mytest

Hi Blog. Writing to you on board a plane to the US. Got my 20th Reunion at Cornell (my how time flies), and as always a backlog of blog entries (too many for one newsletter this time), so lots of hours on the plane and some time away from the Internet may be just the ticket.

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JUNE 3, 2007

SPECIAL ISSUE: GOJ PONDERS WHAT TO DO ABOUT NON-JAPANESE WORKERS

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INTRODUCTION: WSJ ON JAPAN’S NJ LABOR MARKET
1) YOMIURI: 20,000 NJ STUDENTS CAN’T UNDERSTAND JAPANESE
2) ASAHI: GOJ GRANTS TO LOCAL GOVTS TO HELP NJ RESIDENTS
3) ASAHI: SKIMMING FROM “TRAINEE VISA” SCAMS CAUSES MURDER
4) YOMIURI: MINISTRIES SPLIT OVER WHAT TO DO RE VISA PROGRAMS’ ABUSES
5) THE VIEW OF THE ORIGINAL ARCHITECT OF THESE PROGRAMS, KEIDANREN

and finally…
6) REGISTERED NJ POPULATION HITS RECORD NUMBERS AGAIN IN 2006: 2.08 MILLION

…and the “Newcomer” immigrants will probably outnumber the “Oldcomer” generational foreigners by the end of this year.
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By Arudou Debito in Rochester, New York
debito@debito.org, updates in real time at https://www.debito.org/index.php
Freely Forwardable

INTRO FOR THOSE WHO CAME IN LATE: Japan has been bringing in foreign workers in a steady stream since 1990, when the Government of Japan decided that there was a serious problem with the “hollowing out” (kuudouka) of Japanese industry. Major and minor industries were either relocating overseas (where wages were cheaper) or going bankrupt. Japan had already lost their shoe, toy, and eyeglass industries to other Asian countries. So the GOJ decided to import cheap workers–most notably the descendants of prewar Nikkei immigrants to South America (particularly Brazil and Peru), thinking they would cause fewer problems to Japanese society than just importing anyone (like Chinese). To keep labor costs down, these people would come in on revolving-door terms: one-year “Researcher” or “Trainee” Visas, which required no employer investment in unemployment, health, or retirement benefits. They would also be employed on around half minimum wage, and would be expected to go home w
ith whatever technological training they had acquired (in the best of JETRO traditions) to benefit their home countries.

That was the theory, anyway. Nearly twenty years later, the registered NJ population has nearly doubled. And here’s how things have played out:

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CRACK IN THE DOOR
Cautiously, an Aging Japan Warms to Foreign Workers
Loopholes Open Up Jobs In Farms and Factories; Friction in Toyota City
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, May 25, 2007; Page A1
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB118003388526913715.html
Courtesy of Matt Dioguardi at The Community

…After failing to recruit young Japanese workers, the Akehama citrus farmers decided to try foreign workers, following the example of farmers in a nearby town. They recently set up their own recruiting agency to bring over new trainees. Most come from Benguet, a province in northern Luzon in the Philippines, where farms are struggling to compete with imports of Chinese vegetables. Akehama currently hosts eight trainees — two Vietnamese women and six Filipinos. Shipbuilding companies in a nearby town also employ some Filipino trainees.

“American farmers use Mexican workers to run their farms,” says Mr. Katayama. “So we said, why couldn’t we Japanese farmers use foreigners too?”…

Japan, long known for its resistance to mass immigration, is gradually starting to use more foreigners … to solve its labor shortage. They are taking up jobs in rural areas where industries such as agriculture and textiles are struggling. Big companies are filling their factories with foreigners to assemble auto parts and flat-panel TVs. In cities, foreign workers serve meals at restaurants and stock shelves at grocery stores.

The 2005 census found Japan had 770,000 foreign workers, or 1.3% of its working population, up from 604,000 and 0.9% a decade earlier. That is still a far cry from the U.S., which has 22 million foreign-born workers, or 15% of the labor force. Nonetheless, for Japan it’s a big change…

Even today, many Japanese believe that the country’s relatively homogenous population and common values contribute to a low crime rate and economic strength. But as the country is swept by drastic changes in its population and economy, Japanese are shaking off some of their traditional views. In a 2005 government public-opinion survey, 56% of respondents said Japan should accept unskilled foreign workers either unconditionally or if certain conditions are met. Only 26% said they were opposed to the idea under any circumstance….
=================================
Rest of the article at
https://www.debito.org/?p=432

However the cracks in the program soon came through, especially when NJ laborers started doing things untoward, like staying, marrying, and having children:

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1) YOMIURI: 20,000 NJ STUDENTS CAN’T UNDERSTAND JAPANESE

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20,000 in language pickle / Foreign students in need of specialized Japanese teachers
The Yomiuri Shimbun May. 22, 2007
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070522
Original Japanese blogged at
https://www.debito.org/?p=408

The number of foreign students in need of Japanese-language instruction in 885 municipalities exceeded 20,000 as of 2005, and the figure continues to increase, a government survey has found.

The Education, Science and Technology Ministry has produced guidebooks for language teaching, but most public primary, middle and high school teachers have little experience in teaching Japanese as a second language. Experts have pointed out the need for teachers who specialize in teaching Japanese to foreign children…

According to the ministry, the number of foreign students who needed extra Japanese-language training in 1991 was 5,463, and exceeded 10,000 in 1993. As of 2005, the figure stood at 20,692, accounting for about 30 percent of all foreign students.

The largest group among the students are native Portuguese speakers, accounting for 37 percent, followed by those speaking Chinese (22 percent), and Spanish (15 percent).

This is a consequence of the 1990 revision of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law that allowed foreigners of Japanese descent to work in Japan, which was previously banned. The revision pushed up the number of people entering the country, mainly from South America.

However, the children of such people often stop attending school due to language difficulties, or find it hard to secure jobs after graduating from school….

Full article at
https://www.debito.org/?p=409
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COMMENT: It’s not as if this situation is unprecedented in other developed countries, and Japan is pretty good at looking overseas for role models to deal with domestic issues. For example, in my small-town grade school we had remedial classes for native Spanish speakers. And this was back in the early 1970’s. C’mon, Japan, you bring people over here, you take care of them. You didn’t foresee them having children to have to put through school, for crying out loud?

There are some half-measures being taken on the micro level:

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2) ASAHI: GOJ GRANTS TO LOCAL GOVTS TO HELP NJ RESIDENTS

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Grants eyed to help foreigners settle
03/09/2007 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200703090116.html

The central government will provide grants to 70 municipalities for measures to help their growing populations of foreign residents settle in the communities, officials said.

The new system will cover language programs for non-Japanese children before they enroll in school, improved disaster-prevention measures for foreign residents, and expenses to help them live in rental accommodations.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications plans to revise its ordinance later this month to offer the special grants to cover the municipalities’ expenses for fiscal 2006, the officials said. The measure may continue in and after fiscal 2007…

In the town of Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture, the number of registered non-Japanese residents grew from 1,315 in 1990 to 6,748 by the end of January 2007, a fivefold increase to a figure that now accounts for about 16 percent of the town’s population.

“We appreciate the fact that the central government is finally moving to take care of what has been a financial burden on the municipal government,” a town official said…

The town office spends about 50 million yen a year for measures to help non-Japanese residents, including employing assistant Japanese language teachers at elementary and junior high schools and producing Portuguese calendars that explain how to sort garbage and show the collection days….
====================================
Rest of the article at
https://www.debito.org/?p=416

This is of course good news. Worrisome is the sentence “the measure MAY continue…” Let’s hope that it’s not just seen as a temporary stopgap measure. These people need help. Especially given what some of them have to deal with in the workplace:

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3) ASAHI: SKIMMING FROM “TRAINEE VISA” SCAMS CAUSES MURDER

I’ve blogged before how the Trainee and Researcher Visa program scams have resulted in various human and labor rights abuses (https://www.debito.org/?p=99) and even child labor (https://www.debito.org/?p=140). Now according to the Asahi, they’ve even resulted in murder:

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Slain farm association official took fees from both Chinese trainees, farmers
05/28/2007 The Asahi Shimbun
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200705280329.html

CHIBA: A slain former executive of a farm association had forced Chinese trainees to pay sizable fees that had already been covered by the farmers who accepted the trainees, sources said…

Most of about 150 Chinese workers on a farm training program offered by the Chiba Agriculture Association had paid between 40,000 yuan and 110,000 yuan (about 600,000 yen and 1.65 million yen) under the pretext of training fees and travel expenses, according to a survey conducted by the [farm] association.

“The system whose initial purpose is to transfer technologies to developing countries is being exploited as a juicy business,” Ippei Torii, general secretary of Zentoitsu Workers Union, which supports foreign workers, said of the foreign trainee-intern system….

The former executive was fatally stabbed in August last year in an attack that also injured two others.

A 26-year-old Chinese farm trainee, accused of murdering the executive and other charges, had been working about 50 hours a month overtime for token pay, even though the training program banned participants from taking on extra work…

“We left everything to the former executive as far as the training program is concerned,” the association’s chairman said. “It was a lack of supervision.”…

Japan International Training Cooperation Organization, an affiliate of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and four other ministries, is calling on organizers of training programs for foreign workers to ensure transparency in expenses involved. But there is no clear legal basis for such system. (IHT/Asahi: May 28,2007)
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Rest of the article at
https://www.debito.org/?p=420

COMMENT: Remember GAIJIN HANZAI Magazine (https://www.debito.org/?cat=27), a horribly-biased screed against NJ workers, residents, and immigrants? So awful that it was removed from store shelves within days of going on sale last January?

Well, it had a manga about this case. And believe it or not, it was actually *sympathetic* to the Chinese! See it at:
https://www.debito.org/?p=420

Even though said magazine also featured a different manga portraying Chinese–as a people–as natural-born killers!
http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2386

You know these GOJ-sponsored programs must be pretty bad when they even turn off the xenophobes!

Thanks to this case (generally, it seems somebody’s gotta die as a consequence of bad policy before people actually do something about it), the treatment of NJ workers has become a hot issue in Nagatachou and Kasumigaseki:

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4) YOMIURI: MINISTRIES SPLIT OVER WHAT TO DO RE VISA PROGRAMS’ ABUSES

The Yomiuri offers a good overview of the policy debate. Then Matt Dioguardi offers an even better overview on his blog:

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Govt split over foreign trainee program
Yomiuri Shimbun May 19, 2007
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070519TDY03003.htm

…Study panels established by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry recently proposed a review of the system [by 2009], while Justice Minister Jinen Nagase on Tuesday said he personally believes a new system for accepting foreign manual laborers should be introduced to replace the current system.

[See Nagase’s original two-page letter to policymakers in Japanese, scanned and leaked to me by a friend, at:
https://www.debito.org/?p=402 (page down)]

…But the motivations for any review vary markedly among the ministries, and it is unclear how these differing views can be reconciled…

For the first of the three years of on-the-job training under the scheme, foreign trainees are not legally considered employees, and are thus not covered by the Labor Standards Law, the Minimum Wage Law and other laws protecting workers.

The labor ministry’s panel on May 11 compiled a plan that would abolish the one-year training period, to allow the workers to be treated as employees for the whole period.

One senior ministry official noted, “Even if foreign trainees are forced to work under terrible conditions, labor laws don’t cover them during the trainee period, so we have no way of protecting them.”

But three days later, the METI panel issued a report that said the one-year trainee period should be maintained.

“Companies shoulder the cost of accommodating the foreign trainees and also provide Japanese language classes and work-safety training,” a ministry official said. “If they’re made employees from the start, it could actually create a situation whereby they are abused as low-wage laborers.”

The economy ministry believes the best way to prevent improper treatment of foreign trainees is to toughen penalties on host companies, and introduce some sort of certification for legitimate host firms…

The justice minister’s proposal is to abolish the current system and introduce a totally new one to allow the acceptance of a wider range of foreign workers for short periods. It would also in effect lift the ban on domestic firms accepting foreign manual laborers.

Nagase has instructed the Justice Ministry to examine his plan based on the following premises:

— The purpose of accepting foreign trainees or workers will change from “contributing to the transfer of job skills as part of international cooperation” to “contributing to securing the necessary workforce in Japan.”

— Atrocious working conditions and extremely low wages for foreign workers are unacceptable.

— Foreign trainees or workers are not allowed to reenter Japan with the same visa status, to prevent them from permanently settling in the nation.

…But all three ministries agree that a revised or completely new system should include measures to crackdown on overstayers through tighter immigration controls, and improvements in managing foreign workers’ information…
(Yomiuri Shinbun May 19, 2007)
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Entire article at
https://www.debito.org/?p=435

MATT DIOGUARDI ADDS:
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Now recently three ministries have stepped forward with a plan to save the day… There would seem to be the three views, roughly something like this:

Justice Ministry: Let’s stop pretending this is a trainee program and just admit openly that it’s a guest worker program. Then let’s be very clear that we expect labor laws to apply to the guest workers just like anyone else. We’ll crack down on the abuses. However, let’s be very clear that after the guests have stayed for three years, they MUST leave and they certainly can NOT come back. We don’t want these poor low life scum ruining Japanese society and culture.

Labor Ministry: Let’s just reform the system a bit. Let’s throw out the Industrial Training Program and instead focus on the Technical Internship Program. And you know that clause we’ve got about labor law not applying for the first year, well, let’s go ahead and apply it. That should fix things up, well, you know, maybe a little. I mean, this whole system is pretty lucrative for us bureaucrats, so let’s not rock the boat too much.

Economics Ministry: Let’s not let go of the idea that Japan is trying to help other countries by training their people. So what if the program becomes near slave labor at times. Even if it’s not true that were helping other countries, it’s the thought that counts. Do you know how much trouble it’ll be for us METI bureaucrats to deal with these other countries if we were OPENLY using and throwing away their workers? They would hate us. We can’t lose the important facade that we’re helping to develop poor countries. Why don’t we offer a certification program for those who want to abuse the trainees. It won’t mean dirt, but it’ll give us bureaucrats a bit more power and that’s not bad, right?
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More analysis of this issue and links to copious articles on this subject at:
http://japan.shadowofiris.com/immigration/will-the-permanent-government-fix-the-trainee-problem/

But let’s go the very source of this issue–the original advocate of these programs–the Business Lobby in Japan:

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5) THE VIEW OF THE ORIGINAL ARCHITECT OF THESE PROGRAMS, KEIDANREN

Essentially another tier of government, Keidanren, has finally gotten around to summarizing and translating its policy proposals for the outside world’s consumption. (The original was long, which is why I hadn’t gotten to it myself. Sorry.)

What is Keidanren? In their own words:
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Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) is a comprehensive economic organization born in May 2002 by amalgamation of Keidanren (Japan Federation of Economic Organizations) and Nikkeiren (Japan Federation of Employers’ Associations). Its membership of 1,662 is comprised of 1,351 companies, 130 industrial associations, and 47 regional economic organizations (as of June 20, 2006).

The mission of Nippon Keidanren is to accelerate growth of Japan’s and world economy and to strengthen the corporations to create additional value to transform Japanese economy into one that is sustainable and driven by the private sector, by encouraging the idea of individuals and local communities.

Nippon Keidanren, for this purpose, shall establish timely consensus and work towards resolution of a variety of issues concerning Japanese business community, including economic, industrial, social, and labor. Meanwhile, it will communicate with its stakeholders including political leaders, administrators, labor unions, and citizens at large. It will urge its members to adhere to Charter of Corporate Behavior and Global Environment Charter, in order to recover public confidence in businesses. It will also attempt to resolve international problems and to deepen economic relations with other countries through policy dialogue with governments, business groups and concerned international organizations.
http://www.keidanren.or.jp/english/profile/pro001.html
==========================

What they don’t mention is their hand in these guest-worker scams. So now how do they propose to remedy the problem?

According to their newest proposal, “Second Set of Recommendations on Accepting Non-Japanese Workers (Summary)”, dated March 20, 2007 (see it in full at https://www.debito.org/?p=431), Keidanren advocates more labor rights for NJ workers, and GOJ involvement in securing stable livelihoods.

This is a step in the right direction, to be sure, thanks. But Keidanren itself says in its writeup that it made similar calls for the very same in 2004. As the media and policy outcry shows, this has not done the trick. Just advocating it don’t make it so.

Keidanren also encouraging more training and a skilled workforce (understandable in principle), but advocates putting the onus on the worker to prove himself in terms of assimilation and qualification (understandable in principle, but unclear in practice; who’s going to test these people?)

Moreover, Footnote One below shows they are still in Never-Never Land regarding the role of NJ in Japanese society:

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Japan’s population has started to decline, but Nippon Keidanren’s aim in calling for Japan to admit more non-Japanese workers is not to fill the gap caused by this drop in population. According to forecasts, if nothing is done to reverse the depopulation trend, the retirement of the so-called baby boom generation will, 10 years from now, leave Japan’s labor force with four million fewer workers. It would not be practical to cover this shortfall entirely through the admission of non-Japanese people. Nippon Keidanren’s basic position is that non-Japanese people should be admitted to introduce different cultural ideas and sense of values into Japanese society and corporations and to promote the creation of new added value, as this would accelerate innovation, one of the three factors implicit in a potential growth rate (the other two being labor and capital).
==========================

I see. We’ll suck the ideas from them but won’t let them be a part of Japan. Yeah, right.

Look, Keidanren, get real. You brought these people here to keep your factories internationally competitive. Now figure out a way to take care of them, well enough to make them want to stay. For heaven’s sake, lose the revolving-door disposable worker mentality, already. NJ workers are in fact an investment in Japan’s future.

And yet, despite the crappy visa conditions, the erstwhile ministerial indifference, and the general bad-mouthing of NJ by the likes of Tokyo Governor Ishihara and the National Police Agency, NJ just keep on coming…

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6) REGISTERED NJ POPULATION HITS RECORD NUMBERS AGAIN IN 2006: 2.08 MILLION
…the Permanent-Resident “Newcomers” prepare to outnumber the “Oldcomers” by 2008

Latest figures for the population of registered NJ residents (i.e. anyone on 3-month visas and up) were made public last week by the Ministry of Justice (see them for yourself at http://www.moj.go.jp/PRESS/070516-1.pdf)

These are up to the end of 2006 (it takes about 5 months to tabulate the previous year’s figures). The headline:

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FOREIGN RESIDENTS AT RECORD HIGH
The Yomiuri Shinbun May. 22, 2007
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070522TDY01002.htm

The number of foreign residents in Japan as of the end of 2006 hit a record-high of 2.08 million, increasing 3.6 percent from the previous year, according to the Justice Ministry’s Immigration Bureau.

The figure of 2,084,919 accounted for 1.63 percent of the nation’s total population.
By nationality and place of origin, the two Koreas combined had the largest share at 28.7 percent, or 598,219. But because of the aging population and naturalization, the number of special permanent residents is decreasing after peaking in 1991.

In order of descending share after the two Koreas, China registered 26.9 percent or 560,741; Brazil, 15 percent or 312,979; and thereafter the order was the Philippines, Peru and the United States…

By prefecture, Tokyo came top with 364,712. Thereafter, Osaka, Aichi, Kanagawa, Saitama, Hyogo, Chiba, Shizuoka, Gifu and Kyoto prefectures accounted for about 70 percent.

Gifu Prefecture increased by 7.6 percent from a year ago, and Aichi by 7.1 percent. The high rates of increase in the two Chubu region prefectures is thought to be attributable to the area’s favorable economic conditions.
(May. 22, 2007)
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https://www.debito.org/?p=355

COMMENT: Oddly lost in translation from the original Japanese article (https://www.debito.org/?p=410) was the fact that this represents the 45th straight year the NJ population has risen. And at the rate reported above (3.6%), under the laws of statistics and compounding interest rates, this means the NJ population will again double in about 20 years.

It took twenty years to double last time, so the rate is holding steady. In fact, although the average is usually around a net gain of 50,000 souls per year, 2006 saw a gain of about 70,000. Accelerating?

The bigger news is this, though only briefly alluded to above:

Japan has two different types of Permanent Resident: The “Special PRs” (tokubetsu eijuusha), better known as the “Zainichi” ethnic Korean/Chinese etc. generational foreigners born in Japan, and the “General PRs” (ippan eijuusha), better known as the immigrants who have come here to settle and have been granted permission to stay in Japan forever.

Once upon a time, thanks to Japan’s jus sanguinis laws behind citizenship, most foreigners were in fact born in Japan–former citizens of empire stripped of their citizenship postwar and their descendents.

No longer. Every year, the number of “Oldcomers” are dropping, while the “Newcomers” are in fact catching up.

According to the MOJ, these are the raw numbers of people each year between 2002 and 2006 respectively:

Oldcomers:
489900 475952 465619 451909 443044
(rate of decrease 2005-2006 of 2%)
Newcomers:
223875 261001 312964 349804 394477
(rate of increase 2005-2006 of 12.8%)

If things continue at 2006’s rate, the number of “Newcomer” immigrants will surpass the “Oldcomers” this year, 2007!

Oldcomers: …434183 425499
Newcomers: …444,970 501926

which means that according to statistics, the Newcomers with PR will double again in a little under six years!

Of course, we won’t see the point of inflection officially until May 2008, but those are the trends. This is a major sea change, because with PR these people are probably here to stay forever, as per the terms of their visa.

As far as rights and internationalization advocates go, this should sound hopeful for increasing pressure on Japan to pass a law against racial discrimination. But I’m hearing rumblings:

According to sources I really cannot name, the “Oldcomers” have a much longer history of human-rights advocacy, and a greater sense of entitlement to “victimhood” than the upstart immigrants. It’s entirely likely the Zainichis might not be too cooperative. After all–they’ve suffered for generations and gotten a few policy bones thrown them by the GOJ. Why should they help make life any easier for others who haven’t paid their time and earned their stripes?

Those are some crystal-ball prognostications. Let’s see how things look in five to ten years, as the landscape keeps shifting under the advocates of human rights for minorities in Japan.

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All for today. Thanks for reading!
Arudou Debito, Rochester, New York, USA
debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JUNE 3, 2007 ENDS

mytest

Hello Blog. I’m trying to limit myself to one posting per day on my blog, so as to not overwhelm RSS subscribers, and not send out fat newsletters too frequently. But even then, I’ve still got about two weeks’ unreleased blog backlog, and a very pregnant newsletter to organize by theme. Here goes:

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1) FOLLOW-UP TO THE “HAIR POLICE” REPORT… comments from cyberspace
2) ASAHI: KURASHIKI HOTEL REFUSES NJ, GETS SLAPPED BY CITY GOVT
3) JUDGE RULES OVERWORKING NJ EDUCATORS IS LEGAL
4) UTU PETITION AGAINST OUTSOURCING JOBS
5) PETITION RE “COMFORT WOMEN”, US HR RESOLUTION 121
6) CHE: GRASSROOTS MEASURES AGAINST JAPAN’S HISTORICAL AMNESIA
7) FUJI TV: ARCHIVED SHOW ON JAPAN’S EXTREME RIGHT WING

and finally…
8) SECOND DEBITO.ORG DEJIMA AWARD TO “ALL-JAPAN HS ATHLETIC ASSN”
who organized a student footrace barring NJ from the starting lineup (Asahi)

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By Arudou Debito (debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org)
May 25, 2007 Blogged in real time at https://www.debito.org/index.php
Freely forwardable

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1) FOLLOW-UP TO THE “HAIR POLICE” REPORT…

I released my preliminary essay on how Japan’s high schools police their students, investigating a report of a Shizuoka Prefectural school forcing a NJ child to dye her natural hair color to black.
https://www.debito.org/?p=412

I received quite a number of comments from my mailing lists, and on the blog. Ranging from posts that compulsory hair dyeing goes beyond high school, to posts which declare this a non-issue, there is in between advice from a J veteran of the system (on what to do if you want to protest), a JT article on someone who sued their school for dyeing harassment, and links to the deleterious effects of long-term exposure to the chemicals in the hair dye itself.

There’s too much good information to excerpt effectively here, so visit the comments section at
https://www.debito.org/?p=412#comment-26954
Perhaps leave some comments of your own…

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2) ASAHI: KURASHIKI HOTEL REFUSES NJ, GETS KNOCKED BY CITY GOVT

I have this filed under “anti-discrimination templates”, because for once the authorities did something to stop this:

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PERSON REFUSED HOTEL LODGING IN KURASHIKI BUSINESS HOTEL “BECAUSE HE’S A FOREIGNER”
THE ASAHI SHINBUN, May 17, 2007
Translated by Arudou Debito. Thanks to about ten people for notifying me.

KURASHIKI, Okayama Pref: In April, a Chinese man (45) living in Hiroshima was refused lodging in a Kurashiki business hotel. The reason given was that he was a foreigner…

The City Government of Kurashiki apologized for causing discomfort to the refused man. They added that they will redouble their efforts to ensure that every hotel in the area is informed not to refuse non-Japanese…

The Chinese man works in Japan and has no problems communicating in Japanese. He fumed, “This is outrageous. How would Japanese feel if the same thing happened to them? It must stop.”

The management of the hotel refusing foreigners, on the other hand, said, “We can’t deal with all the language issues regarding foreign lodgers, so that’s why we refuse them.” They indicated that they would continue doing so.
==============================

Not mentioned in the article is that the hotel is
———————————————————————
BUSINESS HOTEL APOINTO
(Kurashiki Miwa 1 chome 14-29, phone 086-423-2600)
http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~apoint/
———————————————————————

I called the Kurashiki City Government (particularly the Kankou Convention Bureau, 086-421-0224, Mr Ono), and a few other places to find out more about the case. Finally calling the hotel, I talked to a Mr Kawakami, who said that they saw the error of their ways (thanks to administrative guidance from the city government), and would no longer be refusing foreign guests.

Good, but this is quite a U-turn, on the very day an Asahi article comes out saying that they would continue. Guess it remains to be seen. I have asked my friends in Kurashiki to keep an eye out.

In the end, thanks are owed the Kurashiki City Government for actually doing something about the problem. This is in my experience actually quite unusual (see other cases of government inaction, in the face of clear and signposted racial discrimination, at the ROGUES’ GALLERY OF EXCLUSIONARY ESTABLISHMENTS)

Kurashiki was, of course, legally bound to, since the Ryokan Gyouhou (Hotel Management Law) Article 5 requires hotels to keep their doors open to anyone, unless there is a health issue involving contagious disease, a clear and present endangerment of public morals, or because all rooms are full.

Which is what makes hotels a relatively refusal-free haven for NJ in Japan (on the books, anyway). One of the issues brought forth in the Otaru Onsens Case was that the Otaru City Govt’s hands were allegedly tied because the bathhouses were private-sector, therefore outside of any legal control vis-a-vis discrimination. As I keep saying, racial discrimination is not illegal in Japan.

But hotels are specifically-governed by a law preventing wanton refusals, including those based upon race or nationality. See more at.
https://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#refusedhotel

Still, the law is only as good as those who enforce it. Tokyo Shinjuku-ku, for example, has a business hotel named TSUBAKURO (Tokyo Shinjuku-ku Hyakuninchou 1-15-33, Tel 03-3367-2896).

TSUBAKURO has been refusing foreigners for years (see their signs at https://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html#Shinjuku) and have been called and visited a number of times, to no avail.

I have even told the local Hyakuninchou Police Box about this, shown them the law, and photos of the sign. They told me to take it up with the Shinjuku Police HQ. Great job, boys.

In any case, thanks are due Kurashiki City Government for taking effective measures. The Japanese judiciary, as well as its police, should take lessons:

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3) JUDGE RULES OVERWORKING NJ EDUCATORS IS LEGAL

Friend Kevin Dobbs in Tochigi reports that his lousy university working conditions (widespread for NJ academics in Japan, see https://www.debito.org/blacklist.html) have been justified by yet another one of those cracked judges skulking in our courtrooms…

==============================
JUDGE RULES THAT WORKLOADS FOR NJ FACULTY
WHICH ARE DOUBLE THAT OF J FACULTY
ARE PERFECTLY LEGAL

Report by Kevin Dobbs, Full-time educator at the International University of Health and Welfare, Tochigi Prefecture, May 8, 2007

[Background behind the lawsuit on the Blacklist of Japanese Universities:
https://www.debito.org/IUHWdata.html ]

Our court experience was called “Kari Saiban” or Temporary Court, so our judge made his decision in 33 days. [Here is one of] the three main points that the judge said swayed him in favor of my workplace:

…A 1-year-renewable contract teacher (the one I mention above) at IUHW, and the only other union member still at IUHW, stated at a recent collective bargaining that 12 koma [90-minute classroom periods] was acceptable for him. But that number was in his contract, anyway, and always has been, so he had no choice in the matter. Even though this teacher is a koshi [entry-level instructor] with no publications or presentations to his credit, the judge decided to perceive me and this other teacher as qualitatively the same. The judge said, “If this teacher agrees with 12 koma, then so should Kevin Dobbs”. This, even though I have well over 100 highly-competitive publications and some presentations to my credit, not to mention the fact that I was director of up to ten native-English speaking teachers for 10 years. At a recent collective bargaining, however, IUHW said: “If Kevin Dobbs wants to publish, he should quit and get a job at another university. His accomplishments mean nothing to us.”

Anyway, this judge totally ignored our evidence: indisputable Ministry of Education documents, letters from primary sources, and labor law…
==============================
Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=364

Kevin is appealing his case. You can send him words of encouragement at kdobbs329@yahoo.co.jp, because what happens to him has great potential for Pandora to bring out her key.

You can also help out people nationwide in Japan’s toughening labor market:

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4) UTU PETITION AGAINST OUTSOURCING JOBS

==============================
“Stop Outsourcing – Job Security for All” Petition

The University Teachers Union has launched a “Stop Outsourcing – Job Security for All” petition and is seeking the support of individuals, organizations and unions in Japan.

The petition, which will be submitted to the Diet in early July, aims to highlight the threat of outsourcing to educational standards at universities, the threat of outsourcing to the job security of university teachers, and the general threat posed by the strategy of outsourcing to the living standards and job security of all workers — both Japanese and foreign.
==============================

More on the issue at https://www.debito.org/?p=405
Download the petition at http://www.utu-japan.org

Speaking of petitions:

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

5) PETITION RE “COMFORT WOMEN” HR RESOLUTION 121

I include this excerpt in this newsletter as a matter of record, received from overseas activists:

==============================
SUPPORT THE “HOUSE RESOLUTION 121” NOW! LONG-OVERDUE JUSTICE FOR “COMFORT
WOMEN”; END JAPAN’S DENIAL AND IMPUNITY OF ITS WAR CRIMES!

The HR Res 121 calls on the government of Japan to formally acknowledge and apologize for its role in the coercion of women into sex slavery (introduced by Mike Honda, and now has more than 120 co-sponsors)…
==============================

Rest of argument grounding the petition at
https://www.debito.org/?p=403

Debito.org’s archive on the issue of wartime sexual slavery at
https://www.debito.org/?s=Comfort+Women

I include this news in this newsletter because how this Congressional resolution turns out is very important. The GOJ would otherwise continue to refuse to settle this issue in my view properly. It will also serve as an update on what’s happening at the grassroots level vis-a-vis this movement. Worth a look.

Other people helping out in the same vein:

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6) CHE: MEASURES AGAINST JAPAN’S HISTORICAL AMNESIA

Since one of PM Abe’s campaigns to “beautify” Japan is basically to whitewash over the ugly elements of Japan’s past, The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a story on how Japan’s civil society and disappearing war veterans are hard at work to preserve the record. We don’t hear enough about them in the media. Allow me to try to remedy that:

===================================
WAR MUSEUM RESISTS JAPAN’S HISTORICAL AMNESIA
By David McNeill in Tokyo
The Chronicle of Higher Education April 27, 2007
Link for subscribers: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i34/34a05401.htm
Longer version at Japan Focus Website at
http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/2333
Courtesy of the author

… In the newly opened Chukiren Peace Museum, the 80-year old curator, Fumiko Niki, is among a small group of activists and academics who have spent years compiling a depository of records that they say proves the enormity of the imperial army’s war crimes before and during World War II. The effort to remember that history is being lost in a growing revisionist tide, she fears…

The core of the Chukiren museum’s collection is the testimony of 300 Japanese army veterans who, while in custody in China in the 1940s and 50s, confessed to atrocities there, including rape, torture, and infanticide. Photographic evidence is held in the archives. Ultranationalists have threatened to burn down the museum, prompting the elderly staff members to look into the unfamiliar world of high-tech security…

“As a historian of that war, I find the testimony consistent with both the documentary record and my own interviews with Chinese villagers,” says Mark Selden, a senior fellow in the East Asia program at Cornell University, in an e-mail message. “Like their American counterparts who returned home to tell of their own destructive acts in Vietnam, the Chukiren soldiers have braved opprobrium from super patriots to tell the truth about the war and their own part in it.”
===================================
Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=395

Speaking of the Ultranationalists:

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

7) FUJI TV: ARCHIVED SHOW ON JAPAN’S EXTREME RIGHT WING

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to ride in one of those jet-black soundtrucks, or what kind of people are behind the wheel and black glass?

On YouTube recently were added several videos about the Right Wing (Uyoku) in Japan. It’s an hourlong broadcast on the commercial TV networks (archived in five 10-minute parts).

The show was produced nearly 20 years ago by Fuji TV, with a somewhat sympathetic bent towards the Uyoku (i.e. the interviewers even get rides inside the soundtrucks), depicting the rival Sayoku (Extreme Left–in this case only the Chuukakuha) as monolithic, militant, and unclear in ideology. Nevertheless, I found it fascinating.

It opens with a branch of Uyoku lecturing NJ in Roppongi on how to behave in Japan (even if they’re saying “Obey Our Laws, Gaijin”, not “Yankee Go Home” sorts of things, I still find this attitude quite rich…). As this show was filmed long before official GOJ campaigns to depict and target foreigners as criminals (https://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#checkpoint), it’s not clear how the Uyoku would behave in the same situation nowadays.

The archiver also shows his bent by insinuating (in his writeup at YouTube, also blogged at Debito.org) that most people (especially, as he puts it, the “gaijin”) are uninformed; the Uyoku are somehow misunderstood as “militant racists”. But this show hardly sets the record straight for me; it remains clear that even with all the splinter groups, the common thread is still deification of the Emperor, purity as ideology, and having all Japanese share a common mindset of birthright.

Given that I saw the Dai Nippon Aikoku Tou speak last week in Odori Park, Sapporo, for more than an hour by their big blue bus (slogan on the back: “Give us back Karafuto [Sakhalin] and Chishima Rettou [the Kuriles]” (i.e. not just the Northern Territories), it’s not clear how they would treat the racially-separate peoples on those islands (or within Japan itself, given all the children of international marriages with Japanese citizenship). I remain doubtful that they would be accepting, which by definition would lead to militant racism.

In sum: As I also believe Japan is lurching rightward in recent years, this is worth a view to get an idea what the extreme version wants. In Japanese with very good English subtitles, somebody put a lot of work into making this series accessible to the outside world:

https://www.debito.org/?p=394

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

and finally…
8) SECOND DEBITO.ORG DEJIMA AWARD TO “ALL-JAPAN HS ATHLETIC ASSN”
who organized a student footrace barring NJ from the starting lineup (Asahi)

After all the idiocies I’ve included in this newsletter, I saved the best for last. In fact, I would like to award the Second Debito.org Dejima Award to the All Japan High School Athletic Federation.

(Suggested by friend Chris Flynn, the Dejima Award is a showcase for those small-minded people in this society who feel the need to keep foreign peoples, ideas, and influences from these pristine shores. In much the same spirit as Feudal Japan kept foreigners secluded on an island off Nagasaki named Dejima centuries ago.)

Here’s the story:

====================================
FOREIGN STUDENTS CAN’T START EKIDEN
05/24/2007 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200705240080.html
Courtesy of Glenn Boothe

Bowing to pressure from disgruntled fans, a high school athletic association will prohibit foreign students from running the first leg of the All Japan High School Ekiden Championships relay marathon starting next year.

The All Japan High School Athletic Federation said the decision, reached Tuesday, is intended to make the races more interesting for fans…

“We looked into the issue in a constructive manner after angry fans complained it is a turnoff to see foreign students scoring an insurmountable lead in the first section,” said Kazunobu Umemura, executive managing director of the federation….

“From the standpoints of ‘internationalization’ and school education, it would be ideal not to have any restrictions,” he said. “In reality, however, the differences in physical capabilities between Japanese and foreign students are far beyond imagination.”…
====================================
Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=417

The obvious prescience displayed by the people who organize these footraces for students, when deciding to “keep the race more interesting for disgruntled fans” by shutting foreigners out of the starting lineup, is sure to make foreign students feel more welcome, and help keep Japan’s education system (struggling with our low birthrate, desperately courting foreign students) solvent and equal-opportunity. Not.

More on Japan’s nasty habit of shutting foreigners out of its sports and other competitions (again, sometimes using the same argument that foreigners have an unfair advantage due to physical or mental prowess) archived at
https://www.debito.org/TheCommunity/communityissues.html#SPORTS

Avoid katou kyousou as best you can if it’s tainted with foreignness, I guess…

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

All for this week. Thanks for reading!
Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER FOR MAY 25, 2007 ENDS

mytest

Hello Blog. Contents of this week’s newsletter as follows:

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

1) IPS ON JAPAN XENOPHOBIA’S EFFECT ON ECONOMIC GROWTH
2) KTO ON GAIJIN HANZAI AND SEXING UP FOREIGN CRIME FIGURES
3) NYT ON FORCED CONFESSIONS BY JAPANESE POLICE
4) LUCIE BLACKMAN’S ALLEGED KILLER ACQUITTED, ODDLY
5) ANTHONY BIANCHI REELECTED TO INUYAMA CITY ASSEMBLY
6) PEACE AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE CONFERENCE, KYOTO, SUBMISSIONS DUE MAY 31
and finally…
7) KYUSHU CYCLETREK 2007: REPORT OF THE 768-KM TRIP WITH PHOTOS

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

By Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan

May 13, 2007

Freely forwardable, real-time blog at https://www.debito.org/index.php

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

1) IPS ON JAPAN XENOPHOBIA’S EFFECT ON ECONOMIC GROWTH

Here’s another article outlining the social damage created by Japan’s close-to-a-decade (since April 2000, see my book JAPANESE ONLY) of media, police, and governmental targeting of NJ as agents of crime and social instability:

Even when the press finally decides to turn down the heat, the public has a hard time getting over it.

=========== EXCERPT BEGINS =================

XENOPHOBIA MAY HAMPER ECONOMIC GROWTH

By Suvendrini Kakuchi

Inter Press Service News Agency, May 8, 2007

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37549

Courtesy of Hans ter Horst

TOKYO, Apr 30 (IPS) – Junko Nakayama, 56, refuses to believe that the number of foreigners arrested for crimes is decreasing as per statistics released by the National Policy Agency.

”There are an increasing number of foreigners, mostly Asian, in the area where I live and they look menacing. I am now very nervous when I walk back home from the train station in the evening,” she says.

Nakayama, who works in an international company, is not alone. Surveys indicate that more Japanese–over 70 percent in a poll–believe that the influx of foreigners into Japan is posing a threat to the country’s famed domestic peace. The notion is fuelled, say activists, by sensationalism in the media over crimes committed by overseas workers.

Accepting foreign migrant workers and treating them equally has been a long simmering debate in Japan where pride in national homogeneity is deep-rooted.

Says Nobushita Yaegashi at Kalaba No Kai, a leading grass roots group helping foreign labour: ”Despite new steps to allow foreign workers into Japan, they are viewed as cheap labour not as individuals who have the right to settle down and make a life in Japan. This policy reveals Japan’s xenophobia and is represented in the media.”

=========== EXCERPT ENDS =================

Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=361

More on the history of the GOJ’s anti-foreign campaigns starting from:

https://www.debito.org/TheCommunity/communityissues.html#gaijinimages

https://www.debito.org/TheCommunity/communityissues.html#police

One interesting stat from the article:

—————————————————

“On average, foreigners are paid around 15,000 US dollars annually, almost half the minimum considered necessary to live in this country.”

—————————————————

That’s quite a bellwether wage differential, and would definitely like to cite that in future. I asked the reporter for her sources, and she replied that she arrived at that figure after going through the reams of news clips in the press club library, as well as talking to workers and experts.

This is an average, remember. For when you factor in the high pay that foreign diplomats, expat businessmen, foreign legal community, and financial marketers get in Japan, that means this figure should be even lower for foreign factory workers.

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

2) KTO ON GAIJIN HANZAI AND SEXING UP FOREIGN CRIME FIGURES

The Kansai Time Out had a decent two-page article in their May issue on how the GOJ is misrepresenting crime statistics. Opening with the infamous GAIJIN HANZAI Magazine we talked about some months ago, it says what we’ve been saying for quite some time now; glad to see that others agree and keep passing the torch.

=========== EXCERPT BEGINS =================

The increased size of the foreign population is not the only thing that challenges the accuracy of the crime figures. The statistics themselves, both in raw numbers and in percentages, only tell half the story due to the difficulty in defining what constitutes “foreign” crime. According to official reports, “foreign residents” are defined as those who stay in Japan on visas for twelve months or longer, yet short-term visitors (e.g, tourists, illegal immigrants, and temporary workers) are also included in the “foreign crime” statistics, though they aren’t included in the two-million registered foreign nationals. This anomaly has the potential to skew the statistics to make it appear that the crime rate is actually higher. If the actual number of foreigner nationals who are in the country during the year is included in the figures (an additional approximately six million annual visitors), then the total jumps to 6.3 percent of the population, meaning that the crime rate would decrease from a modest 2380 per 100,000 to a mere 597. The crime rate among Japanese is 1776 per 100,000…

=========== EXCERPT ENDS =================

If you can tolerate run-on sentences, the rest of the article is scanned at

https://www.debito.org/?p=362

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

3) NYT ON FORCED CONFESSIONS BY JAPANESE POLICE

Thanks to two friends for sending me this. Another good article from former hack and now serious journalist Norimitsu Onishi. Keep it up!

=========== EXCERPT BEGINS =================

PRESSED BY POLICE, EVEN INNOCENT CONFESS IN JAPAN

The New York Times, May 11, 2007

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/world/asia/11japan.html?ex=1179547200&en=a4eb5f0efa88a7a9&ei=5070&emc=eta1

SHIBUSHI, Japan The suspects in a vote-buying case in this small town in western Japan were subjected to repeated interrogations and, in several instances, months of pretrial detention. The police ordered one woman to shout her confession out a window and forced one man to stomp on the names of his loved ones.

In all, 13 men and women, ranging in age from their early 50s to mid-70s, were arrested and indicted. Six buckled and confessed to an elaborate scheme of buying votes with liquor, cash and catered parties. One man died during the trial–from the stress, the others said–and another tried to kill himself.

But all were acquitted this year in a local district court, which found that their confessions had been entirely fabricated. The presiding judge said the defendants had “made confessions in despair while going through marathon questioning.”

The Japanese authorities have long relied on confessions to take suspects to court, instead of building cases based on solid evidence. Human rights groups have criticized the practice for leading to abuses of due process and convictions of innocent people.

But in recent months developments in this case and two others have shown just how far the authorities will go in securing confessions…

=========== EXCERPT ENDS =================

Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=367

COMMENT: Japan’s interrogation techniques of 23 days’ incarceration with marathon inquests break down plenty of innocent people, as the article demonstrates. A primer on the issue available at Debito.org artery site

https://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#arrested

And it’s certainly an issue germane to Debito.org since Japanese police routinely engage in racial profiling and targeting foreigners (https://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#overstay) –expressly in the name of “effective prevention of infectious diseases and terrorism” (https://www.debito.org/japantimes052405.html). It’s lucky with Japan’s extremely high conviction rates (more than 99%) that these people got off.

Speaking of people miraculously beating the rap:

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

4) LUCIE BLACKMAN’S ALLEGED KILLER ACQUITTED, ODDLY

This is old news, which I didn’t get to before Golden Week, but still bears mention:

=========== EXCERPT BEGINS =================

SERIAL RAPIST OBARA GETS LIFE TERM

DEVELOPER ACQUITTED IN BLACKMAN SLAYING BUT SENT UP IN RIDGWAY’S MURDER

The Japan Times, Tuesday, April 24, 2007

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070424?1.html

The Tokyo District Court acquitted wealthy property developer Joji Obara of the 2000 death and dismemberment of British bar hostess Lucie Blackman but sentenced him to life for the slaying of an Australian woman and a series of rapes nearly a decade ago.

Obara, 54, was charged with serial rape and the death of two foreign women–Blackman in 2000 in a case that became one of Japan’s most notorious sex crimes and raised concerns over the safety of women in night clubs and the sex industry here, and Australian Carita Ridgway in 1992.

Despite widely reported circumstantial evidence, Obara was cleared of all charges relating to Blackman. He was sentenced to life for nine other rapes, including the attack that led to Ridgway’s 1992 death–a case that may have gone unpunished, ironically, had Blackman’s disappearance not triggered suspicions that led to the accused…

=========== EXCERPT ENDS =================

Given that Blackman’s body was found encased in cement, close to the flat of a person with an established history of poisoning and mashing women, something doesn’t quite add up here with this court verdict. As the Japan Times pointed out in an analysis piece the same day:

=========== EXCERPT BEGINS =================

APPROACH TO BLACKMAN SLAYING HIT, LIKENED TO KEYSTONE COPS

FAULTY POLICE PROCEDURES SEEN FOILING QUICK ACTION, PREVENTION

The Japan Times, Tuesday, April 24, 2007

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070424f1.html

By JUN HONGO AND ERIC PRIDEAUX

…Blackman’s dismembered body was discovered in a cave on Kanagawa Prefecture’s Miura Peninsula in February 2001, about 200 meters from one of Obara’s many summer getaway homes.

Yet Obara has said prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to hold him responsible for Blackman’s death, the dismemberment of her body or any of the other charges…

[F]ive days after Blackman was last heard from, on July 6, 2000, police received a call from the manager of Obara’s condominium on the shores of the Miura Peninsula and were told of a tenant who had been making lots of noise in his unit the day before.

Prosecutors say police visited the apartment that evening and found Obara naked from the waist up, covered in sweat. Officers asked permission to look around his apartment and were allowed in. Chunks of cement were strewn near the entrance and around the apartment. Asked about this, Obara said he had been “removing tiles,” according to a trial transcript.

When officers requested access to the bathroom, Obara said, “You’ve already seen enough.” Upon further questioning, he grew agitated and the officers eventually left.

Besides the concrete debris, officers also glimpsed a bulky sack in the room and what appeared to be a gardening hoe…

The way police handled the Blackman and Ridgway deaths appear remarkably similar to that of Lindsay Ann Hawker, a 22-year-old Briton found slain last month.

The suspect in that murder, Tatsuya Ichihashi, 28, gave several officers the slip at his Chiba Prefecture apartment, where Hawker’s strangled corpse was found in a disconnected tub full of sand on his balcony.

He had allegedly been stalking Hawker, an English teacher at a Nova school, and she had agreed to go to his apartment to give him a private lesson.

Although police claim their team was properly positioned when they went to question Ichihashi on Hawker’s disappearance on March 26, he managed to bolt down a fire escape and remains at large.

=========== EXCERPT ENDS =================

Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=356

Funny thing about all this is, Japan has many famous “enzai” (framing) cases, where the police try very hard to make the case that someone is guilty, even with only circumstantial evidence.

One example here, the Eniwa Enzai Jiken:

http://www4.ocn.ne.jp/~sien/

http://stone2.at.infoseek.co.jp/eniwa.html

Other enzai cases here:

http://www.sayama-case.com/ring/ring.cgi

(Articles in Japanese)

And a brief on the case (old, no newer article found on JT site) here:

MURDER ARREST LOOMS

The Japan Times, May 23, 2000 (page down past first article)

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20000523a5.html

which ended with a conviction on circumstantial evidence.

Why do the Japanese police seem to have such a hard time dealing with crime committed against non-Japanese, yet have very little compunction about treating NJ as criminals themselves…? Building a case…

Now it’s time for some good news:

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

5) ANTHONY BIANCHI REELECTED TO INUYAMA CITY ASSEMBLY

Naturalized citizen gets a second lease on his public career:

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

US-BORN BIANCHI REELECTED IN AICHI

Japan Today, Monday, April 23, 2007 at 06:56 EDT

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/404663

Courtesy of Ben at The Community

NAGOYA Anthony Bianchi, originally from Brooklyn, New York, was reelected Sunday as an assembly member in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture.

Bianchi, 48, had resigned as an assembly member to run in the city’s mayoral election in December. After losing the mayoral bid, he ran again for an assembly seat in the city, which has a population of around 75,000.

Bianchi first came to Japan in the late 1980s and became a naturalized Japanese citizen in 2002. After working as an English teacher in Inuyama, he won a seat in the city assembly in April 2003 with the largest number of votes ever cast for a candidate in the election of 3,302. (Kyodo News)

ENDS

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

More on Anthony here:

http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=766

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1248301

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2003/08/01

Anthony’s official website here:

http://www.bianchi-inuyama.com/

Congratulations!

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

6) PEACE AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE CONFERENCE, KYOTO, SUBMISSIONS DUE MAY 31

Friend Albie Sharpe asked me to pass this along:

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

Call for Presentations

6th Annual Peace as a Global Language Conference

Cultivating Peace, in association with a Model United Nations ‘Imagine Peace’

Date: Saturday, October 27 – Sunday October 28.

Venue: Kyoto University of Foreign Studies.

Submissions related to education and research in the following areas are invited:

– peace, the environment, human rights and other global issues,

– intercultural communication, values, health, gender and media literacy,

– foreign language education focusing on global issues.

Presentations may be in English or Japanese, or bilingual. Presenters may be teachers, students, researchers, journalists, activists and others interested in education for a better world.

Submissions should be sent by e-mail to: submissions@pgljapan.org

Deadline for Submissions: May 31, 2007

Further information http://www.pgljapan.org

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

I submitted a proposal for four different talks. We’ll just let them choose which one (or two, perhaps) they want.

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

and finally…

7) KYUSHU CYCLETREK 2007: REPORT OF THE 768-KM TRIP WITH PHOTOS

=========== EXCERPT BEGINS =================

This is not the first time I’ve done something like this. I’ve undertaken a number of cycletreks (see one of my favorite essays at https://www.debito.org/residentspage.html#cycletreks), the last one last summer where a friend and I cycled from Sapporo to Abashiri via Wakkanai and Monbetsu (total for me, 940 kms over nearly two weeks).

But cycling can be addictive, so long as you can take a bicycle seat numbing your tuckus all day, since it ultimately becomes meditation with a view. And by the end of around the third day, when your body has become accustomed to exhausted early nights crashing in a tent, followed by amazingly-full raring-to-go recovery by sunrise, you get into a rhythm and a self-actualizing sense of accomplishment:

You have fuel, functional legs, full tyres, and a flat surface to cycle upon. You feel as if can go anywhere, do anything. All that stands between you and your destination is time–since distance (when you go at least 100 kms a day) becomes surmountable.

Here’s where my legs took me this Golden Week in Southern Kyushu…

=========== EXCERPT ENDS =================

Rest of the report, with scans of maps and photos of scenery and me en route at

https://www.debito.org/?p=368

Should be a pleasant diversion from Debito.org’s usual fare.

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

Thanks for reading!

Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan

debito@debito.org

https://www.debito.org

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 13, 2007 ENDS