{"id":10687,"date":"2012-10-25T04:08:38","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T19:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=10687"},"modified":"2012-10-25T04:08:38","modified_gmt":"2012-10-24T19:08:38","slug":"bv-victimizing-the-young-featherbedding-the-old-on-how-japans-elite-bureaucratic-rot-is-adversely-affecting-japans-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=10687","title":{"rendered":"BV: “Victimizing the Young, Featherbedding the Old?” On how Japan’s elite bureaucratic rot is adversely affecting Japan’s children"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. \u00a0Guest author “Bitter Valley” is back again with another thing he wants to get off his chest. \u00a0I think he should, so here it is. \u00a0One of my pet theories about Japan’s swing towards insularity and conservatism<\/a> is that as people get older (and Japan as a society is doing just that demographically<\/a>), they get more politically conservative and resistant to change — or at least change that is not in their best interests. \u00a0And as “Bitter Valley” points out, it means an inordinate weighting of political power and economic resources in favor of the old at the expense of the young (especially since the very young have no vote, ever fewer numbers, and few political and civil rights to begin with). \u00a0This is manifesting itself in ways that BV thinks are worth mentioning in Japan’s most cosmopolitan city. \u00a0Given how centralized political power is in Japan, what happens here will set precedents for the rest of the nation. \u00a0Arudou Debito<\/p>\n

===============================<\/p>\n

Victimizing the Young, Featherbedding the Old?<\/strong>
\n By Bitter Valley. \u00a0Exclusive to Debito.org, October 19, 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi Debito, this is “Bitter Valley” again, a year and some change after my previous post about Shibuya Ku’s knuckle-headed attitudes toward my family<\/a> (I’ll always be a gaijin and my daughter is only Japanese, and that’s that).<\/em><\/p>\n

We’ve just had some terrible news that the second major children’s facility we have access to in Shibuya, the Kodomo no Shiro (Kiddies Castle) is closing down in 2015. It’s a bit of a hammer blow for us, as we have already just lost the Jidokaikan (Tokyo Children’s Center), which is going to be demolished for another old people’s home.<\/em><\/p>\n

Regardless of what might really behind the closures (more on this later) it’s going to lower the quality of life for kids and mums and dads in Shibuya (and wider afield) considerably.<\/em><\/p>\n

Both children’s facilities are\/were two of the only major educational\/ fun\/ accessible\/ cheap (no or low cost) play centers. Both, incidentally, were\/are tremendous resources for Shibuya’s large ratio of multinational kids. Parents of older children say that there are schools with most classes not only have one but several multiracial or foreign or Japanese but of NJ parentage in classes. Increasingly it’s seen as no big deal.<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s great, at least to non-knuckleheads and\/or racists.<\/em><\/p>\n

But the closures suck.<\/em><\/p>\n

First of all the Tokyo Children’s Hall (Jidokaikan) was shut down last year and this spring. The adjacent park was closed and the homeless community, many of whom had been forcibly ejected from what is now “Nike Park,” went where? I don’t know.<\/em><\/p>\n

I don’t mind people whizzing up and down on their silly skateboards in some lumpen concrete basin. Better that than the road, where the idiots sometimes venture. But I do feel for the homeless, who have now been shunted out of two parks in two years.<\/em><\/p>\n

After spending a fortune building a gochiso, luxurious old people’s home at Mitake no Oka next door to the Jidokaikan, the plan is now by Tokyo Metropolitan Government to turn it into a old folks leisure center. That means the kids lose out, but the old folks get two delux centers.<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s right. The building next to the Jidokaikan used to be a shogakko and a fire station. That got knocked down and deluxe old folks home got built. I unfondly remember when it opened. The officials used to park their expensive Toyota Land Cruisers and other official vehicles with their parking rights windshield stickers on the sidewalk in front. I was so angry at this I put up stickers on the windshields saying “Your luxury vehicle paid for by our local taxes.” \u00a0The cars all disappeared the next day.<\/em><\/p>\n

There was a minor concession- they built a nursery, but the nursery that had been public before was privatized, run by Benesse, so while we continue to pay our taxes, we have to pay for privatized nursery care by a company that immediately starts throwing its branded toys, goods disguised as educational programs, at infants.<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile the “park” next to the Jidokaikan is now a plain concrete flat space. The jidokaikan just sits there, empty and unused, 18 months after being closed down.<\/em><\/p>\n

The loss of Jidokaikan was a great blow for mums, dads and kiddies people all over Tokyo as it was a major fun and educational center for kids from all over the place.<\/em><\/p>\n

NOW to our disgust (my wife is appalled and angry, rare for her, it takes a lot to make her disgusted) Kodomo no Shiro (Kiddies Castle) (http:\/\/www.kodomono-shiro.jp\/index.shtml<\/a>) up the road (Omotesando) is being closed in 2015 due to “lack of demand.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Turn my brain upside down- white is black and black is white. The place is like a non-branded treasure trove for kids, with an excellent kiddies gym, educational and workshop facilities and an AV and music center, excellent, trained staff — who don’t treat gaijin any differently from any other kids or parents.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lack of demand? The place is brilliant, popular and packed out. On any given weekend, it’s also packed with foreign kids, haafus, kids from all over the place. It genuinely is a major popular, well-run, packed out educational and fun palace for all sorts of children — open, tolerant, vibrant, safe and cheap.<\/em><\/p>\n

This amounts to a systematic closing down of badly needed facilities for kids and infants that are paid for by entrance fees and taxes, for more expensive, privatized versions.<\/em><\/p>\n

From our perspective there seems to be clear bias here. The oyaji making these decisions are making things great for themselves, and stuff the mums and kids and people raising families.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kiddies 0, Oldies 2; or perhaps oldies win by two knockouts and submission by tired, stressed mums.<\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps this is Japan’s plan for the future. Turn Tokyo into a vast old folks home and leave their children’s children to pick up the bill, or have their kids play in the ruins?<\/em><\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest author “Bitter Valley” is back again with another thing he wants to get off his chest. I think he should, so here it is. One of my pet theories about Japan’s swing towards insularity and conservatism is that as people get older (and Japan as a society is doing just that demographically), they get more politically conservative and resistant to change — or at least change that is not in their best interests. And as “Bitter Valley” points out, it means an inordinate weighting of political power and economic resources in favor of the old at the expense of the young (especially since the very young have no vote, ever fewer numbers, and few political and civil rights to begin with). This is manifesting itself in ways that BV thinks are worth mentioning in Japan’s most cosmopolitan city. Given how centralized political power is in Japan, what happens here will set precedents for the rest of the nation.<\/p>\n

BV: Hi Debito, this is “Bitter Valley” again. We’ve just had some terrible news that the second major children’s facility we have access to in Shibuya, the Kodomo no Shiro (Kiddies Castle) is closing down in 2015. It’s a bit of a hammer blow for us, as we have already just lost the Jidokaikan (Tokyo Children’s Center), which is going to be demolished for another old people’s home. Regardless of what might really behind the closures (more on this later) it’s going to lower the quality of life for kids and mums and dads in Shibuya (and wider afield) considerably.<\/p>\n

Both children’s facilities are\/were two of the only major educational\/ fun\/ accessible\/ cheap (no or low cost) play centers. Both, incidentally, were\/are tremendous resources for Shibuya’s large ratio of multinational kids. Parents of older children say that there are schools with most classes not only have one but several multiracial or foreign or Japanese but of NJ parentage in classes. Increasingly it’s seen as no big deal. That’s great, at least to non-knuckleheads and\/or racists. But the closures suck. First of all the Tokyo Children’s Hall (Jidokaikan) was shut down last year and this spring….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,44,26,4,31,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pinprick-protests","category-discussions","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-government","category-tangents","category-unsustainable-japanese-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}