Another look at the lighter side of Japanese politics (abstracted translation):

Hotels Bustling as LDP Holds Flurry of Fundraisers
Mainichi Shimbun
Dec 12, 2005

In Nagata-cho (Japan’s version of Capitol Hill), where schedules are filled up with next year’s budget preparations and tax revisions, there has been a flurry of fundraisers for LDP Diet members. It looks as though the parties, usually planned for autumn, had to be pushed back to the end of the year due to the September Lower House election. Members, concerned about their wallets, are trying to raise election funds by year’s end, resulting in a daily boom for area hotels.

“Hidenao Nakagawa, currently at the height of his popularity, has developed into a political strongman”

The 1,200 in attendance went wild when VIP Yoshiro Mori (former Prime Minister), said the above words at the fundraiser of LDP Policy Planning Council Chairman Nakagawa, held at a Tokyo hotel on the evening of Dec. 8. In addition to senior party leaders and top businessmen, 500 guests were invited from Nakagawa’s home prefecture of Hiroshima.

The sheer number of LDP members’ parties can be understood by taking a look at the schedule of LDP Secretary-General Tsutomu Takebe, who has received requests to make speeches. In the SG’s schedule for the coming two weeks are planned attendance at 19 individually-held events and 2 for party factions. Takebe is set to party-hop every day, going so far as to attend 5 events on at least one day.

The opposition Democratic Party of Japan, meanwhile, is partying just as hard, with Secretary-General Yukio Hatoyama’s fundraiser planned for Dec. 9.

On most years, Diet members’ parties are held in the fall to avoid conflicting with budget preparations. LDP General Council Chair Fumio Kyuma said wryly of this year’s party situation, “They were put off because of the election, I guess. The elections ended, and since they cost money, [the members] must be raising funds.”

According to the 2004 Political Funds Balance Report, total contributions totaled Y26.4 billion, down 9.9% from 2003, while revenue garnered from fundraising parties increased 9.9% to Y14.3 billion. One member commented, “Contributions are down, so there is no choice but to rely on fundraising parties, and the ratio of intake from parties to total revenue is trending upward. (Eriko Horii reporting)

Takebe Scolds Koizumi Children for bad Party Etiquette
Mainichi Shimbun
Dec 12, 2005

LDP Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe, the self-appointed “headmaster” of the “Koizumi Children” (new LDP Diet members elected this September) scolded his students for “bad etiquette” at a recent party.

The outburst took place on the evening of Nov 30 at a party held by the party leader for close associates in Tokyo. According to one person in attendance, Takebe screamed, “Looking just now, the new members are just eating and not making the rounds!” causing the attendees to hurriedly begin distributing meishi (business cards, the ritualized distribution of which is a custom in Japan).

Meanwhile, at a party for veteran Diet members, Low Birthrate Minister Kuniko Inoguchi, who is also a new Diet member, gave an overlong speech, forcing former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who hurried to the event, to go home without giving any speech.

Japan Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will ride off into the sunset in September 2006, but let’s hope he does it in style… ON A SEGWAY!

Koizumi rides Segway to work

Japan’s media-friendly Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi turned up to work on Friday on a new motorised Segway scooter.

It was the first time Mr Koizumi had been seen on the scooter since he was given it as a present by US President George W Bush.

Mr Koizumi said he got to grips with the machine at his home on Thursday.

He steered around his courtyard and reversed easily.

“It’s pretty comfortable,” he told reporters.

Mr Bush has appeared less at ease, falling off his Segway in 2003.

Video HERE

And HERE

And HERE!

And HERE!

Ah, this made my day.

The ANN piece mentions that Koizumi is “earnestly showcasing good relations with the US as he is under fire from China and Korea over the Yasukuni issue.” Haters!

From the Taipei Times Taiwan Quick Take section.

Academics from China and Taiwan will gather in Taipei next April to discuss ways to promote “exchanges” of the simplified and traditional Chinese characters that are used on each side of the Taiwan Strait. Liao Hsien-hao (廖咸浩), director of Taipei City’s Department of Cultural Affairs, said yesterday that some Chinese academics are calling for “restoring” the use of traditional characters in China since the historical background for adopting the simplified characters has changed. In the face of changes in information technology, he said, both sides should take a practical and scientific attitude toward Chinese characters.

Here’s my idea of a perfect compromise: China brings back simplified traditional characters, and Taiwan adopts the mainland’s Hanyu pinyin system for romanization, and bans all of the various gibberish versions used throughout the ROC.

Way to go!

Honor Roll

Waubonsie Valley High School

The following senior and junior students have been named to the honor roll for the first quarter of the 2005-06 school year at Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora. Sophomore and freshman honor rolls will be published later.

Seniors

High honors: Mohamed Abdelati, Christie Alekna, Nicole Andrade, Rachel Andrews, Asma Ashraf, Maryam Askia, Matthew Asuan, Kristyn Atkins, Kyla Bachtell, Andrew Baginski, Nicholas Baier, Christen Baillie, Samantha Barber, Jillian Battaglia, Amanda Batterson, Steven Berger, Vikas Bhala, Markie Bitter, Joseph Blanco, Victoria Blanco, Jacqueline Boatman, Jacob Boerema, Ryan Bolwin, Andrew Bosco, Michael Brancheau, Deborah Bridgett, Jennifer Brown, Kelly Brummel, Kimmerly Buchholz, Zachary Buckley, Kevin Burns, Nathan Caldwell, Samuel Carpenter, Nivedita Chandrasekharan, Brendan Chaves, Winnie Cheung.

Priya Chopra, Timothy Clark, Chase Clarke, Bernadette Close, Bridget Close, Mallery Clouse, Abby Cox, Jamie Custer, Melissa Davis, Cory Deking, Vanessa Delaney, Jessica Dennin, Colleen Densmore, Ananya Dev, Carolyn Dick, Lindsay Dileo, Matthew Dixon, Christina Dracopoulos, Erika Drane, Jacquelyn Duke, Alysia Eberly, Jeremy Enright, Karissa Erber, Kristen Erickson, Steven Fekety, Tamara Fetzer, Katie Fick, Benjamin Finfrock, Daniel Fisher, Dustin Fix, Erica Foley, Jennifer Fowler, Rashad Franklin, Monica Freeman, Ashton Frierson, Divya Gantla, Alissa Gigler, Clarissa Glassett, Kriti Goel, Michael Goetz.

Lily Gonzalez, Nehal Gosalia, Scott Graczyk, Jacquelyn Graham, Rachel Greenspan, Brittany Gregus, Andrew Gross, Grant Gucinski, Bennett Gulling, Ameera Haamid, Jennifer Haick, Paul Happ III, Meagan Heim, Emily Hendricks, Griffin Henricks, Ryan Herdegen, Coryn Hess, Dana Higgins, Laura Horan, Emily Hynes, Don Idio, Ashley Inches, Aryka Ishmon, Andrew Israelsen, Hariharan Iyer, Michael Jacobs, Bryan James, Nicole Jeewek, Cullen Johnson, Meaghan Johnson, Jill Jozefowicz, Alex Kahler, Nicholas Kasmar, Shivani Katyal, Alan Keefe, Shefali Khanna, Sa Kim, Sung Kim.

Brian Kirchner, Bethany Kirkenir, Daniel Kirschbaum, Darius Kizys, Kirsten Knapton, Sandeep Kola, Kyle Koster, Vasiliy Kosynkin, Karthik Kotha, Michael Kozak, Matthew Krafczyk, Katharine Krause, Uma Krishnan, Kyle Krivacek, Jennifer Lackey, Anne Lacy, David Lakhani, Patricia Lakoma, Sara Laney, Rachael Lastres, Brittany Lawler, Zachary Lawson, Alexander Leasenby, Arnold Lee, Joanna Leggett, Eden Lenk, Kyle Lennox, Jordan Lints, Dominic Loney, Leigh Loosbrock, Lauren Lucas, Micaela Luna, Stephanie Lund, Amy Lustro, Samantha Lyons, Andrew Macdonald, John Mackey, Jayesh Madrecha, Leanne Maksin, Mark Mankivsky, Sarah Mann, Scott Markham, Bojana Martinic, Johnathan Maurer, Laura Maxwell, Arlen Mccann, Catherine Mcgath, Alethea Merelos, Ashley Mills, Rachel Montes, Morgen Moore.

Danielle Moores, Matthew Mores, Michael Morice, Stephanie Murphy, Tracy Murphy, Lauren Musarra, Autumn Myatt, Joshua Myers, Elizabeth Nelson, Catherine Neuman, Amanda Nielsen, Ann Nowak, Philip O’donnell, Caren Oliver, Robert Olson, Samuel Olson, Maggie O’malley, John Ossyra, Timothy Otto, Alan Ouska, Jessica Palmerin, Neil Pandya, Brittany Panicola, Heather Parchman, Lina Park, Raj Patel, Vanessa Pegram, Lenen Pellegrino, Andrea Perez, Anthony Pisciotto, Chelsea Potts, Amanda Regan, Rachel Reitemeier, Adam Richards, Steven Robinson, Mercedes Roca, Madeline Rodriguez, Alexis Royce, Lisa Rudolph, Ashley Rymer, Manu Sabu, Jessica Sappington.

While we’re on the topic of linking to blogs, Kaiju Shakedown, an official blog of Variety magazine (meaning he gets paid for it, I guess), has been one of my favorites lately. I’ve always been a firm believer that close, obsessive scrutiny of a nation’s pop culture can tell one a lot about that nation’s people, so Grady Hendrix’s posts, written with that true Variety-style sarcastic wit, always entertain and inform.

So it was the Shakedown where I learned about Ghibli Studios’ latest feature “Ged War History” (English title is apparently not finalized), directed by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki’s son, Goro:

But father Miyazaki was against it! In an unsuccessful effort to find out why, I translated the first diary entry from Goro’s blog. This first appeared in the comments section of Kaiju Shakedown, but I will reproduce it here:

Introductory remarks—My father was against this

My father, Hayao Miyazaki, was against me directing “Ged War Journal” [tr: my guess at a literal translation of the movie’s title].

This may sound abrupt. However, first, I would like to make this clear.

I don’t normally get into all this blog inter-linking for the sake of linking stuff, but the Asian History Carnival is seriously worth a mention. For those who don’t know, the basic of the blog ‘carnival’ thing is basically just a regular feature, which rotates between different blogs as host, collecting high quality links to blog posts on a certain topic created since the last installment.

The Asian History Carnival was created by the excellent Frog in a Well group history blog (unrelated to this blog), and the second installment was just posted at Muninn.net.
In addition to linking to my post on the ROC English textbook I found, Muninn has collected links to quite a few fascinating pieces on history. I haven’t yet read through more than a couple of them, but I definitely plan to at least skim them all before the set comes along.

None, they have the maintenance staff do it! This has got to be the lamest story ever!

To paraphrase the news stories:

Upper House Lights Undergo Major Cleaning, ‘Illuminating’ Debates Hoped for

The lights illuminating the main floor of Japan’s Upper House of parliament (the “Diet” as it is known), which was the stage of “Koizumi Theater” during which the postal privatization bills were defeated leading to a whirlwind Lower House election, underwent a thorough cleaning on the morning of December 9. Workers lowered the wires suspending the [Victorian-style?] lights, carefully wiped off the glass exteriors, and replaced the light bulbs. The cleaning usually takes place soon after the new year, but was moved ahead in the agenda to coincide with other construction.

After the lights were cleaned, the main floor looked much brighter. One official remarked, “I hope to see some illuminating debates in the regular Diet session next January.”

With this, which requires nothing but a Pringles can, some black cloth, and some other, even cheaper, materials…

You can take photos like this.

Directions are here. Luckily, I already have the excellent (and super super cheap) Canon 50mm 1.8F lense that he uses as a base.