Upcoming speeches Sept in Hamamatsu, Nagoya, Osaka, Nagano, Sendai and Iwate

Posted on August 30, 2008September 6, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Upcoming speeches, FYI. Debito in transit

Mon Sept 1, 7PM-9PM, Speech for JALT Hamamatsu, Shizuoka (CONFIRMED): Writeup: Hamamatsu- An evening with Debito. One of the leading human rights activists in Japan and co-author of the “Handbook for newcomers, migrants, and immigrants, to Japan” will present on various human rights issues relative to language teachers, working professionals, and members of the community. Following the presentation there will be an informal opportunity to discuss your burning issues with Debito one-to-one. Mon 1 September 19:00 – 21:00; Presentation at Hamamatsu, Machizukuri Center downtown across from Create Hamamatsu; one-day members ¥1000. 21:00 – 23:00 Dialog with Debito to follow at Hamamatsu, Mein Schloss, (see Hamamatsu Chapter website for location directions <http://www.hamamatsujalt.org/>

Thurs Sept 4, 2008, 7PM, Lecture on “The Japanese Legal System–Cognitive Dissonances to Consider”, for Kansai Attorneys Registered Abroad, Osaka (CONFIRMED)

Sat Sept 6, 2008, 6PM Speech for Osaka Forming NGO FRANCA, at Osaka OCAT Building (CONFIRMED) When: Saturday, September 6th, 6 PM (NOTE EARLIER TIME)
Where: Namba Shimin Gakushuu Center (難波市民学習センター) (〒556-0017 大阪市浪速区湊町1丁目4番1号 OCATビル4階, Osaka-shi, Namba-ku, Minato-cho 1-4-1, 4th Floor of OCATBldg.)
Google Map: http://tinyurl.com/5z5sca
HP: http://www.osakademanabu.com/namba/
(This is the same place as the last FRANCA meeting in Kansai.)
Who & What: Arudou Debito will be speaking first, after which we hope to discuss several of the issues that need to be taken care of to move FRANCA forward as a group.

Mon Sept 8 to Weds Sept 10: Nagoya University Intensive Summer Course on Media Professionality 名古屋大学主宰　メディアプロフェッショナル論特殊研究Ⅲ　担当：有道　出人（あるどう　でびと）（北海道情報大学准教授）集中講義　9/8：2・3・4時限、9/9（火）：2・3・4時限、9/10（水)　(CONFIRMED)

Sat Sept 13, 2008, 1:30-4:30PM, Workshop on Racial Discrimination for N2C2 group in Nagano in Japanese (CONFIRMED)

Sun Sept 14, 2008, Speech for Sendai Forming NGO FRANCA, 2PM-4PM, at: Sendai Chuo Shimin Centre Kaigi Shitsu (CONFIRMED)

Mon Sept 15, 2008, 2PM-4PM, Speech in Japanese, 「21世紀の日本の国際化とは？」in Kitakami, Iwate Pref. in Shougai Gakushuu Center 3F (west exit of Kitakami Stn), (CONFIRMED)

Japan Times: GOJ claims to UN that it has made “every conceivable” effort to eliminate racial discrim

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

mytest

Hi Blog. Long-time readers may find this guffaw-worthy. I did. Especially since it’s titled “the third, fourth, fifth and sixth combined periodic report” [Japanese pdf, English pdf]–indicating just how late they’re filing a report that is actually due every two years. What bunkum. More on the GOJ’s relationship with the UN here. And more here about how the GOJ seeks input from human rights groups but not really (when they allowed right-wingers to shout down a meeting last year).

Finally, just a point of logic: If the GOJ had taken “every conceivable measure” as it claims below, that would naturally include a law against racial discrimination, wouldn’t it? But no. And look what happens as a result. Arudou Debito in transit.

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

Japan Times Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008

Japan defends steps to end discrimination

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080826a3.html

By ERIC JOHNSTON

Staff writer

OSAKA — In a new report to the United Nations [Japanese pdf, English pdf] the government outlines the situation of ethnic minorities and foreign residents in Japan, claiming it has made “every conceivable” effort over the past several years to eliminate racial discrimination.

Occasionally sounding on the defensive, the report, released Friday, sidesteps the issue of a comprehensive law prohibiting discrimination between individuals.

Human rights groups and Doudou Diene, the U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, have called for the passage of a law clearly against racism and xenophobia, as well as the establishment of an independent national human rights monitoring body.

The government has long held that Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality under the law, makes any antidiscrimination legislation superfluous, a point reiterated in the report.

“Japan has taken every conceivable measure to fight against racial discrimination,” the report’s introduction says, later adding that apartheid is unknown in Japan.

The report covers the situation of the Ainu, Korean residents and other foreigners. The government noted that there were an estimated 23,782 Ainu in 2006.

A Hokkaido Prefectural Government survey in 2006 showed 93.5 percent of Ainu youths go on to high school, and 17.4 percent go on to university, an improvement from recent years but below the national average, in which 98.3 percent of all youths enter high school. About 38 percent of all people who live in municipalities where Ainu reside go on to university, the survey noted.

About 30 percent of Hokkaido’s Ainu said they had experienced discrimination at school, in job interviews or when getting married, or that they knew of someone who had experienced such discrimination, the same survey indicated.

The report to the U.N. notes the Diet’s passage of a resolution in June recognizing the Ainu, and that the government has set up an advisory panel to discuss Ainu policies.

ENDS

Japan Times: GOJ Panel begins process to rectify Ainu woes

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

mytest

Panel begins process to rectify Ainu woes

The Japan Times August 12, 2008

By MASAMI ITO, Staff writer

Courtesy http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080812a4.html

Courtesy AW

The government panel on Ainu policies held its first meeting Monday, aiming to look into the lives and discrimination the indigenous group faces and come up with remedial action.

The group, headed by Koji Sato, a professor emeritus of constitutional law at Kyoto University, will meet about once a month and submit proposals to the chief Cabinet secretary by next summer.

“There needs to be broad public understanding and cooperation,” Sato said. “The most important starting point is to have the public accurately understand the history and grasp the situation of the Ainu.”

The panel’s creation followed the Diet passage in June of a resolution to officially recognize for the first time the Ainu as an indigenous people.

Tadashi Kato, who chairs the Ainu Association of Hokkaido and has been active in pursuing their rights, was elected one of the panel members.

After the meeting, he told reporters of the ongoing discrimination against the ethnic minority.

Kato recalled a junior high student who wrote in an essay that “the Ainu should go away from this town” and a little Ainu boy who cried at home because he was teased at school for having more body hair than others.

“I want people to know that (discrimination) is still going on,” Kato said. It “makes me despondent and brings tears to my eyes.”

Up until the June resolution, the government had refused to recognize the Ainu as an indigenous people.

“The government seriously accepts the historical fact once again that despite being legally equal as Japanese people, there were many Ainu who were discriminated against and forced to live in poverty in the course of the nation’s modernization,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said at the beginning of Monday’s meeting.

Japan voted in favor of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples last September.

“I would like the members of this panel to come up with proposals that lead to establishment of a comprehensive policy that is necessary for the Ainu to hold on to their honor and dignity for generations to come,” he said.

ENDS

2-Channel’s Nishimura again ducks responsibility for BBS’s excesses

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

mytest

Hello Blog. Yet another interview with BBS 2-Channel’s Nishimura, where he claims that what goes on at 2-Channel is not his responsibility.

Love the section below where he says, “Unless there is a court order, we will not delete any messages.” That’s a lie. He’s had a court order since January 2006 to delete the posts on me judged by a court to be libelous. More than two and a half years later, they’re still there…! And with copy-pastes the number just keeps rising.

I don’t think this guy realizes that sooner or later, there’s going to be legislation passed that will ultimately deprive the Internet of the privacy he allows his BBS to so wantonly abuse. More on 2ch on my blog here. Debito in San Francisco

Hiroyuki Nishimura
FILE PHOTO

2channel founder says don’t blame him for criminals’ posts

Courtesy Japan Today, undated, but downloaded August 27, 2008

http://www.japantoday.com/category/shukan-post/view/2channel-founder-says-dont-blame-him-for-criminals-posts

Over the past few years 2 Channel (2ch) has become the largest online forum in Japan, registering up to 200 million hits a day. Launched by college student Hiroyuki Nishimura in 1999, the site is often at the center of controversy and was criticized in June after it was used by the suspect in the Akihabara stabbing rampage to announce his plans.

Freelance journalist Tetsuya Shibui interviews Nishimura for Shukan Post.

The suspect in the Akihabara rampage has told police he killed people because his messages were ignored on 2ch.

That case has nothing to do with us. I don’t believe he killed people just because he was ignored online. He says he doesn’t have friends. But it’s not surprising people like him don’t have friends. But that alone cannot be a reason for murder. It’s too simple to think the Internet causes such crimes.

Many crime announcements have been made on 2ch since the Akihabara case. Do you have any plans to change the site?

Not at all. 2Ch has clear rules of use that allow people to request deletion of messages and a system to report inappropriate messages.

Don’t you think it’s irresponsible for you to make your users take all the responsibility?

I don’t think so. I always cooperate with police when I think some messages clearly indicate a crime may be involved and when police request disclosure of posters’ information such as IP addresses, we oblige.

2ch also carries information on how to commit crimes, does it not?

No, no, no. Many people misunderstand 2ch. It has links to other websites which might contain information like how to make a bomb, but that’s a matter for other websites to address, not 2ch.

However, 2ch recently carried detailed information on the spate of hydrogen sulfide gas suicides.

Yes, 2ch did carry that kind of information. But that’s copy and paste information copied from other websites. It’s the mainstream media which is spreading information that 2ch has that kind of information. Those who were not interested in such information have suddenly become interested in 2ch through newspaper coverage. Why don’t those media criticize themselves?

Are you saying you have no responsibility because other websites have the same information.

Well, let me ask you a question. Is there any evidence that the Internet has led to an increase in crimes? I’ve never seen any such evidence. The Internet is just a tool and all tools have side effects. Look at cars. Do you blame car makers when accidents are caused by speeding? I have my own logic to justify what I’m doing. People can submit information freely on the Internet. Anti-Internet people are just afraid of the unknown potential of the Internet which has a short history.

Perhaps, one reason for the fear is not the “unknown,” as you cal it, but the anonymity of the information. Why don’t make your users post messages using their real names?

I disagree. Even Social Network Services which have greater transparency have trouble and contain inappropriate information. It totally depends on users when dealing with inappropriate information. Those who cannot make judgments by themselves or don’t like 2ch should not use it.

What do you think about the information filter for minors

I support information filtering measures for kids because they are not capable of making proper judgments on information they get from the Internet. If I had a kid, I would give him/her a mobile phone without an Internet connection function. I think the issue has to be debated nationwide.

You’ve been ignoring lawsuits against you for defamation for years, and you don’t pay compensation that courts have ordered you to make.

Yes, that’s correct. I’ve received more than 100 lawsuits so far. It’s time consuming, but recently, I’ve been working on about 30 legal cases. I’m seeing how it goes. The reason why I don’t pay compensation is that I think I am not responsible for what others post. If I were posting death threats or whatever, then I must pay. But I’m just a manager of 2ch. I don’t feel guilty at all.

Why don’t you make a system to check inappropriate messages?

It’s difficult even for legal professionals to distinguish between legal and illegal content. If we were to delete messages, 2ch would cease to be a forum where people can freely post. Unless there is a court order, we will not delete any messages.

Have you ever thought of closing 2ch?

Never. That’s because we currently monopolize this sort of business in Japan.

Your income is reported to be around 100 million yen acquired from online ads and book sales.

Yes, that’s about right.

What do your parents think of your business and all the flak?

My father is an ex-tax officer. But we have never talked about our businesses to each other. When I go home sometimes, he just says to me: “Go ahead with what you’re doing.” (Translated by Taro Fujimoto)

LetsJapan Blog on new Saitama Pref stickers for NJ-friendly realtors

Posted on August 27, 2008October 9, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Have a look at this. This is long overdue indeed! Well done Saitama Prefecture! Debito

Foreigner Friendlier Area

Monday, August 25th, 2008 | Trackback

Courtesy http://www.letsjapan.markmode.com/index.php/2008/08/25/foreigner-friendlier-area/

Multicultural real estate agents

To make renting an apartment easier for non-Japanese, and deal with discrimination by apartment landlords and owners, one prefecture in Japan is sponsoring an effort to establish a database of “multicultural” real estate agents.

The government of Saitama Prefecture began it’s effort in 2006. There are now 113 multicultural real estate agents registered. Saitama is located 23 kilometers north of of Tokyo.

Information pamphlets in Chinese, English, Portuguese and Spanish are available, and telephone interpretation is offered by volunteers. (English .pdf)

Saitama multicultural apartment help

The Daily Yomiuri reports the project has become widely known among foreigners by word of mouth.

Phone numbers and addresses of the participating agents are included in the list. Lets Japan viewed 42 websites listed in the multicultural real estate registry, and found the logo displayed on only three sites: Roomspot; Risouhouse; Saihokujisho

ENDS

Japan Times Community Page on upcoming movie on divorce and child abduction in Japan

Posted on August 26, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. More attention being given this movie, which I have seen previews of and can attest that it will be worth seeing. Debito in San Francisco

THE ZEIT GIST

Coming out of the shadows

Filmmakers tackle contentious issue of parents’ abduction of children to Japan

THE JAPAN TIMES, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008

By MICHAEL HASSETT

Special to The Japan Times

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080826zg.html

“We judge that it will be best for the child that the (parent) pray from the shadows for his healthy upbringing. If worried about the child, ask about him through others, secretly watch him from behind a wall, and be satisfied with what is heard about the way he is growing up. Acting in accordance with emotion, even if based on love, will cause the child misfortune. Suppressing emotions for the sake of one’s child — that is the true love of a (parent) toward a child.’

Better days: Canadian Murray Wood plays with his children, Taka and Mana, before their abduction. COURTESY OF DAVID HEARN

Imagine the trauma of the mother being permanently denied visitation with her own children in this family court decision handed down by the Tokyo High Court. Being told to pray, watch and love “from the shadows.”

Imagine losing contact with your children after your spouse files a domestic-abuse grievance, causing an immediate and renewable six-month restraining order to be issued in response to real or fabricated “abuse” for which not an iota of evidence is required. Next, imagine permanently losing custody of, and contact with, your children when the ruling favors your spouse because he or she has been caring for the children while these orders have kept you away.

As a 4-year-old child, imagine being told that your father murdered your mother by creating and then releasing into her body a demonic bug that crawled up inside of her and festered on her innards.

Sound awful? Well, welcome to the hell of parental child abduction and custody battles, Japanese style.

In January 2006, David Hearn, Matthew Antell and Sean Nichols began research on a documentary film that would dramatically affect their lives over the next few years.

They had heard about high-profile cases of parental child abduction, such as the two children of Murray Wood being abducted from their home in Canada by their Japanese mother, but these filmmakers had not yet realized all the muck they would have to work through in order to gain a clearer understanding of what has increasingly become Japan’s own scarlet letter.

Capital location: Filmmakers Matthew Antell (left) and David Hearn take a break from filming in Washington, D.C.

For those new to the topic of child abduction, here are the basics:

The parent who has physical custody of the children and has established a routine for them for the duration of at least a few weeks when divorce is filed is granted custody in virtually every case.

Japan has neither statutes nor judicial precedents providing for joint custody. When divorce occurs, either the father or mother receives custody. Visitation is not a substantive right that can be asserted by parents.

In 2006, there were 257,475 divorces involving 150,050 children. Fathers maintained custody of all children 14.9 percent of the time, down from 48.7 percent in 1950, and custody of at least one of several children 3.6 percent of the time, down from 11 percent in 1950.

A parent attempting to take children outside Japan can possibly be arrested if charges are processed before the children exit the country. A married Dutchman was arrested in 2000 and sentenced the following year for doing exactly that after his Japanese wife objected to him taking their daughter to visit the young girl’s dying grandfather. If children are unlawfully removed from Japan, every attempt will usually be made by law enforcement in the destination country to return the children to Japan if the destination country is a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Japan has not signed this treaty so children abducted to Japan are not returned. One source has reported that Japan plans to sign this treaty by 2010.

Now, back to the movie.

Earlier this month, I sat down with director David Hearn to inquire about the progress of his documentary on this most contentious subject.

What is the working title for the film and when do you expect to have it completed? We initially titled the film “For Taka and Mana” in response to the unlimited access and cooperation so generously provided to us by Murray Wood. We have since changed the title to “From the Shadows” because we will also be highlighting cases involving many others who have had to endure the tragedy of losing a child in this often cruel manner.

We have conducted scores of interviews with those involved in these tragedies — parents, children, government officials, and experts on the subject — and we hope to complete the film in time to enter it in several film festivals next year. We have been humbled by the generosity of so many, but how quickly we can finish and the quality of the film is dependent on our fundraising from here forward, so we ask that people do what they can do to be of assistance. Information and clips can be found at our Web site, www.fromtheshadowsmovie.com. In custody cases in Japan, possession is actually more than nine-tenths of the law, isn’t it? Certainly. The parent who has the children keeps them 99 percent of the time.

Before divorce occurs, lawyers, divorce advisers and legal experts routinely advise their clients to get the kids and run. The application for divorce can then be submitted from the new setup, and the left-behind parent can be left with absolutely no information about the relocation of the children.

Once the divorce process has begun, the court will all too commonly ignore how the new setup was achieved, and instead justify it as now being “in the best interests of the child” so that a stable environment can be maintained.

And even if the court were to rule in favor of the noncustodial side, there is no legal entity, such as police or a child welfare agency, to enforce the ruling if one side does not live up to its responsibilities as dictated by the court. So, in the very rare case when the court does rule in favor of the noncustodial parent, it can be worth no more than the paper it is printed on if the physical custody-holder simply holds on to the children.

According to Colin P. A. Jones, a professor at Doshisha Law School in Kyoto, “With little or no enforcement mechanisms, the family court fails to protect children and their parents.” How are the children affected by these highly emotional clashes? We have interviewed a number of children involved in these battles, and sadly what is most often lost in the shuffle is the psychological damage done to these children caught in the middle. There are numerous horror stories. Unfortunately, the custodial parent often abuses his or her authority by dispensing information to the children about the other parent to paint a scenario that works best for the custodial parent no matter how devious or outright false the information is. This behavior is defined widely as parental alienation syndrome. Despite its acceptance in courts in most Western countries, it is entirely unrecognized in Japan. Aren’t some parents able to individually agree on and work out visitation arrangements? For those custodial parents who permit it, the standard of one visit for a couple of hours a month is about average. Though considerably less than Western standards, most participating parents agree it is better than nothing. This might be the one silver lining of this entire issue. Slowly, more custodial parents are seeing the benefits for the child to meet the noncustodial parent even when by law they are not required to do so.

However, the legal shortcomings make visitation for the noncustodial parent a very touchy situation. He or she must play by the rules of the custodial parent, and visitation is often changed or simply halted, many times for very frivolous reasons, such as if the noncustodial parent begins dating. How did you react to the report that Japan may become a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction by 2010? Hopeful, but not yet convinced. This was reported by only one news outlet and the details of the source were very vague. We do not know the source, and we have not been able to confirm the report. But, we remain hopeful.

The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo puts the number of active abduction cases involving American children at 80. That’s just from the United States. So we have hundreds, if not thousands, of children in this country who have had to endure the loss of a living, usually loving, parent — one who desires to see and interact with his or her children. Our film aims to inspire an open discussion on this issue and encourage a more critical review of this “take the kids and run” mentality that has become so prevalent.

Children are losing contact with their parents every day and one has to wonder, is this the best Japan can do? Do we want to continue to hurt the children involved and push loving parents off into the shadows?

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

ENDS

Asahi Shinbun on how some NJ are assimilating by joining neighborhood associations

Posted on August 25, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s a happy tale–about how a local approached a newcomer, broke the ice, and brought more newcomers on board in the local neighborhood association and helped everyone get along. Well done. Here’s hoping it happens more often. Arudou Debito

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

A life less complex as foreigners join local board

BY FUYUKI YUTAKA, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN 2008/8/19

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200808180338.html

Courtesy Dave Spector

Yorio Kuramata, center, with Indian residents in Tokyo’s Koto Ward (SHOHEI KAMATA/ THE ASAHI SHIMBUN)

Three Indian nationals have been appointed to the board of the community association at the Ojima 6-chome public apartment complex in Tokyo’s Koto Ward, in a rare move among such buildings.

With Japanese companies recruiting more and more technology experts from India, the number of Indians living in the complex has steadily increased to 80.

The apartment building in Tokyo’s old residential district accommodates nearly 3,000 households.

Locals hope that the trio, who are also IT engineers, will help promote dialogue between Indian and Japanese residents for mutual understanding, and create a harmonious multicultural environment at the complex.

During an annual summer festival in late July organized by residents of the complex, three of 80 food stands sold Indian cuisine, including Indian burgers.

Among the vendors at the booths were the three new board members: Hemant Visal, 34; Naren Desai, 35; and Yogesh Punde, 35, who were appointed in spring 2008.

“Working as a board member of a residents’ association here is a fresh experience, and I do not feel bothered at all,” said Yogesh, although the three are busy working at IT companies in Tokyo.

The three joined the residents’ association after veteran board member Yorio Kuramata approached one of their compatriots in an attempt to open a dialogue with Indian residents during the same festival two years ago.

Kuramata, 74, said he had gone to say “hello” to Sankar Narasimhan, the trio’s friend, believing there was an urgent need for the residents’ association to improve understanding between Japanese and Indian residents.

At the time, Japanese residents were increasingly complaining that Indian residents were unaware of the rules of the complex.

With the building complex located close to an Indian school, the number of Indian residents has increased in the past few years. Of 2,900 households, 55 are Indian, with a total of 80 members.

Residents’ complaints included that some Indian residents talked loudly on cellphones on balconies at night, or that they hosted noisy house parties on weekends, Kuramata said.

Aside from cultural differences, there apparently were lifestyle differences between the relatively young Indian immigrants and aging Japanese residents at the complex, he added.

Sankar, for his part, had trouble finding opportunities to talk with Japanese residents.

“Because Japanese residents seemed to like living quietly, I thought they would feel bothered if I talked to them,” he said.

Once they started talking, Kuramata taught Sankar about the roles played by the local community and its residents’ association in locals’ daily lives and emergencies. For instance, he learned that Japanese communities stock water and emergency foods to help each other in case of a major disaster, Sankar recalled.

While working for the residents’ association, Sankar brought some of his countrymen, including Hemant and Naren, in to the association’s activities.

One of their primary roles was to translate community news on matters such as residents’ events and utility maintenance works into English, to notify Indian and other foreign residents of such information via e-mail.

“It has made it easier for foreign households who do not have Japanese-speaking members to join community life,” Hemant said.

Thanks to their activities, an unprecedented number of Indian participants joined activities at this year’s spring koinobori festival to hang carp-shaped pennants to pray for healthy growing children.

According to the nationwide council of residents’ associations at apartment complexes built by the former Housing and Urban Development Corp., it is quite rare for residents’ associations at public apartment complexes to appoint several foreign residents to a board.

And although residents had asked Sankar to become a board member, he moved to another complex with more spacious rooms this spring so he could invite his mother to live with him.

Despite the move, Sankar said he plans to join residents’ association activities at his new home.

He also said he will introduce himself to his new neighbors, like Kuramata did for him, to establish a dialogue and friendship.

“It is because I want to be part of the community with my neighbors,” Sankar said.(IHT/Asahi: August 19,2008)

Excellent essay on Wikipedia on the origin of “Criticism” sections

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

mytest

Hi Blog. Update on my previous blog entry. I have been proven wrong by the editors on Wikipedia — they have shown themselves to be conscientious and serious about the editing they do. One even took the trouble yesterday to write an entire essay about how Wikipedia articles on controversial subjects develop. It answered a lot of questions I had about the media, so I’ll put it up here on Debito.org for a wider audience.

The Wikipedia entry on me (which I will not touch — I will just bring up points of order on the Talk page) has already been much improved. My thanks. Arudou Debito in San Francisco

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

Criticism section

Courtesy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Debito_Arudou#Criticism_section

I want to make a few general comments on criticism sections per se, then one related to this article. I feel the need to do so, because from the comments I’ve seen by newcomers (such as Mr. Arudou) and established Wikipedians, they either seem ignorant of the general trends regarding the need for such sections or have seen no need to explain.

The reason articles on controversial figures such as Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama do not have criticism sections is because the criticism has been integrated into the article. It is considered bad writing to have a biography where the first half says only the good stuff and then the second half says the bad stuff. I’ve seen the integration of criticism happening consistently across Wikipedia. I haven’t looked at those particular politicians article histories, but I’m sure you’ll find that periodically someone will complain on the talk page that the article has been whitewashed. The reason people usually complain about whitewashing when they don’t see a criticism section, is that they don’t actually bother reading the entire article. Those kinds of people come to a biography specifically to read the bad stuff about the person. They are not interested in reading a complete story of someone’s life and career and seeing criticisms and supports in context of the issue they are related to. This should already be a sign that criticism sections are not good. When we design articles so that people can come specifically to read only what fits their POV, we are not doing a good job at all.

I would say there’s a growing movement to eliminate such criticism sections for this and other reasons (see the essay Wikipedia:Criticism). But such improvements only happen on the more prominent articles first. The other articles are stuck with their old-fashioned criticism sections. I say “old fashioned” because this is what people used to do. Mostly, articles would be created by fans, and every time somebody wanted to put something negative in, the fans would say, well put it in a criticism section. The fans know well that relegating stuff to a criticism section at the end is often the same as throwing something into a dust bin. They then create the main part of the article to be flattering, and most people, by the time they get to the end, see “criticism” and think, oh this guy’s great but of course people are going to criticize like they always do. Thus the criticism section actually acts to lessen the impact of the criticism by shunting it aside from the “main” article. Over time, people that wanted to insert criticism forgot this is why such sections were created. When criticism sections would be merged into the main part to create a more balanced picture, such people would protest. Indeed, probably one reason they protest is that they prefer only to read and edit the negative portions of the article, thus it is more convenient for their agenda. Otherwise they would be expected to work at improving the article as a whole.

Now from this mini-history of criticism sections, let’s look at this article. It seems to me originally the same scenario held here. There was a main part, which had support, and a criticism portion. Unfortunately, over time, the main part lost the support element, and the criticism section grew. This seems to be because Mr. Arudou doesn’t have as many fans interested in editing his article as detractors. There were also editors that were concerned about the promotion element and worked to eliminate the more positive references while not scrutinizing the negative ones, as they should have. Basically, the system has been thrown out of wack. The criticism section is now the most prominent of all the parts of the article. Indeed, I am hard-pressed to find a single positive thing said about Mr. Arudou in this article. If I hadn’t done a little reading up, I would be under the impression that nobody has viewed his actions favorably.

It is clear we need to rework this article, possibly from scratch, and using only the best sources. Those who come here with an agenda will probably not like this idea. Criticism should be merged into the main article, as done in all the best articles on Wikipedia. —C S (talk) 03:31, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

ENDS

My problems with Wikipedia: Its biased entry on “Arudou Debito”

Posted on August 22, 2008August 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I’ve been meaning to get to this for years now. I’m refreshed from my vacation. Let’s get to it now.

In my most recent Japan Times column (JUST BE CAUSE August 5, 2008), I intimated that I feel rather negatively about Wikipedia (I call it “that online wall for intellectual graffiti artists”). As much as I don’t think I should touch how historians render my history, Wikipedia’s entry on me has been a source of consternation. Years of slanted depictions and glaring omissions by anonymous net “historians” are doing a public disservice — exacerbated as Wikipedia increasingly gains credibility and continuously remains the top or near-top site appearing in a search engine search.

Controversial figures such as myself may naturally invite criticism, but when a couple of “guardian editors” take advantage of the fundamental weakness of Wikipedia (which, according to their interpretation of the rules, means the entry gives priority towards towards third-party opinions, whoever they are, rather than quoting the primary source) with the aim of distorting the record, this must be pointed out and corrected. Otherwise it is harder to take Wikipedia seriously as a general source.

The issues I have with the “Arudou Debito” Wikipedia entry are, in sum:

A “Criticism” section not found in the Wikipedia entries of other “controversial figures”, such as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama — meaning there is overwhelming voice given to the critics and no voice given any supporters for balance.
An avoidance of quoting primary source material just because it is archived on my website, Debito.org — even though it is often archived third-party material published by other authors.
Omissions of books I published months and years ago.
Other historical inaccuracies and misleading summaries of issues and cases.
Privacy issues, such as mentioning my children by name, who are still minors and not public figures.
“Criticism” sources overwhelmingly favoring one defunct website, which seems to be connected to the “editors” standing guard over this entry.
Other information included that is irrelevant to developing this Wikipedia entry of me as a “teacher, author, and activist”, such as my divorce.

In other words, this page comes off less as a record of my activities as a “teacher, author, and activist”, more as an archive of criticisms. I go into more specifics below, citing the most recent version of the “Arudou Debito” Wikipedia entry below. My problem with each section is rendered as COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO below.

I will put a “neutrality” tag up on the site and let this blog entry be the anchor site for a call for improvements. Let’s hope the Wikipedia system as it stands can right itself. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

(VERSION RETRIEVED AUGUST 21, 2008)

Debito Arudou

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Arudou Debito)

Debito Arudou
Debito Arudou
Born	David Christopher Aldwinckle January 13, 1965 (age 43) California U.S.
Residence	Sapporo, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Home town	Geneva, New York^[1]
Known for	Activism
Website https://www.debito.org

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: The picture is more than a decade old, taken 1996. Many more recent ones are available.

Debito Arudou (有道出人 Arudō Debito^?), a naturalized Japanese citizen, is a teacher, author, and activist.

[hide]

[edit]Background

[edit]Early life

Arudou was born David Christopher Aldwinckle in California in 1965.^[2]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: That was not my birth name. And the reference made to my essay on the subject jumps to that conclusion following unrigorous research practices.

He attended Cornell University, first visiting Japan as a tourist on invitation from Ayako Sugawara (菅原文子 Sugawara Ayako^?) ^[3] ^[4]^[5], his pen pal and future wife, for several weeks in 1986. Following this experience, he dedicated his senior year as an undergraduate to studying Japanese, graduating in 1987.^[6] Aldwinckle then taught English in Sapporo, Hokkaidō, for one year, and “swore against ever being a language teacher again, plunging instead into business.”^[2] After returning to the United States to enter theGraduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), Aldwinckle deferred from the program in order to return to Japan, whereupon he married in 1989 and spent one year at the Japan Management Academy in Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture. In 1990, he returned to California to complete his Masters of Public and International Affairs (MPIA), and received the degree in 1991.^[7]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: The above is accurate. However, why is the sentence about my swearing “never to be a language teacher again” included? It is irrelevant.

Aldwinckle then joined a small Japanese trading company in Sapporo. It was this experience, he recounts, that started him down the path of the controversial activist that he would later become. “This was a watershed in my life,” Arudou writes. “… and it polarized my views about how I should live it. Although working [in Japan] made my Japanese really good — answering phones and talking to nasty, racist, and bloody-minded construction workers from nine to six — there was hell to pay every single day.”[2] Arudou said that he was the object of racial harassment.[2] Aldwinckle quit the company. In 1993 he joined the faculty of Business Administration and Information Science at the Hokkaido Information University, a private university in Ebetsu,Hokkaidō, teaching courses in English as a foreign language. As of 2007 he is an associate professor.[8]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: I wrote these sentiments down on my website, yes. But why is this section essentially the only one which assiduously cites Debito.org, while other sections below refrain (as the Discussion page notes, where “editor” “J Readings” states, “we really need to stop quoting Arudou’s homepage so much and instead rely much, much more on what journalists and academics are publishing about Arudou and his activities in reliable third-party sources“) from doing the same? Given that there are plenty of journalists and academics citing and publishing “about Arudou and his activities” (see final paragraph below), why are they not included?

Finally, the year I was promoted to associate professor is incorrect. Moreover, my university courses are in Business English and Debate.

[edit]Japanese naturalization

Aldwinckle became a permanent resident of Japan in 1996. He obtained Japanese citizenship in 2000, whereupon he changed his name to Debito Arudou (有道出人 Arudō Debito^?), whose kanji he says have the figurative meaning of “a person who has a road and is going out on it.” To allow his wife and children to retain their Japanese family name, he adopted the legal name Arudoudebito Sugawara (菅原有道出人 Sugawara Arudōdebito^?)^[5] — a combination of his wife’s Japanese maiden name and his new transliterated full name.^[9]As reasons for naturalization he cited the right to vote, other rights, and increased ability to stand on his rights;^[2] he later chose to renounce his U.S. citizenship.^[10]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: My motivations for changing my citizenship are not primarily these, as these and other sources on Debito.org indicate. Selectively misquoted to make it seem as though I became a Japanese merely in order to stand on my rights. That is incorrect.

[edit]Family and divorce

Ayako Sugawara gave birth to two children, Amy Sugawara Aldwinckle (Ami Sugawara (菅原亜美 Sugawara Ami^?) in Japanese), and Anna Marina Aldwinckle (Anna Sugawara (菅原杏奈 Sugawara Anna^?) in Japanese).^[11] ^[3]^[12]^[13] Aldwinckle described Amy as “viewed as Japanese because of her looks” and Anna as “relegated to gaijin status, same as I” because of physical appearances. ^[14]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Why are my children mentioned by name? They are not public figures, and they are minors. In this day when there are lots of Internet crazies out there, this shows an errant disregard for their privacy and safety. They have indicated to me that they do not want to be included by name in this Wikipedia entry. Their names should be removed.

According to Arudou’s writings, when he took his family to the Yunohana Onsen to test the rules of the onsen, the establishment allowed for Amy to enter the onsen and refused entry to Anna on the basis of their appearances. ^[12]^[13]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: This summary of the case and the interpretations of our motivations are glaringly inaccurate and misquoted. To wit: it was not only my family who attended our trip to take a bath at a facility open to the general public.

In 2000 he lived in Nanporo, Sorachi District, Sorachi Subprefecture, Hokkaidō with his family. ^[5]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: In 1983 I lived in Ithaca, NY, and in 1988 I lived in San Diego, California… etc. Why include a historical address? Especially after giving out the names of my children. Delete.

Arudou said that he divorced his wife in September 2006. Following the divorce^[15], Arudou petitioned the Sapporo Family Court to delete his ex-wife’s Japanese maiden family name from his koseki, or Family Registry, thus officially changing his name to Debito Arudou in November 2006.^[16]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Why is discussion of my divorce necessary in my Wikipedia entry? What bearing does it have on my life as a “teacher, author, and activist”?

[edit]Otaru onsen lawsuit

The original problematic sign

Arudou was one of three plaintiffs in a racial discrimination lawsuit against the Yunohana Onsen in Otaru, Hokkaidō. Yunohana maintained a policy to exclude non-Japanese patrons; the business stated that it implemented the policy after Russian sailors scared away patrons from one of its other facilities. After reading an e-mail posted to a mailing list digest complaining of Yunohana’s policy in 1999,^[17]Arudou visited the hot spring (onsen), along with a small group of Japanese, White, and East Asian friends, in order to confirm that only visibly non-Japanese people were excluded.^[18]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Poor summary of the events.

Arudou assumed that when he returned in 2000 as a naturalized Japanese citizen, he would not be refused. The manager accepted that Arudou was a Japanese national but refused entry on the grounds that his foreign appearance could cause existing Japanese customers to assume the onsen was admitting foreigners, i.e drunk Russian sailors which were causing problems in that locality, and take their business elsewhere.^[19]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Again, poor summary of the events.

Arudou and two co-plaintiffs, Kenneth Lee Sutherland and Olaf Karthaus, in February 2001 then sued Yunohana on the grounds of racial discrimination, and the City of Otaru for violation of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty which Japan ratified in 1996. OnNovember 11, 2002, the Sapporo District Court ordered Yunohana to pay the plaintiffs 1 million JPY each (about $25,000 United States dollars in total) in damages.^[20] The court stated that “refusing all foreigners without exception is ‘unrational discrimination’ [that] can be said to go beyond permissible societal limits.” ^[21]The Sapporo High Court dismissed Arudou’s claim against the city of Otaru for failing to create an anti-discrimination ordinance; the court ruled that the claim did not have merit.^[22] The Sapporo High Court upheld these rulings on September 16, 2004^[23] and the Supreme Court of Japan denied review on April 7, 2005.^[22]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Again, poor summary of the case. Everything on the case is in my book, JAPANESE ONLY, and on Debito.org, with hundreds of third-party and published references. Note how fact-confirmed published books in two languages, JAPANESE ONLY, are cited in this Wikipedia entry only once, despite being primary-source materials.

[edit]Kyōgaku no Gaijin Hanzai Ura File – Gaijin Hanzai Hakusho 2007

Main article: Kyōgaku no Gaijin Hanzai Ura File – Gaijin Hanzai Hakusho 2007

In February 2007, Arudou commented on Kyōgaku no Gaijin Hanzai Ura File – Gaijin Hanzai Hakusho 2007(Secret Foreigner Crime Files) a mook (magazine/book) published by Eichi Suppan on January 31. The mook contains images and descriptions of what the magazine says are crimes committed in Japan by non-Japanese, including graphs breaking down crimes by nationality. The magazine includes a caption describing a black man as a “nigga“, an article entitled “Chase the Iranian!” and calls Tokyo a “city torn apart by evil foreigners.”^[24] Arudou posted a bilingual letter for readers to take to FamilyMart stores protesting against “discriminatory statements and images about non-Japanese residents of Japan.”^[25]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Not only is this this a poor summary of the case, the fact remains that I have taken up plenty of other cases like these; this case in particular was not all my efforts alone. If the Wikipedia entry includes this case, it should include others (such as Tama-chan, published in several newspapers in two languages), archived on Debito.org, which do have third-party published sources as well.

Note how our works from a group I founded, The Community in Japan, are also completely ignored. If this is in fact an entry about my activism, as opposed to a page archiving criticisms, these are significant omissions.

[edit]Publications

Arudou has written a book about the 1999 Otaru hot springs incident. Arudou originally wrote the book in Japanese; the English version, Japanese Only — The Otaru Hot Springs Case and Racial Discrimination in Japan (ISBN 4-7503-2005-6), was published in 2004 and revised in 2006. Jeff Kingston, reviewer for The Japan Times, described the book as an “excellent account of his struggle against prejudice and racial discrimination.”^[26]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: There are lots more reviews on this book, many published and listed on Debito.org. How about the Tom Baker review of the book, published in the Daily Yomiuri? Also, why are these reviews not given more than a short sentence excerpt? Considering how assiduously Criticisms are cited below, why are positive reviews not? This is an editorial bias. It’s not as if there are necessarily such strict space constraints in the wiki world.

Moreover, as mentioned above, I have written more than one book. Why is the Japanese version with ISBN not listed?

Arudou has also written several textbooks on business English and debating in addition to many journalistic and academic articles.^[27]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: How about listing some of them, from Source 27? Again, why downplay the subject’s works, “up-play” the criticisms?

Most glaring is that since March 2008 I have had a co-authored book, HANDBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS, MIGRANTS, AND IMMIGRANTS TO JAPAN, on the market. Yet several months and plenty of updates by the “guardian editors” later, this publication is still not listed. This omission clearly undermines the accuracy and credibility of this entire Wikipedia entry.

[edit]Criticism

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Why do we have a “Criticism” section at all? The Wikipedia entries for other controversial figures, such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, do not. Activist and author Michael Moore’s “controversies” get a separate entry, and there is as of this writing a “disputed neutrality” tag attached to that.

And why not a “Supporters” section for balance? Because the “editors” standing guard (i.e. “J Readings”, whose name appears constantly in the Discussion Section justifying keeping the current entry), say inter alia “The criticism section (not page) is supposed to be about criticism, hence the name; it’s not about “adding more balance to this section.“ The “editors”, however, later argue against citing other “Supporters” even though they fit their qualifications of, as they put it, “a notable author or organization related to Japan or human rights gave their unconditional support for Arudou’s confrontational tactics, writings, etc. in a publicly verifiable newspaper, letter-to-the-editor, academic journal, or peer reviewed non-fiction book (i.e., no vanity press)”.

The problem is that many of these words of support, even if they are independently published, are only archived on Debito.org (since other newspapers, such as the Yomiuri, Mainichi, and Kyodo, remove their archives from public view). This becomes the blanket excuse for not including them on this Wikipedia entry.

Finally, people cited below as critics do not arguably meet the same criteria for inclusion above:

“	People, including me, are fascinated by Debito Arudou because we wonder why he wanted to become Japanese in a country where he finds so many wrongs.	”
—Robert C. Neff ^[28]

Anna Isozaki, one of Arudou’s former colleagues who was initially active in the BENCI (Business Excluding Non-Japanese CustomerIssho) project (unconnected to Arudou’s “Community in Japan” project), said that Arudou has an unwillingness to co-operate within a larger organization and that Arudou felt resentment against being told to separate “the apparent center of activity from himself.” ^[29]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Who is Anna Isozaki? Is this a notable author? Is this a notable organization? Issho Kikaku is a defunct group. And this is a person who merely wrote a letter to defunct website JapanReview.net (see source 29), itself not a notable organization, nor a publicly-verifiable source, academic journal, or peer-reviewed non-fiction book. Including this quote does not fall under Wikipedia or even the “editors” guidelines, and enters the territory of weasel words, cherry-picking opinions to suit an editorial bent.

Bob Neff adjacent, although an author of one book on onsens, is not noted for writing about discrimination issues in Japan. And the source again is JapanReview.net. See how many of these criticisms below come from one source, JapanReview.net, run by Yuki Honjo and Paul Scalise, which may indicate the “guardian editors” identities (and their editorial bents, given their highly-biased review of book JAPANESE ONLY).

Alex Kerr, author of Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan (ISBN 0-8090-3943-5), believed that Arudou’s tactics are “too combative.” Kerr said that he was doubtful “whether in the long run it really helps.” According to Kerr, “in Japan… [the combative] approach fails.” Kerr said that “gaijin and theirgaijin ways are now part of the fabric of Japan’s new society,” and feared that Arudou’s activities may “confirm conservative Japanese in their belief that gaijin are difficult to deal with.”^[30] On 7 April 2007, Arudou publicly criticized Kerr’s comments on his personal blog and mass e-mail newsletter lists. Following Arudou’s public criticisms, Kerr responded in an open e-mail posted by Arudou elaborating on his initial impressions of Arudou’s tactics, his current impressions of Arudou’s newsletter and website, and Kerr’s own distinct techniques for being critical in the field of “traditional culture, tourism, city planning, and the environment” — “to speak quietly, from ‘within.’” Respecting Arudou’s “undoubtedly combative” tactics, Kerr now concluded by stating: “I wholly support [Arudou’s] activities and [his] methods.”^[31]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: If one reads the original Japan Times interview with Alex Kerr, it is clear that his comments were in fact about two-thirds supportive of my works. But only the critical one-third is cited. Later, when Alex clarifies his comments on Debito.org (see first comment on site) and acknowledges that he has been misquoted, it is, once again, highly abridged. And it is tucked away into the Criticisms section as a footnote, as opposed to creating a separate “Supporters” section that qualifies under the “guardian editors'” own guidelines.

Responding to Arudou’s statements regarding the United States Department of State in the Hokkaido International Business Association (HIBA), Alec Wilczynski, Consul General, American Consulate General Sapporo, said that Arudou’s statements contain “antics,” “omissions,” and “absurd statements” as part of an attempt “to revive interest in his flagging ‘human rights’ campaign.” On his website Arudou responded with the statement “A surprising response from a diplomat,” and posted commentary from an associate regarding the renunciation of Arudou’s United States citizenship.^[10]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Why should Wikipedia readers care what a Mr. Alec Wilczynski said? Is he a published author or notable person regarding human rights in Japan? Moreover, note how editorial constraints are suddenly relaxed to allow Debito.org to be cited — because it is a criticism. But the counterarguments also listed on that cited website are not listed in any detail. Again, the editorial bent is stress the criticism, downplay the counterarguments from supporters.

Gregory Clark, Akita International University Vice-President, views the lawsuit as the product of “ultrasensitivity” and “Western moralizing.”^[32]^[33] Yuki Allyson Honjo, a book critic at JapanReview.net, criticized Clark’s statements and referred to him as one of a group of “apologists.” ^[34] Clark responded to Honjo’s criticism, believing that Honjo mis-characterized his statements. Honjo responded by saying that her use of the word “apologist” applied to Clark’s particular stance on Arudou’s case and not as a sweeping generalization of Clark’s character. Honjo maintained her stance regarding Clark’s statements. ^[35]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: This Wikipedia entry is about Arudou Debito, not about “book critic” Yuki Allyson Honjo’s debate with Gregory Clark (again, all cited from defunct and non-peer-reviewed website JapanReview.net). Look at all the detail given this debate, and how little is accorded other debates which involve detractor and supporter? To me it makes it clear precisely who “guardian editor” “J Readings” is.

Arudou has been criticized as “fishing for trouble”, and that he “distort[s] the facts”. “If there is insufficient media scrutiny, it is of Arudou’s outlandish claims.”^[36]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Same style, same bent, and this time nobody cited by name for verification. There are plenty of other people who say the opposite (see below). Why not include them somewhere on this Wikipedia entry?

Robert Neff, author of Japan’s Hidden Hot Springs (ISBN 0-8048-1949-1), believes that much of Arudou’s campaign is divisive, stating: “I think much of his campaign is faux because most of the places he is going after are in Hokkaido trying to protect themselves from drunken Russians. I have bathed and/or stayed at well over 200 onsen establishments and been stopped only once.”^[28]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Again, the source is defunct and non-peer-reviewed JapanReview.net.

“	Arudou and his family should not have been excluded from the onsen in Otaru, but I suspect I am not alone in objecting to the way this unpleasant, but essentially trivial incident has been parlayed into a career opportunity.	”
—Peter Tasker ^[37]

Peter Tasker, author of numerous non-fiction and fiction works on Japan, argues that in “attempting to monster [Japan] into George Wallace‘s Alabama, [Arudou] trivializes the real-life brutal discrimination that still disfigures our world and the heroic campaigners who have put themselves on the line to fight it.”^[37]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Again, the source is JapanReview.net. And is this novelist a published authority on human rights in Japan?

Alexander Kinmont, a former chief equity strategist of NikkoCitygroup, does not believe that a collection of bath-houses, “soaplands,” massage parlors, and nightclubs is representative of Japan’s civil rights situation in any meaningful sense.^[38]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Again, the source is JapanReview.net. And why is the opinion of a stockbroker cited? Is he an authority published in the field of human rights?

Tasker and Kinmont object to Arudou’s statements comparing the institutionalized racial discrimination historically exhibited in the segregated American south with the examples that, according to Arudou, show racial discrimination in Japan.^[37]^[38]

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: Again, the source is JapanReview.net. Kinmont and Tasker misquote me and the facts of the cases anyway.

That’s the end of the Wikipedia entry. Sources are available on Wikipedia, so I won’t list them here. Look how much JapanReview.net is cited despite the expressed editorial guidelines.

Finally the REFERENCE LINKS section not only does not mention Debito.org, but also includes yet another link to Yuki Honjo at JapanReview.net. Even though there are lots more reference links out there (many have been included, then deleted in the past by editors) by published third-party sources. Why only these? And why, when there are errors in the articles (such as in the Rial article and the Honjo review), aren’t sources listing these errors mentioned as well?

Comparative Review of Japanese Only and My Darling is a Foreigner by Yuki Allyson Honjo

Patrick Rial,”Debito Arudou: Evangelic Activist or Devilish Demonstrator?,” JapanZine (December 2005)

The first of a three-part interview with Arudou Debito onYamato Damacy (February 2006)

Interview with Debito Arudou on Trans-Pacific Radio’s Seijigiri(March 8, 2007)

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

FINAL COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: In sum, where are the (positive) quotes from the people and published authors who actually have something verifiably meaningful to say about Japan and social issues, such as Donald Richie (here and here), Ivan Hall, Chalmers Johnson, John Lie, Jeff Kingston, Robert Whiting, Mark Schreiber, Eric Johnston, Terrie Lloyd, Bern Mulvey, Lee Soo Im, and Kamata Satoshi? More citations from academic sources here.

Omitting the comments and sentiments of these people make the Wikipedia entry sorely lacking in balance, accurate research, and respect for the facts of the case or the works of the person biographied. Again, this page comes off less as a record of my activities as a “teacher, author, and activist”, more as an archive of criticisms.

For these reasons, I will put a “neutrality disputed” tag on the “Arudou Debito” Wiki entry and hope Wikipedia has the mechanisms to fix itself.

ENDS

Upcoming speeches in the Bay Area August 23-27

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

mytest

Hi All. Three speeches coming up, if you’re near the California Bay Area. More speeches back in Japan in early September too, details here. Debito in San Francisco

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

Sat Aug 23, 4PM-7PM, speech in the Bay Area, CA for local human rights group (CONFIRMED) Writeup: Japan-Pacific Resource Network (JPRN) and Trans-Pacific Research & Action Institute for the Hisabetsu Nikkei (TRAI) – US present, with Masataka Okamoto, Ph.D.: A speech presentation by Debito Arudo, who took Japanese businesses’ “Japanese Only/No Foreigners Allowed” practices to court (The Otaru Onsen Lawsuit), and garnered international attention and support for confronting Japan’s xenophobia. Followed by a light reception. Place: Four Corners Room, University Village Community Center, 1123 Jackson Street, Albany CA 94706 (entrance at intersection of San Pablo Ave. and Monroe Ave., one block south of Marin Ave.) Suggested Donation: $7 and up. This is a very special opportunity to welcome Debito Arudo in person and to hear his own account of his experience living as a Caucasian Japanese in Hokkaido. Please come and enjoy his talk and great company! Inquiry: info@hisabetsunikkei.org or (510) 823-9514
Mon Aug 25, 6:30PM-8:30PM, speech in Mountain View, CA for Japan Exchange Society (CONFIRMED)
Weds Aug 27, 2008, Noon, University of California Berkeley, Center for Japanese Studies (CONFIRMED)

Results of our third poll: Would you choose Japan as your permanent residence?

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

mytest

[poll id=”4″ type=”result”]

COMMENT: Completing the trilogy of “life in Japan” polls, our first talked how easy Japan is as a place to live; the second how easy a place Japan is to work. Regarding living in Japan, a clear majority–62%–indicated Japan is an easy place. However, asking the question about Japan as a workplace elicited responses that were less clear. Total 49% of 227 respondents leaned towards “difficult” or “very difficult”, whereas 31% leaned towards “easy” or “very easy”. Of course, there are more factors at play (and less under the control of the individual) when it comes to workplace versus lifestyle. So to me it is quite understandable that opinions would be more mixed. See polls archive here.

Now, putting the two together, how about making Japan your permanent residence? The largest number of respondents, 45%, said they were rather or very inclined to live here. That outnumbered those who were disinclined, which totaled 32%. So on balance (but not a clear majority), given work/life parameters in Japan, Debito.org blog readers were prepared to stay. Good.

Again, as disclaimers keep pointing out, this is hardly anything scientifically “significant”–just a survey of readers who wished to vote.

Next poll: Let’s deal with the recent firestorm about the word “Gaijin”, and see if readers think it is a word one should avoid using.

Japan Times readers respond to my “Once a ‘gaijin,’ always a ‘gaijin’?” JUST BE CAUSE Column

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

mytest

The Japan Times Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2008

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080819zg.html

THE ZEIT GIST

CHRIS McKENZIE ILLUSTRATION

Readers respond: Once a ‘gaijin,’ always a ‘gaijin’?

The Community Page received a large number of responses to Debito Arudou’s last Just Be Cause column on the use of the word “gaijin.” Following is a selection of readers’ views.

Not an epithet

That Arudou and others dislike the word “gaijin” and would prefer its retirement, I can understand. What I cannot understand (and I doubt Arudou really believes it either) is the insistence that the word is also an “epithet” comparable to “n–ger,” and that Japanese willfully use the term toward (mostly) non-ethnic Japanese in order to berate, abuse or express hostility towards the listener (what “epithet” means).

“N–ger” carries all kinds of baggage and was used to define second-class human beings. I cannot — and I am certain Arudou cannot either — imagine being part of a race who were abducted from their homes, transported like cattle across the Atlantic Ocean, forced to work as slaves for centuries, only then to be “freed” into a country that informed them they could not share the same public facilities, restaurants or schools with “whites.” Decades of institutionalized poverty, discrimination, and abuse followed. To suggest a meaningful comparison between the word “n–ger” and “gaijin” on any level exists strikes me as being in very poor taste. Indeed, it starts to trivialize history.

Postwar dictionaries, both English and Japanese, simply define gaijin as a neutral variation of “gaikokujin.” Even Kojien (which Arudou calls “Japan’s premier dictionary”) informs its readers that the contemporary usage (definition three) is a variation of gaikokujin. These same dictionaries do not label the term as derogatory, unlike other Japanese words.

And what about foreign language words that also mean “outside + person” — words like “Auslander” (German), “straniero” (Italian) and the English “foreigner” itself, which derives from the Latin “foras,” meaning “outside”? Should we to ban these words, too, because they encourage “us vs. them” differences? Of course not.

The results of a Japan Times Online poll conducted August 6-12.

Gaijin might have become offensive to some listeners for reasons both real and imagined in recent years, but it is certainly not an epithet. To make automatically negative assumptions about what the speaker must be thinking and feeling when Japanese use the word says more about the listener than it does about the Japanese speaker.

Paul J. Scalise,
Visiting research fellow, Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies, Temple University

Thanks for the heads-up

I very much appreciated this article. I have lived with Japanese roommates for the past two years, and have thus naturally made a strong circle of Japanese acquaintances. (I can never be sure who is a friend.) This experience has opened my world and now I can read “kana,” some “kanji,” and speak a smattering of basic Japanese that has begun to improve rapidly due to my recent decision to study seriously. This December I will travel to Japan to scout ahead and decide if I will take an offered position in teaching at an elementary school.

It has always been interesting to me that even in my so-called native country (I have also lived in Europe for extended periods) I am referred to as a “gaijin” by these acquaintances, without abandon. I have always been aware of the connotations. I have three friends who were born in Ibaraki Prefecture and have lived there their entire lives, and yet they are still called “gaijin.”

You article helps me to gain some perspective before I venture out to Japan, and I thank you for your wit and clarity.

Bradley J. Collier,
Oklahoma City

Get over it and move on

Were Mr. Arudou to come to Austria, he would be called “Auslander.” Auslander translates as “foreigner” but it literally means “someone from the outside lands,” in contrast to the “Inlander” (the native population). The German language has no politically correct term like “gaikokujin” (yet give it time and our useless politicians will come up with one).

In my opinion it’s not the terms “gaijin” or “Auslander” that cause the problems; it’s who uses them and how. I’ve been called “gaijin” by friends in Japan, and their families, and I have no problem with that. First of all, they know that I’m not politically correct. For example, I still use the German word “Neger” when referring to black Africans and so-called Afro-Americans (and no, it’s not like the English N-word). I’m with Charlton Heston on this issue: Political correctness is a dictatorship with manners.

Secondly, I like to communicate fast, without holding things up too much (and “gaijin” is undeniably faster than “gaikokujin” — what a mouthful!).

In German you can use “Auslander” in a very bad way. Neo-Nazi groups do that all the time (example: “Deutschland den Deutschen, Auslander raus” — Germany to the Germans, out with the foreigners). That, however, doesn’t prompt anyone to scream for a new term. We simply get over it and move on.

Andreas Kolb,
Vienna

Japanese falls short on slang?

I understand the author’s perspective, but other countries and cultures have similar words in their vocabularies. Don’t the Jews call all non-Jews “gentiles?” Aren’t there plenty of Americans who call Asian people “Orientals?” Perhaps the Japanese just aren’t sophisticated when it comes to slang for other peoples/cultures; all they have is “gaijin.” Lets see what we can come up with in the English language: n–ger, wop, jap, chink, cracker, whitey, spick, etc.

The author may have Japanese citizenship but he isn’t ethnic Japanese so the typical Japanese will never consider him to be Japanese. Though Japan does have more foreign residents than in the past, it isn’t a melting pot like America. There are greater injustices taking place in the world . . . lighten up!

Brad Magick,
Phoenix, Ariz.

Like watching pro wrestling

I would like to commend you on the article “Once a ‘gaijin,’ always a ‘gaijin.’ ” In spite of its being grammatically and logically obtuse, overly simplistic and naive, and hyperbolic to a fault, it was very enlightening and entertaining. Reading it was comparable to watching professional wrestling on TV. Was it supposed to be serious?

Aside from the mangled, convoluted and inarticulate English that weakens the article, the equating of the plight of the foreigner in Japan to the African-American’s fight for equality and freedom is sad and callous. I am not African-American so I am reluctant to speak for them; however, as one who grew up in the segregated South, I can assure the reader and the author that they are not comparable. The author of the article may have gotten this idea from the movie “Mr. Baseball,” which facetiously alludes to the comparison.

Since I am partly of Italian-American descent, I am used to the pejoratives “dago,” “wop,” “guinea” and “Mafiosa.” If my immigrant Italian grandfather who was spat on every night at his factory job were alive, he would laugh at the writer’s article and remark, “What’s the problem?”

“Gaijin” is not essentially “n–ger.” The more we use “gaijin,” the less effective it will be and it will eventually burn itself out like the pejorative “j-p.”

Tyrone Anthony,
Tokyo

Language has alternatives

After recently returning to Japan after a 12-year absence, I was wondering if I had missed any debate over the use of the G-word. Glad I can throw my two cents in. Whilst many may be able to shrug it off as one of the lesser annoyances, the word is loaded and it is well within the Japanese language for alternatives to be used.

Yes, “gaikokujin” should complete the appropriate processes to acquire Japanese residence or citizenship, “nyujirandojin” shouldn’t drink as much as they do, and “hakujin” should wear higher SPF sunscreen. Just please don’t call me “gaijin.”

Jeremy Brocherie,
Osaka

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

ENDS

Third Degree given NJ who wanted Post Office money order

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

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s something I got through email the other day. Anonymized, reproduced with permission. Debito in San Francisco

Debito, this a statement / comment …

Am I the only personl who absolutely HATES changing cash from yen to cash in the Post Office.

Just bought an item on E-Bay. Cost was $65.00. Watch. Person does not accept PayPal. Fine. Went to convert cash at the Post Office. Should be easy … right. Well, it was, yet again, a living hell.

Cost to convert from yen to dollars: 2000 yen.

Wasted well over 90 minutes there, and once it took over 3 hours to convert about $50 (they ran out of paper, machine needed to be cleaned, etc … total nightmare !).

I think they are either incompetent as hell, or they really hate me. I get there to change the cash. They want my Alien card. Fine. Once they got it, they contacted the City Hall to make certain I’m legal. I showed them my meishi which said I am full time at a university and explained I am a permanent resident of Japan. Nope. They could care less. Person spent forever on the telephone too. I went to the guy saying … can I head out to eat … will be back in 2 hours and perhaps you will be finished by then. Nope. Did not want me to leave.

I had to rewrite their damn paperwork numerous times — directions were confusing. They wanted my FULL name in the box, JOSEPH, and would not accept the name JOE. They wanted my middle name too, as it was on the Alien card. Why ??? They demanded my home address on the form and not my work address on the application form. They it was my home address in one area and my work address in another area of the form. I was really treated as a criminal there, far far worse than immigration at Narita ever treated me (never a problem w/ Japanese immigration). I think they ran the equivalent of a US FBI check on me, and to remind you this was only to convert a lousy $65.00.

And, then when all finished, and I spent just under 10,000 yen for the $65 money order (recall that extra 2000 yen charge) and wasted over 90 minutes. Then came the question. That QUESTION . They asked me what the cash was for. I said it was for a watch.

They then said to me: “Is it a North Korean watch?” (while making the cross sign meaning this would be illegal if it were). “WHAT !!” I screamed. I was FURIOUS! First, the person getting the MO was located in Texas, USA, as they checked the name and location on their money order perhaps over a thousand times. Second, the person’s name was “Johnson”, hardly a Korean name. And finally, even if the watch belonged to Kim Jong Ill himself, WHO DA F–K CARES !!!!!!

This is only for a damn $65 to purchase a friggin watch !!!!!

Anyway, point. Have you a better way to convert $65.00?

Thought about this, and here is my solution, and feel free to post this on your web site. I will head to the bank and purchase Traveler’s Checks. The lowest demonimation I can get is for $150 — three $50 Traveler’s Checks. Then I will get $100 in cash, all 1s, 5s, 10s, and 20s. All at the proper exchange rates. When I get an item on E-bay (and many sellers do not take personal checks or Pay pal), I will send them Traveler’s Checks worth $50 and the rest in cash. I will then send it via EMS, which is expensive but pretty safe, and moreover it allows me to avoid the ripoff charge of 2000 yen just to be harassed by those bigoted loser bureaucrats!!

Oh, just a note to you, and to anyone who chooses to read this should you post this on your website.

Oh, last note: If there is a problem with the Postal Money Order, it takes over 10 months, and perhaps longer to get a replacement. And yes, it happened to me. I sent to my credit card company about three years ago (before I set up direct transfer via the Internet) a letter along with the Postal Money Order. The Credit Card Co opened and read the letter and accidentally tossed the MO.

Fine.

I eventually worked it out w/ the credit card company. Went to the Post Office and wanted a replacement. They needed to do a “investigation” and this investigation would last about 10 months.

Nothing I could do to expedite the process at all. Of course, if I left Japan never to return, I’d never see the money again, that a guarantee.

OK, all to report for now. L8r. Joe

IHT/NYT: As its work force ages, Japan needs and fears Chinese labor

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

mytest

Hi Blog. Another article of note saying what we’ve been saying here all along. Debito in San Francisco

As its work force ages, Japan needs and fears Chinese labor

By Norimitsu Onishi

Friday, August 15, 2008

Li Shude, 24, a Chinese man who came to Japan as a so-called foreign trainee, weeding Noriko Yui’s lettuce field in Kawakami. He earns $775 per month. (Courtesy NYT)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/15/asia/15labor.php

Courtesy Dave Spector

KAWAKAMI, Japan: After a day’s work in the lettuce fields, the young Chinese men began arriving at their favorite gathering spot here, a short concrete bridge in the center of town. Soon, more than a dozen were leaning against one of the railings, one man leisurely resting his elbow on another’s shoulder, others lighting Chinese cigarettes.

Some Japanese crossed the bridge on foot, hugging the other railing, followed by a young Japanese man the Chinese recognized on sight. “Japanese?” one of the Chinese workers joked.

“Japanese, of course,” the passer-by said without slowing down. “You can tell by looking.”

The brief exchange was a subtle recognition of the conspicuous presence of 615 Chinese living temporarily in Kawakami, a farming community of about 4,400 Japanese residents about 100 miles west of Tokyo. Five years ago, unable to find enough young local residents or to draw seasonal workers, Kawakami’s aging farmers hired about 40 Chinese on seven-month contracts.

Now half of the town’s 600 farming households depend on temporary workers from China. And Kawakami expects to hire more foreign workers next year, not only from China but also, for the first time, from the Philippines.

With one of the world’s most rapidly aging populations and lowest birthrates, Japan is facing acute labor shortages not only in farming towns like Kawakami but also in fishing villages, factories, restaurants and nursing homes, and on construction sites. Closed to immigration, Japan has admitted foreign workers through various loopholes, including employing growing numbers of foreign students as part-timers and temporary workers, like the Chinese here, as so-called foreign trainees.

But that unofficial supply route has left some businesses continually scrambling for a dependable work force and the foreigners vulnerable to abuse. With Japan’s population projected to decline steeply over the next decades, the failure to secure a steady work force could harm the nation’s long-term economic competitiveness.

“It’s not only in farming but everywhere else,” said Kenichiro Takano, an official at Kawakami’s agriculture cooperative. “If we don’t at least start by allowing in unskilled laborers for a limited period and for a limited number of times, and then come up with long-term solutions, Japan won’t have a sufficient work force. The deadline is approaching.”

The labor shortage has grown serious enough that a group of influential politicians in the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party recently released a report calling for the admission of 10 million immigrants in the next 50 years.

Junichi Akashi, an immigration specialist at the University of Tsukuba who advised the group, said its members had come to realize how Japan had come to depend on foreign laborers.

“There is no doubt about that,” Akashi said. “They’ve increased sharply in the last two to three years.”

The foreign work force in Japan rose to more than one million in 2006 from fewer than 700,000 in 1996. But experts say that it will have to increase by significantly more to make up for the expected decline in the Japanese population. The government projects that Japan’s population, 127 million, will fall to between 82 million and 99 million by 2055. Moreover, because the population is graying, the share that is of working age is expected to shrink even faster.

That could pose problems for companies like Yoshinoya, a large restaurant chain. Starting in 2000, with insufficient numbers of Japanese job applicants, the chain turned to foreign students who are allowed to work part time.

Today, its 3,360 employees include 791 foreigners, 564 of them students. Without the foreign workers, “we probably wouldn’t be able to operate some stores,” said Shinichiro Kawakami, an executive in the Tokyo area.

What is more, the chain plans to triple the number of its stores nationwide to 3,000. “To reach our target, in a country where the people are getting older and the birthrate is getting lower, we’ll have to hire either older workers or foreigners,” Kawakami said. He added that the chain also needed to hire foreigners as store managers, a category of workers not allowed in under current laws.

Here in Kawakami which began growing lettuce, traditionally not part of the Japanese diet, for American soldiers during the postwar occupation farmers could depend on Japanese college students or part-time workers during the planting and harvesting seasons until five years ago. Then hardly any came, and those who did stayed only a few days, finding the work too hard.

“Some stayed the night, and in the morning I’d find them gone,” said Noriko Yui, 72, who was working in her field with two Chinese workers on a recent afternoon. “The Chinese have perseverance.”

Her two Chinese workers, Li Shude, 24, and Jiang Cheng, 25, share a small, stand-alone room behind Yui’s house, where they sleep on two single beds put together. Each had taped a photo of his child on a wall.

They, like the other Chinese workers here, are from Jilin Province in northeast China and are paid $775 per month, or $5,425 over their seven months here. But most of the Chinese interviewed here said they had paid about half of the total, or about $2,700, to the agency that had arranged their employment here.

Jiang, who grows corn and Chinese cabbage back home, said he would use part of his earnings to buy pigs and chickens.

“I like the environment here,” he said. “The air is clean, and I’m not homesick because there are many other Chinese here.”

By all accounts, the Chinese workers here, who are technically considered foreign trainees and are not counted among Japan’s foreign workers, are treated well compared with others in the same category.

The foreign trainee system was established in the mid-1990s, in theory to transfer technical expertise to young foreigners who would then apply the knowledge at home. After one year of training, the foreigners are allowed to work for two more years in their area of expertise. But the reality is that the foreign trainees now numbering about 100,000 have become a source of cheap labor. They are paid less than the local minimum wage during the first year, and little emphasis is placed on teaching them technical skills. Advocates for the foreign workers have reported abuses, unpaid wages and restrictions on their movements at many job sites. Nakamura, the Liberal Democratic politician, said the foreign trainee system was “shameful,” but added that if it were dismantled, businesses would not be able to find Japanese replacements.

Most foreign trainees in agriculture, like the Chinese here, end up leaving in less than a year because little work is available after the farming season.

The Chinese interviewed here said they came to Japan primarily to make money, but some wished they could stay longer to learn more about farming and the country.

“It’s unfortunate that we have to go back home just as we were getting settled here and learning to speak some Japanese,” said Yang Shangli, 26, one of the men relaxing on the bridge at the center of town.

The large presence of the Chinese workers has unsettled some Japanese here even as they have become increasingly dependent on them. Some vaguely mentioned the fear of crime, though they acknowledged that crime rates had not risen. No Japanese interviewed welcomed the idea of immigrants here or elsewhere in Japan.

“I feel a strange sense of oppression,” Toshimitsu Ide, 28, a lettuce farmer who had not hired any Chinese workers, said of seeing large groups of Chinese hanging around town. “They seem hard to approach.”

Perhaps because of the Japanese unease, the Chinese workers were given directives apparently aimed at curbing their movements, even before they arrived. They said they were told to go home by 8 p.m. and not to ride bicycles except for work. Some even said they had been instructed not to talk to young Japanese women.

Still, for many residents who had not seen a single foreigner in this area until a few years ago, Kawakami had changed fundamentally.

“Though I’m in Japan,” said Shimitsu Yuito, 57, who works in construction, “I feel this is not Japan anymore.”

Archive: DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 28, 2006

Posted on August 16, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 28, 2006

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1) INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGES INCREASE TO ONE IN FIFTEEN
2) UN’S DOUDOU DIENE COMING BACK TO JAPAN MAY 15 TO 19
3) PART TIME UNIV TEACHERS GET HISTORICALLY BIG SETTLEMENT
4) NEW JAPAN TIMES COLUMN ON TOTTORI DEFEATED HUMAN RIGHTS ORDINANCE
5) FORMER JAPANESE ARMY MAN RETURNS AFTER 63 YEARS
6) FUTURE UPDATES ON HIS TRAVEL AND JAL HOTEL MILEAGE
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

1) INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGES INCREASE TO ONE IN FIFTEEN

The Sankei Shinbun (the Japanese equivalent of a Fox News-paper) did a story on international marriage on April 17, 2006 (which was the lead discussion on TV Wide Show “Tokudane”, which is where I first got wind of it).
http://www.sankei.co.jp/news/060417/sha065.htm

It’s a puff piece in Japanese, speculating about what could possibly induce people to tie the knot with a foreigner (gasp!), of course mentioning the obligatory stories of where problems in international relationships arise. Still, the important points to squeeze out of it are these:

1) One out every fifteen marriages (used to be 1 in 16), or 6.6% of the total marriages in Japan, are international. This was in 2004, mind.

2) 9.5% of all Tokyo marriages are international.

3) 80% of all international marriages are Japanese men to foreign women (up, IIRC, from 70% previously). 39% are Chinese brides, 27% Filipina.

And that’s about it. Can’t find a comparable article on it in the English press, nor easily the original Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare report cited in this article, so there you go.

Does Japan still hope to get along without a law against racial discrimination as the international children with Japanese citizenship continue to increase?

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2) UN’S DOUDOU DIENE COMING BACK TO JAPAN MAY 15 TO 19

The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, M. Doudou Diene, is scheduled to visit Japan again in a followup to his July 2005 visit.

The outcome of M. Diene’s late 2005 report on unfettered racism in Japan sent shocks to policymakers dealing with issues of human rights, and was a huge shot of substantiation and recognition for the activist community. His preliminary report called Japanese society “still closed, spiritually and intellectually centered.” His formal report, issued January 2006, went even farther, saying “Racial Discrimination is practiced undisturbed in Japan.” “It can hardly be argued that Japan is respecting its international obligations.”

Full links to what went on last year and what he said this year are at
https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html

Although M. Diene’s schedule and itinerary is not yet set and made in public, he will be in Japan between May 15 and 19. What he will be here to accomplish is yet unpublicized, but FYI. He’ll be giving a press conference at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in Tokyo on May 17. I hope to meet the man again myself.

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

3) PART TIME UNIV TEACHERS GET HISTORICALLY BIG SETTLEMENT

Just heard this from friend Kevin. He and his wife, both foreign part-time educators at the International University of Health and Welfare (Kokusai Iryou Fukushi Daigaku) in Odawara, Tochigi, have undergone years of negotiations for illegal acts (including egregious contract nonrenewal and pay cuts) and harassment at their workplace.

The Labor Board hearing their case took their side, and yesterday, they received a settlement (amount undisclosed as yet) which was Japan’s highest for part time teachers in history.

This made some newspapers, none in English so far. Here’s hoping. Meanwhile, here’s today’s Tokyo Shinbun’s writeup of it in Japanese at
http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/00/tcg/20060428/lcl_____tcg_____001.shtml

Well and good. Given that contract labor has been Japan’s way of keeping foreign (and increasingly Japanese) disposable and with no labor rights, this is a definite upturn. Pity it takes so much effort just to enforce the labor laws.

More on how contract labor has been destroying Japan’s once strong labor rights at
https://www.debito.org/acadapartupdateoct05.html

Contact me if you want to do a story on Kevin. debito@debito.org

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

4) NEW JAPAN TIMES COLUMN ON TOTTORI DEFEATED HUMAN RIGHTS ORDINANCE

Next Tuesday, May 2, my 30th column (hooray!) for the Japan Times Community Page will be coming out. This time on Tottori Prefecture passing Japan’s first human rights local ordinance last autumn, then UNPASSING it in March. Bad form. Bad precedent. What went wrong? What are the lessons of this case?

Pick up a copy of the Japan Times next Tuesday if you’re still in the country. It was one of the hardest ones I’ve had to write, as there was a lot of information to process and distill down to 1350 words…

The previous 29 columns available at
https://www.debito.org/publications.html#JOURNALISTIC

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

5) FORMER JAPANESE ARMY MAN RETURNS AFTER 63 YEARS

Every now and again, we hear stories of long-lost soldiers from the Imperial Japanese Army resurfacing after years overseas, unable to believe that the war ever ended, or finally revealing themselves as alive for their own reasons.

The case of Uwano Ishinosuke was one of the latter. A native of Iwate Prefecture in northern Honshu, Uwano was stationed in Karafuto (present-day Sakhalin) and taken prisoner after the postwar Soviet Union reassimilated the Japanese half of the island back into its borders. Japanese families were often forced to share houses with Russians, and military veterans were put into concentration camps for years until they were repatriated under the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1952.

Uwano, for reasons best known to himself, wound up in the Ukraine, and has lived abroad for the past 63 years. He came back on April 19 to meet family, and left yesterday, April 27.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060421a5.html

Two things I find interesting about this case:

1) He lost all ability to speak Japanese, it seems. All of his press conferences were in Russian, and all communication with Japanese family were conducted with a Russian interpreter present. Although he said that his disappeared ability was due to a self-imposed moratorium of speaking Japanese, the reasons for this linguistic exile remain unclear. What is interesting is that apparently someone can rewire their native language given enough time and pressure.

2) The Japanese government, since they declared him as war dead, stated that Uwano no longer has Japanese citizenship. According to Reuters, the government has said, in their remarkable ability to plumb the depths of callousness, that he may have to give up Ukranian citizenship in order to get Japanese.

—————————————–
“He is visiting Japan as a foreigner this time. We are trying to restore his family register so that he can be confirmed legally as Japanese citizen,” a Health Ministry official said.,,, “He might have to give up his Ukrainian nationality, but it is up to him whether he picks either Japanese or Ukrainian nationality,” the official said.

(Link is now dead, but here it was:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx? type=worldNews&storyID=2006-04-19T042934Z_01_T3950_RTRUKOC_0_US-LIFE-
JAPAN-SOLDIER.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=∩=&sz=13)
—————————————–

That’s stunning. Guy serves his country like this and then they treat him like that. I wonder how re-exiled despot Alberto Fujimori got his citizenship then? Prewar births like Fujimori’s got grandfathered in, according to the government (which is also remarkable in its ability to come up with lame excuses, to justify arbitrary political decisions benefiting the elites). So why not Uwano? Guess he’s not elite enough.

I watched as much press on Uwano as I could. He seems in remarkable physical and mental health, but never seemed all that comfortable during his stay in Japan. He’s made a life for himself in the Ukraine, and I bet that’s where he’ll stay.

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

6) FUTURE UPDATES ON HIS TRAVEL AND JAL HOTEL MILEAGE

I have followed up on two recent points of contention–travel agents HIS and No. 1 Travel charging foreigners substantially higher fares than Japanese (try 57000 yen for Japanese, 70000 yen for foreigners for NRT to LAX). Friend Kirk even found an HIS website requiring Japanese citizenship for eligibility to purchase some tickets.

http://www.his-j.com/tyo/air/ovs/ovspar.htm
(do a word search for “kokuseki” in Japanese)

I contacted the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (www.mlit.go.jp) about this. They made it clear that this is not legal.

I then contacted customer service at HIS and told them I told MLIT all about it.

I got something from HIS in writing in Japanese saying that they would cease this practice off (I haven’t had time to translate it yet) more than a week ago. Yet the abovementioned link still contains the Japanese-citizens-only fares. More to come.

Finally, I got contacted from a non-Japanese resident about trying to redeem JAL miles. He tried to book hotels overseas (in Ireland, through JAL-system hotels) only to be told that foreigners must pay double miles than Japanese. He said he would give me more information on them if they didn’t knock this practice off (he even told them he would sic me on them–this is quite an odd feeling…), but so far no word back. Maybe it worked.

Anyway, more on these two items in a future update if it gels into something conclusive.

All for today. As always, thanks for reading!
Best wishes,
Arudou Debito
Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
APRIL 28, 2006 DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER ENDS

Very good report on Japanese criminal justice system from British Channel 4

Posted on August 16, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s a very good report on the Japanese criminal justice system and the upcoming lay judge “reforms” from Britain’s Channel Four. Courtesy of Gary.

http://www.channel4.com/player/v2/player.jsp?showId=10644

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

More information on the issue from

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

Some testimonial from somebody who went through the interrogation process here and beat the rap:

https://www.debito.org/?p=1437

More information on the interrogation process here:

https://www.debito.org/?s=interrogation

Do not get arrested in Japan. Debito

Tangent: Letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger on eliminating UCSC English program

Posted on August 15, 2008August 20, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I’m on vacation, I know, but duty calls. My school has a tie-up with a (very good) English-language program here in Santa Cruz, California. And yet budget cuts are eliminating it. First an article that came out in the local newspaper, The Santa Cruz Sentinel (which, despite the reporting, sees a lot more than three jobs affected). Then my letter from the perspective of a participant to the people in charge, including the University of California Regents and California Governor Schwarzenegger. Then a August 19 follow up article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Arudou Debito in Santa Cruz

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

UC Extension to close Santa Cruz office, close two programs

J.M. BROWN – SENTINEL STAFF WRITER

Article Launched: 08/13/2008 01:32:23 AM PDT

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_10186127

SANTA CRUZ — After years of fighting a mounting deficit, UC Extension will close its Santa Cruz office and eliminate two instructional programs affecting more than 2,000 students, a university official confirmed Tuesday.

Alison Galloway, vice provost for academic affairs who oversees UCSC’s Extension programs, said the University Town Center office in downtown will close in the spring after the final classes of the English Language International ELI and Science Illustration courses are taught. Galloway said three full-time jobs in student support services will be cut at the end of September, and other employees will be transferred to the UCSC Extension office in Cupertino.

Galloway said she made the tough call to shutter the Santa Cruz programs in recent days, and laid-off employees have received notice. Word of the cuts were beginning to spread through the university Tuesday.

“It’s incredibly upsetting — many of these staff have worked for us for many years,” Galloway said. “It is extremely hard on those who lost their job.”

Galloway, an anthropology professor who was appointed to her administrative position last September, said the cuts will free an estimated $1 million annually to address a $30 million debt load racked up in recent years by the UCSC Extension. The extension, which does not receive state funding, is supposed to be self supporting through tuition revenue, but in recent years has borrowed money from the university to stay afloat.

She said the cost of running the ELI and science programs — a combination of instructor pay, facilities costs and support staff salaries — are more than double the $1.8 million in annual revenue brought in by tuition. The cuts come a year after the program closed its arts and humanities course to save money.

“The problem is we have a very strong program, but it can’t carry the weight of everything else,” she said. “It’s very hard to make enough to cover overhead. We’re not looking to make a profit, but we have to be able to cover payroll.”

Galloway said closing the office at 1101 Pacific Ave. will save about $750,000 in rent per year, and the overall program will realize more savings by eventually closing classroom space in Sunnyvale. The job savings will amount to more than $200,000.

The office in Cupertino, which offers a range of high-tech courses, will be UCSC Extension’s only remaining site.

Galloway said the debt was caused partially by the program’s inability to adjust after the dot-com bust. The extension did offered a number of tech-related courses even after Silicon Valley’s bubble burst about eight years ago.

“We didn’t adapt quickly enough,” she said.

The ELI program teaches English to students from across the globe, including Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Faculty and students couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday, and several staff members declined to be interviewed or did not immediately return calls.

Prior students have hailed the program as an effective way to learn English in an idyllic setting.

“Santa Cruz is one of the most beautiful and wonderful city I have ever seen,” Bill Henney Mikolo Mireilee, a 2005 student from the Congo, wrote for the program’s Web site. “ELI staff is a wonderful team always ready to help at any time. Thanks to all of you.”

Contact J.M. Brown at 429-2410 or jbrown@santacruzsentinel.com.

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

MY LETTER:

From: Arudou Debito, Associate Professor
Hokkaido Information University
(contact details omitted)

To: Professor Galloway, Chancellor Blumenthal, Provost Kliger, President Yudof, Governor Schwarzenegger, and Santa Cruz Sentinel:

Dear Madams and Sirs:

I write to you as a participant in UC Santa Cruz’s UC Extension, English Language International Program. Since 2002, I have escorted dozens of students from Hokkaido Information University in Hokkaido, Japan, as an Associate Professor at HIU.

As a fellow educator, I beg you to reconsider your decision to close down the ELI Program. This letter is to make a case from the position of a customer, offering you a view that the accountants, considering the bottom line, may have underconsidered regarding the importance of this program:

THE ELI PROGRAM’S BENEFITS TO OUR STUDENTS

1) Collegiality. My students are generally low-level in terms of language ability (we have no English majors at our computer- and information science-oriented university), but they have come back every year with rave reviews about the ELI Program. After a month here, they have met students from all over the world (ELI has set attendance records year on year), learning that there are many countries out there they can talk to if they learn English; for Japanese students in particular, who generally grow up in a monolingual environment, this is a prime opportunity to get over their longstanding self-imposed communication barriers. They return to Japan aflush with positive feelings about language learning and other societies in general, with minds more opened to the outside world.

2) American university style. My students have been given time to settle in (and get over their jetlag) while interfacing with the gorgeous UCSC campus. They experience American-style dorm life and American college dining. What other chance will they have in their life to feel like an American college student?

3) American family life. My students through their three-week homestays receive a wide spectrum of experiences and lifestyles, reporting back to me every incident of culture shock, then every minor or major victory they felt when overcoming it. They learn more about cultural diversity, tolerance, and more self-assertive lifestyles. They also realize that it is possible to live in a multicultural society–something Japan as a whole (with its aging and falling population) will have to consider in future.

All of these are reinforced by the professional, courteous, friendly, and helpful staff at the ELI, with whom the atmosphere is like summer camp with classes and extramural activities. The ELI Program has offered us the gamut, and for that reason I fully support its educational aims. Moreover:

THE MUTUAL BENEFITS TO THE SANTA CRUZ COMMUNITY

Although the above may be found in other programs, why the UCSC ELI closing in particular is painful is because of the storybook atmosphere of the Santa Cruz community, found in few (if any) other communities in the United States:

1) The self-contained community of Santa Cruz. I feel secure turning my students loose on this town. The people here are tolerant, friendly and helpful, moreover now used to dealing with non-native speakers due to the ELI’s long tenure here. The bus service is good, meaning cars are not necessary to get around (try saying this about, for example, Los Angeles or San Diego). Students become so self-confident and self-contained that, within a week, I as their escort feel put out to pasture, checking in only once a day to be bombarded with questions from my students about this or that new phrase they kept hearing.

2) The safe, storybook Downtown area. We have it all. From Farmers Market right outside our front door every Wednesday, to fifteen movies every day in three movie theaters within minutes’ walk. From organic supermarkets to 24-hour drugstores. From Victorian-style homes to a fun and historic Santa Cruz boardwalk, pier, and beach. From Sequoias and a gorgeous UCSC Campus, to nearby attractions in San Francisco, Monterey, and Yosemite. Moreover, the Downtown is laid out in a grid pattern you would find in many textbooks. Again, try saying this about other cities in the United States or coastal California.

3) The natural beauty and climate. I am sure that Californians are used to the climate, but many students from around the world are not. The Santa Cruz area is perfect in terms of balance of temperature and sunshine. Do your classes, go outside and relax, and join in on ELI’s well-organized afternoon and evening events. You simply aren’t going to find all this in places like Silicon Valley, Berkeley, or the larger metropolises (or more insular small towns) around the country. Again, it’s the perfect balance.

In sum, Santa Cruz is a gem of a community, and the ELI a gem of a program. Without the UC System adequately considering the benefits given to both our students (who get a very favorable first impression of another country) and to the residents of Santa Cruz (who have the experience of meeting people from overseas, not to mention an influx of tourism dollars, and potential open markets once these students become overseas decisionmakers later in life), I firmly believe you are doing a great disservice by closing down the UCSC’s ELI.

Again, I beg you to reconsider your decision. My students want to come back to ELI again next year. So would I. It is an unmitigated joy to be here, and a great investment in the future communities of Santa Cruz, California, and the world in general.

Sincerely Yours,
Arudou Debito, Associate Professor
Hokkaido Information University
ENDS

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

Faculty, staff, union question decision to ax Extension program

By J.M. Brown – Santa Cruz Sentinel staff writer

Article Launched: 08/19/2008 09:51:17 AM PDT

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_10245125

SANTA CRUZ – Last week’s announcement that UCSC Extension would close its doors shocked instructors, staff and clients, who had hoped a record summer enrollment would be a life preserver for the program’s sinking debt.

Chris Fatham, one of several faculty members in the English Language International program who are expected to lose their jobs, said thousands of students from more than 50 countries are the real victims.

Fathman and other employees question whether the university’s decision to pull the plug in the face of a $30 million deficit was short-sighted given the program’s rising demand. They say the program, which served Fulbright scholars and Humphrey Fellows from Iraq, also met a need for more international students on campus and was a boon to downtown merchants.

“From what we have been told, ELI was actually making a profit and doing quite well,” said Fatham. “I’m really quite surprised that a small city like Santa Cruz … would want to lose something as valuable as this.”

Until receiving word Aug. 11 that the program would be axed, several Language International employees said they had been celebrating enrollment and revenue figures that far exceeded expectations.

But Alison Galloway, the vice provost for academic affairs, who made the decision to close the program, repeated a claim Monday that she made last week. She said English Language International overhead – including $750,000 in annual rent at the University Town Center, as well as staff and faculty pay – far outpace revenue.

“It is correct in that they had met the targets – they have done a really good job,” Galloway said of the staff’s efforts to increase revenue. “Unfortunately, the program is extremely expensive to run. Every time they generated more income, they were generating more expenses.”

Galloway plans by spring to close the language program and trim 14 full-time staff positions plus instructors, who are hired on an as-needed basis. Other jobs will be transferred to the UCSC Extension office in Cupertino.

But critics have suggested the university, which has been underwriting what is supposed to be a self-supporting program, wipe out the red ink.

“The university should forgive the debt, not only in the name of continued education services, but in the name of saving jobs,” said Nora Hochman, a representative of the Coalition of University Employees, which represents staff.

University officials said it was unclear if such a move would be possible, considering the program continues to operate at a deficit and the whole university will suffer if lawmakers agree on education cuts in coming weeks.

Galloway said there are discussions under way about finding space for English Language International on the main UCSC campus, but she said there are no guarantees.

“In the heart of campus, I don’t think they want to lose us,” said Carol G. Johnson, sales and marketing manager, who is being laid off next month. “But the need to cut costs was so dire, we were kind of sacrificed.”

The interpretations of the fiscal picture among administrators and employees has cast a cloud of confusion over the closure. English Language International’s director, Susan Miller, declined to provide exact budget figures.

But Johnson said the program originally budgeted about $2 million in revenue for the fiscal year that began July 1, but has raised 21 percent more in revenue through increased enrollment. She said the university had asked leaders to produce more income and contribute a greater percentage of the revenue to overhead costs.

Johnson said exceeding both those goals made the closure all the more shocking. She the summer program’s enrollment of 384 students – who stay in Town Center dorm rooms, with host families or on campus – exceeded last year’s total of 323.

“We had the biggest summer and the biggest spring,” she said, boasting they had students from 51 countries this summer.

In an e-mail to university officials, one of the program’s clients, Arudou Debito, an associate professor Hokkaido Information University in Japan, wrote, “As a fellow educator, I beg you to reconsider your decision to close down the ELI program.” He said the course helped his students “return to Japan aflush with positive feelings about language learning and other societies in general, with minds more opened to the outside world” and “learn more about cultural diversity, tolerance and more self-assertive lifestyles.”

ENDS

Archive: DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 14, 2006

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

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 14, 2006

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1) GOVT TO LAUNCH PANEL ON FOREIGN WORKERS’ LIVING CONDITIONS
2) J AMBASSADOR TO CANADA ON CHILD ABDUCTIONS TO JAPAN
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Gov’t promises to improve livelihood of foreign residents
Friday, April 14, 2006 at 07:07 EDT
http://www.crisscross.com/jp/news/369814

TOKYO The government will map out measures to improve living conditions for foreign residents in Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Thursday. A panel of senior government officials from several ministries and agencies will focus on how foreign workers, their families and longtime residents have led their lives in Japan, he said.

The panel will take up various problems facing foreign residents, including economic issues and language and other handicaps their children may face, Abe said. It will also try to ascertain how they have been accepted by local communities, he said.

“Having admitted them into the country, Japan bears a certain degree of responsibility for their well being,” he said.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Courtesy of Tony at The Community (www.debito.org/TheCommunity)

COMMENT FROM DEBITO:
Let’s overlook the misleading headline and focus on the positive. We have Abe, as now the favorite to become the next prime minister in September (and who also has a history of pressuring NHK to censor “unpatriotic” views), saying something as positive as this. Well and good.

However, less hopeful is the typical composition of these types of “panels”. “Government officials from several ministries and agencies”? Hhrum. Let’s see if they let foreign workers represent themselves in any way in these policymaking discussions.

The record of shingikai, letting those affected by policy drives to participate in the process, is pretty spotty. I’ve always been amazed how many panels of “experts” in Japan (particularly those involving “foreign issues”) will all be composed of Japanese, and Japanese elites at that (who’ve never experienced much discrimination, except being seated in a chair they didn’t like in a restaurant overseas…). Moreover few in the media seem to decry this overt lack of balance. I saw on the news recently, for example, a panel on beef imports, sans any clear representative of the US beef industry giving any counterperspective. Regardless of your stance on the BSe issue, I find problematic the lack of *even an attempt* to strike a balance. To me, it’s all part of the process of manufacturing consent, which I find highly irritating when it comes to issues that involve national pride or economic embargoes…

But I digress. Keep an eye on this one–it may mean something if the panel knows what it’s doing…

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

2) JAPANESE AMBASSADOR TO CANADA ON CHILD ABDUCTIONS TO JAPAN

In an important interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Company, broadcast March 31, 2006, three people talked about the issue of how Japan has become a safe haven for child abductions after international marriages break up.

Interview excerpt, a quote from Jeremy Morley, a lawyer in New York City specializing in international family law:

———————————————-
[Morley] Children are not returned from Japan, period, and it is a situation that happens a lot with children of international marriages with kids who are over in Japan, they do not get returned. Usually, the parent who has kept a child is Japanese, and under the Japanese legal system they have a family registration system whereby every Japanese family has their own registration with a local ward office. And the name of registration system is the koseki system. So every Japanese person has their koseki, and a child is listed on the appropriate koseki. Once a child is listed on the family register, the child belongs to that family. Foreigners don’t have a family register and so there is no way for them to actually have a child registered as belonging to them in Japan. There is an international treaty called the Hague Convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction, and Japan is the only G7 country that is not a party to the Hague Convention. I think it’s horrible. It is an international outrage and it is an enormous problem that is not being addressed by the international community.
———————————————-

The interview opens with the plaintiff, Murray Wood, talking about his case, where he won custody of his children from Canadian courts, but was refused custody by Japanese courts essentially because of “who dares wins”: The judges simply refused to uproot the children (currently residing in Saitama where he is denied any access, let alone custody). Regardless of the international arrest warrant out on ex-wife Ayako Wood.

See Canadian Ambassador Sadaaki Numata get all defensive and hint at cultural imperialism in his responses to the interview:

———————————————-
[Numata] That is precisely, precisely, what I am disputing. And to cause suspicions, like saying Japan is a haven for abducted children and so forth, I don’t think it’s just, it’s not the way I go about this business of diplomacy. And, and, and we are considering the question of whether or not to become a party to the convention, but there are a number of factors that need to be taken into account. Its impact on the Japanese Family Law system, and also what I might call the sociological impact on the question of to what extent it would serve, it would be in the interest of the Japanese people. And we are in the process of studying all of these issues carefully.
———————————————-

Probably by one of those elite “government panels”, no doubt.

See the interview in transcript with links to the original audio file at
http://www.crnjapan.com/articles/2006/en/20060331-japanambassadorsadaakinumatainterview.html

(Paste the entire link in your browser if it scrolls to the second line. Thanks as always to the Children’s Rights Network of Japan for all their good works!)

Japan’s unwillingness, both domestically and internationally, to guarantee access to and responsibility for children for BOTH parents, is a tragic shame. One that should be known about before people consider marriage in Japan. More on that in our upcoming book…

Arudou Debito
Sapporo
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 14, 2006 ENDS
ENDS

Japan Times on how divorce and child custody in Japan is not a fair fight

Posted on August 12, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

THE ZEIT GIST

Custody battles: an unfair fight

Japan Times Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080812zg.html

By MICHAEL HASSETT

“Sport at its best obliterates divisions between peoples, such as ostentatious flag-waving and exaggerated national sentiment.” New York Times senior writer Howard W. French — who has covered China for the past five years, was Tokyo bureau chief from 1999 to 2003, and has lived overseas for all but 3 1/2 years since 1979 — made this astute observation last month after staying up most of the night in Shanghai to watch the remarkable five-set Wimbledon final between Spain’s Rafael Nadal and Switzerland’s Roger Federer.

CHRIS MacKENZIE ILLUSTRATION

Only four days into the long-awaited Beijing Olympics, we can only lament the regression that has taken place after only a month and will most certainly intensify over the next 12 days, in what media often infuses into our very beings as “us vs. them.” Unfortunately, here in Japan, it is not only the media that eagerly participates in this engine of propaganda — it’s the education system itself.

As many may know, in response to new curriculum guidelines introduced in the 2002 school year that included the fostering of “feelings of love for one’s country” as an objective for sixth-grade social studies, students at a number of public elementary schools around the nation have since been subjected to evaluations on their love for Japan. Moreover, in December 2006 this country’s basso ostinato of excessive pride bordering on jingoistic fanaticism ground on as the ruling bloc in the Diet forced through revisions to the Fundamental Law of Education by removing a reference to “respecting the value of the individual” and instead calling on schools to cultivate in students a “love of the national homeland.”

But what impact does this have on families here in which one parent is Japanese and the other is not? A relationship between individuals from different countries will generally experience great friction when one or both of the partners remain more committed to their nationality than they do to their spouse — in other words, when they are more married to their country than they are to each other. And this can become exacerbated when children are encouraged to side with one country or the other. Or, in Japan’s case, taught to love Nippon and then graded on patriotism.

One year ago, The Japan Times (Zeit Gist, Aug. 7) printed some findings of mine that showed that there is a 21.1-percent likelihood that a man who marries a Japanese national will do the following: create at least one child with his spouse (85.2 percent probability), then divorce within the first 20 years of marriage (31 percent), and subsequently lose custody of any children (80 percent). And in a country such as Japan — one that has no visitation rights and neither statutes nor judicial precedents providing for joint custody — loss of custody often translates into complete loss of contact, depending on the desire of the mother.

And if this figure is not startling enough, this year’s calculation using more current data would leave us with an even higher likelihood: 22 percent. Having this information, we must now ask a question that most of us would dread presenting to a friend in a fog of engagement glee: Is it the behavior of a wise man to pursue a course of action that has such a high probability of leaving your future children without any contact with their own father?

Most of us enter a marriage with the realization that divorce is a possibility. Of course, we don’t hope for a breakup, but we accept that unions do occasionally dissolve, and heartbreak — usually temporary — will often result. However, do we ever enter marriage thinking beyond our own selves to the realization that there is a substantial likelihood that our own children — our personal flesh and blood — will be ripped from our lives? Doubtful. But in this country, this loss happens to one in every four fathers. Does it happen more to non-Japanese men? Most likely not. The divorce-to-marriage ratio for relationships between Japanese women and foreign men was nearly 39 percent in 2006. For the entire nation it was 41 percent.

And non-Japanese women married to Japanese men should not rest too comfortably either. Their divorce-to-marriage ratio was over 38 percent in 2006. And even though mothers are usually awarded custody of children, it has been widely reported that foreign parents here in Japan are almost never successful in custody claims, and even if the foreign parent is lucky enough to eventually be granted custody, effecting such a court order may prove very difficult because law enforcement generally prefers to remain uninvolved in these complicated, emotion-filled cases. According to Colin P. A. Jones, a professor at Doshisha Law School in Kyoto, “family courts will usually do what is easy, and giving custody to the Japanese parent is usually going to be easier.”

David Hearn, director of “From the Shadows” (www.fromtheshadowsmovie.com ), a documentary in production about child abduction by parents and relatives in Japan, says that he has so far come across only two cases in which non-Japanese had physical custody going into divorce proceedings and received custody at the ruling. And in one of these two cases, the Japanese parent did not put up much of a fight for the children.

According to Hearn, “Whoever has the children when proceedings begin gets sole custody of the children in virtually every case. It’s then easy to understand why parents do such cruel things to each other, and the kids, to get physical custody before divorce is petitioned for and custody is decided in family court.”

Now, when criticism of Japan or the Japanese system is presented, two forms of rebuttal are common: 1) It’s just as bad or worse elsewhere (as if this somehow justifies poor conditions here); or 2) It has never happened to me (as if a pattern can’t exist unless that particular person is part of it).

When it comes to comparisons of countries, the United States is generally one that is used as a benchmark. And the likelihood of the above progression — from marriage to parenthood to divorce to loss of custody — is slightly greater, at 25.9 percent, in the United States. However, joint custody has become an integral part of U.S. society, and even though 68 percent of mothers receive both sole legal and physical custody in a U.S. divorce, a man who truly desires custody and makes the effort to obtain such is usually going to be accorded some form of it.

As for the second type of criticism — it has never happened to me — well, good for you! Me neither.

So, what is a foreigner deeply in love with a Japanese national and eager to make little Himes and Taros to do? Residing outside Japan is probably the best option. Japan has yet to sign the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, but is reportedly planning to do so by 2010. For the most part, overseas courts would accord greater protection of custodial rights for both parents. And we can only hope that changes that will need to be made to comply with this treaty will encourage alterations to law that will encourage the introduction of joint custody here in Japan.

But as we continue through this Olympic week and into the next — weeks that are sure to be filled with intense, core-emanating, possibly desperate cries for the success of ‘ol “NI-PPON,” followed by tears that deprive one of breath, or jubilation that rivals life’s greatest climaxes — perhaps we should review the intended purpose of these games, as exemplified in the Olympic Creed: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”

This creed could also apply to marriage, parenthood and divorce. There is a reason why pride is one of the seven deadly sins: When winning takes precedence in any of these joint endeavors, a great mess is usually left by the one who has triumphed and conquered, and the remaining institution is left blackened. Those in mixed marriages would be wise to tread carefully during these Olympic weeks. Or better yet, cheer for Iceland!

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

ENDS

Archive: 2006 Course on how to “slavedrive” your “gaijin” workers

Posted on August 12, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Oh yes, I remember this… How an email and online campaign got some school (Rock Bay Inc, an apparent transliteration of the boss’s name) advertising English for Shachous (“slavedrive your gaijin, don’t let them diss you–diss them back!” etc.), including a lesson on how to deny a raise to “John” despite his doubling your sales and nearly tripling your profits! Yow. Talk about widening the divide between J and NJ! Archiving the series now. Arudou Debito in Sapporo
============================

APRIL 8, 2006

Here’s a lovely little site, courtesy of a friend, of some company named Rock Bay in Tokyo.
http://www.ceoenglish.com/

It advertises English language courses with an interesting edge:

Salespoint: Learning English to exploit your gaijin underlings.

As it says on the site:

////////////////////////////////////////////////
GAIJIN O KOKITSUKAU EIGO!
SHACHOU EIGO

“Amerikajin ni akogareru na! Kokitsukae!
“Gaijin ni nameareru na! Name kaese!”
////////////////////////////////////////////////

Or not-very-loosely translated:
////////////////////////////////////////////////
ENGLISH TO SLAVEDRIVE YOUR GAIJIN!
CEO ENGLISH

“Don’t feel beneath Americans! Use them up!
“Don’t get dissed by the gaijin! Diss them back!”
////////////////////////////////////////////////

That’s just the titles. It just goes on from there….

Have a look for yourself:

http://www.ceoenglish.com/

It’s next seminar is Saturday, March 22, in Shibuya, BTW. Anyone want to attend?

Well, this is one way to approach kokusaika, I guess. Bests, Debito in Sapporo

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

皆様こんにちは。有道　出人です。今朝友人からいただいたウェブサイトですが、いまでもびっくり仰天しています！

サイトのタイトル：
「外人をこき使う英語！」
「社長英語」

セールズポイント：
「アメリカ人にあこがれるな！こき使え！」
「外人になめられるな！なめ返せ！」
http://www.ceoenglish.com/

サイトよりライトアップ：
ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー

社長英語とは外人部下をこき使うための英語です。外人部下をこき使うとは、こういうことを言うのです。

あなたは英語を学んでも、こんな思いをしていませんか？
１．外国人社員にいいようにあしらわれているあなた。
２．外国人の部下を扱いにくいと思っているあなた。
３．外国人になめられていて、むかついているあなた。
４．英会話スクールの講師のレベルの低さにあきれたあなた。
５．契約の場で、不当な契約（低いマージン、悪い支払い条件、低い給料）を飲むしかなく、
　　悔しい思いをしたあなた。
６．外国人社員を解雇したら、訴えられたあなた。
７．女性外国人社員に、セクハラで訴えられそうになったあなた。
８．外資系企業での面接で、うまくできず、悔しかったあなた。
９．日本人はなめられていると、怒っているあなた。
１０．外国からの駐在員と、日本人社員の待遇があまりにも違いすぎると、不公平に感じているあなた。
　　　日本人の方が圧倒的に会社に貢献しているのに！
１１．来月、外国で英語でのプレゼンがある！　どうしよう！　のあなた。
１２．英語でのプレゼンはいいんだけど、外人から質問されたらどうする！！
　　　なあなた。
１３．いきなり海外出張、駐在言い渡された！　どうする！？なあなた。
１４．日本企業での実績は積んだ。さて、外資系企業に就職して、給料をドン！っと
　　　増やしたいあなた。
１５．会社で英語ができるだけで偉そうにしているあなたのライバルをぎゃふんと
　　　言わせたいあなた。
１６．ライバルよりいち早く、海外の一級品の情報を手に入れ、勝ちたい！あなた。
１７．いままで何をやっても英語をマスターできなかったあなた。
１８．海外パートナーと提携したいあなた。
１９．外資企業パートナーのずっこけぶりに、ほとほとあきれ返っているあなた。
ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー

http://www.ceoenglish.com/

有道よりクイック　コメント：
　セミナーのコーディネーターの岩崎義久氏は「ガイジン」に対してどんな経験があったのかは分からないが、「外人部下」の搾取の仕方を確かに教えようとしています。いじめに遭ったと言えてもかかわらず、いじめでいじめを返すことこそ良くないのは小学生さえ分かることですよね。人間性はどうでしょうかね。嫌悪感で作られているセミナーなのではないかと感じざるを得ません。

　宜しくお願い致します。有道　出人
===============================

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Rest of the issue at

https://www.debito.org/CEOEnglishsite.html

Results of our second poll: In your opinion, is Japan an easy place to work?

Posted on August 11, 2008August 11, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

[poll id=”3″ type=”result”]

COMMENT: As opposed to the previous poll, whether or not Japan is an easy place to live (a clear majority–62%–indicated it was), asking the question about Japan as a workplace elicited responses that were less clear. Total 49% of 227 respondents leaned towards “difficult” or “very difficult”, whereas 31% leaned towards “easy” or “very easy”. Of course, there are more factors at play (and less under the control of the individual) when it comes to workplace versus lifestyle. So to me it is quite understandable that opinions would be more mixed.

Again, as disclaimers keep pointing out, this is hardly anything scientifically “significant”–just a survey of readers who wished to vote.

Next poll: Would you choose Japan as your permanent residence? Let’s group the two previous questions together and draw a conclusion. Debito

Archive: DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 7, 2006

Posted on August 10, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 7, 2006 (Excerpt)
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1) ASAHI SHINBUN ON “GAIJIN MAPS”
2) PERU’S FUJIMORI OUTSOURCING ELECTABILITY THROUGH NEW WIFE
3) H.I.S. TRAVEL AGENCY ALLEGEDLY OVERCHARGING GAIJIN
4) POLICE INTERROGATION ACCOUNT FROM RELEASED INNOCENT INTERNEE
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Released April 7, 2006

1) ASAHI SHINBUN ON “GAIJIN MAPS”

Welcome to the future of law enforcement. Introducing… Gaijin Mapping! So you can tell where the “hotspots” are for foreign crime (kinda like Cancer Maps for insurance companies; pity foreigners are the cancer.) Never mind Japanese crime, of course; I don’t understand why they don’t just biochip everyone and be done with it… Well, again, because they can’t. Just do it to the foreigners, because they can. But as the article hints, I don’t think this sort of thing is going to stop at the foreigners… Article follows:

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New tool eyed to find foreigners staying illegally
04/07/2006 The Asahi Shimbun
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200604070156.html

In another controversial plan, the Justice Ministry will use electronic maps to locate foreigners believed to be staying here illegally, as well as businesses that have hired illegal workers, sources said.

The system is expected to start in fiscal 2007. Immigration personnel will carry hand-held terminals showing such maps to speed up the process of taking suspected illegal foreigners into custody, they said.

Criticism had already been lodged against the plan, much like the Justice Ministry’s system set up in 2004 of having the public send e-mail information about foreigners who seem to be living in the country illegally. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations has criticized the e-mail tip-off system for encouraging citizens to betray their neighbors.

Critics say the ministry’s map plan will unfairly treat overstayers as hard-core criminals. “It’s wrong to treat overstaying foreigners as if they constitute a hotbed for serious crimes,” Manami Yano, a member of the Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan, said.

But the ministry is determined to reach the government’s goal of halving the number of illegal foreigners by the end of 2008 from the estimated 250,000 who overstayed their visas or entered Japan illegally in 2003.

An estimated 193,000 foreigners were living in Japan illegally in January this year.

The ministry receives about 16,000 pieces of information annually via e-mail, letters and telephone calls about suspicious foreigners, ministry officials said.

In addition, about 19,000 foreigners around the nation in 2004 registered their names and addresses with city, town and village offices, although they did not have proper visas.

Ministry officials said many register because registry as a foreigner is needed as a form of ID to open bank accounts or buy cellphones.

Such information is available in writing, but it has been difficult to piece that data together with the information given by informants in different municipalities, even if all the information concerns the same individual.

Ministry officials said the electronic maps will combine all the information and plot the likely whereabouts of the suspicious foreigners.

But human rights groups and those who help non-Japanese say foreigners without the proper visa status often register to allow their children to attend public schools.

Yano also noted that it is rare for foreigners without proper visas to get involved in serious crimes in Japan.(IHT/Asahi: April 7,2006)
ARTICLE ENDS

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2) PERU’S FUJIMORI OUTSOURCING ELECTABILITY THROUGH NEW WIFE

Former Peru Prez and refugee of Japan Alberto Fujimori is up to his old tricks again…. outsourcing through a newfound bride in yet another attempt to somehow get relected in Peru after deserting his safe haven via citizenship in Japan…. Boy this guy is a character! Hope he gets what’s coming to him.

===========================
Fujimori to wed hotelier before poll
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060314a2.html

The Japan Times: March 14, 2006

LIMA (AP) Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori will wed longtime girlfriend Satomi Kataoka, a Japanese hotel magnate, ahead of Peru’s presidential election, a spokesman for the jailed ex-leader said Sunday.

Kataoka, who owns many luxury hotels and is known for her political pull in Japan, made the announcement to 2,000 Fujimori supporters in a Lima discotheque Saturday, spokesman Carlos Raffo told The Associated Press. She did not specify a date, but Peru’s election is set for April 9.

Kataoka arrived in Peru on Friday to support pro-Fujimori candidates in the election, and traveled Sunday to Santiago, where Fujimori has been held since his surprise arrival in Chile in November.

Fujimori fled to Japan in 2000 when his 10-year autocratic regime collapsed amid growing scandals. He had said Chile was to be a stopover on his way back to Peru, but Chilean authorities arrested him at Peru’s request.

Fujimori, who is fighting extradition, faces charges in Peru including sanctioning a death squad accused of murdering 25 people, illegal phone tapping, diversion of public funds to the intelligence service, bribing lawmakers and transferring $ 15 million to his spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.
===========================

ARTICLE ENDS

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3) H.I.S TRAVEL AGENCY ALLEGEDLY OVERCHARGING GAIJIN

Here’s something to consider before buying any more plane tickets–shop around a bit.
Forwarding collated emails with permission:

===========================
From: gameboy rock
Date: March 17, 2006 9:30:15 PM JST
Subject: H.I.S. travel agency, different ticket prices for japanese/gaijin

Hi Debito. Just a heads up, you might consider writing about:

My girlfriend called H.I.S. travel agency in Shinjuku about tickets from Narita to LA this May. After my GF gave all the details (dates, etc), the staff asked if the buyer was Japanese. she told them no, Canadian. The price for me was quoted at 70000yen, and for Japanese customers it was 57000yen.

The justification was vague, something about a cancelled tour, so they were offering the tickets at a discount, to Japanese only.

We called another HIS-affilliated travel agent “No.1 Travel” in Shinjuku, which serves a large majority of foreigners here in Tokyo. They had the same deal.

Finally, my GF went to the HIS Iidabashi branch office with a mic and recorder, and recorded a conversation with the staff about the tickets, giving the different prices, and claiming it was legal, and saying that they do these Japanese-only campaigns regularly. That recording is available at
http://www.baitohell.com/his/voice20.mp3
(There’s a lot of silence as the agent checks the ticket info. Near the end, you can hear the agent explain the pricing difference. Also, the general volume is low.)

I don’t know how legal this is, but if you’d like to talk to HIS yourself, the website is:
http://www.his-j.com/index.html

I spoke to a cabin attendant I know at ANA, and she said it was unlikely that the pricing is from ANA. Debito: feel free to post it on the forums. I figure the more people who stop dealing with HIS, the better.
===========================

Contact email for this information (in case the above email address doesn’t come out): the6955 AT yahoo dot com
ENDS

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4) POLICE INTERROGATION ACCOUNT FROM RELEASED INNOCENT INTERNEE

Another horror story from the annals of people who get taken into custody and interrogated by Japan’s police forces. Under suspicion because he happened to be a foreign neighbor of a suspected foreign drug dealer. Result: 23 days of hell, then turfed out without so much as an apology or a written acknowledgement of innocence, or incarceration! Have a look at it. It’s a harrowing tale:
http://noiman.com/gefaengnisd.html
(Starts out with introduction in German, then switches to English…)

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That’s all for this update. Thanks for reading!
Arudou Debito
Sapporo
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 7 2006 ENDS

Archive: DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MARCH 1, 2006

Posted on August 8, 2008August 8, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MARCH 1, 2006 (excerpt)

Hello all. Just got back from nearly two weeks down south. Some issues I collected along the way:

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1) MAINICHI et al: POLICE RACIAL PROFILING RESULTS IN MISTAKEN ARREST OF JAPANESE THEY THINK IS A FOREIGNER
2) MOFA TO HOLD HEARING RE UN CERD COMMITTEE REPORT
3) NUGW “MARCH IN MARCH” SUNDAY MARCH 5 IN SHINJUKU
4) “REVERSE DISCRIMINATION” AT KYOTO FORMER IMPERIAL PALACE
5) BOOK “JAPANESE ONLY” 2006 REVISED VERSION HITS STORES
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March 1, 2006 Freely forwardable

First up…
File this under “I told you this would happen” Part 647:

1) MAINICHI: RACIAL PROFILING RESULTS IN MISTAKEN ARREST OF JAPANESE

Lots of people have emailed me this article (thanks!), and it’s deservedly gotten a lot of press in Japan. This is the best one I’ve found so far:

—————————ARTICLE BEGINS————————-

Police left red-faced after arresting Japanese woman they thought was a foreigner

Mainichi Shinbun Feb 28, 2006
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060228p2a00m0na001000c.html

KAWAGUCHI, Saitama — Red-faced police released a woman they had arrested for not carrying her passport after she proved to be Japanese, police officials said.

The officials said local police had deemed that she was non-Japanese because she looked like a foreigner and did not say anything in response to questions in Japanese.

Local police were apologetic about the mistake. “We caused great trouble to the woman. We’ll take measures to prevent a recurrence,” the head of Kawaguchi Police Station said.

At around 7:40 p.m. on Saturday, three officers spoke to a 28-year-old woman walking on a street in Kawaguchi, and asked her name and nationality because she looked like a woman from Southeast Asia, according to the officials.

After saying, “I’m Japanese,” she refused to talk to the officers, who took her to the police station. After she refused to respond to the questions officers asked her in Japanese, police deemed that she was a foreigner.

The officers confirmed that she was not carrying her passport, and arrested her for violating the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law. She subsequently wrote down the name of one of her family members on a sheet of paper. One of the officers contacted her family and found out she is a Japanese national.

Police quoted the woman’s mother as telling them, “My daughter wouldn’t talk to anybody she doesn’t know.” (Mainichi)

—————————ARTICLE ENDS————————-
Links to some Japanese articles on this:

ヤフーニュースと読売

————————————————————–

アジア系と間違え、埼玉県警が日本女性を誤認逮捕

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20060227-00000315-yom-soci

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20060227i315.htm

　埼玉県警川口署は２７日、同県川口市の無職女性（２８）を東南アジア系外国人と間違え、入管法違反（旅券不携帯）容疑で誤認逮捕したと発表した。

　女性は、日本人とわかり、２６日未明の逮捕から約１４時間後に釈放された。

　同署によると、交番勤務の署員３人が２５日午後７時４０分ごろ、川口市上青木西の路上を歩いていた女性に職務質問。女性は「日本人です」としか話さず、身分を示すものも持っていなかった。署員が所持品に書かれていた母親の勤め先を訪ねたものの、身元は確認できず、２６日午前５時１５分ごろ逮捕したという。

　その後の取り調べで、女性が自分と家族の名前、生年月日を紙に書き、身元が判明。女性は午後７時２０分ごろ釈放された。

　女性の母親は、女性が普段から他人と話すのが苦手だとしているという。

　署員は「目が大きく、彫りが深かったため、外国人だと思い込んだ」という。

（読売新聞） – 2月28日3時2分更新

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毎日

————————————————————–

誤認逮捕：旅券不携帯で逮捕の女性、実は日本人　埼玉

http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/shakai/jiken/news/20060228k0000m040152000c.html

　埼玉県警川口署は２７日、入管法違反容疑（旅券不携帯）で逮捕した女性（２８）が実は同県川口市在住の日本人だったと分かり、釈放したと発表した。女性が言葉を発せず、容姿などから外国人と判断したという。

　同署によると、２５日午後７時４０分ごろ、川口市内の路上を歩いていた女性にパトロール中の署員３人が職務質問。署員は女性の容姿が東南アジア出身者に似ており、名前や国籍を尋ねたところ、小さな声で「日本人です」と言ったきり何も話さなくなったため、署に任意同行した。女性は署でも日本語の質問に対し無言を通したため、同署は「外国人」と判断。パスポートの不所持を確かめて同容疑で逮捕した。

　女性は逮捕後に家族の名前を紙に書き、母親に確認すると娘と分かって誤認逮捕が判明した。母親は「娘は知らない人とは話をしない性格」と話していたという。

　金川智署長は「女性には大変迷惑をかけた。今後指導を徹底し、再発防止に努める」としている。【村上尊一】

英文を読む

毎日新聞　2006年2月28日　0時38分　（最終更新時間　2月28日　0時53分）

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COMMENT: You just knew I would jump on something like this. As I’ve been saying all along, it’s getting harder to tell a Japanese on sight anymore, and even in this case there’s no indication there was any international parentage. Her only crime was walking past the Police Box and looking foreign, despite claims to the contrary. An honest mistake, worthy of interrogation and arrest, surely.

But let’s go beyond any possibly simple mistake. A person is by law NOT REQUIRED to carry any ID on them if they are Japanese. And foreign residents of Japan are NOT REQUIRED to carry passports around either (that’s why they have Gaijin Cards). Being arrested for not carrying a passport is in fact illegal behavior by the police. But as you know, the police in Japan are bending the laws these days whenever they can claim foreign involvement.
https://www.debito.org/japantimes101805.html

Moreover, by law (the Keisatsukan Shoukumu Shikkou Hou), the police are not allowed to to ask people personal questions unless there is probable cause, notably the suspicion of connection with a past or future crime. However, foreigners (and only foreigners) can be asked for ID without probable cause, but foreigners can ask cops for ID back. Full details at
https://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#checkpoint

Back to the miscreant. According to friend Ben citing other news sources, she was held by police for 14 hours. How nice. I look forward to the same treatment–as there’s little I can do to look more Japanese. If I wink off the mailing lists for awhile, start inquiring at some cop shops, huh?

Such is the price one pays nowadays when foreigners in Japan are viewed and treated as criminals…

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2) MOFA TO HOLD HEARING RE UN CERD COMMITTEE REPORT

In response to United Nations Special Rapporteur Doudou Diene’s recent fantastic report, which tells it pretty much like it is for minorities in Japan (full details at https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html ), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs seems to be feeling some heat. They have put out a public notice asking for NGOs and other groups to join a hearing for some input into their next report to the UN (now years overdue) regarding the status of racial discrimination in Japan. This will take place on March 7, 2006, between 3PM and 5PM. Journalists, book a seat now.

It is open by application to the MOFA, to the Gaimusho Kokusai Shakai Kyouryoku bu Jinken Jindou ka, a Mr Nakano, phone 03-5501-8240, email cerdhoukoku@mofa.go.jp. Application deadline is today, March 1, 2006. Sorry for the short notice.

I applied, FYI. Hope I get in. Sounds like fun. I’m sure we can fill the two-hour audience granted us.

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3) NUGW “MARCH IN MARCH” SUNDAY MARCH 5 IN SHINJUKU

For those who wish to show their support of foreign workers, given their sometimes astonishingly bad working conditions and lack of legal protections, feel free to join the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, as well as several other labor unions, this Sunday from 1:30 PM in Kashiwaki Park, Shinjuku, Tokyo, for their second annual march to draw attention to the issues. More details at
http://nambufwc.org/march-in-march/

There really is no other recourse to effectively secure your right to work in Japan (which is actually guaranteed in the Japanese Constitution, Article 27) except to join a union (even I did). See how I reached that conclusion at
https://www.debito.org/acadapartupdateoct05.html

Anyway, come to the march. It’ll be fun. Live music, dances, speakers, even a NOVA Bunny Show. I’ll be there. And you’ll probably hear my voice through a megaphone at some point…

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4) “REVERSE DISCRIMINATION” AT KYOTO FORMER IMPERIAL PALACE

Now for something a little lighter. I was in Kyoto two weekends ago staying at the Palace Side Hotel (http://www.palacesidehotel.co.jp/), a rather pleasant but certainly cheap (and therefore recommended) hotel right next to the Kyoto Imperial Palace. I did get asked for my passport when I checked in (over 70% of their guests are tourists, I later found out), and got some nonplussed looks from the staff when I refused to do so and showed them the law (yes, I carry them; get your own at https://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#passportnumber) saying it wasn’t required for residents of Japan regardless of nationality. I made sure to have a few words with the manager, who promised to do better about obeying the law in future. Anyhoo…

What made the trip interesting was the fact that my (non-Japanese) friend and I tried to get into the Kyoto Imperial Palace (you must make an appointment with the Kunaichou offices next door). They have a few tours each weekday, one in English at 10AM. I saw on the forms that the English version requires you give your Gaijin Card number, whereas the Japanese version only needs an address without ID. So when I asked for the Japanese version, they gave me it with a caution to reveal my numbers. When I told them of my nationality, they said:

“This tour in English is for foreigners only. Moreover, unlike foreigners, who can sign up for tours on the day, Japanese must register at least the day before for any tours. So you cannot partake. However, you can have your foreign friend sponsor you and bring you in as interpretee…”

I guffawed and begged off. Also asked if the Imperial Agency would consider a bit of kisei kanwa… Funny how these things work, isn’t it. Friend Olaf told me I should be pleased they did in fact treat me like a Japanese. Well… A stupid rule is a stupid rule, regardless of application, is what I put it all down to. No wonder these people drive Commoner Imperial wives nuts…

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5) BOOK “JAPANESE ONLY” 2006 REVISED VERSION HITS STORES

Those who have been holding out for a copy of my book “JAPANESE ONLY–The Otaru Hot Springs Case and Racial Discrimination in Japan” are in for a treat. The revised 2006 EDITION has just come out, which includes a translation of the 2005 Supreme Court decision rejecting the case, and an Index for your researching ease. Those who have the 2004 version (which sold out, thanks) can get an index applicable to their pagination at
https://www.debito.org/japaneseonlyindex.html

Want a copy of the book? See
https://www.debito.org/japaneseonly.html

Moreover, I can now reveal that my proposal for my third book has just been accepted by publishers. More details later…

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Thanks for reading!
Arudou Debito
Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MARCH 1 2006 ENDS

From the archives: 2005: Economist on robotizing J health care, contrast with what’s happening nowadays

Posted on August 8, 2008August 11, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Since it’s the summer and I’m trying to take some time off (and have a number of duties what with my students here in California), I’m going to start archiving old newsletters and mailings. Here’s something I wrote back in December 2005 — a wistful article by The Economist about automating Japanese health care. In light of all the recent articles on importing workers for Japan’s nursing industry, this comes off as quite antiquated — and it’s only two and a half years old! My original comments precede article, and current articles follow in the Comments section. Arudou Debito in the Bay Area

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

Debito.org mailing December 26, 2005
Subject: Economist on robotics and culture in Japan

Hi All. From The Economist’s Christmas special. Tries to find a cultural basis for Japanese nonantipathy towards robots, and cites Tetsuwan Atomu (whose name in Japanese “refers to its atomic heart”; huh?), a country “lucky to be uninhibited by robophobia” (when compared to the awkwardness and riskiness of employing Filipina nurses), and how Japanese are loath to ask for directions (not to mention deal with other humans in linguistic honorifics)…

Am I the only one finds this article annoying? I think the author, not to mention the robotic researchers who paint Japanese society so oddly, should get outside more and have more human interaction. Could be that Japan is good at robotics simply because Japanese industry is world class at complex electronics, and this is merely the next outlet? Moreover, I doubt robots will ever effectively replace the human touch when it comes to health care, especially for the sick and the elderly–call me a Luddite. Bests, Debito in Sapporo

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Japan’s humanoid robots
Better than people
Dec 20th 2005 | TOKYO
From The Economist print edition
http://economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5323427&no_na_tran=1

Why the Japanese want their robots to act more like humans

HER name is MARIE, and her impressive set of skills comes in handy in a nursing home. MARIE can walk around under her own power. She can distinguish among similar-looking objects, such as different bottles of medicine, and has a delicate enough touch to work with frail patients. MARIE can interpret a range of facial expressions and gestures, and respond in ways that suggest compassion. Although her language skills are not ideal, she can recognise speech and respond clearly. Above all, she is inexpensive . Unfortunately for MARIE, however, she has one glaring trait that makes it hard for Japanese patients to accept her: she is a flesh-and-blood human being from the Philippines. If only she were a robot instead.

Robots, you see, are wonderful creatures, as many a Japanese will tell you. They are getting more adept all the time, and before too long will be able to do cheaply and easily many tasks that human workers do now. They will care for the sick, collect the rubbish, guard homes and offices, and give directions on the street.

This is great news in Japan, where the population has peaked, and may have begun shrinking in 2005. With too few young workers supporting an ageing population, somebody–or something–needs to fill the gap, especially since many of Japan’s young people will be needed in science, business and other creative or knowledge-intensive jobs.

Many workers from low-wage countries are eager to work in Japan. The Philippines, for example, has over 350,000 trained nurses, and has been pleading with Japan — which accepts only a token few — to let more in. Foreign pundits keep telling Japan to do itself a favour and make better use of cheap imported labour. But the consensus among Japanese is that visions of a future in which immigrant workers live harmoniously and unobtrusively in Japan are pure fancy. Making humanoid robots is clearly the simple and practical way to go.

Japan certainly has the technology. It is already the world leader in making industrial robots, which look nothing like pets or people but increasingly do much of the work in its factories. Japan is also racing far ahead of other countries in developing robots with more human features, or that can interact more easily with people. A government report released this May estimated that the market for “service robots” will reach ｴ1.1 trillion ($10 billion) within a decade.

The country showed off its newest robots at a world exposition this summer in Aichi prefecture. More than 22m visitors came, 95% of them Japanese. The robots stole the show, from the nanny robot that babysits to a Toyota that plays a trumpet. And Japan’s robots do not confine their talents to controlled environments. As they gain skills and confidence, robots such as Sony’s QRIO (pronounced ﾒcurioﾓ) and Honda’s ASIMO are venturing to unlikely places. They have attended factory openings, greeted foreign leaders, and rung the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange. ASIMO can even take the stage to accept awards.

The friendly face of technology

So Japan will need workers, and it is learning how to make robots that can do many of their jobs. But the country’s keen interest in robots may also reflect something else: it seems that plenty of Japanese really like dealing with robots.

Few Japanese have the fear of robots that seems to haunt westerners in seminars and Hollywood films. In western popular culture, robots are often a threat, either because they are manipulated by sinister forces or because something goes horribly wrong with them. By contrast, most Japanese view robots as friendly and benign. Robots like people, and can do good.

The Japanese are well aware of this cultural divide, and commentators devote lots of attention to explaining it. The two most favoured theories, which are assumed to reinforce each other, involve religion and popular culture.

Most Japanese take an eclectic approach to religious beliefs, and the native religion, Shintoism, is infused with animism: it does not make clear distinctions between inanimate things and organic beings. A popular Japanese theory about robots, therefore, is that there is no need to explain why Japanese are fond of them: what needs explaining, rather, is why westerners allow their Christian hang-ups to get in the way of a good technology. When Honda started making real progress with its humanoid-robot project, it consulted the Vatican on whether westerners would object to a robot made in man’s image.

Japanese popular culture has also consistently portrayed robots in a positive light, ever since Japan created its first famous cartoon robot, Tetsuwan Atomu, in 1951. Its name in Japanese refers to its atomic heart. Putting a nuclear core into a cartoon robot less than a decade after Hiroshima and Nagasaki might seem an odd way to endear people to the new character. But Tetsuwan Atom — being a robot, rather than a human — was able to use the technology for good.

Over the past half century, scores of other Japanese cartoons and films have featured benign robots that work with humans, in some cases even blending with them. One of the latest is a film called “Hinokio”, in which a reclusive boy sends a robot to school on his behalf and uses virtual-reality technology to interact with classmates. Among the broad Japanese public, it is a short leap to hope that real-world robots will soon be able to pursue good causes, whether helping to detect landmines in war-zones or finding and rescuing victims of disasters.

The prevailing view in Japan is that the country is lucky to be uninhibited by robophobia. With fewer of the complexes that trouble many westerners, so the theory goes, Japan is free to make use of a great new tool, just when its needs and abilities are happily about to converge. “Of all the nations involved in such research,” the Japan Times wrote in a 2004 editorial, “Japan is the most inclined to approach it in a spirit of fun.”

These sanguine explanations, however, may capture only part of the story. Although they are at ease with robots, many Japanese are not as comfortable around other people. That is especially true of foreigners. Immigrants cannot be programmed as robots can. You never know when they will do something spontaneous, ask an awkward question, or use the wrong honorific in conversation. But, even leaving foreigners out of it, being Japanese, and having always to watch what you say and do around others, is no picnic.

It is no surprise, therefore, that Japanese researchers are forging ahead with research on human interfaces. For many jobs, after all, lifelike features are superfluous. A robotic arm can gently help to lift and reposition hospital patients without being attached to a humanoid form. The same goes for robotic spoons that make it easier for the infirm to feed themselves, power suits that help lift heavy grocery bags, and a variety of machines that watch the house, vacuum the carpet and so on. Yet the demand for better robots in Japan goes far beyond such functionality. Many Japanese seem to like robot versions of living creatures precisely because they are different from the real thing.

An obvious example is AIBO, the robotic dog that Sony began selling in 1999. The bulk of its sales have been in Japan, and the company says there is a big difference between Japanese and American consumers. American AIBO buyers tend to be computer geeks who want to hack the robotic dog’s programming and delve in its innards. Most Japanese consumers, by contrast, like AIBO because it is a clean, safe and predictable pet.

AIBO is just a fake dog. As the country gets better at building interactive robots, their advantages for Japanese users will multiply. Hiroshi Ishiguro, a robotocist at Osaka University, cites the example of asking directions. In Japan, says Mr Ishiguro, people are even more reluctant than in other places to approach a stranger. Building robotic traffic police and guides will make it easier for people to overcome their diffidence.
(Contactable at ishiguro@ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp)

Karl MacDorman, another researcher at Osaka, sees similar social forces at work. Interacting with other people can be difficult for the Japanese, he says, “because they always have to think about what the other person is feeling, and how what they say will affect the other person.” But it is impossible to embarrass a robot, or be embarrassed, by saying the wrong thing.
(Contactable at kfm@ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp)

To understand how Japanese might find robots less intimidating than people, Mr MacDorman has been investigating eye movements, using headsets that monitor where subjects are looking. One oft-cited myth about Japanese, that they rarely make eye contact, is not really true. When answering questions put by another Japanese, Mr MacDorman’s subjects made eye contact around 30% of the time. But Japanese subjects behave intriguingly when they talk to Mr Ishiguro’s android, ReplieeQ1. The android’s face has been modeled on that of a famous newsreader, and sophisticated actuators allow it to mimic her facial movements. When answering the android’s questions, Mr MacDorman’s Japanese subjects were much more likely to look it in the eye than they were a real person. Mr MacDorman wants to do more tests, but he surmises that the discomfort many Japanese feel when dealing with other people has something to do with his results, and that they are much more at ease when talking to an android.

Eventually, interactive robots are going to become more common, not just in Japan but in other rich countries as well. As children and the elderly begin spending time with them, they are likely to develop emotional reactions to such lifelike machines. That is human nature. Upon meeting Sony’s QRIO, your correspondent promptly referred to it as “him” three times, despite trying to remember that it is just a battery-operated device.

What seems to set Japan apart from other countries is that few Japanese are all that worried about the effects that hordes of robots might have on its citizens. Nobody seems prepared to ask awkward questions about how it might turn out. If this bold social experiment produces lots of isolated people, there will of course be an outlet for their loneliness: they can confide in their robot pets and partners. Only in Japan could this be thought less risky than having a compassionate Filipina drop by for a chat.

ENDS

Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column 6: The case for “Gaijin” as a racist word

Posted on August 6, 2008October 28, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

THE CASE FOR “GAIJIN” AS A RACIST WORD
Column Six for the Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column
By Arudou Debito
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
DRAFT TEN–version submitted to the Editor, with links to sources.

Courtesy http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080805ad.html

“Gaijin“. It seems we hear the word every day. For some, it’s merely harmless shorthand for “gaikokujin” (foreigner). Even Wikipedia (that online wall for intellectual graffiti artists) had a section on “political correctness“, claiming illiterate and oversensitive Westerners had misunderstood their Japanese word.

I take a different view. Gaijin is not merely a word. It is an epithet. About the billions of people who are not Japanese. It makes attributions to them that go beyond nationality.

Let’s deal with basic counterarguments: Calling gaijin a mere contraction of gaikokujin is not historically accurate. According to ancient texts and prewar dictionaries [see Endnote], “gaijin” (or “guwaijin” in the contemporary rendering) once referred to Japanese people too. Anyone not from your village, in-group etc. was one. It was a way of showing you don’t belong here–even (according to my 1978 Kojien, Japan’s premier dictionary) “regarded as an enemy” (tekishi). Back then there were other (even more unsavory) words for foreigners anyway, so gaijin has a separate etymology from words specifically meaning “extranational”.

Even if you argue modern usage conflates, gaijin is still a loaded word, easily abused. Consider two nasty side effects:

1) “Gaijin” strips the world of diversity. Japan’s proportion of the world’s population is a little under 2%. In the gaijin binary worldview, you either are a Japanese or you’re not–an “ichi-ro” or a “ze-ro”. Thus you indicate the remaining 98% of the world are outsiders.

2) And always will be: A gaijin is a gaijin anytime, any place. The word is even used overseas by traveling/resident Japanese to describe non-Japanese, or rather, “foreigners in their own country”. Often without any apparent sense of irony or contradiction. Japanese outside of Japan logically must be foreigners somewhere! Not when everyone else is a gaijin.

Left unchallenged, this rubric encourages dreadful social science–ultimately creating a constellation of “us and them” differences (as opposed to possible similarities) for the ichiro culture vultures to guide their sextants by.

For those hung up on gaijin’s apparently harmless kanji (“outside person”), even that is indicative. The “koku” in gaikokujin refers specifically to country–a legal status you can change. The epithet doesn’t, effectively making classification a matter of birth status, physical appearance, race. Meaning once you get relegated to the “gaijin” group, you never get out.

Allow me to illustrate that with a joke from the American South:

Question: “What do you call a black man with a PhD in neurobiology from Harvard, who works as a brain surgeon at Johns Hopkins, earns seven figures a year, and runs one of the world’s largest philanthropies?”

Answer: “N*gg*r” (rhymes with “bigger”).

Hardy har. Now let’s rephrase:

Question: “What do you can a white man with degrees from top-tier schools, who has lived in Japan for more than two decades, contributes to Japanese society as an university educator, is fluent in Japanese, and has Japanese citizenship?”

Answer: “Gaijin”.

As a naturalized citizen I resemble that remark. But nobody who knows my nationality calls me a gaikokujin anymore–it’s factually incorrect. But there are plenty of people (especially foreigners) who don’t hesitate to call me a gaijin–often pejoratively.

Thus gaijin is a caste. No matter how hard you try to acculturalize yourself, become literate and lingual, even make yourself legally inseparable from the putative “naikokujin” (whoever they are), you’re still “not one of us”.

Moreover, factor in Japan’s increasing number of children of international marriages. Based upon whether or not they look like their foreign parent (again, “gaijin-ppoi“), there are cases where they get treated differently, even adversely, by society. Thus the rubric of gaijin even encourages discrimination against its own citizens.

This must be acknowledged. Even though trying to get people to stop using gaijin overnight would be like swatting flies, people should know of its potential abuses. At least people should stop arguing that it’s the same as gaikokujin.

For gaijin is essentially “n*gg*r”, and should be likewise obsolesced.

Fortunately, our media is helping out, long since adding gaijin to the list of “housou kinshi yougo” (words unfit for broadcast).

So can we. Apply Japan’s slogan against undesirable social actions: “Shinai, sasenai” (I won’t use it, I won’t let it be used.)
690 words

ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー
Arudou Debito is co-author of Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants, and Immigrants to Japan. A fuller version of this article at www.debito.org/kumegaijinissue.html
ENDS

===================================
ENDNOTE:
Sources for ancient texts and dictionaries concerning the word Gaijin:

１）言海（大正１４年出版）pg 299: 「外人：外（ホカ）ノ人、外国人」(Courtesy 北海道立図書館）
２）A. Matsumura (ed.), Daijisen (大辞泉), (p. 437, 1st ed., vol. 1). (1998). Tokyo: Shogakukan. “がいじん。【外人】②　仲間以外の人。他人。「外人もなき所に兵具をととのへ」〈平家・一〉”
３）”外人”. Kōjien (5). (1998). Iwanami. ISBN 4000801112. “がいじん【外人】①　仲間以外の人。疎遠の人。連理秘抄「外人など上手多からむ座にては」②　敵視すべきな人。平家一「外人もなき所に兵具をととのへ」”
４）A. Matsumura (ed.), Daijirin (大辞林), (p. 397, 9th ed., vol. 1). (1989). Tokyo: Sanseido. “がいじん【外人】②　そのことに関係のない人。第三者。「外人もなき所に兵具をととのへ／平家一」”
５）「外人もなき所に兵具をとゝのへ」（Assembling arms where there are no gaijin）高木, 市之助; 小沢正夫, 渥美かをる, 金田一春彦 (1959). 日本古典文学大系: 平家物語 (in Japanese). 岩波書店, 123. ISBN 4-00-060032-X.
６）「源平両家の童形たちのおのおのござ候ふに、かやうの外人は然るべからず候」（Since the children of both Genji and Heike are here, such a gaijin is not appropriate to stay together.）鞍馬天狗
(All courtesy of source footnotes in Wikipedia entry on “Gaijin”, retrieved August 1, 2008.)
END

First Waiwai, now Japan Times’ Tokyo Confidential now in Internet “Japan Image Police” sights

Posted on August 5, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Writing you from California, arrived safely. Here we have an article talking about how the sights are turning from the Mainichi Waiwai to the Japan Times “Tokyo Confidential” column–in the same spirit of making sure outsiders don’t “misunderstand” Japan (by reading potentially negative stuff already found in the domestic press). The Japanese language is only supposed to be for domestic consumption, after all, right? How dare non-natives translate the secret code? Anyway, it’s one more good reason why you don’t deal with anonymous Internet bullies–giving in to them only makes them stronger–and more hypocritical given press freedom and the freedom of speech they wallow in. Let’s hope the Japan Times has the guts to stand up to them. Arudou Debito in the Bay Area

ジャパンタイムズの性的記事配信　「海外に誤解与える」と批判出る

7月31日19時5分配信 J-CASTニュース
 http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20080731-00000002-jct-soci

週刊プレイボーイ引用の2006年5月14日付記事

　ジャパンタイムズが自らのサイトで、日本人の性的な行動を強調する週刊誌記事などを海外などに多数紹介していたことが分かった。毎日新聞英語版サイトのような改変の指摘はないものの、ネット上では「海外に誤解を与えかねない」と批判が出始めている。

■「主婦のセックス　もっと金を稼ぐために」

　　「既婚女性からの反応は、驚くべきものでした。性風俗店には1人の募集に電話が40件も殺到するほどで、彼女らはすぐに仕事を始めたいようにみえます」

　ジャパンタイムズのサイト記事で、週刊朝日2002年6月7日号の記事にあるとされた風俗雑誌販売員の告白部分だ。このサイト記事では、風俗ライターの次のようなコメントも紹介されている。

　　「『リストラひも』と呼ばれる女性らの夫たちもいます」「最近は、夫がリストラされた家庭では、家計を助けるために売春に手を染める妻は珍しくありません」

　このサイトは、「TOKYO CONFIDENTIAL」。毎週日曜日に、週刊誌から性に限らず様々なストーリーを3本ほど紹介している。週刊朝日の記事は、ジャパンタイムズの米国人記者が書いた02年6月2日付サイト記事で紹介された。「主婦のセックス　もっと金を稼ぐために、もっと無貞操になるために」と刺激的なタイトルが付けられている。

　サイトには、この記事のほかに、性的に特異な行動を紹介する多数の記事がストックされている。例えば、06年5月14日付記事では、週刊プレイボーイから引用し、田舎の子どもたちは楽しみごとが少ないため、飲酒やセックスに耽るという医師の話を紹介。また、07年8月5日の記事では、日本人女性100人が少なくとも1回は即エッチを認める主義になったと告白したというSPA！の記事を報じている。タイトルは、それぞれ「田舎のセックス暴走に踏み殺される少女」「即エッチ　性ホルモンが論理を凌駕するとき」とかなり刺激的だ。

■毎日「WaiWai」からジャパンタイムズに移る

　変態記事を流し続けた毎日新聞英語版サイト「WaiWai」のように、表現を変えられたという指摘はまだ出ていない。各記事には、「ここでの見方はジャパンタイムズの見方を反映したものでなく、われわれは内容の信憑性については保証できない」と断り書きが添えられている。

　ところが、ニュースサイトや2ちゃんねるでは、内容が保証されない性的な行動の紹介について、批判が出ている。「海外の人々に多大な誤解を与える」「主婦は売春・買春やり放題。日本人は男も女も淫乱の性的倒錯者ばかり。とでも言いたいのか？」といったものだ。

　毎日サイト問題でも発言しているアルファブロガーの池田信夫さんは、これらの記事に対し、こう指摘する。

　　「このような記事は、一時期はやったオリエンタリズムではないでしょうか。欧米人による東洋人蔑視の裏返しのように思えます。自分たちと違うものは、劣っている、狂っている、正義でないと思っている。読者である白人の潜在的な差別意識をくすぐることで人気を得ようとしているようです」

　さらに、ジャパンタイムズが内容を保証しないとしていることについては、「そのようなことを新聞社が書くのは恥、ということを自覚していない」と手厳しい。

　ちなみに、サイトの米国人記者は、毎日の紙媒体（当時）「WaiWai」で記事を書いた後、ジャパンタイムズに移籍していた。処分を受けた毎日のライアン・コネル記者とは、「Tabloid Tokyo」の共著者に名を連ねている。

　ジャパンタイムズ社の岡田恵介編集局長は、J-CASTニュースの取材に対し、次のように説明する。

　　「外部からは、10本ぐらい『これはいかがなものか』と指摘は受けました。10年近くサイトのコラムを続けている中で、確かに、900本以上の記事には、性風俗、性行動、性犯罪のものが一部にあります。しかし、年150〜60本のなかでそういうテーマは数本です。援助交際など日本人の間で話題のテーマは、日本の一面であることは間違いなく、まじめな記事だと思っています」

　岡田編集局長は、週刊誌の内容を歪めたりしたことはないとし、刺激的な見出しについては、「キーワードはどうしても入ってしまいますが、記事中の翻訳は正確にしています」と理解を求める。断り書きについては、「掲載責任がまったくないというつもりはありません。出所を説明し、そこからの翻訳であることを誤解のないように伝えておこうというものです」と話す。

　同社では、毎日サイト問題が発覚してから、対応を協議しているといい、読者には何らかの形でできるだけ早くきちんと説明したいとしている。

Heading to California tomorrow for a month: Blog updated less often

Posted on August 2, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Off to the California Bay Area for a month from tomorrow on business. Not sure what my Internet access will be like, and it’s summertime anyway, so let’s all take it easy. My next JUST BE CAUSE column comes out in the Japan Times on Tues, August 5, anyway. Topic: Making the case that “Gaijin” is a racist word.

And a personal confession to make: I’m actually not looking forward to going to The States. It’s not just that San Francisco is pretty cold (think Kushiro cold) and grey during August. There’s something I call the “Christmas Syndrome”, in that whenever you try to celebrate Christmas (especially when everyone around you doesn’t understand what the fuss is about), you feel all that much more pressure to be happy, and wonder why you’re so glum. The seasonal expectation of being happy actually makes it worse.

Same thing with a trip to the US. Yes, I was born and raised there. But going there I feel inchoate pressure to feel some kind of link with the place, some feeling of “at home”. I don’t. I’m afraid twenty one years in Japan (and eight years of a failed and arrogant US presidential administration) have made me unable to feel any real affinity. So I’d much rather stay in Hokkaido and enjoy the summer, or go to some other country (Canada would be nice) than head back and be a foreigner in contemporary America. Ah well. As they say, it’s my made bed to sleep in.

Anyway, enjoy your summer, everyone! I’ll still be writing Debito.org, only probably not every day. Check back in from time to time! Debito in Sapporo

GOJ announces J population rises. But excludes NJ residents from survey.

Posted on August 2, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s something quite odd. We have the GOJ saying that the population of Japan is rising (ii n ja nai?). Then they make it clear that the figures doesn’t include foreign residents. Now why would any government worth its salt decide to exclude taxpayers thusly? Aren’t registered foreign residents people too, part of a “population”? Arudou Debito

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

Population rises 1st time in 3 years

The Yomiuri Shimbun, Aug 1, 2008

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080801TDY01306.htm

The nation’s population grew for the first time in three years to 127,066,178 in the year to March 31, up 12,707 from a year earlier, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said Thursday.

The figure was based on resident registrations at municipal government offices and does not include foreign residents.

Over the period, there was a fall in the natural population–the number of births minus the number of deaths in the year through the end of March–of 29,119. However, the figures showed an increase of 41,826 due to social factors such as the rise in the number of repatriates and newly naturalized citizens.

The survey also showed that the population in Tokyo increased by 100,460, breaking the 100,000 mark for the first time since the government began taking such surveys in 1968 and reflecting the trend toward a concentration of the population in large cities.

The number of births increased for two consecutive years to 1,096,465, but was offset by the number of the deaths, which went up by 44,410 to 1,125,584. The natural decline was the second for the nation, following the 2006 survey.

Meanwhile, the so-called social population, which saw a decline of 12,297 in the year through March 31, 2007, rose by 41,826 for this year. The ministry believes that the social population increase can be attributed to an increased number of people returning home after their companies closed their offices overseas. Officials noted therefore that the overall trend of a declining population had not changed.

(Aug. 1, 2008)

読売：「人口３年ぶり増加」と言うが、「住民基本台帳」のみに基づき外国人住民は数に入らん。

Posted on August 2, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

ブロクの読者、こんにちは。きょうのトピックスは：

　きのうの読売によると、「人口３年ぶり増加」という。おめでとう。が、なぜ「人口」を言うのに外国人住民（つまり外国人登録者数）は入らないのでしょうか。国内に住居であり、納税して、社会の貢献者やメンバーではないかと思います。総務省はそうやって人を加算しないメリットはありますか。今後、「人口」を測るなら「人」を測りましょう。有道　出人

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

人口３年ぶり増加、１億２７０６万人…帰国や帰化増え

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20080731-OYT1T00679.htm

　総務省は３１日、住民基本台帳に基づく今年３月末現在の人口を発表した。

　全国の人口は前年同期比１万２７０７人増の１億２７０６万６１７８人で、２００６年３月末現在で減少に転じたが、３年ぶりに増えた。

　出生者数から死亡者数を引いた「自然増加数」はマイナス２万９１１９人で過去最大幅のマイナスとなったが、海外への転出入や帰化などに伴う「社会増加数」がプラス４万１８２６人となったため。うち帰化は「推定１万数千人」（総務省）。東京都の人口増加数は１０万４６０人と、１９６８年の調査開始以来初めて１０万人を超え、大都市の人口集中加速が浮き彫りになった。

　住民基本台帳の人口は日本に住む日本人の数で、永住外国人らは含まない。

　出生者数は２年連続増の１０９万６４６５人だったが、死亡者数も４万４４１０人増えて１１２万５５８４人だった。社会増加数は０７年３月末のマイナス１万２２９７人が、プラス４万１８２６人に転じた。年度末は転入、転出が多く、数値が変動することもあるが、同省は「海外進出した企業が国内へ戻るなどして、在外邦人の転入が増えたことも一因ではないか」と見て、全体では「減少傾向は変わらない」としている。

　東京、名古屋、関西の３大都市圏は全人口の５０・２０％を占める６３７８万６８３０人と過去最高。都道府県別では東京１２４６万２１９６人、神奈川８７９万８２８９人、大阪８６７万３０２人の順で多く、最少は鳥取の６０万２４１１人。

（2008年8月1日02時14分読売新聞）

Bankruptcy of a monopoly: Good riddance to Yohan foreign book distributor

Posted on August 1, 2008August 2, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. This hasn’t been all that noticed in the English-language vernacular media, but it’s big news in the publishing industry. And for authors who sell books in Japan.

Yohan (Nihon Yousho Hanbai), the monopolist distributors of foreign-language books, just went bankrupt. Its websites are even offline (Japanese, English)

Well, good. To quote Nelson Muntz: “Haa haa”.

Yohan is essentially the Darth Vader of Japanese book distributors. I know from personal experience (trying to sell my books published by Akashi Shoten Inc., which refused to pay Yohan’s extortionate subscription rates or meet its restrictive conditions) that if you want to sell even Japan-published books written in English, you either go through Yohan, or your books don’t sell. They don’t get shelf space.

We already see book stores (check out Maruzen or Kinokuniya) selling imported English-language books (i.e. best sellers, novels, and classic literature) at exchange rates not seen in Japan for more than two decades (think between 150-200 yen to the dollar). But the banditry doesn’t stop there. Whenever I went to bookstores and asked them nicely to stock my books (be they JAPANESE ONLY or HANDBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS), almost everyone agreed to, thanks. Of course, I’d go back a couple of weeks later to see if they stocked it and how it’s selling, and in many cases I’d find no copies in the “books on Japan” section. Then I’d check with the cashier and on more than one occasion be told they had stocked it. But Yohan didn’t want any books that “weren’t theirs” on those shelves, so Yohan had actually SENT MY BOOKS BACK TO THE PUBLISHER. When the store agreed to restock them, they said the only place they were *allowed* was in the “foreign language learning section” (i.e. Eikaiwa), a market with more publishers and distributors. But that’s definitely not my genre, so many a browsing sale was indubitably lost. Yes, Yohan had that much control.

So to repeat: Here we have a cartel masquerading as a company, with exclusive rights to sell cash cows like Harry Potter in English, way overcharging us for books, controlling stores’ contents and shelf space, and keeping out rivals. And they STILL couldn’t stay in business!

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Here’s hoping we can get my and other people’s non-Yohan books (particularly minority-press views on Japan) on the shelves now. Germane articles about the Yohan bankruptcy follow. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Japanese Import Book Seller Yohan Goes Bust

http://www.japancorp.net/Article.Asp?Art_ID=19250

Tokyo, July 31, 2008 (Jiji Press) – Major Japanese import book retailer Yohan Inc. on Thursday filed for bankruptcy with Tokyo District Court with debts of some 6.5 billion yen, Teikoku Databank Ltd. said.

Yohan Book Service Inc., which is receiving business turnaround support from Yohan Inc., also went bust, filing for protection from creditors with the same court under the Civil Rehabilitation Law, according to the credit research agency.

Yohan Book Service, which operates Aoyama Book Center, left debts of about 5.4 billion yen.

Established in 1953, Tokyo-based Yohan Inc. imports such books as U.S. magazine Newsweek and runs bookstores.

The company has run into financial difficulties since its interest-bearing debts mounted following its aggressive investments.

In the year that ended in November 2007, the firm incurred a net loss of 1,065 million yen.

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

Online competition drives foreign book seller bankrupt

(Mainichi Japan) August 1, 2008

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080801p2a00m0na025000c.html

A leading importer and seller of foreign books in Japan has filed for bankruptcy amid the prevalence of online sales of foreign books.

Nihon Yosho Hanbai, known familiarly as Yohan, filed for bankruptcy at the Tokyo District Court on Thursday. The company has incurred 6.5 billion yen in debts.

Also on Thursday, Yohan Book Service filed for court protection from creditors under the Civil Rehabilitation Law. The affiliate company, which runs Aoyama Book Center and Ryushui Shobo, has incurred 5.4 billion yen in debts.

Established in 1953, Yohan sold a wide variety of books, from the general to the technical. The company had business relationships with about 150 publishers in about 20 countries — most of them English-speaking nations.

In September 1992, the company boasted annual sales of 9.638 billion yen. However, as online sales of books became more prevalent, Yohan’s annual sales dropped to 5.563 billion yen as of August 2005. By November 2007, sales had plummeted to 3.125 billion yen.

Bookoff Corp., a leading used book dealer, has shown interest in supporting the affiliate company Yohan Book Service.

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

Yohan In Bankruptcy

BookTrade.info Posted at 10:24AM Thursday 31 Jul 2008

http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/15812

Yohan, the long standing distributor of foreign books and magazines in Japan, went into bankruptcy today and all their employees were dismissed at once, the office was closed down immediately and the website appears to be closed.It is understood that it has gone down the bankruptcy route, rather than a supervised corporate reorganization. Yohan did not have any significant property and assets and reports suggest that there will be no payment of debts.

The affiliated bookshop chains, Aoyama Book Center and Ryusui Shobo are applying to the Corporate Reorganization Law to try and keep going. The bookstores are still operating and it is believed that the name of the company that will take on the business will be announced shortly.

It really is getting tough out there…everywhere.

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

Cody’s Owner, Yohan, Files for Bankruptcy

Publishers’ Weekly, July 31, 2008

http://www.publishersweekly.com/index.asp?layout=talkbackCommentsFull&talk_back_header_id=6546476&articleid=CA6583205

With today’s news that Japanese book distributor, bookseller and publisher Yohan Inc. filed for bankruptcy with Tokyo District Court, it becomes clearer why the company closed Berkeley, Calif., icon Cody’s Books earlier this summer. Ironically, at the time of the purchase in September 2006, Cody’s owner Andy Ross stated that Yohan’s financial resources would strengthen existing the store’s operations. Yohan also owns Stone Bridge Press in the U.S.

As reported in JiJi Press, 55-year-old Yohan was 6.5 billion yen in debt. Yohan Book Service Inc., which operates the bookshop chain Aoyama Book Center, has also filed for protection from creditors and has debts of 5.4 billion yen.

According to Book2Book, all Yohan employees were laid off and the office was closed. The bookstores are still operating.

Submitted by:	Peter Goodman (sbpedit@stonebridge.com) 7/31/2008 10:57:03 AM PT
Location:	Berkeley, CA
Occupation:	President, Stone Bridge Press

This is a much more complicated story, but one thing I need to make clear: Stone Bridge Press is NOT owned by Yohan. Our owner company did NOT go bankrupt. Stone Bridge is NOT a part of any bankruptcy filing. That said, the Yohan people are long-time friends, and we feel terrible about all the very good and experienced book people who have lost their jobs. Peter Goodman, Publisher Stone Bridge Press

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

洋販：自己破産を申請　洋書販売の最大手、ネットで打撃

毎日新聞　2008年7月31日　20時10分

http://mainichi.jp/select/biz/news/20080801k0000m040058000c.html

　洋書輸入販売の業界最大手、日本洋書販売（洋販、本社・東京都港区）が３１日、東京地裁に自己破産を申請した。負債額は６５億円。また同社のグループ会社で、青山ブックセンターや流水書房などの店舗を運営する洋販ブックサービスも同日、民事再生法の適用を東京地裁に申請した。負債額は５４億円。

　帝国データバンクによると洋販は１９５３年設立。「ニューズウィーク」や「タイム」などの有名雑誌や「ハリー・ポッター」シリーズの原書など一般書から専門技術書まで幅広く扱っていた。英語圏を中心に、独仏伊など約２０カ国の出版社約１５０社と取引関係があった。

　９２年９月期には年売上高９６億３８００万円を計上していたが、最近はインターネットによる通信販売の拡大など販売ルートの多様化などが影響し、０５年８月期は５５億６３００万円に減少。０７年１１月期は３１億２５００万円とジリ貧の状態になっていたという。業界関係者は「一時的にでも外国雑誌の供給が断たれ、販売に影響が出る書店もあるのではないか」と話している。

　洋販ブックサービスについてはブックオフ（神奈川県相模原市）が３１日、スポンサーとしての支援に名乗りを上げており、青山ブックセンターなどの店舗は営業が継続される見通しだ。【若狭毅】

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

「洋販」自己破産　ブックオフが青山ブックセンター支援

朝日新聞　2008年7月31日22時34分

http://www.asahi.com/business/update/0731/TKY200807310217.html

　海外書籍の輸入販売大手の日本洋書販売（洋販、東京都港区、軒野仁孝社長）は３１日、東京地裁に自己破産を申請した。負債は５月末で約６６億円。グループ会社の洋販ブックサービス（同所、同社長）も民事再生法の適用を申請した。負債は約５４億円。

　洋販ブックサービスは書店の青山ブックセンターと流水書房を展開しており、ブックオフコーポレーション（神奈川県相模原市、佐藤弘志社長）の支援で営業が続けられる見通し。

　洋販は５３年設立。書店や百貨店などの販路を持ち、米国の雑誌「タイム」「ニューズウィーク」や、「ハリー・ポッター」シリーズなど一般書籍も扱っていた。

　民間信用調査会社の帝国データバンクによると、ネット販売など書籍販売形式の多様化の影響で業績が悪化。積極的な企業合併・買収（Ｍ＆Ａ）戦略や社内システムへの投資などに伴う有利子負債が収益を圧迫したという。０７年１１月期には約１０億６５００万円の純損失を計上した。

　洋販ブックサービスの民事再生では、これまでも出資していた中古本販売チェーン「ブックオフ」を展開するブックオフコーポレーションがスポンサーとして支援を検討すると３１日に発表した。

ENDS

Results of our first poll: In your opinion, is Japan an easy place to live?

Posted on August 1, 2008August 11, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

[poll id=”2″ type=”result”]

COMMENT: Clearly, the majority (62%) felt that Japan was an easy or very easy place to live. Well and good.

Next poll: Is Japan an easy place to WORK? Vote early, vote often! Debito

Irony: Economist reports on Chinese Olympic security; why not on similar Hokkaido G8 security?

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

mytest

Hi Blog. Something I saw in The Economist this week raised an eyebrow:

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

The Beijing Olympics

Five-ring circus

Jul 24th 2008
From The Economist print edition

News from the forbidden Citius, Altius, Fortius

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792915
FOREIGNERS deemed potential protesters are being kept out of China during the Olympic games (August 8th-24th). Beijing is ringed with police checkpoints to keep troublemakers at bay. But the authorities have named three city parks where demonstrations, in theory, will be allowed. They are well out of earshot of the main Olympic venues and police permits will be needed (five days’ notice required). Chinese rules ban any protest that threatens public security or social stability. This is routinely used to block any demonstration that citizens have the temerity to propose.

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

COMMENT: Er, all of these things happened in Japan (in one form or another) before and during the G8 Summit in Hokkaido this month (not to mention all G8 Summits over the past decade, not just Japan, although Japan’s security spending is several times greater than the others).

Agreed, this isn’t a nice thing for China to do, but why isn’t The Economist (and other media) writing about things like this happening in Japan? Is it just easier to zero in on China because it’s historically redder? Or is the G8 just something that merits the extra security, oh well?

Sources start here. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JULY 29, 2008

Posted on July 30, 2008July 31, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi All. Got a fat Newsletter for you this week.
Probably the last one I’ll be sending out for a little while, as I’m heading for California next week for six weeks. More on my speaking schedule there and afterwards at
https://www.debito.org/?page_id=1672

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JULY 29, 2008

Table of Contents:
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
GOOD NEWS:
1. Hong Kong’s new anti racial discrimination workplace laws
2. Zainichi lodges complaint re Nihon U debate club discrim, university takes appropriate action
3. Non-native NJ wins Akutagawa, Japan’s most coveted book award
4. Jenkins get his Permanent Residency in record time. Congratulations, but…
5. J Times: Radical GOJ immigration plan under discussion

THE INTERNET TURNS NASTY
1. Essay: Why I don’t debate online outside of Debito.org
2. The Economist on how the Internet is turning nasty
3. Japan Times prints letter with big stripey lie about Summit airport ID checkpoints
4. Internet bullies kill the Mainichi Waiwai column, and inhibit the free speech they claim they so cherish

MORE ISSUES OF RIGHTS, INTEGRATION, AND ASSIMILATION
1. Some woes with the Koseki (Family Registry) system for NJ and others in Japan
2. UNHCR on Japan’s UN Human Rights Review, June 30, 2008
3. Anonymous on J diffident police treatment of disputes between J and NJ
4. Kyodo: Mock trial for upcoming lay judge translation system puts NJ on trial for drug smuggling!
5. JT/Kyodo: “Innocents” apprehended by police rise to 2.9%!
6. Yomuiri: Japan’s universities scramble for foreign students
7. World-famous company, Tohoku branch, refuses to employ Japanese kid
expressly because he’s “half”–even retracts original job offer…

INTERESTING TANGENTS AND DISCUSSIONS FROM DEBITO.ORG
1. Economist.com: Interesting business time capsule book published by Asahi Shinbun in 1958
2. Palm Beach Post on dual citizenship in EU countries
3. Terrie’s Take: Oji Homes and asbestos–and treating NJ customers badly
4. The Australian: PM Rudd spearheading “Asia-Pacific Union” like the EU, Japan “interested”
5. Discussion: Why do NJ have such apparently bipolar views of life in Japan?
6. Discussion: Softbank’s policy towards NJ customers re new iPhone

…and finally…
Passing of an era: First Zainichi resident to refuse fingerprinting in 1980 dies at 79
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Collated by Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, Daily updates and RSS at https://www.debito.org
Released July 29, 2008. Freely forwardable

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

GOOD NEWS:
Hong Kong’s new anti racial discrimination workplace laws

Hong Kong solicitors’ report: “It may seem odd that Hong Kong : Asia’s business hub a diverse modern metropolis and a city of live has no remedy for individuals experiencing private racial discrimination. Ethnic minorities form 5% of the population in Hong Kong and those who face racial discrimination whether in employment, housing, provision of medical services, education or transport have no protection. This is despite laws against discrimination in other areas such as gender, family status and disability.

“The much debated Race Discrimination Bill (the “Bill”) was only passed by the Legislative Council on 10 July 2008. The Bill aims to make racial discrimination and harassment in prescribed areas and vilification on the ground of race unlawful, and to prohibit serious vilification on that ground. It also seeks to extend the jurisdiction of the Equal Opportunities Commission to cover racial discrimination, harassment and vilification.” Read more:

https://www.debito.org/?p=1841

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Zainichi lodges complaint re Nihon U debate club discrim, university takes appropriate action

Asahi: The debate club of Nihon University’s College of Law suspended activities after a third-generation Korean resident said she was refused entry because of her ethnicity, The Asahi Shimbun learned.

The 21-year-old first-year student said she could not join the club in April because several senior members had a problem with her South Korean nationality.

Along with her mother, she lodged a discrimination complaint to the Tokyo-based university in early June.

The university administration commissioned lawyers to investigate the case and determined that the student was indeed discriminated against because of her nationality and ethnicity.

The club suspended activities in late June after a request from the university’s human rights committee.

Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=1824

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Non-native NJ wins Akutagawa, Japan’s most coveted book award

Yang Yi, a NJ (not a Zainichi, which would be good news too, but a non-native NJ to boot), has just won Japan’s most coveted literary award. Congratulations!

This is not the first time a NJ (or even a non-native) has won a prestigious book award (hark way back to Dave Zopetti’s Subaru-sho). But it’s the first for an Akutagawa, and that says something positive about Japan’s assimilation. Well done all around! Article and interview blogged here.

https://www.debito.org/?p=1825

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Jenkins get his Permanent Residency in record time. Congratulations, but…

Charles Jenkins, long-suffering veteran of North Korea (who got a very harsh life after defecting from the US military from South Korea, before I was even born!), just got his Permanent Residency (eiuuken) in record time (a coupla weeks). And with fewer years spent here (four) than the average applicant (generally five years if married to a Japanese, ten if not married). With personal consideration from Justice Minister Hatoyama.

Congratulations Mr Jenkins. Seriously. I’m very happy you can stay here with your family as long as you like, and may you have a peaceful and happy rest of your life out on Sadogashima.

But I wish the often strict procedures given other applicants could have applied to him as well. Again, as with the case of Fujimori (who was “naturalized” in about the same amount of procedural time) and certain sports figures, politics keeps infiltrating the application process for assimilation. Inevitable, some might say, but still a shame when there are people as eminently qualified as Mr Jenkins being refused…

https://www.debito.org/?p=1809

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Radical GOJ immigration plan under discussion

Japan Times: Foreigners will have a much better opportunity to move to, or continue to live in, Japan under a new immigration plan drafted by Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers to accept 10 million immigrants in the next 50 years.

“The plan means (some politicians) are seriously thinking about Japan’s future,” said Debito Arudou, who is originally from the United States but has lived in Japan for 20 years and became a naturalized citizen in 2000. “While it is no surprise by global standards, it is a surprisingly big step forward for Japan.”

The group of some 80 lawmakers, led by former LDP Secretary General Hidenao Nakagawa, finalized the plan on June 12 and aims to submit it to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda later this week.

The plan is “the most effective way to counter the labor shortage Japan is doomed to face amid a decreasing number of children,” Nakagawa said…

However, the immigration plan calls for the goal to be achieved soon and for the government to aim for 1 million foreign students by 2025. It also proposes accepting an annual 1,000 asylum seekers and other people who need protection for humanitarian reasons…

Arudou, a foreigners’ rights activist, noted the importance of establishing a legal basis for specifically banning discrimination against non-Japanese.

“Founding a legal basis is important because people do not become open just because the government opens the door,” he said…

But wait, there’s even more to this excellent article:
https://www.debito.org/?p=1758

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

THE INTERNET TURNS NASTY
Tangent: Why I don’t debate online outside of Debito.org

Every now and then (actually, practically every day) I get word that somebody is taking up an issue on another list/blog/what have you and debating something on Debito.org. Great. That’s exactly what I want.

But I rarely ever go on those blogs and answer the claims (often erroneous — the product of people who either haven’t read what I said thoroughly, or think that nobody will follow up and actually read what I said in context) made. Even when they email me individually to say, “C’mon, we’re talking aboutcha.”

Thanks for the invites, but I have a very specific reason for not doing that… Nowadays, given that there are whole groups of attack blogs (i.e. people united by a common interest of spending their lives attacking me) out there who have no problem whatsoever with issuing outright lies (no longer even deliberate misquotes, not even misreadings due to sloth or political bent), I follow this policy even more so, I’m afraid. Thanks to the inverse proportion of anonymity and responsibility, the Internet has only gotten nastier over time…

An example of a recent interesting and entertaining debate (on Big Daikon) which still gets fogged up by recalcitrant critics also included…

https://www.debito.org/?p=1845

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

Tangent: The Economist on how the Internet is turning nasty

Continuing with a recent theme on Debito.org, regarding how nasty the Internet has become (with cyberanonymity allowing people to make accusations without any accountability or sense of responsibility to either the truth or to fair play), we have an excellent article from The Economist on how blogs and online media are in fact disseminating hatred and even racism:

“And then there is history. A decade ago, a zealot seeking to prove some absurd proposition–such as the denial of the Nazi Holocaust, or the Ukrainian famine–might spend days of research in the library looking for obscure works of propaganda. Today, digital versions of these books, even those out of press for decades, are accessible in dedicated online libraries. In short, it has never been easier to propagate hatred and lies. People with better intentions might think harder about how they too can make use of the net.”

More at https://www.debito.org/?p=1848

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Japan Times prints letter with big stripey lie about Summit airport ID checkpoints

Quick rebuttal to someone who published a letter in the Japan Times last week who claimed I said something I didn’t say.
https://www.debito.org/?p=1814

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

Internet bullies kill the Mainichi Waiwai column, and inhibit the free speech they claim they so cherish

One more article on how the Internet has turned nasty: The campaign by anonymous posters to get rid of the English translation service of Japan’s weekly magazines, the Mainichi Shinbun Waiwai column, has been effective. Instead of standing up to anonymous hotheads making death threats, and suppressing the free speech they hold so sacrosanct, they talk about Japan’s image being besmirched internationally (when the information comes from Japanese sources in the first place). By suppressing this media outlet, all they are achieving is keeping the debate domestic and covering up the issues the Weeklies are bringing to the fore. However disgusting the topics the Weeklies can bring up are, the contents are the Weeklies’ responsibility, not the Mainichi’s and not editor Ryann Connell’s. Attack the Weeklies for their contents, not the people who merely translate them.

I find this form of bullying disgusting, and the Mainichi’s caving in appallingly irresponsible. When are people going to learn that this is not a fair fight, and ignore people who won’t make themselves public in the media and open themselves up to the same scrutiny they demand other media? You have the right to know your accuser. Those who won’t reveal their identity should be justly ignored themselves.

Here’s an article from The Sydney Morning Herald. Further links and a letter to the Mainichi follows it.

https://www.debito.org/?p=1850

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MORE ISSUES OF RIGHTS, INTEGRATION, AND ASSIMILATION
Some woes with the Koseki (Family Registry) system for NJ and others in Japan

We’ve had a couple of good comments recently from a couple of mailing lists I belong to, concerning the Family Registry System (koseki) in Japan (not to mention the Juuminhyou Registry Certificate, equally problematic), particularly when it comes to recognizing international marriage, naming children, and child custody after divorce. It affects a lot of people adversely, not just NJ, so let’s devote a blog entry to the issue. We’re considering making the Koseki System a lobbying issue at forming NGO FRANCA, especially since South Korea, with its similar hojeok registry system, abolished it this year.

https://www.debito.org/?p=1843

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

UNHCR on Japan’s UN Human Rights Review, June 30, 2008

(iii) Conclusions and/or Recommendations

In the course of the discussion, the following recommendations were made to Japan:

– Consider ratifying/Ratify the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, 1980 (Canada, Netherlands);

– Encourage the continued taking of measures relating to discrimination against women in particular to raise the age of marriage to 18 for women as for men (France);

– Continue to take measures to reduce the incidence of violence against women and children, inter alia, by ensuring that law enforcement officials receive human rights training, and to fund recovery and counselling centres for victims of violence (Canada);

– Continue the efforts to combat trafficking in persons with a special emphasis on women and children (Canada);

– Develop a mechanism to ensure the prompt return of children who have been wrongly removed from or prevented from returning to their habitual place of residence (Canada);

– Prohibit expressly all forms of corporal punishment of children and promote positive and non-violent forms of discipline (Italy);

Fuller report at https://www.debito.org/?p=1816

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

Anonymous on J diffident police treatment of disputes between J and NJ

What follows is an account from a NJ writer friend who has a street-scuffle dispute (with his aitekata demanding money from him) being mediated by the police. Or kinda that, as he writes. With some interesting indications that data from mere investigations goes down on an actual criminal record. Blogged with permission.

DISPUTE MEDIATION (OR ALLEGED FACSIMILE) BY CHIBA POLICE
IS FOREIGNNESS BEING TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF BY ATARIYA?
By Anonymous, name withheld on request

(excerpt) “So, my concern here is: 1) how many people — Japanese as well as foreigners — with no official criminal record may be treated otherwise because of such standard procedures in subsequent encounters with police and the legal system? And 2) everyone, especially foreigners who seem to have a clear disadvantage in law-and-order matters that involve a contest with a Japanese person, should know that despite “standard procedure” they are apparently not required by Japanese law to have their fingerprints and photo logged into the National Police Agency’s criminal database unless they have actually been convicted of a crime. It’s apparently info police don’t readily volunteer (or, in some cases, even know about).”

https://www.debito.org/?p=1815

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

Kyodo: Mock trial for upcoming lay judge translation system puts NJ on trial for drug smuggling!

Japan is still testing its lay judge system before inauguration in 2009. According to Kyodo, they’ve uncovered a bug–how to deal with court translation. Ironically, they use a case where the NJ accused is charged with carrying narcotics. Very ironic, given the recent scandal of Narita Customs planting drugs on NJ…

https://www.debito.org/?p=1817

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

JT/Kyodo: “Innocents” apprehended by police rise to 2.9%!

Japan Times/Kyodo: The Supreme Court said Monday that 2.9 percent of defendants who pleaded not guilty to criminal charges were found innocent at their initial trials in 2007, marking the highest level in a decade. Other data by the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office indicated that more district courts have declined to accept depositions, which show defendants’ confessions, as evidence. In several cases, the focus of dispute was whether the confessions were voluntary and/or credible…

https://www.debito.org/?p=1712

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

Yomuiri: Japan’s universities scramble for foreign students

Some very good articles in the Yomiuri on just how far behind Japan’s universities are in attracting foreign students. And how Japanese companies aren’t willing to hire them (We’ve discussed this briefly here before.) Plus how Japanese universities treat certain nationalities of students differently, and some signs of Japanese students’ exodus for education overseas. Good reading. Excerpt:

Although prestigious universities like Tokyo, Waseda and Keio have made efforts to attract foreign students, Japanese universities in general struggle to attract students from abroad, many commentators say.

“The crisis is real,” Satterwhite said. “Japanese universities have traditionally been very slow to change… Traditional elements of Japanese education, such as the administration system, are hindering the internationalization.”…

https://www.debito.org/?p=1697

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World-famous company, Tohoku branch, refuses to employ Japanese kid
expressly because he’s “half”–even retracts original job offer…

Summary: A world-famous company in northern Japan, with branches and products overseas for generations, refuses to employ a young Japanese (despite giving him a job offer)–expressly, despite being a citizen, because he’s “half”.

This could have major repercussions in Japan if other Japanese with international roots get discriminated against similarly. Read on. More details to reporters if they want a story. I have the feeling we have a major lawsuit here.

I’ve anonymized it for now because the family fears that the employer will refuse to employ the job candidate further if this article can be traced back to him. Read on:

https://www.debito.org/?p=1768

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

INTERESTING TANGENTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Economist.com: Interesting business time capsule book published by Asahi Shinbun in 1958

What a 50-year-old periodical tells about how the country has changed–and how it has not

The cover is a cliche: a frothy crested wave with Mount Fuji in the background. Emblazoned on the image of Hokusai’s woodblock print from the 1830s are the words “This is Japan” and “1958”. At a hefty two kilos and 420 pages, the oversized coffee-table book was published annually by the Asahi newspaper between 1954 and 1971. Early editions came nestled in a wooden box.

The book was designed to present the emerging country to foreigners, largely to drum up business. The articles cover the spectrum of all that a Western reader might associate with Japan, from rice and kimonos to sake and shrines. Their very titles stand as totems of an earlier era: “Japan’s Ports–Past and Present”; “Iron and Steel: A Success Story”; “American Girl Finds Japan.” But while the articles appear self-conscious, the advertisements offer a more candid account of where the country was headed…

https://www.debito.org/?p=1844

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Palm Beach Post on dual citizenship in EU countries

Here’s an interesting diversion on what options dual citizenship provides its citizens. As well as a quick roundup of what other countries say qualifies for dual at the very bottom.

Japan, as frequent readers of Debito.org probably know, does not allow dual citizenship. I consider that to be a big waste, as I know lots of people who would become citizens if only they could preserve both and not have to go through an identity sacrifice.

Arudou Debito, former American citizen who gave it up to become Japanese.

https://www.debito.org/?p=1803

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Terrie’s Take: Oji Homes and asbestos–and treating NJ customers badly

Excerpt: In the meantime, if you are living in or have lived in any of the Oji apartment complexes, you may be wondering what the presence of asbestos means. Providing it is inert, probably the buildings have been/are reasonably safe, but the problem with asbestos is that one never knows when it or the binders it is applied with will age and start to flake off. Oji Palace is even older than the Oji Homes facility and there has been no indication at this stage that Oji plans any investigation or remediation of substances possibly present there. We think this is extremely irresponsible…

Then of course, there is the matter of the two families and their kids left in the building… We find it incredible that Oji Real Estate is able to engage in such dangerous construction work with tenants still present. This represents a level of bloody mindedness on the part of Oji managers that wouldn’t be tolerated if those families were Japanese. The proper venue for a showdown of this nature is the courts, and if Oji wants the resisting tenants to move, it should take them to court, reveal the levels of compensation being offered, and wait for the courts to decide before continuing their work…

https://www.debito.org/?p=1834

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The Australian: PM Rudd spearheading “Asia-Pacific Union” like the EU, Japan “interested”

“Australian Prime Minister KEVIN Rudd wants to spearhead the creation of an Asia-Pacific Union similar to the European Union by 2020 and has appointed veteran diplomat Richard Woolcott – one of his mentors – as a special envoy to lobby regional leaders over the body.

The Prime Minister said last night that the union, adding India to the 21-member APEC grouping, would encompass a regional free-trade agreement and provide a crucial venue for co-operation on issues such as terrorism and long-term energy and resource security.

And he outlined his plans for his visits to Japan and Indonesia next week, saying he would explore greater defence co-operation between Australia, Japan and the US…

https://www.debito.org/?p=1726

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Discussion: Why do NJ have such apparently bipolar views of life in Japan?

At the suggestion of one of our commenters, let’s discuss why the NJ communities seem to have such a bipolar view of life in Japan:

Commenter: “I wonder what the factors are for this divide. Is it related to work? Is it related to the location where each person is living? Is it related to political beliefs in the country of origin? Is it based simply on personality, or maybe on language skills? Does the period of residence in Japan have anything to do with it?”

Well, commenters, fire away with your theories. I only ask that you try to leave me out of it–I’m not that important a factor.

https://www.debito.org/?p=1842

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Discussion: Softbank’s policy towards NJ customers re new iPhone

his issue has been brought up on other blogs (most notably Japan Probe), so I thought I need not duplicate it on Debito.org (I try to limit myself to one blog entry per day). But recently I received through the FRANCA Japan list a series of thoughtful discussions on the iPhone that are good enough to reprint here. Anonymized. And note that Softbank already seems to have reacted to the situation. Arudou Debito

================================
From: Writer A
Subject: [FRANCA] Yodabashi Akiba Restricts iPhone 3G Sales To Foreigners
Date: July 17, 2008 8:14:32 PM JST
To: francajapan@yahoogroups.com

Where else but Japan would one find a huge electronics retailer, located in a tourist center, that refuses to sell to certain foreigners a phone marketed simultaneously around the world, designed by an American company and distributed by a firm headed by a Zainichi Korean?

Yodabashi Akiba (YA), the largest store of the Yodobashi Camera electronics retailer chain, is located in Akihabara, the tourist center that is Ground Zero for anime nerds (otaku). On any given day, one is likely to find Western and Chinese customers shopping at YA, in addition to Japanese customers. Like any cell phone retailer that wants to remain in business. YA has a huge display for Apple’s 3G iPhone, which went on sale in Japan on July 11 and promptly sold out at YA.

But if a foreigner wished to buy an Apple 3G iPhone at YA, that foreigner would find that YAs policy is to refuse to sell a phone to a person with an authorized stay of less than 90 days, and refuses to allow a sale on the installment plan to foreigners with less than 16 months of authorized stay.
================================

Read discussion at https://www.debito.org/?p=1835

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…and finally…
Passing of an era: First Zainichi resident to refuse fingerprinting in 1980 dies at 79

Kyodo/Japan Today: The first foreign resident in Japan to reject alien fingerprinting, Han Jong Sok, died of respiratory failure at a Tokyo hospital on Thursday, his family said Friday. He was 79. Han, a Korean resident in Japan, in 1980 rejected the fingerprinting required under the then alien registration law, and was the first foreign resident to do so.

More on the 1999 abolition, and the 2007 resurrection of fingerprinting for all NJ except a select few with political power here.

https://www.debito.org/?p=1847

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All for the rest of this month. Thanks for reading!
Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JULY 29, 2008 ENDS

The Sydney Morning Herald on death of Mainichi Waiwai column

Posted on July 29, 2008July 31, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. One more article on how the Internet has turned nasty:

The campaign by anonymous posters to get rid of the English translation service of Japan’s weekly magazines, the Mainichi Shinbun Waiwai column, has been effective. Instead of standing up to anonymous hotheads making death threats, and ironically suppressing the free speech they hold so sacrosanct, they talk about Japan’s image being besmirched internationally (when the information comes from Japanese sources in the first place). By suppressing this media outlet, all they are achieving is keeping the debate domestic and covering up the issues the Weeklies are bringing to the fore. However disgusting the topics the Weeklies can bring up are, the contents are the Weeklies’ responsibility, not the Mainichi’s and not editor Ryann Connell’s. Attack the Weeklies for their contents, not the people who merely translate them.

I find this form of bullying disgusting, and the Mainichi’s caving in appallingly irresponsible. When are people going to learn that Internet bullying is not a fair fight, and ignore people who won’t make themselves public in the media and open themselves up to the same scrutiny they demand other media? You have the right to know your accuser. Those who won’t reveal their identity should be justly ignored themselves.

Here’s an article from The Sydney Morning Herald. Further links and a letter to the Mainichi follows it. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Japan rails at Australian’s tabloid trash
Justin Norrie, The Sydney Morning Herald, July 5, 2008
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/07/04/1214951041660.html

NOT SO long ago Ryann Connell, an Australian journalist, happily declared he was doing his “dream job” in Japan.

Since accepting police protection against incensed Japanese patriots last week, the chief editor of the English website of The Mainichi Daily News has been more circumspect.

In the past month the 39-year-old has become one of the most reviled figures in Japan, where thousands of posters have flooded chat sites to decry the “sleazy Australian journalist” whom they feel has deliberately besmirched Japan’s image around the world.

Connell’s troubles began in May with one of his now infamous WaiWai columns, which cited a Japanese magazine article about a restaurant in the Tokyo district of Roppongi where patrons allegedly have sex with animals before eating them. The piece caught the attention of a blogger called Mozu, whose angry post was soon picked up by 2channel, a massive, fractious web forum popular with Japan’s hot-headed conservative element.

There it triggered an explosion of bile and culminated in a co-ordinated attack on Connell, his family, The Mainichi and its sponsors, some of which have pulled advertising estimated to be worth more than 20 million yen ($195,000).

The Mainichi, whose Japanese-language newspaper has the fourth-highest circulation in the world, has issued a remarkable 1277-word explanation and apology. It has also terminated the column, reprimanded several staff and put Connell on three months’ “disciplinary leave”.

When contacted this week, Connell said he was unable to comment on “any aspect of the case”. But the Herald understands he has received several death threats and is under strict police instructions to stay inside his suburban Tokyo home until the matter dies down.

Since he began contributing to the newspaper in 1998, Connell has trawled Japan’s smut-filled weekly magazines to bring mostly unsourced tales of the utterly shocking and often improbable to the English-speaking world.

Many previous WaiWai instalments – such as the story about mothers who pleasure their sons to stop them from chasing girls at the expense of schoolwork, the article about chikan (men who grope women on trains) holding monthly meetings to trade tips about the best ways to surreptitiously manhandle fellow passengers, and the account of emotionally stunted salarymen who use lifelike mannequins as surrogate wives – have entered world folklore.

“Campus Confidential: Co-eds Collect Currency Conducting Extra-curricular Coitus” began one of Connell’s recent columns, all of which are transcribed from Japanese before being rendered – with creative licence and brain-melting alliteration – in the style of the raciest British tabloid stories.

It is their popularity with some Western readers that has especially incensed Japanese bloggers. Many feel their country’s reputation has been “debauched” around the world. “Foreigners who don’t know the truth will believe these stories are true,” wrote one. Another railed: “Ryann Connell is a degenerate scatologist – a typical Australian.” And a third wondered: “Why doesn’t someone drop a hydrogen atom bomb on Australia?”

In an interview with the Herald late last year Connell admitted his transcriptions might have contributed in part to a lazy notion that if Japanese are not totally inhibited by their strict social codes, they are hopelessly debased by their bizarre fetishes.

“It does concern me that we resort to these stereotypes all the time,” he said. “Downtrodden salarymen, slutty schoolgirls, crazy housewives, corrupt old bosses and so on. And there have been times when I picked stories of questionable accuracy to write up. But by and large I’m presenting to the English-speaking world things that the Japanese are writing about themselves.”

Defending the weeklies, as well as Connell and his collaborators, is the unflagging media critic and campaigner for human rights Debito Arudou, who wrote that WaiWai was an essential guide to Japanese attitudes and editorial directives. “Too many Japanese believe that they can say whatever they like in Japanese (‘that statement was for a domestic audience’ is very often an excuse for public gaffes), as though Japanese is some secret code,” he wrote.
ENDS
==============================

LETTER TO THE MAINICHI SHINBUN:
///////////////////////////////////////////////////

To the editors of the Mainichi Shinbun:
Please don’t end the Waiwai column.

The claim on your website (http://mdn.mainichi.jp/culture/waiwai/) that this corner “attracted criticism for such things as being too vulgar and debauching Japan by sending around the world information that could be misunderstood” is sophistry, merely an attempt by people who would rather Japan’s Weekly Magazines not reach reach a wider audience.

As you know from your experience as a translator of these articles, they offer a very important window into the lowbrow and the undercurrents of Japanese society. Closing it is worse than simple prudery–it is an aggressive act of censorship by people who want the outside world to think of Japan as a place of cherry blossoms and chrysanthemums. It’s a dishonest view of any society to only focus on the “nice”.

Please reconsider. Edit for content if you must. But remain accurate and faithful to the original (as you no doubt usually have), and don’t give in to these reactionaries. The tabloid press is every bit as important as any other press in Japan.

Thanks for your consideration.
Arudou Debito in Sapporo
debito@debito.org
www.debito.org
June 24, 2008
///////////////////////////////////////////////////

Further discussion of this issue on Japan Probe:

Announcement of end of Waiwai column.

Mainichi “posed to severely punish” employees.

Mainichi Shinbun announces “lack of a woman’s point of view”, appoints woman editor, switches to “news-oriented site”.
ENDS

Tangent: The Economist on how the Internet is turning nasty

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

mytest

Hi Blog. Continuing with a recent theme on Debito.org, regarding how nasty the Internet has become (with cyberanonymity allowing people to make accusations without any accountability or sense of responsiblity to either the truth or to fair play), we have an excellent article from The Economist on how blogs and online media are in fact disseminating hatred and even racism worldwide. FYI. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Cyber-nationalism
The brave new world of e-hatred
Jul 24th 2008 From The Economist print edition
Social networks and video-sharing sites don’t always bring people closer together
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792535

“NATION shall speak peace unto nation.” Eighty years ago, Britain’s state broadcasters adopted that motto to signal their hope that modern communications would establish new bonds of friendship between people divided by culture, political boundaries and distance.

For those who still cling to that ideal, the latest trends on the internet are depressing. Of course, as anyone would expect, governments use their official websites to boast about their achievements and to argue their corner—usually rather clunkily—in disputes about territory, symbols or historical rights and wrongs.

What is much more disturbing is the way in which skilled young surfers—the very people whom the internet might have liberated from the shackles of state-sponsored ideologies—are using the wonders of electronics to stoke hatred between countries, races or religions. Sometimes these cyber-zealots seem to be acting at their governments’ behest—but often they are working on their own, determined to outdo their political masters in propagating dislike of some unspeakable foe.

Consider the response in Russia to “The Soviet Story”, a Latvian documentary that compares communism with fascism. If this film had come out five years ago, the Kremlin would have issued an angry press release and encouraged some young hoodlums to make another assault on Latvia’s embassy. Some Slavophile politicians would have made wild threats.

These days, the reaction from hardline Russian nationalists is a bit more subtle. They are using blogs to raise funds for an alternative documentary to present the Soviet communist record in a good light. Well-wishers with little cash can help in other ways, for example by helping with translation into and from Baltic languages.

Meanwhile, America’s rednecks can find lots of material on the web with which to fuel and indulge their prejudices. For example, there are “suicide-bomber” games which pit the contestant against a generic bearded Muslim; such entertainment has drawn protests both in Israel—where people say it trivialises terrorism—and from Muslim groups who say it equates their faith with violence. Border Patrol, another charming online game, invites you to shoot illegal Mexican immigrants crossing the border.

From the earliest days of the internet the new medium became a forum for nationalist spats that were sometimes relatively innocent by today’s standards. People sparred over whether Freddy Mercury, a rock singer, was Iranian, Parsi or Azeri; whether the Sea of Japan should be called the East Sea or the East Sea of Korea; and whether Israel could call hummus part of its cuisine. Sometimes such arguments moved to Wikipedia, a user-generated reference service, whose elaborate moderation rules put a limit to acrimony.

But e-arguments also led to hacking wars. Nobody is surprised to hear of Chinese assaults on American sites that promote the Tibetan cause; or of hacking contests between Serbs and Albanians, or Turks and Armenians. A darker development is the abuse of blogs, social networks, maps and video-sharing sites that make it easy to publish incendiary material and form hate groups. A study published in May by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish human-rights group, found a 30% increase last year in the number of sites that foment hatred and violence; the total was around 8,000.

Social networks are particularly useful for self-organised nationalist communities that are decentralised and lack a clear structure. On Facebook alone one can join groups like “Belgium Doesn’t Exist”, “Abkhazia is not Georgia”, “Kosovo is Serbia” or “I Hate Pakistan”. Not all the news is bad; there are also groups for friendship between Greeks and Turks, or Israelis and Palestinians. But at the other extreme are niche networks, less well-known than Facebook, that unite the sort of extremists whose activities are restricted by many governments but hard to regulate when they go global. Podblanc, a sort of alternative YouTube for “white interests, white culture and white politics” offers plenty of material to keep a racist amused.

Tiny but deadly
The small size of these online communities does not mean they are unimportant. The power of a nationalist message can be amplified with blogs, online maps and text messaging; and as a campaign migrates from medium to medium, fresh layers of falsehood can be created. During the crisis that engulfed Kenya earlier this year, for example, it was often blog posts and mobile-phone messages that gave the signal for fresh attacks. Participants in recent anti-American marches in South Korea were mobilised by online petitions, forums and blogs, some of which promoted a crazy theory about Koreans having a genetic vulnerability to mad-cow disease.

In Russia, a nationalist blogger published names and contact details of students from the Caucasus attending Russia’s top universities, attaching a video-clip of dark-skinned teenagers beating up ethnic Russians. Russian nationalist blogs reposted the story—creating a nightmare for the students who were targeted.

Spreading hatred on the web has become far easier since the sharp drop in the cost of producing, storing and distributing digital content. High-quality propaganda used to require good cartoonists; now anyone can make and disseminate slick images. Whether it’s a Hungarian group organising an anti-Roma poster competition, a Russian anti-immigrant lobby publishing the location of minority neighbourhoods, or Slovak nationalists displaying a map of Europe without Hungary, the web makes it simple to spread fear and loathing.

The sheer ease of aggregation (assembling links to existing sources, videos and articles) is a boon. Take anti-cnn.com, a website built by a Chinese entrepreneur in his 20s, which aggregates cases of the Western media’s allegedly pro-Tibetan bias. As soon as it appealed for material, more than 1,000 people supplied examples. Quickly the site became a leading motor of Chinese cyber-nationalism, fuelling boycotts of brands and street protests.

And then there is history. A decade ago, a zealot seeking to prove some absurd proposition—such as the denial of the Nazi Holocaust, or the Ukrainian famine—might spend days of research in the library looking for obscure works of propaganda. Today, digital versions of these books, even those out of press for decades, are accessible in dedicated online libraries. In short, it has never been easier to propagate hatred and lies. People with better intentions might think harder about how they too can make use of the net.
ENDS

First Zainichi resident to refuse fingerprinting in 1980 dies at 79

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

mytest

Hi Blog. We’ve just lost a hero. Here’s a quick obit for the person who started the end of fingerprinting in Japan–at least permanently for Special Permanent Residents (the Zainichi).

My great thanks to Mr Han for his great work. We all benefit when somebody stands up and refuses to cooperate with an irrational system. Arudou Debito.

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

First foreign resident to refuse fingerprinting dies at 79
Japan Today/Kyodo Friday 25th July, 02:17 PM JST
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/1st-foreign-resident-to-refuse-fingerprinting-dies-at-79
Courtesy of Mark MT

TOKYO — The first foreign resident in Japan to reject alien fingerprinting, Han Jong Sok, died of respiratory failure at a Tokyo hospital on Thursday, his family said Friday. He was 79. Han, a Korean resident in Japan, in 1980 rejected the fingerprinting required under the then alien registration law, and was the first foreign resident to do so.

He was convicted over the violation of the law at lower courts. But in 1989, the Supreme Court dismissed the charge against Han, invoking imperial amnesty that was declared on the funeral of Emperor Hirohito. Han was known as a symbolic figure in an anti-fingerprinting movement that spread among foreign residents in Japan during the 1980s. Japan’s fingerprinting requirement for foreign residents, which drew international fire for infringing upon human rights, was lifted in 2000 after the alien registration law was revised in 1999.
ENDS
============================

Tangent: Why I don’t debate outside of Debito.org

Posted on July 26, 2008July 26, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Every now and then (actually, practically every day) I get word that somebody is taking up an issue on another list/blog/what have you and debating something on Debito.org. Great. That’s exactly what I want.

But I rarely ever go on those blogs and answer the claims made (often erroneous — the product of people who either haven’t read what I said thoroughly, or think that nobody will follow up and actually read what I said in context). Even when they email me individually to say, “C’mon, we’re talking aboutcha.”

Thanks for the invites, but I have a very specific reason for not doing that. I as I wrote in my book, JAPANESE ONLY (pg 298-299), after our announcement that we were going to be suing Yunohana Onsen in Otaru for racial discrimination:

Olaf: “I’m being bombarded with emails. How about you?”

Debito: “As usual. A couple hundred per day. About two-thirds, actually, are supportive. The Account I opened for the lawsuit has already collected enough donations to pay for our legal fees, and then some. Very generous people out there.”

Olaf: “But how do we answer the critics?”

Debito: “That’s the thing. We don’t. There are lots of them and one of you. If you try to answer them all, or even try to engage in a debate on a list, you’ll find yourself tangled up in shouting matches with a Peanut Gallery that will never see things our way. They diss people like us for sport. Ultimately you get tired out from all the reading and writing, unable to concentrate on what really matters — keeping the message clear and focused. So sit back, let the critics weigh in, see what kinds of arguments are out there, and only answer the ones who are earnest or from people whose opinions personally matter to us.

“This is not an unusual strategy. Even the Reverend Martin Luther King used it. In his ‘Letter from Birmingham City Jail’ (April 16, 1963), where one of his protests was characterized as ‘unwise and untimely’ by local White liberal clergymen, he opened his letter with:

‘Seldom, if ever, do I ever pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas… But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.’

“I will issue a long answer over the Internet and on the website fairly soon. After that, let that be our statement on the case. Send queries and a link and don’t bother saying much more.”

That was a decision I came to back in 2001. Nowadays, given that there are whole groups of attack blogs (i.e. people united by a common interest of wasting potentially productive lives attacking me) out there who have no problem whatsoever with issuing outright lies (no longer even deliberate misquotes, not even misreadings due to sloth or political bent), I follow this policy even more so, I’m afraid. Thanks to the inverse proportion of anonymity and responsibility, the Internet has only gotten nastier over time.

And even when a particular BBS has a more balanced (and literate) readership who can be bothered to take on the dolts, the debate goes on in circles because the dolts can’t admit they’re wrong and inject sophistry, or else latecomers don’t bother to read all the previous posts in the debate and it goes around in circles. No thanks. I think everyone has a better use of their time.

Here’s an example. For an entertaining read and seriously good debate (my thanks to the posters who actually bother to read what I write), here is a recent one from Big Daikon on the Hokkaido Police racial profiling issue I brought up last month:

http://www.bigdaikon.org/board/viewtopic.php?t=110089

The point is that even when the debate is enjoyable, when earnestly confronted with errors and facts of the case, critics still would not acquiesce and instead obfuscated. Sorry, there’s no winning or truth-seeking on most online debate arenas. I like games that come to a conclusion, thanks. That’s why I basically confine my comments and thoughts to this blog and my Newsletters.

To those who bother to read and quote me accurately, my thanks. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Economist.com: Interesting business time capsule book published by Asahi Shinbun in 1958

Posted on July 25, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Fascinating article from Economist.com. Courtesy of AW. Arudou Debito

Asia.view

This is Japan

Jul 23rd 2008
From Economist.com

http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/asiaview/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11779435

What a 50-year-old periodical tells about how the country has changed—and how it has not

THE cover is a cliché: a frothy crested wave with Mount Fuji in the background. Emblazoned on the image of Hokusai’s woodblock print from the 1830s are the words “This is Japan” and “1958”. At a hefty two kilos and 420 pages, the oversized coffee-table book was published annually by the Asahi newspaper between 1954 and 1971. Early editions came nestled in a wooden box.

The book was designed to present the emerging country to foreigners, largely to drum up business. The articles cover the spectrum of all that a Western reader might associate with Japan, from rice and kimonos to sake and shrines. Their very titles stand as totems of an earlier era: “Japan’s Ports—Past and Present”; “Iron and Steel: A Success Story”; “American Girl Finds Japan.” But while the articles appear self-conscious, the advertisements offer a more candid account of where the country was headed.

Fifty years ago Japan was still a developing country; exactly a decade later it would emerge as the world’s second-largest free-market economy after America (a position it still holds—for now). Full-page ads trumpeted Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Asahi Glass, Mitsubishi Shipping, Toyota, Mitsubishi Electric—companies that accounted for the country’s postwar prosperity. The industries in smaller ads are evocative of the transformation: steel companies, paper mills, makers of pumps, valves, electrical wires, drill bits, bicycle chains, pens and yarn. Banks had modest advertisements. Together, it is a testament to a bygone age.

Today, Japan can look back half a century with nostalgia and pride, yet look ahead with concern. Mitsubishi and other conglomerates still dominate. Toyota, then a small car maker, is now close to becoming the world’s largest. Yet the past 50 years have sown the difficulties the country will face in the next 50. In 1958 the country had just begun a period of rapid economic growth that it would never see again. Between 1956-73 the country grew at 9.2%; in the period from 1975-91 the growth rate would be 4.1%; from 1991-2001 it barely eked out 1%.

The very factors that led to Japan’s brilliant success—political stability from a one-party state; manageable labour relations; lifetime employment; stakeholder capitalism—are now the central source of its undoing. Its most cherished industries are crumbling. Paper firms are barely profitable and glass firms need to merge. Steel companies are renewing cross-shareholdings so that Arcelor Mittal of India or Chinese firms don’t gobble them up. And the business of pumps, valves, electrical wires, drill bits, bicycle chains, pens and yarn have all gone to China.

The pages of “This is Japan” offer a chance to relive a seemingly gentler time, with quaint photo spreads of bento boxes, tea pots and kabuki theatre. The biggest advertisers are camera makers. Their names represented Japan’s technical might: Fuji Film, Canon, Konica, Mamiya, Petri, Yashica, Nippon Kogaku (later known as Nikon), Leotax, Takane, Minolta. One article basically foretold the onslaught in technology trade that was to come: Japanese camera exports increased a staggering nine-fold between 1954-56. Imports to America grew 49% in a year, while those from Germany grew only 1.5%, reported “This is Japan”.

Soon thereafter, the entire range of consumer electronics was dominated by the Japanese, decimating American and European brands. Now those same Japanese firms are sweating as South Korean rivals push them aside, and Chinese companies are coming up quickly. Indeed, the country that invented the walkman has seen Apple unleash its digital counterpart. And the nation that pioneered advanced wireless usage can barely sell mobile phones abroad. Sony Ericsson is the only Japanese firm in the top five, shipping around 100m handsets a year—about five times fewer than Nokia.

Today Japan faces a demographic crisis, as the population both ages and declines. This puts a burden on economic growth since the numbers of workers shrink annually. And it creates a pension time-bomb, because there are fewer and fewer workers to support more and more old people. In 1958 about 5% of the population was over 65; today it is around 20% and by 2058 it is expected to be creeping towards 40%.

Yet 50 years ago Japan faced a demographic crisis of another sort: a population explosion. This was in part due to a public-health campaign by the American occupational army, and later the Japanese government, which cut the infant mortality rate in half in ten years. Whereas the fertility rate is now below replacement, the problem in the past was a spike in unwanted pregnancies. Between 1947 (when abortion was legalised) and 1957, the birth rate was cut in half due to abortions. Indeed, it reached a high in 1955 of 1.2m abortions to 1.7m live births.

Of course, such data did not appear in “This is Japan”. Like all propaganda, it is a sanitized version of oneself. And things were not as tranquil as the book’s photo spreads suggest. Nearly a million demonstrators would mob the streets of Tokyo within the year, to protest against the government and American imperialism. Students scrambled to the Diet and urinated on the doors.

In 1960 Ikeda Hayato, the prime minister, unveiled his “Income Doubling Plan”, which unleashed the doken kokka or the “construction state”. Thenceforth, Japan would gash its countryside with roads to nowhere and bridges to nothing. Who could predict from the lone advertisement for a cement company that the construction industry would become the central mechanism for delivering political pork to the hinterland? These days, the construction industry accounts for 20% of Japan’s economy, which is twice as much as in American or Britain. One percent of workers are employed in construction in America compared with 12% in Japan.

In 1957, Edwin Reischauer, a respected scholar who later became America’s ambassador to Japan, noted: “the economic situation in Japan may be so fundamentally unsound that no policies, no matter how wise, can save her from slow economic starvation and all the concomitant political and social ills that situation would produce.” The very opposite occurred, of course.

So were one to publish “This Is Japan—2008” a degree of optimism is called for. No matter how discouraging Japan’s problems may seem today, the country may indeed work its way out of its difficulties before a new edition appears in 2058.

ENDS

Some woes with the Koseki (Family Registry) system for NJ and others in Japan

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

mytest

Hi Blog. We’ve had a couple of good comments recently from a couple of mailing lists I belong to, concerning the Family Registry System (koseki) in Japan (not to mention the Juuminhyou Registry Certificate, equally problematic; more on that here). It affects a lot of people adversely, not just NJ, so let’s devote a blog entry to the issue. We’re considering making the Koseki System a lobbying issue at forming NGO FRANCA, especially since South Korea, with its similar hojeok registry system, abolished it this year.

Here are some of the problems as far as NJ are concerned:

COMMENT FROM OSAKA J AT THE COMMUNITY:

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This may be common knowledge, but it wasn’t for me (admittedly due to my own failure to properly research the issues), the lesson being that you should never take anything for granted — not even something as simple as your child’s last name.

My wife and I have separate last names; she kept her maiden name when we married. Yesterday, we took the Notification of Birth form for our recently-born daughter to the city hall to file it. Naturally assuming that our daughter would take on my last name, we filled it out with my last name and her chosen name. Fifteen minutes later, we were waved over to be told that because my wife’s maiden name is still on her koseki — and as we all know, my name is just a footnote on her koseki — we cannot use my last name, and our daughter would have my wife’s last name. The only way around this is to have my wife file for a change of name at court, whereupon her name will officially be changed to mine, and thus our daughter will be able to take on my last name.

While it’s a quick fix for the time being, the horrendous legal and familial limitations put on foreigners by the koseki system finally really hit home. I’ve never felt my existence was negated quite so much as the instant where we were informed of this rule. I guess I’m just offering this anecdote as a warning to people considering marrying/having children because this is what you will face if you opt to go with different last names, and as an example of why the koseki system needs a serious overhaul, particularly with respect to foreigners.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////

To see an example of this (i.e. a real koseki after an international marriage in Japan, where the NJ is not listed as a “spouse”), go to:
https://www.debito.org/juuminhyou.html

COMMENT FROM KGD AT FRANCA:

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
Isn’t it astounding that the koseki system, developed from temple registries by the Tokugawa Shogunate in the early 1600s to locate and persecute Christians, should continue to exist in 21st century Japan? Many countries have central registries of marriages, births and deaths. Japan alone developed the intrinsically discriminatory koseki system, which it forced on Taiwan and Korea to maintain colonial control.

But, just like secret Christians, NJ keep coming up with ways to bend the system. If a man named Lennon marries a Japanese woman named Ono and has a child named Sean, the child can be registered in the koseki as Ono Lennon Sean. Japan will issue a passport in the name of Shoonu Rennon Ono, but there is a provision for listing a second spelling (“betsumei heiki” is the magic phrase) along the lines of Sean Lennon Ono. The Ministry of Foreign affairs has regulations on listing of a second spelling, but whether the regulations are enforced to the letter, whether you can assign your chosen name, or whether you can’t get a second spelling at all depends on the clerk assigned to you. At least in a big city, if the clerk is uncooperative, take back your paperwork, come back the next day and try again.

Most foreign nations will register the above child according to the desires of their citizen, for example as Sean Lennon, and issue a passport in that name.

A foreign parent could of course forget about Japanese nationality for their child and try to register the child under a foreign name in the foreign parent’s immigration registry, but think long and hard about that one. This might lead to a denial of family social benefits for which NJ also pay taxes, and possibly make life harder for the child. Under current law, the child can wait until his/her 22d birthday to choose between Japanese nationality and the foreign parent’s nationality, and can keep both in the meantime. But a baby needs a koseki in order to get a Japanese passport.

If you are looking for allies against the koseki system, try posting on a board for Japanese professional women. They are often angry that, because the koseki can only have one family name, they have to drop the maiden name under which they have their M.D., M.B.A., Olympic medal, etc. in order to be recognized as married. They don’t mind using their husband’s name in private society, but in professional society they may want to continue using their maiden name. No can do in Japan. The alternative, for the husband to take the wife’s name, happens when the wife’s family is rich but has no son, but is not appealing to many financially independent men.

It pays to take the long view on discrimination in Japan: another of the Tokugawa Shogunate’s 17th century creations, the government monopoly on tobacco and salt, didn’t die until 1985.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////

More on the woes for NJ (and others) with the Koseki system here:
http://www.crnjapan.com/references/en/koseki.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koseki

And also how the Koseki System puts NJ at a serious disadvantage when it comes to divorce:

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
MULTINATIONAL MARRIAGES COME OFF WORST

What makes this situation especially difficult for international, and especially intercontinental, divorces is that foreign partners have extreme difficulty being granted custody of children in Japan. In a March 31, 2006 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, lawyer Jeremy D. Morely, of the International Family Law Office in New York, stated:

—————————————-
“Children are not returned from Japan, period, and it is a situation that happens a lot with children of international marriages with kids who are over in Japan. They do not get returned. Usually, the parent who has kept a child is Japanese, and under the Japanese legal system they have a family registration system whereby every Japanese family has their own registration with a local ward office. And the name of registration system is the koseki system. So every Japanese person has their koseki, and a child is listed on the appropriate koseki. Once a child is listed on the family register, the child belongs to that family. Foreigners don’t have a family register and so there is no way for them to actually have a child registered as belonging to them in Japan. There is an international treaty called the Hague Convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction, and Japan is the only G7 country that is not a party to the Hague Convention.”
—————————————-
//////////////////////////////////////////////////

https://www.debito.org/?p=9
Also see HANDBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS, MIGRANTS AND IMMIGRANTS TO JAPAN pp. 256-270

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Discussion: Why do NJ have such apparently bipolar views of life in Japan?

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

mytest

Hi Blog. I received a very interesting comment yesterday from Icarus:

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

I think the responses in this thread bring up a very interesting point that probably warrants looking into. It seems to me that the foreign community living in Japan is split right down the middle in terms of outlook on Japan.

I wonder what the factors are for this divide. Is it related to work? Is it related to the location where each person is living? Is it related to political beliefs in the country of origin? Is it based simply on personality, or maybe on language skills? Does the period of residence in Japan have anything to do with it?

There are seemingly infinite numbers of possibilities, but I find it strange that there is no middle ground – i.e. the people that are sort of ambivalent to the whole experience of living here.

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

I suggested this become an independent blog entry and the notion was seconded. So here we are.

So let me ask: Why do NJ have such apparently bipolar views of life in Japan?

I of course have my own pet theories, but for the purposes of this blog entry, I will try to have no real stake or angle in this discussion (NB: except unless respondents, like an attack blog or two are doing, try to blame me for somehow leading innocent people astray with allegedly biased or mistaken impressions of Japan; in my view, given how certain elements, always sourced, make criticism of Japan so easy, that’s merely shooting the messenger. So I ask people to leave me out of it–I’m not that important a factor.)

I do acknowledge that Debito.org will naturally attract more than its fair share of the disgruntled and disaffected, and that may be biasing the sample thus far of commenters. But let’s try to have a civilized discussion of why people seem to have bipolar views of things over here. It can’t all be, to put things in a very rough bipolar spectrum, “honeymoon-period guestism” vs. “culturally-ignorant whinging”, now, can it?

Fire away. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Tangent: Hong Kong’s new anti racial discrimination workplace laws

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

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s a post I got from friend Mak talking about how other societies deal with matters of racial discrimination. Hong Kong, according to the article below, already has specific laws against discrimination by gender, family status, and disability. Now it has made racial discrimination in the workplace illegal.

Glad to hear it. What’s keeping you from doing the same, Japan? Arudou Debito in Sapporo

=================================
From: “AW&Co”
Date: July 21, 2008 2:35:37 PM JST
Subject: New Racial Discrimination Laws in the Hong Kong Workplace

New Racial Discrimination Laws in the Hong Kong Workplace
July 2008

It may seem odd that Hong Kong : Asia’s business hub a diverse modern metropolis and a city of live has no remedy for individuals experiencing private racial discrimination. Ethnic minorities form 5% of the population in Hong Kong and those who face racial discrimination whether in employment, housing, provision of medical services, education or transport have no protection. This is despite laws against discrimination in other areas such as gender, family status and disability.

The much debated Race Discrimination Bill (the “Bill”) was only passed by the Legislative Council on 10 July 2008. The Bill aims to make racial discrimination and harassment in prescribed areas and vilification on the ground of race unlawful, and to prohibit serious vilification on that ground. It also seeks to extend the jurisdiction of the Equal Opportunities Commission to cover racial discrimination, harassment and vilification.

This Bill targets 6 different areas and this article focuses on the provisions concerning employment.

1. Main Acts in the Workplace outlawed under the Bill

(a) Discrimination against Job Applicants

It is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a job applicant on racial ground :-

(i) in arrangements which the employer makes for the purpose of determining who should be offered that employment;
(ii) in the terms on which the employer offers that other person employment; or
(iii) by refusing, or deliberately omitting to offer, the other person that employment.

(b) Discrimination against Employees

It is also unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee on racial ground :-

(i) in the terms of employment which the employer affords that employee;
(ii) in the way the employer affords the employee access to opportunities for promotion, transfer or training, or to any other benefits, facilities or services, or by refusing or deliberately omitting to afford the employee access to them; or
(iii) by dismissing the employee, or subjecting him or her to any other detriment.

For a period of 3 years after the Bill is enacted, apart from discrimination by way of victimization, the aforesaid provisions do not apply to any employment where fewer than 5 persons (inclusive of the number employed by any associated employers of that employer) are employed by the employer.

2. Major Exceptions

(a) Genuine Occupational Qualification

Some acts mentioned above will not be treated as a breach, where, being of a particular racial group is a genuine occupational qualification for the job. For example, the job involves participation in a dramatic performance or other entertainment in a capacity for which a person of that racial group is required for reasons of authenticity, or the job involves providing persons of that racial group with personal services of such nature or in such circumstances as to require familiarity with the language, culture and customs of and sensitivity to the needs of that racial group, and those services can most effectively be provided by a person of that racial group, etc.

(b) Employment Intended to Provide Training in Skills to be Exercised Outside Hong Kong

It is not unlawful if an employer carries out any acts for the benefit of a person not ordinarily resident in Hong Kong in or in connection with employing the person at an establishment in Hong Kong. Where the purpose of that employment is to provide the person with training in skills which the person appears to the employer to intend to exercise wholly outside Hong Kong.

(c) Employment of Person with Special Skills, Knowledge or Experience

The Bill also contains an exception for employment that requires special skills, knowledge or experience not readily available in Hong Kong. The employee in question must possess such skills, knowledge or experience and is recruited or transferred from a place outside Hong Kong. If any acts mentioned in paragraph 1 above were reasonably done by the employer for such person with special skills knowledge or experience in places outside Hong Kong such acts shall not be regarded as unlawful.

(d) Existing Employment on Local and Overseas Terms of Employment

For existing employment falling into the meaning in Schedule 2 of the Bill, the employers are allowed to differentiate treatment towards employees under local contract and those under overseas contract. Different treatment is also permitted between employees from different countries but under the same set of overseas contracts.

3. Next Step Forward

There is no timetable for the enactment of the Bill but it is expected to be in place by the first quarter of 2009. It is feared that the Bill will lead to substantial increase in litigation against employers and the Equal Opportunities Commission will be providing a code of practice on employment to raise awareness and understanding of the new legislation.

Employers are advised to pay close attention to the development of the Bill as it is expected to have major impact on human resources management and relationship with and among employees.

Lawyers in our Employment Department will be happy to provide you with a copy of the Bill or assist you with any queries you may have on any employment matters.

ANGELA WANG & CO, Solicitors
Hong Kong
14th Floor, South China Building,
1-3 Wyndham Street, Central,
Hong Kong
Tel : (852) 2869 8814
Fax : (852) 2868 0708
Email: lawyers@angelawangco.com
Web Site: www.angelawangco.com
Shanghai
3708 37th Floor Westgate Tower,
1038 Nanjing Road West,
Shanghai 200041 PRC
Tel : (8621) 6267 9773
Fax : (8621) 6272 3877
Email: shanghai@angelawangco.com
Disclaimer: The information presented in this eNews Alert is not legal advice. Any liability that may arise from the use or reliance on the information is expressly disclaimed.

Contributor Most Read In Hong Kong

In February, March and June 2008, Angela Wang & Co received an award from Mondaq.com for contributing the most widely read articles in Hong Kong on its worldwide legal web site.
ENDS

Tangent: Palm Beach Post on dual citizenship in EU countries

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

mytest

Hi Blog. For the last day of the three-day holiday, here’s an interesting diversion on what options dual citizenship provides its citizens. As well as a quick roundup of what other countries say qualifies for dual at the very bottom.

Arudou Debito, former American citizen who gave it up to become Japanese.

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

With U.S. in slump, dual citizenship in EU countries attracts Americans

By ANDREW ABRAMSON Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Palm Beach Post, Saturday, June 07, 2008

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/06/07/s1a_dual_citizenship_0608.html

Courtesy of Matt Dioguardi

For millions of Europeans who braved the Atlantic Ocean for a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty and dreams of a lavish life, there was little thought of ever emigrating back.

Yet for a new generation of Americans of European descent, the Old Country is becoming a new country full of promise and opportunity.

“With an EU passport, I can live and work in 27 countries,” said Suzanne Mulvehill of Lake Worth. “With a U.S. passport, I can live and work in one.”

Americans can claim citizenship in any of the 27 European countries that are in the EU based on the nationality of their parents, or in some cases, grandparents and great-grandparents. Citizenship in one of those countries allows you to live and work in any EU nation.

Since the United States doesn’t keep statistics on dual citizens, it’s impossible to know exactly how many people have applied for citizenship in Europe. But it’s estimated that more than 40 million Americans are eligible for dual citizenship, and a growing number of Americans want to try their luck elsewhere.

“I have to say that over the past few years, calls I never would have received before have been made to the office,” said Sam Levine, an immigration attorney in Palm Beach Gardens. “It’s not like a tidal wave, but it’s certainly more substantial, and it’s remarkable.”

He’s receiving calls from people like Mulvehill, executive director of the Emotional Institute, a Lake Worth-based company that trains entrepreneurs.

Mulvehill’s mother was born in Romania, which became a member of the European Union last year.

She’s obtaining Romanian citizenship, which she estimates will have taken about three years, a ton of paperwork, $750 in fees and a trip to the Romanian consulate in Washington.

But once she receives the passport, probably early next year, she’ll be able settle anywhere in the EU.

“I recognized for the first time in my life that being American had limits,” Mulvehill said, “and that if I really wanted to become what I call a global citizen, then I needed to tap into all my resources to expand my ability to serve entrepreneurs not just in Lake Worth, which is one town, and not just in Florida or in America or North America, but on the globe.”

Globalization is a word on the mind of Lauren Berg, a recent college graduate from Michigan who is obtaining Greek citizenship based on her grandfather. She plans to move to Paris, brush up on her French and engross herself in the European business world.

“It’s definitely a really good thing to have on your résumé with business going so global,” Berg said. “I probably never would have done it if it wasn’t for the EU, but at the same time I’ve always been extremely proud of my Greek heritage.”

Dual citizenship once viewed as unpatriotic

But not everyone is so excited about this increasing trend.

“I understand the impulse: You can get a better deal over there,” said Stanley Renshon, a professor at the City University of New York and former president of the International Society of Political Psychology. “Whether it’s good for the American national community is quite a different question.”

Renshon belongs to a faction of immigration experts that believes dual citizenship diminishes the American identity.

“The devaluation of American citizenship for the sake of comparative advantage strikes me as fairly self-centered,” Renshon said.

Dual citizenship became a major issue during the War of 1812, when the British military tried recruiting, and in some cases forcing, British-born American citizens to fight on Britain’s side.

For years, being a dual citizen was seen as unpatriotic, and until 1967 it was possible for the United States to revoke American citizenship for people who voted in foreign elections.

But in the 1967 Afroyim vs. Rusk decision, Supreme Court justices ruled 5-4 that it was unconstitutional to bar dual citizenship.

“It was the high point of the 1960s and individual rights,” said Noah Pickus, the associate director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. “So the notion that you could take a citizenship away from somebody would seem to violate the basic notion of individual choice.”

Today, immigrants who become American citizens have to swear that they renounce their previous citizenship, but it’s more of a symbolic gesture, and Renshon said it’s actually difficult to renounce a citizenship.

One of the biggest advocates of dual citizenship is Temple University professor and author Peter Spiro, who believes that defining one’s identity by his citizenship is a thing of the past.

“There are really no harms caused by individuals having additional citizenship these days,” Spiro said. “It’s the wave of the future, because more and more people are going to have it. It’s going to multiply on an exponential basis going forward.”

And as the value of the euro – the currency shared by 15 EU countries – rises and America’s economy slumps, it’s an attractive alternative for Amber Alfano, a recent University of Florida graduate who is becoming an Italian citizen like her father.

“I’m doing it as an exit strategy of sorts,” Alfano said. “I like knowing that I have another place to go if things get even worse here, or if I just get tired of running on the American mouse wheel.

“My dad was actually the one who put a bug in my ear about the whole citizenship thing. He said that Europeans are more interested in the quality of life than the quantity, and that it was a good place to have and raise children because of the way their social systems work. I don’t care much about the child-rearing part, but I would gladly trade in some of my material possessions for a little flat, a scooter and more vacation.”

The grass might be greener … for now

Levine, the Palm Beach Gardens immigration attorney, was born in Canada and has received calls from people also interested in obtaining Canadian citizenship. He also understands the European appeal. He said he’s proud to be an American and proud of what the U.S. has accomplished on a global scale in the last century but that there are some advantages to living elsewhere.

“You have to look at things like how hard people work here and how little vacation time people get here,” Levine said. “A lot of people who live in Europe might not make same amount of money as Americans, but in some senses it’s a kinder, more gentle lifestyle.”

When Alfano went to fill out her paperwork at the Italian consulate in Coral Gables, she said “the waiting room was full of second- and third-generation Americans (of Italian descent) picking up passports.”

Pickus said he’s heard stories of parents getting their children European citizenship as an 18th birthday present – “We didn’t get you a car, but we got you an Italian citizenship.”

Some, like seasonal Vero Beach resident Tony Monaco, who has been trying to get Italian citizenship based on his grandfather, bought property in Italy and learned that taxes would be much lower if he was a citizen.

For those who are moving for the EU economic boom, Hudson Institute senior fellow John Fonte – one of the nation’s leading immigration experts and critics of dual citizenship – warns that it might not last.

“I think it’s a short-term phenomenon,” Fonte said. “I don’t think the European economy in the long run will do that well because it’s a heavy socialist welfare state in most of the countries.”

Mulvehill, the Lake Worth entrepreneur trainer, taught a course at Lynn University and encouraged her students to obtain dual citizenship if they were eligible.

“Expand your possibilities. If you can get citizenship, why not?” she said. “The world is a bigger place than America. Look at what technology has done, creating a global economy. That, in my opinion, is what has created this phenomenon.”

Every country has its own process for obtaining citizenship.

Ireland, Italy and Greece are among the most lenient in terms of letting an individual claim citizenship not just from a parent but from a grandparent or possibly a great-grandparent.

Even in countries that allow an individual only to claim descent based on a parent, in many cases the new citizen can pass the citizenship on to his child.

Eric Hammerle, a Vero Beach resident whose father was born in Germany, said it was easy for him and his 16-year-old son Nick to become German citizens.

They acquired the necessary documents – birth, marriage and death certificates – and took them to the German consulate in Miami.

“The whole process took about 20 minutes,” Hammerle said. “They read over the documents, came back and said, ‘Congratulations, Germany has two new citizens.’ It was a fee of $85.”

ENDS

—————————–

SIDEBAR

Dual citizenship criteria

Ireland: Automatically grants citizenship to the child of an Irish-born citizen. A person can also claim descent based on a grandparent or great-grandparent as long as a grandparent had also claimed descent on or before the date of the person’s birth.

Italy: For those born after 1948, citizenship is granted if their father or mother was a citizen at the time of the applicant’s birth. Citizenship is also granted under these conditions:

Father is an American and the paternal grandfather was a citizen at the time of the father’s birth.

If born after 1948, when the mother is American and the maternal grandfather was an Italian citizen at the time of the mother’s birth.

Paternal or maternal grandfather was born in America and the paternal great-grandfather was an Italian citizen at the time of the grandparent’s birth.

United Kingdom: Descent based on a grandparent allowable only in exceptional cases.

Greece: Native-born parent or grandparent.

Latvia: Native-born parent.

Cyprus: Father was a citizen.

Holland, Finland, Germany and Norway: Applicant must have been born in wedlock with one parent a citizen, or he can claim descent based only on the mother.

All other European Union countries: A parent was a citizen of the given country. People who can’t claim descent can apply after living in the country for a certain number of years.

The creation of the European Union and its thriving economy is very appealing for Americans in a global economy.

SIDEBAR ENDS

Discussion: Softbank’s policy towards NJ customers re new iPhone

Posted on July 20, 2008July 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. This issue has been brought up on other blogs (most notably Japan Probe), so I thought I need not duplicate it on Debito.org (I try to limit myself to one blog entry per day). But recently I received through the FRANCA Japan list a series of thoughtful discussions on the iPhone that are good enough to reprint here. Anonymized. And note that Softbank already seems to have reacted to the situation. Arudou Debito

================================
From: Writer A
Subject: [FRANCA] Yodabashi Akiba Restricts iPhone 3G Sales To Foreigners
Date: July 17, 2008 8:14:32 PM JST
To: francajapan@yahoogroups.com

Check the Files section of this Group for a scan of the offending policy document (original Japanese).

Softbank itself does not mention any such restrictions in its iPhone 3G contract terms

http://broadband.mb.softbank.jp/mb/legal/articles/pdf/3g_002.pdf

and Softbank was the first cell phone provider to take the attitude that if a foreigner is using a credit card, Softbank does not care about the length of stay (because the credit card issuer guarantees payment to Softbank). So, this appears to be a YA policy.

Now, some apologists will offer the following defenses:

1. YA is worried about not being paid by short-stay foreigners: wrong, YA is paid by the credit card company. Softbank already accepts credit cards, and can cut off service if a customer fails to pay. Why is a foreigner with 15 months 29 days of stay a poor credit risk while one with 16 months is not a credit risk?

2. YA is going out of its way help misguided foreigners who might buy a cell phone in Japan only to find it does not work outside of Japan: wrong, the iPhone 3G is designed to work with most 3G systems around the world, and in fact can work as a wireless terminal without any 3G system at all. The phone is multilingual (Japanese-English-Chinese- whatever) out of the box.

3. Apple/Softbank are trying to prevent iPhone 3G units from being taken out of Japan and unlocked (made useable with carriers other than Softbank): Wrong, only YA has this policy, and if anyone is going to buy up hundreds of iPhone 3G units and sell them abroad, it is going to be a yakuza or a snakehead with access to someone who has the proper credentials.

4. The police made them do it: well, the bigotry of Japanese cops is unlimited, but why can a foreigner show a Japanese health insurance card (no photo, certainly no visa info) or a Japanese driver’s license (no visa info) and be exempt from the restrictions on purchase/ installment payment?

One has to wonder about Japan’s future when flagship stores in major tourist areas go out of their way to discriminate against foreign customers, without any business or logical reason.

In the meantime, one can always boycott YA. Bic Camera has much better service, Yamada Denki is cheaper, and Best Denki has better parking !
================================

From: Writer B

Check the Files section of this Group for a scan of the offending policy document (original Japanese).

The document says nothing about restrictions on foreigners. It talks about restrictions on people using a foreigners registration card as their means of identification. Being a foreigner does not mean that your foreigner registration card is your only means of identification. Just show your driver’s license or your health insurance card instead.

BTW, it isn’t Yodobashi specifically; this is very much a Softbank policy. Always has been. The blogosphere has been talking about this for the past week, because of the iPhone, but I remember this from when I first switched to Softbank a couple years ago. I showed my alien registration, it was going to be a problem, so I showed my drivers license instead.

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

From: Writer C

I would wait a little on this one. They just announced this morning that all the major cellphone companies are going to implement new, tougher rules on registering phones. The police will be involved, and people will have to provide ID (driving licences were mentioned) and possibly have it copied by the companies. People refusing would be denied contracts, and ‘suspicious’ people refusing would be reported to the police.

And this will affect everyone. How they deal with non-Japanese, and non-residents, within this, remains to be seen.

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

From: Writer A

To the posters on the subject:

True, the YA document I discussed and posted does not say foreigners cannot buy an iPhone 3G. It does say that NJ with a stay of less than 91 days cannot buy an iPhone 3G. These very short-term NJ most likely won’t have a Japanese driver’s license or health insurance card. NJs who do have a Japanese driver’s license or health card, as I pointed out, can show either and get around the permitted stay restriction (one hopes), but many NJs with a 91 day to 15-month stay will not have either alternate document.

No, it is not a Softbank policy. It is not a stated policy and it is not an actual policy. I posted the stated policy (the hyperlink to the contract), and it mentions nothing about period of stay. Neither does any official Softbank literature on the iPhone 3G. It is not an unofficial Softbank policy either: I have used Softbank for many years and have never once been asked for a “gaijin card”. I have been asked for other ID and was able to satisfy the ID requirement by producing an official Japanese document that does not include my visa status. My understanding is that official iPhone 3G registration in every country requires some kind of proof of identity, but Japan is the only instance I have heard of in which proof of visa status is required. Indeed, in most countries phone companies love foreigners with adequate credit because they make long international telephone calls to their foreign homes.

Why do you think the policy appears in tiny letters at the bottom of a photocopied handout at YA? Perhaps because YA knows the policy is offensive and arbitrary. You won’t find a similar document at your local Softbank shop: the white Softbank iPhone 3G brochure has nothing restricting contracts to persons of a certain permitted stay.

Did [Writer B] switch from DoCoMo to Softbank, and is perhaps melding Softbank into the trauma of dealing with DoCoMo? DoCoMo is infamously NJ-unfriendly. It is the spawn of NTT, the phone company that would not hook up NJ to black rotary line telephones in the days when that is what a telephone meant.

Another poster mentioned that the police want to have tougher proof of identity requirements for registering cell phones. Actually, the Japanese police have a multi-year history of trying to tie cell phones more conclusively to individuals. The police are the reason one can no longer anonymously purchase a prepaid cell phone in Japan. The police are trying to make it a crime to sell a SIM (telephone number ID chip) from another phone in Japan. The reason is simple: yakuza use untraceable or stolen cell phones for defrauding people. A recent factoid states that Japan is victim to $1 million per day in telephone fraud (the frauds are quite varied, and change frequently, but many of the frauds are perpetrated against the elderly). The yakuza use the phones for a blitz of fraudulent calls, then throw away the phones– and the police can’t find out who is behind the frauds. By itself, requesting positive ID when one registers a cell phone is, I think, NJ-neutral. However, the police in Japan always end up requesting ID from NJ well beyond what is adequate to establish identity, and always end up backing down on the rigor of ID from Japanese citizens. Many of the forms of ID a Japanese can present to satisfy the policy have no photograph, no counterfeiting security, no standard format and are easy to turn out flawlessly with a good computer printer.

If YA has some legitimate business concern, there are ways to satisfy the concern without discriminating against NJ.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

Go blog it, Debito!

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

From: Writer B

No, it is not a Softbank policy. It is not a stated policy and it is not an actual policy.

Well, here is Softbank’s actual policy from Softbank’s official web page:

http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/campaign/3G/procedure/

This is what lists the documents required to sign up for 3G service. There are many choices, one choice of which is “foreign registration card plus foreign passport”. If you choose that option, you may sign up for Softbank provided that you are not on a 90-day visa.

Now, there are actually two things at play here: The ability to sign up for 3G service and the ability to buy an iPhone on installments. If you pass the first thing, and you are willing to fork over the unsubsidized cash price for an iPhone 3G (70,000-80,000 yen depending on which model), then you have no problems.

But this is where the 3-15-month period of stay thing comes in:

Oh, hmm, Softbank has deleted the document since I saw it a few days ago:

http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=5106

The link that Japanprobe linked to before gave limitations as to who would purchase a phone on installments rather than upfront. It’s gone now. It was a page on Softbank’s official site, however.

To be perfectly honest, I think that their requirements are fair: To have service, all you have to do is prove that you live in Japan. If you want to buy a phone on installments (ie, take out credit), you should prove that you intend to pay back that loan, either by proving that you’re integrated enough in society that you have a driving license or health insurance, or at least have a visa that is long enough to cover the period of the loan. If you don’t, you don’t have to buy the phone on installments — you can buy it up front if you like.

But whether or not you think that’s fair, the point is you are barking up the wrong tree. It is very definitely Softbank that you are angry at, not Yodobashi. the fact that I (and many others) saw those requirements on Softbank’s website means that, at least as of a week ago, those were Softbank’s policies. I assume that they still are and that Softbank took away the link because people were complaining. But even if not, depending on the timing of when Yodobashi printed up their flyers, it is almost certain that it was because of Softbank’s directions.

Did [Writer B] switch from DoCoMo to Softbank, and is perhaps melding Softbank into the trauma of dealing with DoCoMo?

I did switch from DoCoMo, but your insinuation that I don’t know the difference between phone companies is, quite frankly, insulting.

DoCoMo is infamously NJ-unfriendly.

Maybe.. I never had a problem with them, though I understand that a lot of people have, so I am probably in the minority.

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

ENDS. COMMENTS?

Terrie’s Take: Oji Homes and asbestos–and treating NJ customers badly

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

mytest

Hi Blog. Yet another fantastic article from Terrie Lloyd. I doff my hat in respect with the depth, breadth, and context provided every week in his “Terrie’s Take”s.

This one talks about the rot within Oji Seishi (Oji Paper), which is, incidentally, one of Hokkaido’s biggest employers (with factories in Tomakomai and Kushiro, not to mention seven other cities, and offices in Beijing, Melbourne, Vancouver, and Shanghai). Its nine other “specialty paper plants” include my city of employment, Ebetsu, Hokkaido, and their works and subsidiary investments are the backbone of many a community. Which is why the rot is supremely bad news.

Why is this a Debito.org issue? Because their expat housing is treating NJ badly–toxically, in fact. Terrie doesn’t make too big of a deal of that in his writing (you have to read almost to the end and blink when you realize the clientele include expats). But I will. (What did you expect?).

In whatever fairness is warranted these people, Terrie asserts that the lies and poisons the NJ clients are enduring would not happen to the same degree to Japanese. I’m not so sure of that, but it’s nevertheless a landlord that anyone would want to avoid. Especially when they are lying about the degree of toxins they are releasing into the land and air, and asbestos in their housing. Be advised. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

* * * * * * * * * 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, July 13, 2008 Issue No. 477 (excerpt)

When one thinks of Oji Paper, Japan’s largest paper manufacturing company (in terms of consolidated sales), the image is of vast green forests in Hokkaido, excellent paper-making technology, and the guiding hand of Eichi Shibusawa. Shibusawa was the father of Japan’s capitalist economy, initially helping to modernize the Ministry of Finance, then going out on his own to found the nation’s first modern bank, one of its first joint stock companies, and helping around 500 other now major companies (such as Tokyo Gas, Mizuho, the Imperial Hotel, Sapporo Breweries, and Taiheiyo Cement) to get started.

One of Shibusawa’s key philosophies was the promotion of business ethics and that helping others was an intrinsic part of making a business successful. Perhaps this is where the Japanese view that the purpose of companies is to provide for society first and shareholders second, came from. On the philanthropic and education side of his life, Shibusawa engaged in a purported 600+ projects to improve the living standards of those around him.

What a shame, then, that Oji Paper has lost the positive spirit and moral fiber of this great pioneer of modern Japan.

The reason we make this statement is that despite its pedigree, Oji and its group companies have shown that corporate pride and covering one’s back is more important than ethics. The “ethics” we’re talking about here concern Oji’s record on environmental pollution and resulting business decision-making.

As an example, on July 8th of this last week, the Tokyo District Court ordered Oji Paper to pay JPY590m in damages to Seiko Epson for selling Seiko Epson a 30,000 sq. m. plot of land in Nagano which turned out to be highly polluted with PCBs and Dioxin. Seiko Epson had to have 8,300 tons of soil removed to remediate the problem. Of course there was no mention by Oji prior to the sale of the fact that the plot was damaged.

For some reason almost no foreign media picked up on this law suit, but it shows that Oji has a pattern of lying and covering up pollution and general business problems. You may recall that in January this year, Oji among other paper producers was found to have been a leading culprit in lying about the level of recycled fiber/paper content in their “green” paper products. In many cases the recycled content was only 10% – 20% of that claimed, and in some cases there was NO recycled material present at all. While the CEO of competitor Nippon Paper stepped down over the industry-wide scandal, the CEO of Oji Paper, true to form, decided to say “sorry” but to otherwise chose to dodge the bullet.

Going back a bit further, to July, 2007, Oji Paper was forced to admit that its Fuji paper plant in Shizuoka had emitted more nitrogen oxide (NOx) than allowed under a local agreement with Shizuoka prefectural authorities. What’s worse, they falsified their emissions data to cover up the problem and were only found out after the Hokkaido Prefectural government challenged the company up north and did its own inspection of the company’s Kushiro plant. They found that the Kushiro emissions were in some cases twice Japan’s allowable limit. Ironically, NOx is a leading cause of acid rain, which destroys forests…!

Go further back still, and there are other instances of similar cover-ups and subsequent court cases. However, the point of today’s Take is that a related Oji company, Oji Real Estate, has now been found to have been engaging in its own form of cover-up that is much closer to home.

It is common knowledge in the expat community that the three Oji Real Estate condominium complexes in Minami-Aoyama: Oji Palace, Oji Homes, and Oji Green Hills are extremely popular with out-of-town CEOs and their young families. Oji Homes in particular draws a long waiting list of young families thanks to its 20m outdoor swimming pool and it’s convenient location right in the middle of fashionable Omote Sando. There are approximately 20 apartments in that complex, and over the last 25 years, we imagine that more than 200 families have lived there.

That’s 500+ tenants who rented their luxury apartments in the knowledge that they had a rock-solid landlord and the building was safe — or so they thought.

About two years ago. Oji started refusing to renew leases with tenants at Oji Homes, on the basis that they wanted to do renovations to improve earthquake standards for the building. This sounded credible, and most of the families have subsequently moved out despite being offered inadequate compensation to find a similar replacement apartment (standard practice in Japan for high-class apartments being renovated or torn down is to offer tenants 1-2 years supplementary rent to move to digs of a comparable level).

However, two families who’ve been long-term residents decided to dig their heels in and demand from Oji fair and reasonable compensation to move out. Oji decided to ignore them by starting renovation work around the families, arranging for their utilities to stay connected until a resolution was reached, or until the living conditions became so difficult that the families would eventually move out.

By “difficult” we mean that the building is being jacked up, so as to strengthen the building foundations, and the passage ways are soon to be full of dust, wheel barrows, and workers lugging in and out building materials.

As work has progressed, the families became suspicious that Oji may have had another reason for doing the construction work and decided to hire a professional architect to come in and assess the work. To their shock, he pointed out a number of areas fitted with asbestos and worse still, PCBs — perhaps from the same source as those found in the Nagano soil by Seiko Espon.

When confronted by the families, Oji initially denied any presence of either substance and continued their work as if everything was OK. However, the two families persisted and in June (last month), in front of lawyers and staff representing the families AND the Minato-ku Ward Office, Oji Real Estate and Takenaka Construction company representatives admitted that the building does in fact have both substances, with the asbestos being present in significant amounts, and that they’d known for some time about the presence of these substances.

Now, let’s think about this. A luxury apartment full of young kids, top-level international executives, and their guests, and yet Oji had known for possibly up to two years about the presence of asbestos and PCBs! What does this tell you about the company and its ethics?

As far as we know, we’re the first to break this story to the public, but the families are obviously hoping that the media will pick up on the situation and give Oji the coverage that the company obviously still needs in order to get the message: “a quick admission of the problem and proper settlement of tenant claims is the only reasonable outcome”.

In the meantime, if you are living in or have lived in any of the Oji apartment complexes, you may be wondering what the presence of asbestos means. Providing it is inert, probably the buildings have been/are reasonably safe, but the problem with asbestos is that one never knows when it or the binders it is applied with will age and start to flake off. Oji Palace is even older than the Oji Homes facility and there has been no indication at this stage that Oji plans any investigation or remediation of substances possibly present there. We think this is extremely irresponsible.

We also think it is very irresponsible that there is a public school right next to the building site, with kids running around in the playground every week day. Perhaps the parents of those children are not aware that even a wisp of the stuff inhaled into your lungs can cause mesothelioma and asbestosis later in life. Oji can and should be taking a lot more precautions and needs to come clean to the public about the work being done. Elsewhere in Japan, when asbestos is removed from schools, the entire school is closed (so it’s normally done during the summer holidays), to prevent danger to the kids.

The following link gives you some idea of what level of work precautions are necessary to safely remove asbestos from a work site. From what we’ve heard from the residents, so far the Takenaka workers are taking only the very most basic of precautions, and sophisticated respirators don’t appear to be part of them.

http://www.workershealth.com.au/facts001.html.

ENDS

Oyako Net followup–photos and press conference July 13-14 2008

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

mytest

Matt Hearn writes:
Here are some photos from the events sponsored by Oyako Net last Sunday and Monday.

July 13th. The street demonstration was attended by about 40 people and marched to Suidobashi station from Miyogadani.

The closer we got to Suidobashi the more bystanders were around to witness it and it definitely got the attention of those who watched. It was very well organized by Oyakonet and the police had at least 6 offficers helping with the escort. Munakata-san, Furuichi-san and Morita-san of Oyakonet lead the organization and execution. The drink up after was good there was a good feeling of international community in approaching the issue.

July 14th. The press conference despite feeling short for time went well too. Many left behind parents in addition to the panel of Takao Tanase, Colin Jones, Thierry Consigny had the chance to address the media and state their opinions. Afterwards the new representative from the US Embassy came by to catch up on the recent events and there was lots of discussion about what to do next.

More information on these issues at the Children’s Rights Network Japan (click here).

Photo gallery:

ENDS

Speaking in California August 2008, then Honshu first half of September

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

mytest

Hello All. Debito here. Just to let you know: I’ll be in California all August (working at UC Santa Cruz, then visiting San Francisco Bay Area for a couple of weeks), and then Honshu Japan for the first half of September.

Want me to come speak anywhere I’m nearby? Fairly firm schedule:

CALIFORNIA AUG 17-28, JAPAN SEPT 1-16, 2008
//////////////////////////////////////////////////Sat or Sun, Aug 23 or 24, speech in San Francisco or Berkeley for local human rights group (BEING FINALIZED)
Weds Aug 27, 2008, Noon, University of California Berkeley, Center for Japanese Studies (CONFIRMED)

Sun Sept 1, 7PM, Speech for JALT Hamamatsu, Shizuoka (BEING FINALIZED)

Thurs Sept 4, 2008, 7PM, Lecture on “The Japanese Legal System–Cognitive Dissonances to Consider”, for Kansai Attorneys Registered Abroad, Osaka (CONFIRMED)

Sat Sept 6, 2008, 7PM Speech for Osaka Forming NGO FRANCA, at Osaka OCAT Building (BEING FINALIZED)

Fri Sept 12, Speech in Saitama (TBD)
Sat Sept 13, 2008, Speech in Nagano (TBD)
Sun Sept 14, 2008, Speech for Sendai Forming NGO FRANCA, 14.00-16.00, at: Sendai Chuo Shimin Centre Kaigi Shitsu(http://www.stks.city.sendai.jp/citizen/WebPages/chuo/index.html) (CONFIRMED)

Mon Sept 15, 2008, Afternoon Speech in Kitakami, Iwate Pref. (BEING FINALIZED)

Thurs Nov 27, 2008, Speech in Iwate (TBD)
Fri Nov 28, 2008, Speech in Iwate (TBD)
Sat Nov 29, 2008, Speech in Iwate (TBD)

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

Updates to schedule in real time at
https://www.debito.org/?page_id=1672

Anyone else interested in a speech? Let me know at debito@debito.org. I’ll be in the area anyway, so travel expenses will be minimized. I’m currently negotiating with Monterey as well, so drop me a line.

Speak on what? You decide. On Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants, and Immigrants? Racial discrimination in Japan? Something else? Topics (and media) for all my speeches over the past fifteen years are at
https://www.debito.org/publications.html#SPEECHES
Information on Handbook at
https://www.debito.org/handbook.html

In September, I have two weeks fallow before school starts. Tentative schedule to fill:
===============================
September 1-5 Western Japan
Sept 7-10, teaching intensive course on Japanese media at Nagoya University (definite)
Sept 11-16 Eastern Japan, negotiating dates in Sendai (Sept 14 definite), Morioka, and Hirosaki
===============================
Thanks for reading! And I hope sometime soon meeting you!
Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
ENDS

Good News #2: Non-native NJ wins Akutagawa, Japan’s most coveted book award

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

mytest

Hi Blog. Good news. A NJ (not a Zainichi, which would be good news too, but a non-native NJ to boot) has just won Japan’s most coveted literary award. Congratulations!

This is not the first time a NJ (or even a non-native) has won a prestigious book award (hark way back to Dave Zopetti’s Subaru-sho). (Japan Times jpg here.) But it’s the first non-native for an Akutagawa, and that says something positive about Japan’s assimilation. Well done all around! Article and interview follow. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

Chinese novelist Yang wins Akutagawa Prize

Kyodo News/The Japan Times: Wednesday, July 16, 2008

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080716a2.html

Author Yang Yi won the Akutagawa Prize on Tuesday to become the first Chinese to receive the prestigious literary award, the prize’s organizers said.

Best book: Chinese writer Yang Yi is all smiles in Tokyo on Tuesday following news that her novel “Tokiga nijimu asa” won the coveted Akutagawa Prize. KYODO PHOTO

The 44-year-old Yang’s award-winning work “Tokiga nijimu asa” (literally, “A Morning When Time Blurs”), written in Japanese, is set during and after China’s democratization movement centering on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

It follows a Chinese man who lives through those times and later moves to Japan, still holding on to his ideals.

“I’m very, very happy. I feel that I have been accepted,” Yang told reporters outside her Tokyo home.

Meanwhile, the Naoki Prize, a major literature award for popular fiction, went to Areno Inoue, 47, daughter of the late novelist Mitsuharu Inoue.

Inoue’s “Kiriha e” (“To the Mine Face”) is a love story about a teacher who lives with her husband on a remote island.

A previous book by Yang was nominated for the biannual Akutagawa Prize in January but was not chosen.

“I had thought that I may not be chosen this time. I could still not be confident of my own Japanese. Now I feel that I have blended well into Japan, and I am happy that I have been able to write and to have been evaluated,” a smiling Yang said.

She said she learned of the news in a call to her cell phone while having dinner with one of her publisher’s editors.

“I suddenly became tense when I got the call and totally forgot what (the caller) told me. Even after I hung up, I wasn’t sure if it was really true,” she said.

Yang began learning Japanese after arriving in Japan in 1987. She has lived here 21 years and started writing novels while teaching Chinese.

Born in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, Yang’s real name is Liu Qiao.

The Japan Times: Wednesday, July 16, 2008

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

INTERVIEW WITH YANG YI

By TOMOKO OTAKE Japan Times Staff writer

The Japan Times Sunday, Feb. 3, 2008

Bridging an East Asia divide

Unpretentious, hard-working and humble, writer Yang Yi bears more than a passing similarity to the eponymous lead character in her novel “Wang-chan,” titled after the nickname of a Chinese woman who moved to Japan as the bride of a Japanese factory worker and then tried to carve out a career as a marriage broker for other Chinese women seeking to marry Japanese men living out in the sticks.

Yang Yi laughs during her recent interview with The Japan Times.YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO

In “Wang-chan,” 43-year-old Yang’s first attempt at a Japanese-language novel, first published late last year in a literary magazine, the rural cultures and customs of China and Japan are colorfully contrasted — along with rich and bittersweet interactions between the central character and others, including her dying Japanese mother-in-law and a sex-starved Japanese man in search of a Chinese wife.

The native of Harbin in northeastern China (former Manchuria) caused a sensation in Japan when, in October last year, she won the literary magazine Bungakukai’s prestigious biannual award for new writers. She created even more ripples last month when she became one of the seven nominees for the Akutagawa Award, one of Japan’s most glittering literary accolades.

Although she actually missed out on that top honor, Yang, who teaches Chinese as a day job, was a much talked-about candidate, being the first-ever Chinese to be considered for the highly publicized award. Nonetheless, Yang remains humble about her literary feat, saying she will never become a celebrity novelist. “I am more like a craftsman,” she said when asked about her aspirations as a writer.

Last month, Yang published her first book, titled “Wang-chan,” which comprises that story and “Roshojo (Old Virgin),” another story that is a tragi-comic account of an unmarried Chinese psychology researcher who fantasizes about a romantic relationship with a handsome Japanese professor.

Yang, who is divorced from a Japanese husband and now lives with her teenage son and daughter in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward, recently sat down for an interview with The Japan Times to recount some episodes in her adaptation to life in Japan and how she picked up the language at supermarkets. She also shared her impressions of the enormous changes in people’s values in China these days, along with her take on the often thorny matter of Japan-China relations.

Interview continues at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080203x1.html

Good News #1: Zainichi lodges complaint re Nihon U debate club discrim, university takes appropriate action

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

mytest

Hi Blog. Good news for a change–the mechanisms for investigating and taking action against claims of discrimination seem to be working at Nihon University, at least. Well done, and thanks to 1) the investigators for doing their job and taking action, and 2) the victim and family for not just naki-neiri-ing this situation.

Additional comment from T3:
“Investigators confirmed that the refusal to allow the 3rd generation korean resident into the university debate team was based on racial discrimination. bizarrely so, because members of the team claimed that they might not be able to assimilate with a foreigner – a 3rd generation “foreigner”.”

One more piece of good news coming up today. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

===============================
University debate team suspends activities after resident Korean student claims discrimination
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN 2008/7/16
Courtesy of Mak and T3
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200807160268.html

The debate club of Nihon University’s College of Law suspended activities after a third-generation Korean resident said she was refused entry because of her ethnicity, The Asahi Shimbun learned.

The 21-year-old first-year student said she could not join the club in April because several senior members had a problem with her South Korean nationality.

Along with her mother, she lodged a discrimination complaint to the Tokyo-based university in early June.

The university administration commissioned lawyers to investigate the case and determined that the student was indeed discriminated against because of her nationality and ethnicity.

But members of the club denied that discrimination had anything to do with their refusal to let the student join.

The investigative team found that concerns were raised by senior club members over “how they would get along with a foreigner” and the possibility that she might be involved in a “radical religious activity.”

The club suspended activities in late June after a request from the university’s human rights committee.

Three senior members and two professors serving as club supervisors issued an apology to the student for causing “grief and pain.”

The student has refused to accept the apology because of their denial of discrimination.

The student attended an introductory session for prospective new members in late April, but was told the following day that she could not join.

A senior student told her that her class schedule would likely conflict with the club’s activities and that the club supervisor might dislike “the light color of her hair.”

However, she said she later learned from a friend who was a member of the club that senior members had said to the effect that they would “have a problem with her cultural background as a resident Korean.”

(IHT/Asahi: July 16,2008)

ENDS

お知らせ：2008年7月29日（火）午後6時30分　JIPI 外国人政策研究主催：「日本型値移民政策がめざすもの」

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

mytest

Hi Blog. July 29 Symposium on Japan’s immigration policy, sponsored by Japan Immigration Policy Institute. Courtesy of the sponsor. Arudou Debito

http://www.jipi.gr.jp/
開催主旨

自民党国家戦略本部が6月20日、福田首相に「日本型移民政策の提言」を提出しました。この提言は実際には自民党人材交流推進議員連盟（会長・中川秀直元幹事長約80人）がまとめ、党国家戦略本部がオーソライズしたものです。

外国人政策研究所は、当初から議員連盟の議論に参加し、提言のベースになる構想を作成、提案しました。福田首相は提言を「真剣に受け止めたい」と前向きに検討する考えを示しています。

人口危機に対応するための移民政策は、新たな開国であり、新たな国づくりでもあります。福田内閣の今後どのように移民政策を扱うのか。その取り組みに内外から注目が集まるとみられます。

シンポジウムでは提案作成に中心的な役割を果たした坂中所長をはじめ議連の議論に参加した4氏が、日本型移民政策の狙いやその中身を詳しく解説するとともに、今後とり組むべき課題などについて意見を交換します。

パネリスト

コーディネーター

インフォメーション

［主催］JIPI 外国人政策研究所｜ＨＰ：http://jipi.gr.jp｜
［後援］UNHCR 国連難民高等弁務官事務所｜IOM国際移住機関｜
［日時］2008年7月29日（火）午後6時30分｜開場：午後6時｜
［会場］女性と仕事の未来館ホール｜港区芝5-35-3｜ＨＰ：http://www.miraikan.go.jp｜
［お申し込み］>> こちらからメールにてお申し込み下さい。｜入場無料：先着250名｜
［お問い合わせ］JIPI 外国人政策研究所｜電話：03-3453-5901｜E-mail：info@jipi.gr.jp｜

ENDS

SMJ Tokyo July 21 Tokyo Symposium on amnesty for visa overstayers

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

mytest

FORWARDING:

Please forward information below to anyone interested in this issue.
**************************************************************
July 21 Symposium

“Unqualified Foreign Residents (Overstaying Foreign Residents)”:

Do we build a Multi-Ethnic, Multi-Cultural Society over the Elimination?
**************************************************************

Date: Monday July 21
Time: 14：00〜17：00 (door opens at 13:30)
Where: Korea YMCA 9th floor
(2-5-5 Sarugaku-cyo Chiyoda-ku)
Access: http://www.ymcajapan.org/ayc/jp/map1.htm
JR “Suidobashi-station” (6 min walk)/ JR”Ochanomizu-station” (9 min walk) /Tokyo
Subway “Jinboucyo-station”(7 min walk)
Admission: 1000yen

* English-Japanese simultaneous interpretation available

It has past almost 20 years since the arrival of “new comers”. The number of the unqualified foreign residents who recorded its peak in 1993 started to decline and currently there are about 170,000 living in Japan. Until now, tens of thousands of unqualified foreign residents were amnestied by receiving “special permanent residents”. On the other hand, in Japan, people started to see unqualified residents as “Illegal residents” which is considered as a nest of crime. In this circumstance, the government has strengthened its regulation. In addition, from 2008, the new system to control residents was built and the government is trying to eliminate the unqualified foreign residents completely.

Take place the background of declining birth rate; the argument on “acceptance” of immigrants is developing among various fields as using a keyword of “multi-cultural society”. However, that is the “society” over the elimination of unqualified foreign residents, and it differs from “multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society” that the NGOs and civil societies have been aiming to create.

In this symposium, from the viewpoint of the unqualified residents, we will be discussing the current situation that the “multi-cultural society” and “elimination of unqualified residents” is preceding simultaneously.

Program (tentative)
●　Transformation of the surrounding circumstances of the unqualified residents in the
past 20 years.
●　Panel discussion
「Amnesty Now！〜the unqualified residents -then and now-〜」
panelists：
Mr. Akira Hatate（Japan Civil Liberties Union: JCLU)/ Mr.Ippei Torii（Zentoitsu（All United）
Workers Union, Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan (SMJ)/ others
●　Mr. Rey Ventura and the film “DEKASEGI”screen
Mr. Rey Ventura：born in Philippine Isabela. The author of books “I have always hidden-a
diary of illegal work by a Filipino student” and “Yokohama Kotobuki Filipinos”.

Comments from other foreign residents

Q&A

Contact: Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan (SMJ)
Bunkyo-ku,Koishikawa 2-17-41, TCC 2-203, Tokyo, Japan
tel: 03-5802-6033, fax: 03-5802-6034, mail: fmwj@jca.apc.org
ENDS

Japan defends steps to end discrimination

Panel begins process to rectify Ainu woes

2channel founder says don’t blame him for criminals’ posts

Coming out of the shadows

Filmmakers tackle contentious issue of parents’ abduction of children to Japan

A life less complex as foreigners join local board

Criticism section

Debito Arudou

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit]Background

[edit]Early life

[edit]Japanese naturalization

[edit]Family and divorce

[edit]Otaru onsen lawsuit

[edit]Kyōgaku no Gaijin Hanzai Ura File – Gaijin Hanzai Hakusho 2007

[edit]Publications

[edit]Criticism

Readers respond: Once a ‘gaijin,’ always a ‘gaijin’?

UC Extension to close Santa Cruz office, close two programs

Faculty, staff, union question decision to ax Extension program

Custody battles: an unfair fight

ジャパンタイムズの性的記事配信 「海外に誤解与える」と批判出る

Population rises 1st time in 3 years

人口３年ぶり増加、１億２７０６万人…帰国や帰化増え

Online competition drives foreign book seller bankrupt

Yohan In Bankruptcy

Cody’s Owner, Yohan, Files for Bankruptcy

洋販：自己破産を申請 洋書販売の最大手、ネットで打撃

「洋販」自己破産 ブックオフが青山ブックセンター支援

Five-ring circus

News from the forbidden Citius, Altius, Fortius

With U.S. in slump, dual citizenship in EU countries attracts Americans

ジャパンタイムズの性的記事配信　「海外に誤解与える」と批判出る

洋販：自己破産を申請　洋書販売の最大手、ネットで打撃

「洋販」自己破産　ブックオフが青山ブックセンター支援