cutting long-hour NJ workers have the least job security. People might argue that laying off foreigners first happens anywhere, but Japan has stricter glass ceilings by nationality. Employers in Japan have issues with letting foreigners (except maybe a few token high-profile bosses) actually graduate out of contract labor (as can be seen most effectively in Japan university system) into becoming “real employees”; heaven forbid if NJ in Japanese companies actually got managerial roles over fellow Japanese co-workers. Even the Japanese Supreme Court has ruled that that kind of discrimination is legal. Anyway, Terrie focusses upon the restructuring numbers below. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

From: terrie@mailman.japaninc.com
Subject: Terrie’s Take 492 — Job Cuts in Full Swing, ebiz news from Japan
Date: November 3, 2008 12:49:14 AM JST

* * * * * * * * * T E R R I E ‘S T A K E * * * * * * *
A weekly roundup of news & information from Terrie Lloyd.
(http://www.terrie.com)

General Edition Sunday, November 2, 2008 Issue No. 492

SUBSCRIBE to, UNSUBSCRIBE from Terrie’s Take at:
http://mailman.japaninc.com/mailman/listinfo/terrie

The global nature of the financial meltdown over the last 4 weeks has meant three sure outcomes for major businesses here in Japan: 1) there is no market in which to seek safe haven, 2) even the healthiest of large companies is having to batten down the hatches for a rough 2009 — this is of course what is killing the stock market, and 3), a lot of people are going to lose their jobs.

The job-cutting aspect has already started in a number of Japanese manufacturers, but looking at the employment figures put out by the government, you wouldn’t know it. This is because, we suspect, Japanese firms are cutting the easiest-to-trim sections of their workforces first, and thus the numbers won’t become apparent until the cuts go deeper into their core full-timer workforces early next year.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the nation’s jobless rate actually fell, from 4.2% in August to 4% in September — with about 2.71m people out of work. This means that the workforce currently numbers around 63.95m people.

As with most things, the USA is much quicker to reflect the reality of the current turmoil, and there the unemployment is already at around 6.1% of the workforce, with about 479,000 new jobless registering last month. This is significantly up from the 332,000 who were unemployed a year ago, although less than the peak 499,000 registering after hurricanes Ike and Gustav hit several months back. Apparently U.S. companies have already cut 760,000 jobs in the last 9 months.

So is unemployment really down in Japan? Or is this the calm before the storm?

Experts in the USA are predicting that the unemployment rate there for next year will rise to 8% or more, a surge of 30% over the current rate. Now, 400,000 newly unemployed is already considered a recessionary environment in the U.S., so with even more people set to lose their jobs, fear will increase and consumer spending will drop even further. Most Japanese exporters either make products for global consumers, or tools for companies that do, and either way they’re going to be hit by the downturn. Although the delay in layoffs may be longer, because Japanese firms are reluctant to take the PR hit that comes with layoffs, the fact is that there is already a precedent for letting people go in an acceptable manner — being set by Matsushita and others back in the late 1990’s. So we believe that the job cuts are not long in coming.

Or, more correctly, perhaps we should say that the job cuts are already happening, but the local media is downplaying the trend…

First to go have been the foreign workers in overseas plants. Two weeks ago, Nissan announced that it would cut its workforce by 1,680 people at its Barcelona assembly plant — one of two major plants the company has in Europe. This is almost 1/3 of all the people working at that facility and represents the halting of one of the 3 production shifts. Sales of vehicles in Spain have plunged 24% in the last 9 months, and when the numbers finally come out at the end of the year, we expect that sales for this current quarter might be almost non-existent. Indeed, Peugot has said that it expects a 17% fall in auto sales in Q4 in Western Europe. We think the final numbers will be worse and Japanese firms will share blood shed.

Certainly Toyota knows this, and so the company is laying off another category of “outsiders” — non-permanent workers at its factories here in Japan. Apparently the company employs 6,800 contract workers, also known as fixed-term workers, a number which is 2,000 down from March and 4,000 down from the peak of 10,800 employed in 2004. Back then, non-permanents accounted for 30% of the company’s total workforce. The thing about these contract workers is that so long as they are employed for less than 36 months, then the company can flexibility lay them off in times of hardship — as will many other companies around the country now that Toyota has set the pace.

In addition, in Q2, June-August this year, Toyota laid off an extra 8,000 temporary workers — for a total of around 10,000 redundancies so far this year. Are you seeing these numbers in the major newspapers? Not really. This is probably because Japan’s number one advertiser is sitting on an estimated JPY4trn (US$40bn) of cash reserves (not including other assets) which make it difficult for the company to defend its actions in the Japanese context of being needed to be seen to be looking after your own. In this respect, the message clearly is that you need to be a full-time employee to be considered “one of the Toyota family”. Otherwise you’re just a squatter.

Now that Toyota, a core company in the Japanese industrial complex, has been able to lay off so many people and yet has drawn no protests from the politicians, bureaucrats, or press, this portends badly for a large number of Japanese working in other companies and who are also not full-time employees. Some readers may recall that out of 64m (approx.) workers in Japan, a full 33.5% (as of 2007) are now part-timers, contract employees, temps, freeters, or otherwise non-permanent workers. For these people, the on-going downturn represents a high likelihood that many of them will be handed termination notices over the next 3-6 months.

However, they can’t afford to not work. According to a recent Reuters article, there are now more than 10m “working poor” in Japan. The term apparently refers to those earning less than JPY2m (US$20,000) a year.

Lastly, it surprised us to learn in an AP article that the government does NOT track the number of jobless foreigners. Surprising if only because we’re all paying taxes and unemployment benefits. Maybe these aren’t counted either?

So, given that there are at least 755,000 foreigners (as of 2006) working here in Japan, and probably another 350,000 or so working illegally, you can bet that this group will be another at-risk segment to lose their jobs. The AP article says that the government HELLO WORK centers used to get about 700 foreigners looking for jobs each month, but in August due to the massive layoffs by auto manufacturers, the numbers of foreign newly jobless people doubled to 1,500 a month. Local officials note that the number of Japanese applicants has not changed appreciably (yet) — so clearly Toyota, Honda, and Yamaha are dumping on their Brazilian-Japanese and Chinese workers first.

Could be a bleak Christmas for many people.

ends

Letters to the Japan Times regarding Otaru Onsens Case article

Posted on December 7, 2008October 7, 2011 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

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Hi Blog. The Japan Times Zeit Gist Community Page recently featured an article critical of the plaintiffs (okay, well, of one plaintiff: me) in the Otaru Onsens Case. I’ve blogged that article (and comments from readers) here. Letters to the Editor on it were recently published in the Japan Times. I’ll blog those below for discussion. Thanks to everyone for their concern and energies to this issue. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

(presented in the order they appeared in the JT, December 7, 2008)

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

Sunday, Dec. 7, 2008

JAPAN TIMES READERS IN COUNCIL

By LANCE BRAMAN, Sano, Tochigi

See Tepido Lance Braman’s response, which essentially asserts that since we are in Japan (not America or Europe) by our own choice, then it is incumbent upon us to assimilate and follow Japanese rules, at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20081207a4.html

ENDS

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

Accountability must be narrowed

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20081207a5.html
By JOE JONES, Tokyo

Every mountain has more than one slippery slope. While Paul de Vries (”Back to the baths: Otaru revisited”) is concerned with the worrying precedent of Debito Arudou’s onsen lawsuit, de Vries sets an equally worrying precedent by implying that restrictions on “group accountability as a social conditioner” are inherently harmful. Group accountability can be employed fairly when it is narrow and rational.

If the problem is drunken foreigners unaware of bathing rules, the rational solution is to ban drunks and those unable to follow the rules. It is not to ban people associated with the problem group by virtue of some immutable characteristic like ethnicity. Indeed, Arudou has pressed public businesses to change from a “No Foreigners” policy to a “No Troublemakers,” or even “Must Understand Japanese” policy, and many have happily obliged.

Even women-only train carriages — a broad solution to a broad problem — have been limited in number and placed at one end of the train so as to cause minimal inconvenience to most male passengers. A man can simply walk a few meters and board the next carriage. It is hard to compare this to one’s exclusion from a public business that has few convenient alternatives.

The other slippery slope — that of group accountability as an unchecked excuse — has led to some of the greatest atrocities in human history. De Vries and, for that matter, the Japanese government would be well advised to keep this snowball from falling down either slope. Narrow and rational accountability is the only sustainable way to maintain both liberty and security.

ends

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

A notion dangerous at the core

By JEFFREY SNOW

San Diego, Calif.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20081207a6.html

Paul de Vries‘ attempt to defend group accountability behavior is rather bleak and ridiculous. Perhaps de Vries did not read The Japan Times enough, as he surely would’ve seen that quite a few men, both foreign and domestic, ridicule the women-only train cars. I also stand against the policy, as it hardly equates to the need for men-women restrooms.

It was because of group accountability that hundreds of thousands of Japanese were ripped from their homes and sent to camps in the United States during World War II. These individuals had done nothing but be Japanese, yet they were punished. Insistence on group accountability, at its core, is largely seen as leading to horrible experiences, but apparently not if the group in question are foreigners in Japan today.

Well, then, why don’t we take things a step further? Since Japan attacked the U.S. on U.S. soil, why don’t we just remove all Japanese currently living in the U.S. and ban Japanese citizens from entering the U.S. — to guard against another possible attack in the future? Rather ridiculous, I’d say, but this is how dangerous the notion of group accountability can be.

ends

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

Arguments aren’t good enough

By OLAF KARTHAUS

Sapporo

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20081207a7.html

I am afraid Paul de Vries has not done his homework; furthermore, he is comparing apples and oranges. For instance, you can’t label women-only cars as a form of acceptable discrimination in an argument about whether xenophobic actions are justified.

Molesting a woman is a crime. Given the number of available police officers and the number of trains and commuters each day, one can see that it is impossible to protect most women from gropers in packed mixed cars. The more vulnerable need to be protected, so roughly half of the commuters need to be slightly inconvenienced. It’s not as if men are being punished by not being allowed to board the trains!

Police are nearby and can always be called if there’s trouble at an onsen. While gropers on trains know that they have committed a crime, unruly bathers simply may not know the customs. They need to be told, not banned.

De Vries’ biggest blunder is to endorse punishing people of a group for what other members did. There is good reason that this is banned by the Geneva Conventions in war situations. Even in the pretense of preventing crime — as with Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara’s past suggestion that some foreigners be detained after a big earthquake in Tokyo — it is questionable.

Although de Vries may find arguments to support his case, he cannot explain why a Japanese-speaking German university professor like myself, with a Japanese wife and kids, should be grouped together with Russian sailors when we want to use an onsen. We have nothing in common but face color. With that, refusals of entry to an onsen remain as they are: racism.

ends

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

Finally, my response, not sent to the Japan Times or published anywhere but here. Blogged last night amidst all the comments during the discussion of the original article. Reprinting here for the sake of completeness:

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

Hi Blog. Sorry to keep you waiting. A few opinions in addition to the analysis offered above (thanks to everyone for commenting):

Get it? Sorry, I don’t. That’s why I’m not going to do a paragraph-by-paragraph commentary on what is essentially ideological nonsense.

But I will mention some glaring errors and omissions in the article:

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

ends

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 6 2008

Posted on December 7, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 6 2008
JAPAN’S HUMAN RIGHTS WEEK EDITION

Table of Contents:
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1) GOJ Human Rights Week commemorative pamphlet includes NJ issues of discrimination

YET
2) Mainichi: NJ cause Tsukiji to ban all tourists for a month
3) Kyodo: MOJ announces it snagged 846 NJ since reinstituting fingerprinting
4) Mainichi: NJ now eligible for GOJ “economic stimulus” bribe. But not all NJ residents.
5) Poll on how yon 12,000 yen econ stimulus bribe sits with Debito.org readers
6) The killer of Scott Tucker, choked to death by a DJ in a Tokyo bar, gets suspended sentence.

PLUS
7) More on nationality law and children born out of wedlock: Conservatives causing policy balk
8) JALT TLT: James McCrostie on NJ job insecurity at Japan’s universities
9) Japan Times Zeit Gist column on Otaru Onsens Case (not by me)

… and finally…
10) Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column Dec 3 2008 on Obama election and Bush II presidency (Director’s Cut)
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

By Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org (updated daily)
December 6, 2008 Freely Forwardable

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

1) GOJ Human Rights Week commemorative pamphlet includes NJ issues of discrimination

Good news, of sorts. Today starts Japan’s official “Human Rights Week” (Jinken Shuukan), when the GOJ spends money (and claims to the UN national campaigns of awareness raising) to promote issues of human rights.

The Bureau of Human Rights (jinken yougobu), the window-dressing department within the Ministry of Justice entrusted to spend tax money but not actually enforce any human rights mandate, usually glosses over discrimination against NJ (heaven forfend they actually use the breathtaking word “racial discrimination”!) as a matter of cultural misunderstandings (a wonderful way to reduce the issue down to next to nothing), and holds it low regard in comparison to issues of actual discrimination against Burakumin, Ainu, the handicapped, etc. This has been reflected in GOJ human rights surveys and past “awareness-raising” campaigns in previous Human Rights Weeks.

So it comes as a welcome surprise that this year the GOJ has issued a commemorative pamphlet including discrimination against NJ as a real issue. Of course, the old bone about “cultural issues” is still there to dilute the Truth Octane. But it’s a start.

Well, actually, looking over information from last year, it’s not that much of a change. Except that the BOHR site now actually includes on its official website a new video game for its cartoon characters, called “The Grand Adventure in Human Rights Land”! Have a play! Hey, it’s your taxes, might as well use them.

https://www.debito.org/?p=2078

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

2) Mainichi: NJ cause Tsukiji to ban all tourists for a month

Tsukiji is enforcing an outright ban for a month on all visitors to Tsukiji fish market, the world’s largest. The Mainichi says the Tokyo Govt claims it’s due to NJ tourists and their bad manners (or so the Japanese headline says below the English headline just says they’re too numerous; thanks, Mainichi, for sweetening your translations, again). And the fish market itself claims they cannot communicate the rules with Johnny Foreigner in their foreign tongues (nobody there has ever heard of handing out multilingual pamphlets upon entry or putting up signs?). Anyway, I wonder if this issue is so simply a matter of NJ manners?

Anyway, this isn’t the first time Tsukiji Market has threatened to do this, but this is the first I’ve heard of an outright ban. Moreover, using a purported language barrier as a real barrier to entry and service is becoming the catch-all excuse, as we are increasingly seeing in Japanese businesses, such as banks and insurance agencies. Beats actually making more efforts to cater to the customer, in this case the tourists eating the fish around the marketplace after the marketing, I guess.

https://www.debito.org/?p=2080

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

3) Kyodo: MOJ announces it snagged 846 NJ since reinstituting fingerprinting

One thing I’ll give the GOJ: They’re predictable when under pressure. After one year of fingerprinting NJ at the border in the name of anti-terrorism and anti-crime, the MOJ decided to announce the number of NJ they netted, no doubt to claim that all the effort and money was somehow worth it. Problem is, as Sendaiben pointed out when submitting this link, that there is no comparison with how many people get snagged on an annual basis even BEFORE fingerprinting was reinstituted.

To me that’s another predictability: you just know if the information was in the GOJ’s favor, they would have released it as well. But this glaring omission I bet means there’s not much statistical difference. Besides, the GOJ similarly congratulated themselves last year when announced their catch the first day after fingerprinting was instituted, even though the fine print revealed those NJ were snagged for funny passports, not fingerprints. And we’ll throw in data about visa overstayers (even though that’s unrelated to the fingerprinting, since fingerprinting is a border activity, and overstaying is something that happens after you cross the border) just because the media will swallow it and help the public make a mental association.

Likewise, there is no ultracentrifuging of the data below to see how many were done for passports or fingerprints again. And of course, predictably, the J media is not asking analytical questions of their own. The closest we get is the admission that the GOJ is collecting these fingerprints to submit to other governments. Which is probably the real intention of this, Japan’s “contribution to the war on terror”. What a crock.

https://www.debito.org/?p=2072

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

4) Mainichi: NJ now eligible for GOJ “economic stimulus” bribe. But not all NJ residents.

The GOJ has finally made it clear, after overmuch deliberation, that the “economic stimulus” cum political bribe to voters package will also be disbursable to non-voting taxpayers, i.e. NJ. However, not all. Only those with Permanent Residency or marriage with a Japanese. So too bad you taxpaying residents who don’t marry or haven’t been by the grace of Immigration been granted permanent leave to remain. You don’t get a sou for your contributions. It’s better than nothing, and indeed is a sign of progress, but why the lines are drawn there are still mysterious. Anyone with an address in Japan who is paying taxes should be eligible for the rebate. But no.

https://www.debito.org/?p=2074

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

5) Poll on how yon 12,000 yen econ stimulus bribe sits with Debito.org readers

Looks like some NJ will get the 12,000 yen PM Aso “economic stimulus” dividend after all. How’s that sit with you? (multiple answers OK)

Great! I qualify. Show me the money! (27%, 35 Votes)
Not happy that NJ who are not Permanent Residents or married to Japanese don’t qualify. (41%, 52 Votes)
Nuts. That small payout doesn’t affect my bottom line positively. (15%, 19 Votes)
I don’t qualify. Bronx cheer to Aso. (9%, 12 Votes)
It’s a waste of tax money and won’t really stimulate the economy. (55%, 71 Votes)
Why should NJ qualify anyway? They can’t vote, so who cares what they think? (8%, 10 Votes)
PM Aso should give Japan a month holiday from 5% Consumption Tax instead. (23%, 29 Votes)
Don’t know / Can’t say / Don’t care etc. (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 128 (as of this evening)

Feel free to vote on any page on Debito.org

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6) The killer of Scott Tucker, choked to death by a DJ in a Tokyo bar, gets suspended sentence.

I made the case some months ago, in a special DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER on criminal justice and policing of NJ, that NJ get special (as in negative) treatment by courts and cops. An article I included from the Japan Times mentioned that a case of a NJ man killed in a bar “was likely to draw leniency” in criminal court. It did. The killer essentially got off last September. Here’s an article about it, from Charleston, WV:

Charleston Gazette: Prosecutors in Japan have decided not appeal the sentence in the murder conviction of a man placed on five years’ probation for murdering Charleston native and West Virginia University graduate Scott Tucker.

“Prosecutors decided not to even present the appeal,” said Kenneth Tucker II, Scott Tucker’s brother. “They said the witness’s testimony was strong enough not to appeal.”

Tucker’s wife and family had hoped prosecutors would appeal the sentencing in an attempt to get the man jail time. But prosecutors said Thursday they would not pursue an appeal before the two-week window to file ends on Monday.

On Sept. 8, Atsushi Watanabe, 29, was sentenced to three years in prison or five years’ probation for killing Scott Tucker. Under Japanese law, probation in murder cases can begin immediately so Watanabe will serve five years probation rather than three years in prison, David Yoshida, who attended the trial with Tucker’s wife, Yumiko Yamakazi, said previously.

Yamakazi is weighing her options in pursuing a civil case against Watanabe, Kenneth Tucker said…

https://www.debito.org/?p=2060

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7) More on nationality law and children born out of wedlock: Conservatives causing policy balk

More on the debate on recognizing paternity and plugging loopholes in the nationality law — and how the conservatives are throwing up roadblocks in between houses of parliament… and blaming a “constituency” of blog messages for it:

Japan Times: With the revised Nationality Law expected to clear the Diet soon, some ruling party lawmakers are at the last minute claiming the amendment may spark problems, such as possibly creating a “black market” in false paternal recognition.

However, it seems too late in the day for them to block passage, because the revised bill cleared the Lower House last week and the Upper House Justice Committee is entering the last stage of deliberations and is expected to vote as early as next week.

The amendment will allow children born out of wedlock to Japanese men and foreign women to obtain Japanese nationality if the father acknowledges paternity after the birth

“If a law like this is misused, what will happen to the Japanese identity?” asked Takeo Hiranuma, a former trade minister widely considered a hardcore hawk, at an emergency meeting with 13 Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers last week to discuss issues arising from the revision

One reason that made them act at this late stage was what they claim is the public questioning the amendment. Some lawmakers said there have been hundreds of comments written in their blogs, mostly warning of the potential problems the revision may bring.

“The comments will keep increasing and would go crazy if the revision clears the Diet,” said LDP Lower House member Toru Toida, who has been getting hundreds of comments in his blog.

If the revision clears the Diet, then “people would claim that the Diet is not doing a proper job,” Toida said.

https://www.debito.org/?p=2073

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8) JALT TLT: James McCrostie on NJ job insecurity at Japan’s universities

Behind the Music: An explanation of the university shuffle

James McCrostie

Behind the Music: An explanation of the university shuffle
James McCrostie
Published in the April 2007 issue of JALT’s The Language Teacher
in the Job Info Center column (p. 45 – 46).

Working at Japanese universities resembles musical chairs. Every year the music starts and instructors with expiring contracts run around looking for a new job. Most universities hiring foreigners full-time offer one-year contracts, renewable three or four times. Contrary to popular belief, universities don’t cap renewals at three or four because if a teacher works long enough they can’t be fired. Schools remain safe as long as they state the number of renewals and a few have contracts renewable up to ten years.

To most thinking people, forcing instructors to leave every few years appears short sighted. Yet, university and government officials have their own reasons for preferring term-limits.

Keeping costs down is one reason…

https://www.debito.org/?p=2070

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9) Japan Times Zeit Gist column on Otaru Onsens Case (not by me)

Japan Times article critical of the Otaru Onsens Case: The problem is that the case was fought and won on the issue of racial discrimination when the policy being employed by the Yunohana onsen could more accurately be described as the racial application of “group accountability.”…

America is a truly wonderful country with some particularly obvious virtues, but these do not include its level of safety and social cohesion. While the rights of the individual are certainly more strongly upheld in America than in Japan, the presence of rogue individuals within America is disproportionately high. America is unquestionably a more dangerous place than Japan.

And this brings us to the point that Arudou ignores or simply fails to see. Group accountability is not employed in Japan simply for the sake of pushing people around. It is employed for the purpose of making Japan cohesive and safe. It is a major reason why Japan, unlike the U.S., is a nation in which the fear of random violence is relatively low. If Arudou succeeds in his quest, Japan will become one more nation in which the individual is to be feared. That is an outrageously high price to pay for the occasional racial, national, generational or gender-driven slight.

https://www.debito.org/?p=2076

I commented this evening:

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

DEBITO: I’ll start with my conclusion. Look, this article is basically incoherent. We have a flawed academic theory (which somehow groups people into two rigid ideological categories 2.5 categories if you slice this into “American standards” as well) regarding social sanction and control, and proceeds on faith that this pseudo-dichotomy actually exists. As evidence, we have citations of women-only train carriages and border fingerprinting both fundamentally dissimilar in content, origin, and enforcement to the onsens case. And presto, the conclusion is we must maintain this dichotomy (and condemn the Japanese judiciary for chipping away at it) for the sake of Japan’s safety and social cohesion.

Get it? Sorry, I don’t. That’s why I’m not going to do a paragraph-by-paragraph commentary on what is essentially ideological nonsense.

But I will mention some glaring errors and omissions in the article:

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

Continued at https://www.debito.org/?p=2076#comment-171979
(Page down to Comment #32)

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10) Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column Dec 3 2008 on Obama election and Bush II presidency (Director’s Cut)

I had 700 words on some stray thoughts regarding Obama’s election published in the Japan Times yesterday. I cut 200 words of what I considered to be a stray but original-sounding point, regarding popular culture’s legitimization of an African-American in the presidency, but in retrospect the published version is more consistent without it. I’ll reprint it all below as a “Director’s Cut”:

=======================
THOUGHTS ON OBAMA’S ELECTION
By Arudou Debito
Column 10 for the JUST BE CAUSE Japan Times Zeit Gist page.
December 2, 2008. DRAFT SEVENTEEN

Published version at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20081202ad.html

Regarding Obama’s election as American president, I welcome the groundswell of hope about “change”. It’s about time. The past eight years have been, well, awkward for Americans overseas.

The Bush II Administration undermined America’s image abroad. The Pew Global Attitudes Project, surveying worldwide attitudes towards the U.S. this decade, reported in 2007 that “Anti-Americanism is worldwide. This is not just a rift with our European allies or hatred of America in the Middle East. It is a global slide.”
http://pewglobal.org/commentary/display.php?AnalysisID=1019

There’s plenty to be ashamed of: Election oddities culminating in the 2000 Supreme Court d’etat. Opting out of the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court. The Orwellian Department of Homeland Security. “Preemptive war” as a superpower prerogative. Circumventing the United Nations with a “coalition of the willing”. Lack of policy oversight in a one-party Congress. A vice president with a bunker mentality and extreme notions of executive privilege. Wars in two countries grounded on lies about weapons of mass destruction. Unwarranted wiretapping. Guantanamo. Abu Ghraib. Signing Statements. Renditioning. Torture memos and waterboarding. Forthcoming presidential pardons for connected felons. Need I go on? Even Bush’s own party made “change” a platform plank.

America’s actions affect Japan profoundly because of the closeness of our relationship. America gave us MacArthur, a constitution, a democracy, a postwar era without forced restitutions, a market for our reconstruction, and a collective security agreement. We gave America a Pacific bulwark against communism and a market for their military. We are in a tango with America taking the lead.

It wasn’t seen as a bad thing. When I first got here twenty years ago, many Japanese saw America as “the society with freedoms and opportunities we lack here”, “the country we’d most like to emulate”. We had the “Ron-Yasu” relationship. Compulsory education in American English. More people watching Hollywood than domestic movies. “Top Gun” on TV more than once a year you get the idea. The word most associated with America was “akogare”, akin to adoration. America was a template.

Nowadays it’s more complicated. Although security and business relationships are largely intact, we are looking more towards a future with China (as is everyone), while “big brother” America seems more of a bully. America demands we refuel ships for free in the Indian Ocean, and we do something about Article 9 interfering with Japan’s contribution to the “war on terror”. Tangoing with America even raises fears about terrorist blowback.

In terms of human rights, the American Template cuts the wrong way. For example, last year Japan reinstated fingerprinting for most Non-Japanese based upon the US-VISIT program. We even bought American fingerprint machines. Officialdom’s most common excuse for depriving NJ residents of rights? Anti-terrorism. So we assist in America’s wars, then use them to treat foreigners like potential criminals. Hora, America’s doing it, so can we.

America is hardly something activists can point to as a paragon of human rights. Pass a law against discrimination by race or nationality? Hey, America now denies habeas corpus to its foreigners. Respect criminal procedure and due process of law? Phooey, America abuses people in their extralegal prisons too. Refer to U.S. State Department reports on Japan’s human rights record? That’s rich coming from a country whose soldiers aren’t accountable in international criminal court; the State Department doesn’t even survey America’s own human rights record.

People talk about America less in terms of justice, more in terms of “superpower realpolitik”, especially after it dropped North Korea from the terrorism watch list. Then we hark back to the Bubble-Era heyday, when Japan’s future was bright, rich, and flying in formation with the U.S. Sadly, that was then, this is now. For the past eight years.

Fortunately, with Obama’s election, American politics became a renewable resource, a fount of “change”. Obama is even inspiring opposition parties here to call for “change” in Japan’s government.

Well, maybe. And maybe America can become a template for good deeds again. That is, if Bush hasn’t made America unredeemable, and if America can learn to say “no” to its own excessive powers.

Obama has a hard act to follow, but if he succeeds, human rights activists in Japan will also enjoy the turn of the tide.
700 WORDS

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

THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR, from draft six:

Unfortunately, this degree of “change” is not in Japan’s zeitgeist yet, much less in its popular culture. In America, people got used to a major shift of gears even before Obama appeared as an alternative. Here comes a really stray thought:

If Reagan-Era America’s iconic image was the movie “Rambo”, then the Bush II Era’s iconic image has been the TV show “24, with a tabehoudai of ticking time bombs and tortured extremists.

However, like Rambo (which during Iran-Contra became a symbol for excessive militancy) there were seeds for change sowed within “24 too.

I’m talking about President Palmer. America’s first African-American president, portrayed as a rock amidst the chaos, and later succeeded by his brother, also African-American. Both were accepted with no suspension of disbelief or sense of irony.

America is a country, remember, where forty years ago a black woman and white man couldn’t kiss on “Star Trek”, nor vice versa in the movie “Pelican Brief” just fifteen years ago. In 2008, however, America has been softened up enough by popular culture to elect a black man president.

ENDS
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That’s all for today. Thanks for reading, as always!
Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 6 2008 ENDS

AP: US court rules Japan has jurisdiction in child joint custody case

Posted on December 6, 2008December 6, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s a bit of astounding news. Comment follows article.

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

Nebraska court rules Japan has jurisdiction in child custody case

AP/Japan Today Saturday 06th December, 04:40 AM JST

Courtesy of AW

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/nebraska-court-rules-japan-has-jurisdiction-in-child-custody-case

OMAHA — The Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s courts have no jurisdiction over a custody dispute involving a 6-year-old boy, leaving the issue to a Japanese court.

The court determined that under custody law, the child’s residence is considered to be in Japan.

The boy’s father, Stuart Carter, was stationed with the U.S. Navy in Yokosuka in October 2002, when the boy was about 10 weeks old. When his assignment ended in May 2005, Carter left his wife and took the child back to Nebraska.

According to court documents, Carter did not tell his wife, Nahoko Hata Carter, that he was going back to the U.S. or that he was taking the boy with him. Within days of arriving in Nebraska, he filed for legal separation and custody of his son.

Nahoko Hata Carter holds U.S. and Japanese citizenship.

Her attorney, Susan Koenig, said Friday that Nahoko Hata Carter, who has been living in Nebraska so she can see her son, plans to file a custody petition in Japan. Ideally, Koenig said, the mother would like to move back there with the boy.

A message left Friday for Stuart Carter’s attorney was not immediately returned.

The couple married Nov 11, 1994, after Stuart Carter was stationed in Japan. Because of his military duty, they later lived in California, Kansas and Nebraska, where their son was born.

Koenig said that because they moved back to Japan, the boy’s first language was Japanese and that he had close contact with his mother’s relatives.

“His whole culture, his whole life has been in Japan, until he was brought (back) here,” she said.

Koenig said that’s why custody should be determined by a Japanese court. She explained that the boy’s day-care provider, doctors and close family members—all of whom would likely testify at a custody hearing—are there.

“All the evidence is in Japan,” she said.

ENDS

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COMMENT: We should hope the Japanese courts would be so impartial. But they aren’t. Contrast with the Murray Wood Case, where international children kidnapped from British Columbia (whose courts granted the Canadian father custody) were deemed unremovable from Japan. And are American courts so ignorant to not know (or was Mr Carter’s legal defense so inept to not point out) that Japan does not recognize joint custody, full stop? Mr Carter will not get a fair trial in Japan. No child kidnapped to Japan as of yet has been returned to the NJ parent by a Japanese court. He’s lost his kid. Full stop. Debito in Sapporo

Mainichi: NJ cause Tsukiji to ban all tourists for a month

Posted on December 5, 2008December 5, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Tsukiji is enforcing an outright ban for a month on all visitors to Tsukiji fish market, the world’s largest. The Mainichi says the Tokyo Govt claims it’s due to NJ tourists and their bad manners (or so the Japanese headline says below — the English headline just says they’re too numerous; thanks, Mainichi, for sweetening your translations, again). And the fish market itself claims they cannot communicate the rules with Johnny Foreigner in their foreign tongues (nobody there has ever heard of handing out multilingual pamphlets upon entry or putting up signs?). Anyway, I wonder if this issue is so simply a matter of NJ manners?

Arudou Debito in Sapporo, where the fish is also good.

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

Too many foreigners forces ban on tourists to Tsukiji fish market
(Mainichi Japan) December 3, 2008
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20081203p2a00m0na015000c.html?inb=rs

Courtesy of several submitters

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has announced a month-long ban on visitors to the famous fish auctions in Tsukiji from mid-December, blaming large numbers of foreign tourists for obstructing business.

The metropolitan government has sent out a notice of the ban to embassies, hotels, travel companies and other businesses across the capital.

The Tuna Markets, as they are known, are one of the three most popular tourist spots in Tokyo, alongside Akihabara and Asakusa. During early morning hours there were nearly 500 visitors on some days; but many working at the markets have complained of visitors’ showing a lack of courtesy to staff.

According to a tuna wholesalers’ association, the rush in foreign visitors started with the “sushi boom” 10 or so years ago, and has grown especially severe over the past five to six years, following news of the market’s planned closure.

While the auctions are technically off-limits to spectators, auctioneers have informally allowed people to watch from a designated area of the auction hall. With many taking flash photography or touching the produce, however, auctioneers and market workers alike have often been disturbed by visitors: “They can’t understand the language, so we can’t even warn them,” complained one.

As a result, the metropolitan government has informed various tourism-related organizations of their decision to ban spectators at the morning auctions from Dec. 15 to Jan. 17.

“It’s not a bad thing for Tsukiji to gain attention, but with the risk of injury to visitors, and the potential to affect business during the busy Year End and New Year season, it’s unavoidable,” said a metropolitan official. But it’s likely to take time for the news to filter round through signboards and leaflets, as there are many foreigners who visit the auctions individually after learning about the place by word of mouth.

One Tokyo hotel said: “We’ve explained you can’t enter the auction area before, but if you are asked for directions to Tsukiji, you have no choice but to tell them. All we can do is leave it to the judgment of our guests.”

ends

================================
Original Japanese story
築地市場：競り見学中止　外国人観光客マナー悪い
毎日新聞　2008年12月3日　15時00分（最終更新　12月3日　16時55分）
http://mainichi.jp/select/today/news/20081203k0000e040078000c.html

　東京都中央卸売市場（築地市場、中央区築地５）のマグロの競り場に、外国人観光客が多数押し掛け業務に支障が出ているとして、都は各国大使館やホテル、旅行会社に、１２月中旬から約１カ月間、競り場の見学中止を通知した。築地のマグロ競りは外国人の間でも「ツナ・マーケット」と呼ばれ、秋葉原、浅草と並ぶ３大人気スポット。早朝から５００人近くが訪れる日もあるが、マナーを守らない人もいて関係者から不満の声が出ていた。

　マグロを扱う仲卸業者の団体によると、見学者はほとんどが外国人で、すしブームに伴って十数年前から増え始めた。取り上げる観光ガイドブックも多く、築地市場が数年後に閉鎖されることも知られ、ここ５、６年は特に目立つという。

　競り場は基本的に見学者の立ち入りは禁止だが、外国人観光客が多いため市場側がスペースを設けて黙認してきた。しかし、競り場に入ってフラッシュをたいたり、マグロに触ったりして、競りの仕事を妨げるマナー違反者も多い。仲卸業者の野末誠さん（７２）は「言葉が通じず注意もできない」と話す。

　このため都は、１２月１５日から来年１月１７日までは早朝の競り場の見学中止を決め、関係団体に通知した。市場担当者は「築地が注目されるのは悪いことではないが、年末年始の繁忙期に業務に支障が出たり、観光客がけがをされても困るのでやむをえない」と話す。今後、看板やチラシで周知するが、口コミで個人的に訪れる外国人観光客も多く、周知徹底には時間がかかりそうだ。

　都内のあるホテルは「以前から競り場への立ち入りはできないと説明しているが、築地への行き方を聞かれれば教えないわけにはいかない。お客様の判断に任せるしかない」と困惑している。【合田月美】
ends

GOJ Human Rights Week commemorative pamphlet includes NJ issues of discrimination

Posted on December 4, 2008December 4, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Good news, of sorts. Today starts Japan’s official “Human Rights Week” (Jinken Shuukan), when the GOJ spends money (and claims to the UN national campaigns of awareness raising) to promote issues of human rights.

The Bureau of Human Rights (jinken yougobu), the window-dressing department within the Ministry of Justice entrusted to spend tax money but not actually enforce any human rights mandate, usually glosses over discrimination against NJ (heaven forfend they actually use the breathtaking word “racial discrimination”, or actually call for a law against it!) as a matter of cultural misunderstandings (a wonderful way to reduce the issue down to next to nothing), and holds it low regard in comparison to other (worthy) issues of discrimination against Burakumin, Ainu, the handicapped, AIDs patients, etc. This has been reflected in dismissive GOJ human rights surveys and past “awareness-raising” campaigns in previous Human Rights Weeks.

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

RESPECT THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF FOREIGNERS

Reflecting the era of internationalization in recent years, the number of foreigners making a living in our country has increased dramatically, but there have been various cases of human rights problems including being refused entry to public baths, discrimination in the workplace, and being refused apartments, due to differences in languages, religion, lifestyle customs etc. Human rights has no borders. It is desirable in future for us as a member of the international community to show respect and acceptance to foreigners who have different cultures and diversity.

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

Well, actually, looking over information from last year archived on Debito.org, it’s not that much of a change. Except that the BOHR site now actually includes on its official website a new video game for its cartoon characters, called “The Grand Adventure in Human Rights Land”! Have a play! Hey, it’s your taxes, might as well use them.

Here’s a scan of the pamphlet, courtesy of KGD. As the submitter notes: “It comments that ‘there are no national boundaries to human rights’ and notes that foreigners have been refused entry to public baths in Japan. While the pamphlet won’t get anyone the Nobel Prize, it does indicate that your message is reaching some bureaucrats in the central government.”

Well, good, I guess. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

ENDS

Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column Dec 3 2008 on Obama election and Bush II presidency (Director’s Cut)

Posted on December 3, 2008December 3, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I had 700 words on some stray thoughts regarding Obama’s election published in the Japan Times yesterday. I cut 200 words of what I considered to be a stray but original-sounding point, regarding popular culture’s legitimization of an African-American in the presidency, but in retrospect the published version is more consistent without it. I’ll reprint it all below as a “Director’s Cut”; that’s what blogs are for, right? Have a read. Debito back in Sapporo

THOUGHTS ON OBAMA’S ELECTION
By Arudou Debito
Column 10 for the JUST BE CAUSE Japan Times Zeit Gist page.
December 2, 2008. DRAFT SEVENTEEN

Published version at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20081202ad.html

The Bush II Administration undermined America’s image abroad. The Pew Global Attitudes Project, surveying worldwide attitudes towards the U.S. this decade, reported in 2007 that “Anti-Americanism… is worldwide. This is not just a rift with our European allies or hatred of America in the Middle East. It is a global slide.”
http://pewglobal.org/commentary/display.php?AnalysisID=1019

It wasn’t seen as a bad thing. When I first got here twenty years ago, many Japanese saw America as “the society with freedoms and opportunities we lack here”, “the country we’d most like to emulate”. We had the “Ron-Yasu” relationship. Compulsory education in American English. More people watching Hollywood than domestic movies. “Top Gun” on TV more than once a year… you get the idea. The word most associated with America was “akogare”, akin to adoration. America was a template.

Well, maybe. And maybe America can become a template for good deeds again. That is, if Bush hasn’t made America unredeemable, and if America can learn to say “no” to its own excessive powers.

Obama has a hard act to follow, but if he succeeds, human rights activists in Japan will also enjoy the turn of the tide.
700 WORDS

Arudou Debito is co-author of Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants, and Immigrants to Japan.
=========================

THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR, from draft six:

If Reagan-Era America’s iconic image was the movie “Rambo”, then the Bush II Era’s iconic image has been the TV show “24”, with a tabehoudai of ticking time bombs and tortured extremists.

However, like Rambo (which during Iran-Contra became a symbol for excessive militancy) there were seeds for change sowed within “24” too.

ENDS

Japan Times Zeit Gist column on Otaru Onsens Case (not by me) (Now UPDATED with comment)

Posted on December 2, 2008December 6, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s an article that came out in the Japan Times this morning about the Otaru Onsens Case, critical of what happened. I’ll refrain from comment (readers, go first), as I’m in transit. What do you think? Arudou Debito, returning from Iwate
(UPDATE: See my commentary in Comment #32 below)
=======================================

CHRIS MacKENZIE ILLUSTRATION

THE ZEIT GIST

Back to the baths: Otaru revisited

Paul de Vries sees worrying precedent for Japan in 2002 landmark court ruling

By PAUL DE VRIES

The Japan Times Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20081202zg.html

The story is familiar to regular readers of Zeit Gist. Debito Arudou, a naturalized Japanese citizen, originally from America, was living in Sapporo, Hokkaido, and had heard of the Yunohana public bath’s policy of denying entry to foreigners. In 1999, media in tow, he decided to put that onsen’s policy to the test. Sure enough, entry was denied, with the accompanying explanation that foreigners often “cause trouble” and, as such, the regulars “dislike sharing the facilities with them.”

The origin of this controversy is the behavior of Russian sailors. The Yunohana “onsen” is located in Otaru, the main port between Japan and the Russian Far East. Otaru attracts over a thousand Russian vessels and more than 25,000 sailors a year on stays of varying lengths. In the mid-1990s, Russian sailors were frequently showing up drunk at the city’s various onsen and jumping into the tubs with soap on their bodies, thus rendering the facilities unusable.

Prior to taking on the Yunohana onsen, Earth Cure, the management company against whom Arudou’s court action was taken, was running one of the city’s other onsen facilities. It had been pushed to the brink of ruin after its regular clientele had been driven away by the behavior of Russian sailors. When that problem reappeared at Yunohana, Earth Cure opted for an uncompromising stance: Anyone who did not immediately appear to be Japanese was turned away at the door.

To give Arudou his due, he didn’t rush to the courts. In accordance with the accepted customs of his adopted Japan, he attempted to reach an accord by working with Otaru city officials, and through consultations with the Yunohana onsen and a couple of other like-minded facilities. These efforts were successful with all but Yunohana, and it was that particular onsen against which Arudou and two other plaintiffs made a claim for ¥6 million for the “mental distress” that the self-inflicted ordeal had put them through. The case was won in November 2002 with a judgment awarding the plaintiffs half of what they had sought.

A responsible individual was barred from a facility to which the general public is entitled to enter upon presentation of an entry fee. His rights were upheld by the courts. The facility was forced to back down. So what’s the problem with that? The problem is that the case was fought and won on the issue of racial discrimination when the policy being employed by the Yunohana onsen could more accurately be described as the racial application of “group accountability.”

Group accountability is a process within which all of the members of a group are punished for the indiscretion of one of that group’s members. It is a process that seeks to take the onus of policing away from law enforcement professionals and place it in the hands of society at large. The upside of group accountability is high levels of public safety and the scarcity of rogue individuals. A downside occurs when the innocent are prejudiced or punished for behavior and deeds they did not commit.

There is nothing particularly Japanese about this process. It is commonly used in the West by parents and in schools, and is most notably employed in the battle against soccer hooliganism. In “adult” Western society, however, group accountability is incompatible with the cherished Western ideal of individual rights. Officially, in the West, group accountability is not to be employed. But is it?

In the West, are people prejudged by the actions of others from the same race, color, neighborhood or region? In the West, are preconceptions based on a history of behavior of others from the same sex or religion? The answer to both of these questions is an emphatic “Yes.” The reality for the West is that it gets the worst of both worlds: Individuals are still prejudged on the basis of group association, yet society does not benefit from the restraining force that peer pressure can provide.

While the most controversial applications of group accountability for foreigners within Japan are those that are based on race, it is a mistake to think that group accountability is not applied by the Japanese with an even hand. Consider, for example, the designation of women-only train carriages.

The women-only carriage initiative was first carried out on certain commuter lines during 2002, but was confined to late-night services. The stated rationale was to provide protection against lewd behavior by drunken male passengers — a rationale against which few could object. The ante was upped in 2005 when the service was extended to morning commuter trains, thus effectively conceding for the first time that “chikan” (gropers) and not alcohol was the primary cause of the problem.

In the weeks after the women-only carriages were introduced on morning services, there was a certain amount of guttural male rumbling, yet the measure has been widely accepted. This is clear proof that the Japanese are not above applying group-based discrimination within their own ranks.

It is also quite notable that the foreign male population of Japan does not appear to be particularly upset about being excluded from these train carriages. There has been no mention of any discontent in columns such as Zeit Gist, not a single word from Debito Arudou, and the silence in Readers in Council from non-Japanese has been deafening.

A subject on which the foreign (but most vociferously, Western) population did manage to find its voice was the regimen of photographic registering and fingerprinting that was introduced in November 2007. Under the justification of countering terrorism, the Japanese government decided to require that visitors to its shores be photographed and have their fingerprints scanned at immigration — a policy with both precedent and reasonable justification in that it was also being carried out by the U.S. and was in the process of being set up in Britain. But what a reaction followed! Online petitions, protests, letter after letter to The Japan Times, U.N.-sponsored seminars. It was unbelievable!

Women-only train carriages and fingerprinting/photographing are both applications of group accountability. On both of these issues, a section of society (men and foreigners) is being asked to undergo a measure of inconvenience in order to counter a threat that comes from within their ranks (chikan and al-Qaida). The attitude of the Japanese toward these two issues is consistent. The attitude of the Western population is not. The Western population of Japan clearly draws a distinction between racial and nonracial applications of group accountability. Or perhaps more accurately, between applications that are primarily directed toward Westerners and those that are not.

The use of group accountability as an instrument of social control in Japan has not historically been racial in application.

It became an accepted societal tool during a time when this nation was — for all practical purposes — a mono-racial society. It has therefore been traditionally applied on a basis of criteria other than race.

This contrasts sharply with the history of group-based discrimination in Arudou’s America. “White America” has always been racial to the core, with “the other” always being a member of another race (the same being largely true for Australia, New Zealand, Canada or any of the other landmasses that “whites” succeeded in colonizing). As such, group accountability is a far touchier subject in the West than it is in Japan and much of Asia.

But surely that’s the West’s problem. Why should the social benefits of group accountability be denied to the Japanese simply because of the history of entrenched Western racism, especially given that the Japanese employ it with an even hand? The concept enjoys a broad level of acceptance within Asia as a whole, and the majority of non-Japanese residing on Japanese shores are Asian nationals. It makes little sense for the Western attitude to prevail.

It is more than appropriate that Debito Arudou ultimately got to take his bath at the Yunohana facility, but the ruling that was handed down was misguided. In truth, the case should not have even gone to court. At a pre-trial hearing the judge should have addressed Earth Cure with something like the following:

“Look, I understand your concerns. You have clearly suffered from the behavior of Russian customers, and as you were driven out of business at a former facility, it is not unnatural that you are the final remaining holdout. But enough is enough! Considerable efforts have been made in good faith to resolve this problem at a multitude of levels. It is time for you to give some ground.”

And if that didn’t work, the judge should have either asked Arudou to come to him with something other than a racial discrimination claim, or have issued a judgment that addressed the issue of group accountability directly. But that was not to be. The judgment that was made placed negligible weight on the preamble to the claim, thereby laying the legal groundwork for the demise of group accountability as a social conditioner within Japan.

Debito Arudou has embraced the precedent set in the Yunohana onsen case and sought to make the “right of entry” something of an “inalienable human right.” Precedent in hand, he has spent much of the past few years confronting unwelcoming Japanese “businesses” — the vast majority of which no self-respecting person should want to be seen anywhere near. This crusade is essentially geared toward having Japan conform with American (as distinct from Western) standards.

I am no regular rider on the anti-American bandwagon. America is a truly wonderful country with some particularly obvious virtues, but these do not include its level of safety and social cohesion. While the rights of the individual are certainly more strongly upheld in America than in Japan, the presence of rogue individuals within America is disproportionately high. America is unquestionably a more dangerous place than Japan.

Paul de Vries is putting the finishing touches to a book about what the world can learn from Japan. Send comments on this issue and story ideas to community@japantimes.co.jp

Get Japan Times Tues Dec 2 for new JUST BE CAUSE column, on Obama’s election

Posted on December 1, 2008December 1, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Just a quick word to tell you that my tenth Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column will be coming out tomorrow, Tues Dec 2 (Weds in print in the provinces). Topic this time: 700 words on the Obama victory and why his election will, given the shameful excesses of the Bush II Presidency, be a welcome respite for human rights activists in Japan. Get a copy! Arudou Debito in Iwate

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