Gaijin in the spotlightNovember 1st, 2007 by Adamu |
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I could have sworn that the “Westerner’s Fear of Neonsigns” blog was written by Marxy on a gaijin-baiting stint, but apparently that’s not the case. Whoever writes it, however, is amazing and I especially love his post “How’s your Japan blog?”
1. Japan is unintentionally hilarious – in particular, misuse of English – or Engrish – is so funny that I devote considerable time to documenting and disseminating it. To avoid a similar fate, I will not be blogging in Japanese.
2. Japan is barbaric – it fails to treat sacred Western food with due decorum (bread in a can) and celebrates Christian festivals all wrong (Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas Eve). Check my blog for further examples.
3. Japan is sexually deviant – society operates in the tacit knowledge that Japanese men are paedophiles by default. Look at all the photographic evidence I have amassed to prove it. They just don’t know how to treat a woman properly. That I do is the underlying message I want you to receive from my blog.
4. Japan is a visual paradise (1) – all Japanese have a heightened visual sensibility; they spend their coffee breaks contemplating tiny design modifications to plastic cups and bathe in the juice of fonts come evening. Not actually living in Japan, I can safely say that they never drive ugly white minivans or fill their tatami rooms with tat.
5. Japan is a visual paradise (2) – the thing I love about Japan is how it allows me to me indulge in the objectification of women without guilt or reproach. The pornography here is just fantastic. Oh, of course, this will be known as The Great Unmentioned in my blog.
6. Japan is spineless and work-addicted – people will do any job rather than lose esteem by not working. Look at this old man waving past cars with a pair of red wands – you wouldn’t catch me stooping to do such a demeaning and unnecessary job. Oh, excuse me, I’m late for my English conversation school class.
7. Japan is childish – public announcements are only heeded when they are delivered by curtseying cartoon characters. To prove it, I will photograph them all. Even though the large incidence of such messages is obvious, I will continue to treat each one as a fantastic novelty.
8. I am childish – only in Japan can I indulge my secret love of toys and games while presenting it as sociological research. I never miss an opportunity to make the sweeping observation that Japan is populated by inadequate geeks. I visit Akihabara every weekend in search of corroborating evidence, but it’s purely research you understand.
9. Japan loves me – it’s always saying how tall I am, how handsome I am, how intelligent I am (admit it, I am pretty hot at producing those L/R sounds), how good I am at sports, how amazing it is that I am a man and yet I cook for myself. Nobody said anything in my home country except: “So, are you finally going to get laid in Japan?” Deeper awareness of Japanese social etiquette would have saved me the trouble of believing any of this.
10. Japan is mine – I am the Alpha Gaijin. If Japan can be said to exist at all, it is only because I have brought it to life with my intellectual efforts. Other foreigners intruding on my turf better be able to withstand the fire of my comments. Japan will thank me for everything I have accomplished once it knows who I am. Until then, I have an immersion experience more impressive than yours to attend to.
I feel like I was the opposite of other Japan bloggers, at least by this person’s definition – I was more into blogging about Japan when I wasn’t here. Now that I live here it is all so uninspiring.
This analysis of Japan blogs is as spot-on as it has been curiously absent in unfiltered form. Still, in defense of Japan blogs I will say that it is often a lot of fun to post and discuss the interesting and weird stuff in a foreign land, whether that’s Japan or elsewhere. It is definitely shrill-sounding when people make their experiences out to be more than they are (god, there are thousands of expats just in Asia, you’re not that special), but really the antidote to Japan blog fatigue is to just tune them out.
The truth is I am sad we weren’t even mentioned (though in a separate post he calls translation one of the “brilliant arts” so maybe I don’t get called on my own cultural imperialism. Or maybe I just didn’t get noticed by not posting when the blog launched…)
Speaking of cautionary tales and immersion experiences, I took no less than 4 friends on a wild goose chase the other day to see what was supposedly an exhibit of Nazified kimonos celebrating the tripartite alliance in the WW2 era. This is all we found next to a display of books on wartime Japan:
Meanwhile, today’s Asahi (I read the print edition now, screw the crap online version!) ran a feature on a sweet sounding historical fiction “Tokyo Year Zero” about a double murder in early postwar Japan. The author, David Peace, grew interested in postwar Japan after teaching English here in the early 90s and reading Seidenstecker’s Tokyo Rising. He later returned to his native England and became an award-winning mystery writer on non-Japan related subject matter. His new book is enjoying a simultaneous bilingual release and a major PR push from the Japanese publisher Bungei Shunju.
Just goes to show, if you’re willing to shed a little baggage and be friendly to the like-minded (most of the research for his new book was apparently provided by the in-house Bungei Shunju translator after the two hit it off during negotiations for translation rights to an earlier Peace book), you too can have success and avoid the stench of “slow-burning underachievement” that apparently afflicts the expat population in Japan.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:41 am
[...] here for [...]
November 1st, 2007 at 7:43 am
That was hilarious
Actually I remember reading “The Westerner’s Fear of the Neonsign” for a while. I must reread it again!
November 1st, 2007 at 9:31 am
I think #10 is supposed to be me, and of course, I am going to be all like, “Yo, that’s not me at all.” But I dunno, I can’t imagine anyone actually believing about their own blog (!) that “If Japan can be said to exist at all, it is only because I have brought it to life with my intellectual efforts.”
November 1st, 2007 at 9:42 am
I am actually writing a post on this right now. Check out CA in a couple of days.
November 1st, 2007 at 10:40 am
Cogito, ergo Japan? Anyway, that’s ten excellent reasons why I have no immediate desire to rush out and start a blog – that, and the Cautionary Tale of Mr B. And the fact that I’d prefer to turn the energy to things that might help my career. So I’ll just stick to the occasional annoying and unhelpful comment for the time being….
Cool yukata.
November 1st, 2007 at 10:45 am
Oh, forgot to mention this: “Now that I live here it is all so uninspiring.” Well, I wouldn’t have said “uninspiring,” myself, but I would say “all so normal.” I mean, what on earth is wrong with corn on pizza? That’s perfectly normal, as far as I am concerned. (Actually I was back home a few years back and we were ordering out for pizza, and since there was no menu to hand I naively asked if they had a curry pizza, to much disbelief and hilarity from the young lady on the other end….)
November 1st, 2007 at 12:35 pm
While #10 may very well be supposed to be Marxy, I don’t think that it really applies.
Why don’t we try to think of a few more general ones?
What about – “Japan is Racist” – Commenting about how racist Japanese are in a way that is so condescending and essentializing that the critique of racism becomes racist itself. Sometimes supported by far out examples and hyperbole – ‘I’ve been spat on in train stations dozens of times.’”
Am I the only one who thought that the original list looks something like the recorded minutes of an eikawa teacher yakitori outing? Its not just blogs….
November 1st, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Why limit it to bloggers and eikaiwa teachers? You can hear comments inspired by the motives in that list in conversations among foreign journalists, academics, businessmen, artists, diplomats and the military in Japan. You might have fantastic Japanese and an Order of the Rising Sun but its still likely that you’ll have been tickled by an odd use of English sometime in your life. And it’s certainly not eikaiwa teachers who “enjoy the visual paradise” by hanging out in hostess bars and running mistresses on the side. Even contributors to the apparently serious NBR Forums can’t resist the occasional “wacky/perverted/incorrigible Japan” type post.
It looks like there are Japan blogs which perhaps started as hobbies or scrapbooks but where the content inceasingly has skewed towards the kinds of posts that bring in visitors and, consequently, money from Google Ads, personals and J-List. That tends to mean they end up virtually interchangeable over time with a heavy reliance on WaiWai and Akihabara news. That might explain why the tone of some blogs seems to fit the stereotypes outlined.
Other problems seem to crop up too. I noted, on another forum, when blogger “Japanmanship” folded his tent. He is a video game developer working in Japan and has written some interesting pieces. This is what he wrote when he decided to give up:
“As I have exhausted all avenues of useful information to write about and have started leaning heavily on critical and often unfair views of Japanese life…I am also fully and hatefully aware that my recent batch of posts have all covered my solipsist and sweepingly negative views of Japan and the Japanese which, though liberating to write and not entirely without merit and truth, is hardly fair to subject a whole nation to. Of course there is a case to be made for lowering the post frequency, but I always thought if something is worth doing it’s worth doing to glorious excess, or not at all.”
He has actually just started blogging again but and here’s the refreshingly honest reason for the resurrection:
“I had no idea I’d so miss satisfying my Thalian muse (or should that be Melpomenean?) on a regular basis that the urge to resurrect Japanmanship would, eventually, be too much to resist.”
One bloke who has been “blogging” longer than most people and who rarely seems to get many mentions these days on other blogs (Mutant Frog is an honourable exception) is “Captain Japan”. His articles are, like the pieces that Marxy and MF mostly put out, all original content. I’ve met him a few times and he is always a bit bemused by how much traffic a site can get by essentially reposting the Mainichi.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:57 pm
“You might have fantastic Japanese and an Order of the Rising Sun but its still likely that you’ll have been tickled by an odd use of English sometime in your life.”
I think that there is a big difference between being entertained by something and deciding to write about it twice daily on a blog.
“Even contributors to the apparently serious NBR Forums can’t resist the occasional “wacky/perverted/incorrigible Japan” type post.”
And they most often get taken to task for it.
Your point about advertisements turning cliches into cash is a very interesting one.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:08 pm
First off, I think the warning that must be taken from the cautionary tale is that blogging about Japan can be counterproductive and distracting to the initial goals of such blogging, namely learning about your adopted (perhaps temporary) home and documenting your memories and thoughts. So in that sense, I am less interested in thinking about the “why do google ads corrupt” side of things as I am by WestNeon’s descriptions of the exhaustingly typical foreigner attitudes/gripes/hypocrisy. In response, I would argue:
“Japan is a learning experience”
For me, living in Japan/learning to translate/dealing with an international marriage has been a constant challenge in which I am a) Always being called on my shit; b) Surrounded by a vast array of new and interesting information at all times; and c) Only sometimes allowed to be lazy. Whatever other complaints or foibles I might have, I am really proud of my experiences regardless of who thinks they are pathetic. Nevertheless, being called on your shit is usually a blessing, so that’s why I like this guy’s writing so much.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:30 pm
I think that “Japan as a learning experience” is where it’s at. Much more interesting to see people using Japan as a means of personal examination or a way to look critically at certain problems common to (say) post-industrial societies. Just by doing this you avoid most of the stuff on the list. But let’s face it, how many blogs and (especially) discussion forums have this kind of insight on offer?
Of course there are different reasons for blogging and if someone wants to share personal Japan feelings with their family, etc. that’s a legitimate forum for airing lazy, derivative points of view like the ones on the list. A lot of these “private” blogs are wannabe high traffic sites, however, so they open themselves up to being @#$%listed.
November 1st, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Speaking of money and motives for blogs, “Japan Sugoi” has been going for one year now. This from the most recent post:
“Considering we get between 5,500-6,000 unique visitors every day, its not bad for a part time hobby…We’ve had 1,050 pages indexed on google and we appear on the first page of google results for many of our topics. Our readership is predominately male and located in the US, Canada, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia…One thing we know is that Japansugoi.com can be a much better blog than it is now but we don’t have much time to spend on it so we’re interested in partnering with anyone on how to make it better or anyone who is interested in buying or taking over this blog.”
November 1st, 2007 at 10:28 pm
I find reading blogs more interesting than writing them (not that I do). It’s interesting to see what sort of things Westerners are finding blog-worthy (in many cases, the standard of “worthy” is pretty close to “worthless” however).
M-Bone is right about the difference between a private chuckle over “Japlish” and broadcasting it to the world. I have a few gems I have seen – though the Golden Age is over really, I think, certainly for the major players) but I do also like those blogs in the West (usually run by Chinese) who collect uses of bad kanji (esp on tattoos), creating a sort of countermeasure. I also like those blogs that attempt to go past the western-media stereotypes.
I do think that anyone newly-arrived in the country and with little knowledge of it is perhaps doing themselves a disservice by reading too many blogs, or even keeping one. I suspect they just end up reinforcing stereotypes rather than allowing people to absorb the differences.
That last comment, about “buying” a blog, definitely highlights the commercial aspect of lowest-common-denominator crap bringing ad views and stuff.
That said, sometimes you just need to see a stormtrooper dancing in Shibuya….
November 2nd, 2007 at 1:19 am
Please go home!
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:02 am
As someone else hinted, “uninspiring” does not necessarily mean I am not inspired here but at least not to write about stuff I missed about here when I was away… plus commuting in Japan can be pretty depressing and life-sucking.
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:02 am
Dude, if your commute sucks you need to buy a bike already. I just clocked it on mapion, you can get from your place to your sexy skyscraped in 60 minutes by bike—or 80 minutes if you bike like my grandma. I commute by bike almost everyday now that Tokyo has cooled down, and it makes my life so much more pleasant. Seriously!!
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:03 am
A while ago I heard a bloke moaning about a Japanese acquaintance who had praised his chopstick skills. He had only been in Japan around three months which seemed a bit early to get bent out of shape about that kind of comment. It then occurred to me that the poor Japanese guy might well have been the first person ever to say that to him. When I asked him later, he said something to the effect that “everybody knows how patronizing that is”. Perhaps one effect of the explosion of blogs and forums is that people get on their high horse a lot sooner about something they experience because they have read about it online first.
Obviously a lot of the information is helpful and worth sharing. For instance, a girl probably needs to know beforehand that there is a chance someone might try to grope her on a crowded train even if it isn’t likely to happen that often. Perhaps, though, it does affect the way people learn about Japan because it adds a lot more hearsay about the country to your own direct experience. And that hearsay may well determine how you interpret the experience as in the case of the chopstick rageaholic.
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:13 am
very accurate and funny list! but he forgot one kind probably because that’s what his blog is: Japan blogs that are ‘above’ the rest and make fun of english teachers because they’re such an easy target. and nunber 7 and 8 are patricia macias and mathilda alt exactly. yuck. LOL!
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:20 am
[...] all the daily crap, which can be demoralizing and interfere with your passion. Adam from MutantFrog said the other day, “I was more into blogging about Japan when I wasn’t here. Now that I live here it is [...]
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:08 am
7 and 8 are patricia macias and mathilda alt exactly. ugh.LOL!
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:12 pm
[...] adamu wrote an interesting post today on Gaijin in the spotlightHere’s a quick excerptGaijin in the spotlight I could have sworn that the “Westerner’s Fear of Neonsigns” blog was written by Marxy on a gaijin-baiting stint, but apparently that’s not the case. Whoever writes it, however, is amazing and I especially love his post “How’s your Japan blog?” 1. Japan is un… Read the full post from Mutantfrog Travelogue Tags: Culture, Media, Japan, Europe, Ranting, Translations, Personal/Blog News, Japan-US Relations via Blogdigger blog search for japanese cooking. [...]
November 3rd, 2007 at 12:36 am
The above comments are mostly from the expats view points.Here are mine from native view.
Reading J-blogs in the past 12 months and one begins to understand that what most of the expat bloggers want with Japan is not exactly a “multicultural”nation that can stand on it’s feet,but a semi-colonial vacation destination plus some job opportunity,a country that is completely defenseless from extrenal threats or criticisms while destined to do everything it can for outside world.
Needless to say that’s not exactly the way this country is being run,and for that you get all the relentless never ending what’s-wrong-with-Japan-threads and posts.You usually don’t get any counterarguments from ordinary Japanese,and when you do,it’s usually from a troll type whom one can easily dismiss in the discussion or perhaps the presence itself can concrete your argument.
Sigh.
I don’t mind much about “Whacky”Japanese type or “What-am-I-doing-here”type of blogs from some confused 20 somethings living in the foreign land.And I really am not in the mood to snipe at Eikaiwa teachers under current situation,for they deserve to collect as much sympathy they can get right now.But I start to think that the rise of blogging could be widening the perception gap of anything Japanese between the locals and expats.
J-blogs=24hour Roppongi Gaijin pubs, is now my perception.
I’ve wasted huge amount of my own time reading and commenting somebodyelse’s labor of love and I discovered that I talk less with my family and reading less books in my free time.I did enjoyed every moment of my time doing that,ofcourse.
Blog can gets you addicted.It is a good way to be connected with the foreign land without have yourself settled there.But it certainly won’t help you much in dealing with your real life surrounded by real daily things to do,either that is your career or family life or simple commuting.I totally agree with Adamu on that.
November 3rd, 2007 at 3:34 am
I unapologetically take option #5 for a 100 Alex. I dig the women here! You caught me.
Actually for me, blogging in Japan has only been partly about Japan-its given me a dandy viewpoint with which to more objectively view the stupidity that goes on in my home country-which is why only a third of my posts at most are about Japan.
So long as I am in Asia, on the right side of the dateline-I’m happy. And I have not been to Roppongi in over 2 years…..............
Wanchai on the other hand….....
November 3rd, 2007 at 7:14 am
Re: Japan on the net in general. Sometimes you see something that restores your faith. A certain anime news commentary site just ran an article that asserts that there are just not many anime that deal with politics (while in America we have so much quality political media!). I felt like commenting but regular fans were already tearing him a new one, talking about all of the good, critical themes that pop up in anime and manga.
In a way, this is pretty shocking. Regular ol’ anime forum types seem to have a better understanding of the diversity and potential critical edge of Japanese popular culture than do most reporters and a good number of specialists….
Anyway, Ace, why don’t you just limit yourself to one or two civil and interesting blogs (like this one and Neojaponisme)?
November 3rd, 2007 at 8:53 am
“Regular ol’ anime forum types” probably spend more time looking at the sources: content produced by Japanese for consumption by Japanese, and have less interest in “interpreting” it for non-specialist audiences like reporters do.
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:14 am
M-Bone:
Too true.I limit myself commenting on blogs that are written by people who can read Japanese and chose to comment in various political spectram.From Neojaponisme(left),Mutantfrog(liberal),Coming Anarchy(conservative) and Ampontan(right).Not that I agree with everyone,but all of them has variety of view point that do not exist in English language media’s J-coverage and having myself in the verbal rumble there greatly help me learning English more than the civic chit-chat.
As Mulboyne had said in the past thread,someone specialized in one field always have some insight that goes beyond the cultural border.I love J-cinema site,Midnight Eye.Probably the best information source of Japanese film industry in both on and off line and in any languages.I was surprised the variety of people in the industry getting interviewed there and considering the sorry-state of Japanese film criticism,it is shame that they don’t have Japanese version of the site for lots of people don’t know it’s existence in Japan.
For that reason I also read Don Brown ’s Ryuganji and Jason Gray’s J-movie blog everyday.Don is a translator and Jason is Tokyo correspondent of SCREEN magazine.Needless to say they both read and write in Japanese.
I have to agree with that Anime forum on lacking of political satire in J-anime.There are anime that deals with somekind of political message,but not satire as The Simpsons or South Park,No?I mean J-anime had pretty loose restriction on both violence and sex but satire and South Park like name calling is a taboo.Perhaps something to do with DENSTSU?
But that doesn’t explain the fact that we do not have so many good political satire manga on the newspaper and magazine that are critical to the government or big company.
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:48 am
“Regular ol’ anime forum types”
People engaged with Japan from the perspective of a specific interest (anime, Japanese food, finance, religion (why does no one mention religious foreigners?)) are often very reassuringly level-headed and realistic in their views of the country, particularly compared to people who are living in the country teaching English or who are into the “culture.” That was a long sentence, but basically where there aren’t people like reporters or “pundits” (the people who would proclaim “Japan is mine”) to inform people of the stereotypes, the conclusions people are allowed to draw on their own are quite often not that biased (or unnecessarily broad for that matter).
But way more often people from US especially come pre-indoctrinated with the idea that they live in an ideal society the likes of which should be replicated worldwide. It’s an attitude that infects reporting on foreign countries to a ridiculous degree. That’s why NHK documentaries (like the amazing “New Silk Road”) are always so eye-opening. They show how people are actually living in different places throughout the world without the “Is this country worth invading?” sort of bullshit that seems to always be necessary in the US
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:01 am
Ace:
Midnight Eye is an excellent site. However, a better resource off-line would have to be Kinejun’s “best 10” collections. You can read blurbs by a shifting line-up of the top 30-ish Japanese critics on the best 20 or so films to appear each year. Midnight Eye tends to be a bit focused on the Miike/Tsukamoto stream of Japanese cinema (which I love, love, love) but Kinejun can help you to track down the forgotten masterpieces (and overrated piles of crap) from the 30s to present. I also disagree on Japanese film criticism – its mainstream incarnations (TV, weeklies, etc.) have gone downhill but there have been a LOT of good movie books (from guys like Yomota, etc.) lately and when things like Eureka are on, they are really on. I also think that some shows on BS1 have done a good job of presenting director interviews, etc. “Classic” Japanese cinema has definitely gone niche, but the milking of that niche is producing some interesting stuff. There is also something of a renaissance in anime and manga publishing (just look at all of the goodies that have come out about Matsumoto Reiji – critical and interview loaded) lately as well, while in the English-speaking world somebody has apparently decided that half of any director study should be devoted to short blurbs about every character that has appeared in their work….
The anime point was not about a lack of political satire, but a lack of political content of any type. GUNDAM is dismissed (while even the candy colored Seed series sets about outlining the machinations that result in a neo-fascist party / bunch of racist thugs selling a type of populism and taking over the government of the “good guys”) and apparently the vast body of heavily political Japanese pop – Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell (internment of immigrants is not politicized enough, apparently), Howl’s Moving Castle (fierce political statement), Ginga Eiyu Densetsu, Chinmoku no Kantai, etc. are ignored, not to mention the run of titles that are ABOUT politics – everything from Jotei (insightful look at corruption) to Soridaijin Oda Nobunaga – just don’t count.
There are also recent things like “Kencho no Hoshi” and “Odoru Daisosasen” that are completely commercial (and rather lame) in their presentation but use a very clear image of government and bureaucracy as ghoulishly corrupt. Do you really think that there is a lack of popular culture in Japan that hates on the system?
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:08 am
“Is this country worth invading?” sort of bullshit that seems to always be necessary in the US”
You hit the nail on the head right there. What American popular culture needs post 9/11 is what Japanese popular culture has tended to do pretty well – to present other countries as real places where real people live, not just a backdrop for discussion of American world power or a contrast with the “right” style of living that exists in the USA. Of course, this has resulted in an unfortunate tendency in some Japanese works / discussions to define regions based on one or two characteristics (China = flux + people who like money). Even in these cases, however, it can be legit engagement, not just discussing another country’s negative points to distract from American problems (ala Chomsky) or the consideration of another region/culture/people purely through some American angle.
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:57 am
“But way more often people from US especially come pre-indoctrinated with the idea that they live in an ideal society the likes of which should be replicated worldwide.”
Sad, but often too true. Sometimes the speaker will say “yes, I know we have problems (the homeless, medicare, etc)” but it’s not really these obvious problems, but the sheer lack of acknowledgement that there might be another way to do things (and they might actually be just as good, if not better) seems lacking.
Japan is not ideal in its presentation of other cultures (some shows are truly cringe-worthy – like when they bring PNG hill tribesmen to Japan) but many are very good. Unfortunately I cannot really compare them with American ones, not being in America. That ‘ururun’ show or whatever it’s called tends to humanize other cultures, though to rather more sentimentality than I like, and even the long-running Shaso no Mado kara is good in its uncritical presentation of global railways.
Hmmm. I’m not sure that I have a “specific interest” like manga or anime or finance (yawn) or food (unless I’m eating it). Certainly not religion. If it was to be anything, I suppose it would be history, but I’m not sure if that’s sufficiently narrow and not cultural enough. I certainly try not to be a culture vulture. But I like to think I’m a bit more level-headed than an ex-NOVA drone or people who get excited over the ten millionth bit of wacky English. I put it down to not being part of the gaijin community, and thus not exposed to everyone’s biases and fetishes, but it may not be that simple. That’s why I think blogging can reinforce these stereotypes and provide outlets for ignorance that weren’t there when I first came (the ignorance was there, it just wasn’t as public).
“why does no one mention religious foreigners?”
Because they’re seriously nuts.
November 3rd, 2007 at 12:15 pm
“Is this country worth invading?” sort of bullshit that seems to always be necessary in the US”
Well that’s not the impression I get from watching PBS/WGBH docs on MiddleEast.And I do see lots of 70’s style political films coming out from both in and out of Hollywood.
Anyway for NHK programs,I recommend you to see NHK SPECIAL 激流中国 series more than “New Silk Road”.
“KineJun and decline of the Japanese film criticism”:
As a guy who start watching films in the heyday of “LUMIERE”magazines/Hasumi Shigehiko, Kinema Junpo is the equivalent of LDP in cinema criticism.
One thing I adore about Korea is they have more variety of film magazine there like KINO,Cine 21 and FILM 2.0.I even think Chosun Ilbo has better film section than Asahi.
Midnight Eye has been focusing Miike becuase one of the founder,Tom Mes,had written a book on Miike(of whom not exactly my cup of tea).I regard them higher than Kinejun for two reason.1)They are independent(and Kinejun is all tied up with the industry)2)It’s free and the contributors are all volunteer(Kinejun is not even though they are full of advertisement and promotional articles of those brain damaging block busters from Fuji TV)
“Do you really think that there is a lack of popular culture in Japan that hates on the system?”
In a way,yeah.The only equivalent of South Park/The Simpsons kind of social irony and stick-to-the-man-attitude is Kobayashi Yoshinori before his mind got warped out to outer space in the mid 90’s.
The only funny satire mangas are coming from Ishii Hisaichi and Saibara Rieko.
BTW,check out this month’s Japan Foundation’s monthly “をちこち”magazine.It’s speical issue on manga spreading in the world and there is a interview of Taro”Rosen”Aso by critic Kure Tomohisa.
November 3rd, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Mark D. West in his book last year, “Secrets, Sex and Spectacle”, puts forward the idea that the lack of satirical content in the media is partly down to Japan’s privacy and defamation laws. He suggests that although damages awards are not especially high, Japan often does not allow a “truth defence” for defamation and permits public persons a lot more leeway than, say, America. He recalls Shinzo Abe’s threat to bring a defamation suit against “Mad Amano” in 2004 for mildly parodying the LDP’s campaign slogan. A 1987 Supreme Court ruling protects political criticism but West wonders whether such a hassle around a minor incident deters more serious satire.
“In place of parody, then, the Japanese mainstream media is often characterized by warnings and self-censorship. Before virtually every fictional television show appears a traditional warning that “this is a work of fiction, and is unrelated to any person, group, or incident,” the talismanic mantra to ward off evil lawsuits. There are no based-on-a-true-story, ripped-from-today’s-headlines movies of the week; those would surely prompt lawsuits by peripheral players. When celebrities speak negatively about absent celebrities on Japanese variety and talk shows, the names of those they badmouth are often bleeped out. Group pictures in which the eyes of most or all of the participants are obscured by black bars of newsprint are common”.
Like his first book, “Law in Everyday Japan”, West covers territory that the overseas press rarely deals with. Most readers of this blog would probably fin dhis work interesting without necessarily agreeing with his conclusions.
November 3rd, 2007 at 12:44 pm
I think that Kinejun has been better historically than it is now. They have, in the past, drawn attention to a variety of anti-establishment films like Nobi, Kiku to Isamu, etc. and they pretty much allowed mavericks like Imamura and Oshima to plant their flags because of critical success. The “Best 10” system also drew attention to odd-ball but great films like “Joshu Sasori” back in the early 1980s. The fruits of this long period of “good” criticism are collected in their “best 10” collections and I think that they represent a nice resource. Midnight Eye is great and all, but they don’t do enough to link up the Japanese cinema mainstream – ie. things like “Always”, with Miike and the others leaving a fundamental gap in context.
Satire may be lacking in Japan, but plain old political bashing is alive and well. Abe was absolutely raped on TV and in the press. I can remember seeing a slew of funny impersonations of him on TV.
Mulboyne makes a good point – it is mainly those “fictional” works that have the hard hitting political stuff on TV and in film in Japan. I think that mentioning The Simpsons and South Park is setting the bar pretty high. They are arguably the most notable satires in the past 30 years in the USA and its not like other countries have been successful in producing anything like them. There is also a LOT of material in the Simpsons (especially after season 6) that is supportive of American BS, I think. How else could you explain some of their worst excesses – the Australia and Japan episodes – that seem to revel in ugly cliches rather than tearing them down? The Simpsons is also occasionally very dismissive of Canada, England, France, etc. with little irony evident (unlike the absolutely brilliant treatment of Canada in South Park, for example).
Also, if we are thinking anti-establishment, we should also consider Japanese period films. The overwhelming bulk of depiction of pre-war and wartime Japan centers on the oppressive state. Can anyone think of an Edo period film without corrupt magistrates? In contrast, the bulk of American period representation has the “civilizer” (ie. order / society) pitted against degenerates or glorifies American militarism. Lots of great exceptions to this but the good “order” in American films is still very important and has produced some vomit inducing flicks (“The Patriot”).
November 4th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
I really,really have a lot say on this topic.But now I’m busy for the moment.
Ozawa Ichiro had announced resignation from DPJ leader.WTF.
November 4th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
“Ozawa Ichiro had announced resignation from DPJ leader.WTF.”
Historically, Japanese opposition parties have done everything in their power to screw the pooch just when it looks like they are ready to mount a serious threat to the LDP.
November 4th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
This is going to be one serious blow to the nation.First Abe and now Ozawa.
I just don’t think this would simply end as a gain for LDP.
Japan is now in a serious mess.
November 4th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
No wonder they’re so good at screwing the pooch – they’ve had half a century of practice at this, after all….
I don’t watch it much these days, and it’s not overtly political, but Crayon Shin-chan loved to skewer the pretensions of middle-class Japan. I can’t think of any others on TV, but, like the US, I’d look to animation to find the satire, where it seems freer than live-action by dint of being more ‘unreal’. Personally I’d love to see something like “Spitting Image” in Japan….
November 4th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Come to think of it, the poking fun at society, adult authority and the nostalgia boom that goes on in the “Otona Teikoku no Gyakushu” Shin-chan movie makes up what is probably as smart a form of satire as anything that has appeared in The Simpsons. Good call.
November 4th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
I too have way more to say but not enough time to say it (and give my thoughts some organization for that matter). I just want to say that this whole idea that Japan blogging is like the online equivalent of clubbing in Roppongi is of course partially accurate (I guess – I’ve never been clubbing in Roppongi) but it seems like an almost natural reaction to the thick language and cultural barrier.
Even when Japanese people are fluent in English, they are often nowhere near culturally fluent enough to really engage with Westerners on their own terms. So the Westerner in Japan has a few choices: get really good at Japanese, listen really closely to the English that you can hear from Japanese, or (the easiest) just talk with the people who are easy to talk to and write about what you can observe without the aid of the Japanese perspective.
Anyone remember the “Gaijin Hanzai File” affair? Could there be any better example of how little in common the Westerners here have with the Japanese? The book sparked protests and ended up being taken off the shelves with what appeared to be next to no sympathy or input from the Japanese side whatsoever. It was entirely a tempest in a teapot and ended in a self-satisfying victory for people who endured no harm by it at all.
And while it’s got to be infuriating to see a group of Westerners hem and haw at Japan as if it’s a big intellectual exercise or plaything, what prospect is there to really improve things? The people who tend to go native really lose much desire to share whatever enlightenment comes from that and a lot of them become really jaded anyway.
To tie this in with Ozawa’s resignation, he spent the last third of his statement yesterday excoriating the media for hinting that the grand coalition was his idea (which apparently helped seal his fate). His harshest criticism was that the cozy relationship between power and the media remains unchanged from the pre-war era when the newspapers fanned the flames of a war that led to the near total destruction of the country.
Regardless of whether that’s true (though I think it is), to turn the issue around, are the Westerners’ mindsets all that different from 60 years ago? It still seems so easy for people to dismiss Japan as a primitive country without a sophisticated understanding of human rights or democracy or what have you. The terms of the argument have changed (we’ve gone from “is Japan civilzed” to is Japan a democracy, do they treat women equally, or some other indicator of the fatalistic “development” agenda) but it remains basically the same.
And while it seems really harmless for the people-once-generalized-as-NOVA-teachers to rant on and on about what a mess Japan is, these arguments aren’t limited to Japan. Now that the movement to invade Iran has gained steam, we’ve seen more articles about women’s rights and even gay rights in Iran, which would normally be none of our business exactly but now are used as a serious justification for war.
While it’s been hard to write about the same things I used to since coming here, it’s not just because of a lack of inspiration, it’s also because I am overwhelmed by the reality of being here in this vibrant active society that refuses to neatly conform to any argument I want to make. I took a walk through Yoyogi Park for the first time this past Saturday and had my mind completely blown by the gang of white-black-Japanese skateboarders leering at me, the insanely professional double dutch team and hackey sackers, the dozen or so White man-Asian woman couples picnicking, the massive “dog run” surprisingly populated by a lot of upper middle age men with pomeranians mixed in with the usual slightly younger women, the professional juggler practicing on the green who wouldn’t let my friend take his picture (it would violate his constitutionally protected image rights). In this sense I completely understand (and indulge in) the temptation to make sweeping generalizations and compartmentalize in reference to the society I know better. I mean, you have to step back and get on with your life at some point.
November 4th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
I’m off the shift,so I type.It seems the DPJ leadership want Ozawa to stay while the great divorcer himself insist on quiting.
United you stand,divided you fall.
Anyway,what Ozawa had intentioned is probably by sharing power with LDP and by doing so,he can always threat Fukuda by mentioning the dissolve of coalition and win compromise.He could also find some ally with in LDP and cultivate some influence,at the same time marginalize the do-nothing ex-socialists in DPJ,the soon-to-be-coming election may give him some more bonus seats that would strengthen him even more power,and you have 1993 all over again.Not bad.But then again it is all dream now.
The resignation of Abe and Ozawa means one thing.It’s the damn constitution that stands your way when this country’s democracy try to become the true two party democracy.Anybody trying to cut the Gordian knot,you get crucified by everyone.The oppositions,Asahi,Korea,China,FCCJ and Gaijin bloggers will call you a militarist and you career goes to the toilet.
“Spitting Image”like show existed in the Fuji’s golden time variety show “とんねるずのみなさんのおかげです”about a decade ago.I remember seeing sinister looking Ozawa puppet and Kinashi Noritake doing some comic.
But the problem is these political satire doesn’t work effective when the average prime ministership is about 18 months and their political power is so limited to face the problem both in and out of the country,naturally people worry more about the political impotent of the high figures than the possible domination.
I was once talking with ex-Moscow correspondent about the decline of the Russian anectode after the collapse of the Soviet Union.In his thesis,the anectode thrives in the reign of the strongsman.At that moment of the conversation it was the last days of Boris Yeltzin and I’d imagine the situation is slightly different in Russia,but that backs up my argument a bit.
Going all the way back to the topic of this thread,why foreign journalists, academics, businessmen, artists, diplomats and the military in Japan tends to have sharper criticism on the country than locals.I think it goes down to the simple fact.
Japan is not their country.
My thought was strengthened after reading FCCJ’s internal paper written by David Mcneil.
http://www.fccj.or.jp/~fccjyod2/node/2758
I know these guys want to play the games in the line of “true jouranlist from the west”VS “lapdog J-media”.But if we cover the story in same manner,we would simply be labeled as doing “bad reporting”from the readers.Afterall our target audience is our own countryman while these correspondents rarely faces criticism from their readership for their inflammatory Japan report which is in high demand overseas.
I understand few news desks in editorial room of their home office are interested in latest news from Tokyo nowadays.The eye of the world is more focused to the Middle East or China and the Tokyo correspondents are in need of writing sexed up version of the events to compete them.
Forums like NBR are occuppyed by disgruntled academics who chose wrong career move by getting a job in Japanese institutions,standard of the “debate”there is unbelievably low for supposed to be”academics”.No wonder you have more Australians ranting there than supposed to be the dialogue partner,the Japanese.
Gaijin bloggers usually just pick up news from English sources coming from people as such.They are indeed much more easily accessible on internet and if you have no literacy of how credible they are who can blame that.
November 5th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Adamu – just a quick question: how do you define “harm” as in “people who endured no harm by it at all”?
I was taken clubbing in Roppongi once (by a Japanese friend) and did not enjoy the experience at all. So I hope that blogs are not like that. At least not the ones I frequent. Anyway, the problem with blogs is that 90% of everything is crud, and in the days before self-publishing on the internet, most of that tide of crud was stopped at the gates. But now it is free to wash over everything…..
November 5th, 2007 at 8:46 am
“While it’s been hard to write about the same things I used to since coming here, it’s not just because of a lack of inspiration, it’s also because I am overwhelmed by the reality of being here in this vibrant active society that refuses to neatly conform to any argument I want to make.”
This is what I love about reading and writing about Japan full time. Gives once a chance to enjoy the diversity No need to try to categorize everything. When I find something that I’m really interested in understanding more deeply, I can build an academic project around it. By definition, those don’t require neat categories and generalizations can get your ass canned by reviewers.
Mutantfrog (the blog and the individual) does a very good job of not trying to pigeonhole things.
Ace makes a very good point re the demands placed on the Japanese media. Look at just about any current issue and the Japanese media is doing a good job of being critical. Just turn, for example, to some of Debito’s recent writing. This is a “full-time human rights activist” and his recent stuff has been made up largely of quotes from the major Japanese dailies (who are doing a better job than he is of contextualizing problems). What is missing is not a critical edge, it is the irresponsible scare rhetoric that crawls into the pages of some of the major dailies outside of Japan. Is there anyone who seriously thinks that something like unsafe nuke plants, food labeling problems, Hashimoto’s dentist bribery thing, etc. was dealt with better outside of Japan than in?
November 5th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Aceface wrote: “Gaijin bloggers usually just pick up news from English sources coming from people as such.”
That’s not too different from the working practices of some foreign correspondents in Japan. In fact, if you read Richard Lloyd Parry’s “Asia Exile” online then you’ll be reminded of a typical gaijin blogger in his efforts to work out whether Fukuda reminds him more of Homer Simpson or British comedian Eric Morecambe.
A lot of the problems with foreign journalism about Japan really started after the bursting of the bubble. There’s sometimes a tendency to believe that overseas understanding of Japan has deepened over time; that foreigner’s language skills have got better so, inevitably, Japan is less of a mystery. That’s really not the way to look at it. By comparison, I would argue that overseas media coverage of America is at something of a lowpoint these days. There is very little nuance in the descriptions of the country and its people these days and that has little to do with the numbers of foreigners living in the US or the standard of English comprehension.
Instead, It is better to look at overseas journalism going in cycles which reflect trends in the wider world, the changing demands of the domestic audience and the changing circumstances of the media itself. Moreover, the object of analysis is itself a moving target so the challenges of understanding a nation will be different over time.
Back to Japan, foreign media outlets reduced their staff quite sharply in the years following the end of the bubble. The Tokyo office, if it wasn’t closed completely, often ended up reporting to the Asia bureau in HK or Singapore. How was a Japan correspondent to get ahead in a journalism career in that environment?
Some decided to write apocalyptic scenarios with the thesis that the world had never seen a developed society collapse before and you could get a ringside seat in Japan. A lot of today’s negative journalism about the country has its roots here. Annoyingly for this school, Japan just bumbled along without ever bursting into flames and running street battles.
Others tried the “Japan has turned the corner” angle because a relentless diet of gloom soon turns off your editor if nothing really bad is actually happening. Notable examples popped up during the internet boom. Articles celebrating Ripplewood and Nissan or Koizumi’s “reform” agenda are also in this school.
The problem with these two strategies is that they never played out as the commentators and journalists hoped so no-one really was able to make a career on either horse. No such problem with the third way to get your byline in the newspaper: the wacky Japan story. Cue an endless series of articles about perverts, panties, toilets and schoolgirls followed by a wave of anime, manga and cosplay features. These stories are ideal if you are running your Japan coverage from HK since you don’t really need to check if they are true. Those crazy Japanese. Combine the doom stories with wacky Japan and you get the recipe for a Japan blog.
The investment analyst Alexander Kinmont famously wrote a report five years ago entitled “The Irrelevance of Japan”. He later claimed he was talking about the country purely in an investment context although even with that qualifier it was terrible timing. In 2002, however, many journalists knew his pain. With everyone looking at China, rising global asset prices and the threat of terrorism, who cared about Japan? That mood seems to have returned today.
Some of the blame lies with the journalists themselves. Are their editors really turning down proposals for serious investigative pieces? It seems more likely they don’t make them. Have you noticed that most quotes from average Japanese in an overseas news article seem to be from Japanese girls? It’s almost as if the journalist has asked the office secretary to ring one of her friends for a comment. Or asked for a name to add to a pre-prepared comment. There’s not a great sense that these guys are getting out much in the way they primarily react to news which breaks in the Japanese media. I know some of these reporters and they are mostly decent, intelligent people so I don’t know really where things break down.
November 6th, 2007 at 12:24 am
Jade Oc: Anyway, the problem with blogs is that 90% of everything is crud
I think it’s important to step back and repeat this before jumping into some “explanation of the reasons most Japan-focused blogs are annoying.” It’s because most America-focused blogs, music-focused blogs, you-name-it-focused blogs are exactly the same way.
I personally avoid the whole deal by blogging so infrequently nobody knows I have a site.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Me mentioned in 2ch 海外の反日宣伝に英語で対抗するスレ
“日本関連の英語ブログと見ればどこにでもコメント残すAcefaceの英語どうにかならんか。
まず文法どうのより、なんでピリオドの後にスペース空けないの？ｗ
あと、単数形と複数形と動詞の一致をわざとかってぐらい間違える。
オレも間違いはするが、Acefaceのこの二点が気になってどうしようもない。
つか内容もアレなことが多いんで、何とももまぁ、な感じしかしないがｗ ”
Looks like gaijins are not the only ones getting some spot lights in J-blogsphere….
November 9th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Ace, it looks like you are being drafted as a representative of the 2ch collective unconscious and criticized all at the same time….
It’s amazing how people can selectively read your posts and make you into some kind of han-hannichi crusader. You can certainly be critical of Japan (as you were re the lack of developed satire in this thread). Does that mean that you are a han-hannichi-hannichi-nihonjin? 反反日反日日本人You should get that on a t-shirt.
November 9th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Re: the terrible standard of Japan reporting outside of Japan – another Canadian pedophile predator in Asia was unmasked this week. Apparently he was living and working in Japan while “vacationing” in Southeast Asia. The major Canadian dailies, who have no trouble coming up with articles on the rise of Japanese militarism, couldn’t even scare up a “he seemed like such a nice guy” quote from one of his neighbors, JET drinking buddies, etc. They don’t have the Japan infrastructure for anything but ludicrous hyperbole.
November 10th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
@Aceface Here we are talking about the lack of content of the English language J-blogosphere … LOL! Just goes to show the level of nitpicking that goes on in forums/blogs.
Oh, and RE: とんねるずのみなさんのおかげです
MMMmmmm… Watanabe Marina FTW!
November 11th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Younghusband, was that a jibe at our lack of updates recently? I just took the GRE this past week, and I need to wrap up all my grad school application stuff by the end of the month, so I should be doing more blogging after that. I do have a few neat things to post that I could do without spending much time though.
November 12th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Can I restart what we’ve been posting?I’ve got to show those 2channelers that I’m still a trustworthy representative of their collective unconscious.Please?
“I know some of these reporters and they are mostly decent, intelligent people so I don’t know really where things break down.”
I say blame “the left-wing bias” on English source.
Show you some example here,It’s from JAPAN FOCUS
GM=Gavan McCormack is the professor of The Australian National University,DM=David Mcneil is correspondent for London Independent.Both are coordinator of JF.
(QUOTE BEGINS)
GM: I read last night Kamata Satoshi’s story in the latest Shukan Kin’yobi about a teacher who distributed copies of South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun’s speech from March last year, talking about the Japan-South Korea relationship in a very critical way. She distributed , and she did a few other things as well. She’s just been sacked. First she was sent to a center for discipline, where you’re surrounded by people who shout things at you all day and try to get you to repent. But she didn’t repent. In addition, the mother of one of the students was an American woman, who complained that the education that her daughter was getting was anti-American. So the Sankei shimbun took up the case and attacked her, and she was sacked. She’s now fighting this in the courts.
DM: What was she sacked for?
GM: She lacked “appropriateness as a teacher.” As far as I know, this is the first person to be sacked. Her name is Masuda Yuko. This kenshu [“training”] center she was sent to is a terrifying place. She was asked to do what the Christians were asked to do during the Edo period, fumie, to stamp on a Christian image, as proof of having renounced the religion.
(QUOTE ENDS)
Now reading this would no doubt make you feel that schools of Japan is run by Orwellian style discipline of Monbusho.But JF guys are ignoring lots of things to my right-wingy eyes.
Firstly,this teacher had been cautioned four times by the educational commitee in the past for circulating copies of personal attacks on a member of Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly or attacking a student’s parents whom she thinks a historical revisionist,(with both their names in print) as”study material”in class.
Secondly,”a few other things as well”she did was demanding the whole class to write the letters of apology to President Roh for 36years of Japanese colonialization of Korea and posted them to Seoul.
Now this teacher may have been an avid supporter of the Japan-Korea friendship and has historically conscious mind,questioning her”appropriateness as a teacher” seems reasonable and justifiable measure for any public educational authority to me.
Imagine what would happen in America,a public high school teacher enforcing the whole class to write a letter to Hugo Chavez,apologize for the century old American policy in the south of Rio Grande and embrace the Bolivarian revolution…..
The re-education camp for dissident teacher McCormack was reffering is this.
http://www.kyoiku-kensyu.metro.tokyo.jp/
I don’t see any presense of dungeon nor torture chamber from this website so I must conclude the comparison with Edo-era Christians are rather inappropriate,but then again I could be wrong.
JAPAN FOCUS is increasingly becoming an important(and easily accessible) Japan information resource in English language.Not that is a bad thing in any ways.But I’m concerned that this viepoint and the tone of Japan watching is uncritically shared by the majority of FCCJ,for we see too much of the reflection in their articles.
November 12th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Academics, especially in the humanities, tend to be left-wing (though generally of the left-of-centre rather than foaming-at-the-mouth sort) so basing sources on academic opinions is going to be a little left-wing in general. It’s a self-sorting thing really – right-wingers tend to end up in business, nerds and geeks who become academics are generally empathic with the underdog. While I am not a regular reader, JF seems fairly solidly left-wing on many issues, but I think in this case the obvious thing to do is compare the Shukan Shincho article with how GM is spinning it.
I recall hearing about this writing letters of apology to Korea thing, but I think based on Aceface’s post that the really heinous act was dragging personal information (attacking a student’s parents) into it. That is definitely inappropriate as a teacher.
Not sure what an American equivalent would be, but there was a recent case in which a teacher was sacked (in Arizona I think) for having a Mexican flag in the classroom and not just an American one….
November 12th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
There are more than one school in Osaka and Hyogo having the flags of Republic of Korea and Democratic Peoplr’s Republic pf Korea along with the rising sun in school,saying there are zainichi kids studying in the class. So far I don’t hear anyone is being sacked for that and nobody is asking for it.
Writing letters of reconcilliation with Asian countries are sorta usual practice in many schools in Japan,but usually the counterpart is the school children.Like exchanging letters with Korean/Chinese students and then have get together in their country using the occasion of school trip,etc. Schools do that with their sister cities around the world too.But doing that to the head of state is pretty unusual. Anyway what mattered more is as Jade had pointed,the trouble with the parents and name calling. This teacher had become kinda drama queen in Korea.All the known TV stations had interview of her.
I don’t mind academics being liberal/left-wing.I’ve also been to college and some of my best friend is a university lecturer,so I know what it is.
But when it comes to Japan some of the paper just goes beyond my mind.My recent WTF article was found on”frog in the well”,this paper written by a Chinese guy living in San Jose claiming himself as sorta pro^democracy activist and he is accusing Japanese Communist Party for taking it’s part in remilitalization of Japan! The reason is JCP is claiming Senkaku/Diaoyutai islands as Japanese territory and criticism from the maoist academic of Kyoto University Inoue Kiyoshi who was expelled from JCP for siding CCP in the internal struggle of the party.
For some reasons that is beyond me,the Japanese academics and graduate students who are also in the member of these forums tend to maintain their silence.Perhaps they are in a position like Mongolians in the Chinese communist party or Ukrainian in the Soviet Politoburo,Any counterargument by them can be tranlated as a representation of “nationalism” by the fellow non-Japanese member and always in fear of being finger pointed as “the right wing”.
November 13th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Ace: Part of the “silence” that you describe may be due to the tendency of people who are reasonably familiar with Japan to know that any talk of Japan aggressively rearming and attacking other Asian countries in the near future is pure fantasy. Positions that extreme are difficult / useless to argue against so many people, I’m sure, just don’t bother. Same with assertions that Japan is a totalitarian / fascist state, etc. Most academic types with reasonable opinions / criticisms of Japan will probably bring their stuff to academic journals (where publication has professional advantages) while those with ideas that are a bit out there are more likely to take them to online forums, etc.
Also, I think that Japan’s successes scare some people. Most current China discourse has the criticism built in (ie. economy is booming, but it can’t be mentioned without pollution, forced relocation, human rights, etc.). Japan interpretation tends to be one or the other extreme. The “Japan as Number One” idea may be far, far in the past but the backlash against positive Japan representation still exists. For example, Japan was basically called dirt because of (corruption-related) bad loans, etc. right up to 2002-2003. America is facing a similar crisis at present (risky housing loans and irresponsible government spending threatening to sink the ship), but the analysis (from nearly all corners) seem to have relatively little to say about widespread arrogance, lack of foresight, structural problems, and yes, endemic corruption. Many sources are going with a “couldn’t be helped” type of filler interpretation that stops people from asking the big questions. I can’t help but think that there are many out there who wanted (want) to see Japan fall because of what is perceived as 1980s hubris and have applied extreme interpretations that would not be considered acceptable elsewhere.
November 13th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
“I can’t help but think that there are many out there who wanted (want) to see Japan fall because of what is perceived as 1980s hubris and have applied extreme interpretations that would not be considered acceptable elsewhere.”
Definitely. Having been in Japan during the so-called “collapse,” I know that while not without its victims, that the idea that Japan was actually collapsing was just laughable. I kept thinking of an Asimov quote: speaking of the declining Galactic Empire, that “...weakened and decaying though it is, is still incomparably mighty.” Backlash against the sort of Japan portrayed in “Rising Sun,” I do indeed think. (Try the novel: at least you don’t have to put up with Sean Connery trying to speak Japanese: wtf is a betty-koo? {別宅} Ain’t that right, kouhai? It makes me very very o-ko-TA!) And of course the same goes for any potential rearming, though given what happened last time Japan went overtly nationalistic, I can see their point to an extent (and one shared by many Japanese, both academic and not), that anything that suggests a re-emergence is to be watched very carefully indeed. Even if I don’t agree with such a cautious stance myself (give back the Northern Territories! [Come on, like Russia needs the extra space….]).
Ace – I did a search at Frog in the Well for both Senkaku and Diaoyutai and came up with nothing. Do you have a link/title?
November 13th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
http://chinajapan.org/articles/12.1/12.1jingzhao25-32.pdf
November 13th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
M-Bone wrote “...the analysis (from nearly all corners) seem to have relatively little to say about widespread arrogance, lack of foresight, structural problems, and yes, endemic corruption. Many sources are going with a “couldn’t be helped” type of filler interpretation that stops people from asking the big questions.”
I think you are in danger of caricaturing the overseas press in the same way as we believe they tend to caricature Japan when you write that. For my own part, I’ve found plenty of intelligent analyses of America’s actions and problems from many different perspectives.
I don’t think Japan’s successes scare anyone anymore – there would have been heart attacks if Japan had been talking about increasing the reach of “soft power” during the bubble – but you are right that there were many who feared the rise of Japan. Funnily enough, those people don’t spend too much time gloating or belittling Japan because they seem to have moved on to the next bogeyman. Instead, there are quite a few commentators who see the bursting of the bubble as a personal betrayal and have spent the years since raging against the perceived faults of Japan like a cuckolded husband criticizing his wife. It might be unfair to single anyone out but Jean-Pierre Lehmann’s name immediately springs to mind.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
I’ve found AP, the NYT, Washington Post, US Today, and a few others to have been soft on the corruption / structural problems behind the bad credit problem facing the USA at present. I’m not a religious reader of any of them so I may have missed something. There has been lots of good stuff on Iraq (much from sources out of the mainstream like “The New Yorker”), but about the debt issue? I was very specific about using the debt issue as an example in my earlier comments. I was not talking about anything else.
A Japan+bad debt+corruption google search reveals a slew of major articles on the issue. A United States+bad debt+corruption google search didn’t show me anything of interest. In fact, the “Yakuza Recession” thing comes up first on the Japan search and SIXTH on the USA search. A United States+debt crisis search comes up with a host of things about Latin America, student debt, etc. A Japan+debt crisis google search gives us “Japan’s debt crisis hangs over global economy”, “Yakuza a source prolonging Japan’s debt crisis”, “Asia Times: Japan locks into vicious debt spiral” and so on.
There is a lot of good US stuff coming from alternative press sources like this –
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=13662
but try
New York Times + American debt crisis
Washington Post + American debt crisis
etc.
There are JAPAN articles coming up near the top of these searches. If the big US outlets are on the ball, they have been doing a very good job of hiding it. Contrast this with the smug proclamations of Japan’s fundamental corruption and structural backwardness when its debt crisis exploded. All I’ve seen for the US situation are pedestrian articles like this one
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/business/10markets.html
By “fear of Japan”, I don’t necessarily mean fear of Japan taking over or becoming a boogeyman, etc. I feel that there is a fear that some things in Japan are done fundamentally better than they are in the United States or other Western democracies so there is a hesitance to compare. For example, there is a real hesitance to have a “wouldn’t it be great if everyone had an Article 9” debate (or at least how we can come close to the ideal that Article 9 represents) or even a “cut back military spending to 1% of GDP” debate (far more realistic than my earlier utopian suggestion). Instead we get “abnormal Japan” debates.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Ace – thanks for the link. I am familiar with Jing Zhao’s work and stance from other things he has written, so I can pretty much guess the contents here….
yep – the footnote to the title, even before the introduction, reads “Until the early 1970s, the English name of the JCP was CPJ (Communist Party of Japan). This change of name, emphasizing Japan, marked a further nationalistic characteristic of the JCP.” It does? And are you going to show us this? And this note: “However, the word kokumin, widely used during the war, excluded non-Japanese citizens as well as those Japanese who refused to bend to the Emperor system.” WTF? Widely used during the war? I can think of a few others that were as well. “Gohan”. “Chizu”. “Ohayo gozaimasu”. And Zhao isn’t talking about the war period or 非国民 at all, but about the JCP referencing “citizens” in its current rhetoric. So why drag in a war tangent if not to make the word seem more sinister than it is (especially the idea that those current Japanese who opposes the Emperor System are not “kokumin”)?
And while by no means an expert on US issues, I thought that the Enron case was all about what M-Bone is talking about – that is, it was reported as such.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
The Enron case (a massive fraud, criminal case) was not an economy-wide problem like Japan’s was and the new US one seems to be. The corruption I refer to when discussing the recent US debt case is (most likely) not criminal / prosecutable (like most of Japan’s bad loans were also not due to criminal / prosecutable dealings).
November 14th, 2007 at 5:22 am
M-Bone, your search terms might be letting you down. Try “sub prime” instead of “debt”. That’s currently the most common label. Even then, you’ll have to know what to look for because Google rankings are fairly indiscriminate at this early stage. It isn’t a debt crisis yet because the loans that have gone sour are not threatening the solvency of any institutions who extended them. Instead, they have caused losses for those who traded them in the secondary market. Indeed, the whole point about sub prime loans is that a higher proportion ar eexpected to go delinquent compared with better credits.
There were warnings about the dangers of sub prime loans for some time before the crisis broke. There’s always somebody but, inevitably, they don’t get as much media play as the cheerleaders. I particularly recall an FT commentary on Merrill Lynch pointing out that their late entry to the market meant they were taking on more risk than established competitors and, indeed, their losses have all claimed the handsomely compensated head of their CEO.
Almost as soon as the first wave hit, there was a lot of coverage of the culpability of the ratings agencies. They may yet be a target for lawsuits just as the accountants were during Enron and Worldcom. Corruption claims are usually the first to be made when things go pear-shaped in financial markets and there will undoubtedly be more of them as the scale of the disruption becomes apparent.The regulators are also coming under fire in a number of countries for failing to differentiate between institutional risk and systemic risk.
Because this story is still unfolding, it is a bit early for the sweeping “Yakuza Economy” type coverage. Five years after the bubble burst, there weren’t even many people in finance who knew what had happened at the housing loan companies so the corruption stories that did appear initially were very light on detail and still looked back to the tobashi and Recruit scandals. The news cycle is faster in the US but it isn’t clear yet how this will play out.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
“your search terms might be letting you down. Try “sub prime” instead of “debt”. That’s currently the most common label.”
For starters, do you see any problems with the use of the slap in the face rhetoric “debt crisis” or “bad debt” for Japan and the r