1993 article on Gregory Clark, “embittered expatriate”February 3rd, 2009 by Adamu |
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Amazing read (thanks to Debito for the link!)
Gregory Clark beams: “Just pulled in a biggie!” he tells me as he puts down the phone. We are at Tokyo Airport about to jump on a plane for Osaka where Clark is giving a lecture to a group of Japanese executives. The “biggie” is an invitation to give another talk–to one of Japan’s big business bodies. It’s nice to see him smiling, because he can be fearsome when he’s not.Once, in the middle of a cordial argument while having a drink, I suggested he stop complaining about one of the many decades-old issues that still obsess him. That evening, it was the way he was run out of the Australian Foreign Affairs department for opposing the Vietnam war. It was as though someone had just shot puce-colored dye into his veins. His neck bulged, and he slammed the table. But a few mintues later, he was his charming self. Clark can be like that–especially when you get him on the subject of Australia.
Ex-Canberra bureaucrat, ex-journalist and ex-diplomat, Clark, 57, has lived in Japan in a sort of self-imposed exile from Australia since the late seventies. He teaches advanced Japanese to foreigners at a university in Tokyo, which is nice because it allows him to put the title of Professor in front of his name. It helps that he speaks advanced Japanese, too. He writes for up-scale newspapers and magazines in Japan and around the world, including an occasional column for The Australian; is setting up a management centre on 12 hectares of land he owns on the edge of Tokyo; and, a few times a week, gives lectures telling the Japanese in their own language about their unique “tribal” or “village-like” culture, at anything from $2500 to $6500 a time.
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“I just think it’s a tragedy–it’s a tragedy for me, and a tragedy for Australia,” he says. “Even allowing for the vast amounts of [his own] ego, it’s just absurd that an Australian, who has made it in Japan, and who sits on Government committees, and who would be known by every second person, gets ignored. It’s just totally ratshit.”
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Clark’s relationship with the Foreign Affairs establishment was soured even further by an episode that occurred when he launched his book about Japan’s “tribal” society in the late seventies. As an example of Japan’s “tribalism” and “groupism”, he recounted how Japanese journalists based in Australia had collectively ignored a report published in local newspapers in the mid-seventies about how our intelligence agencies were eavesdropping on Japanese diplomatic traffic out of Canberra.“By the way,” Clark recalls telling a Newsweek reporter in Tokyo when he was promoting the book, “you might want to look at the bottom of page 138″ –where the incident was briefly mentioned. The result was a large story in the international news magazine, with a headline about an “ex-diplomat” revealing that Australia spied on its largest trading partner. Canberra was not amused, and Clark was put on the Australian Embassy’s black list in Tokyo.
“It was humiliating and degrading to have these ASIO types sitting in the embassy–these are uneducated people who don’t speak Japanese–deciding that I was a threat to Australian security,” he says. A former intelligence officer who served in the embassy in Japan confirmed that Clark had been put on a loose sort of “black list” restricting formal contacts because, the officer says, “of the narrowmindedness and sheer bastardry of senior officers in Canberra.”
This is REALLY juicy. Please do yourself a favor and read the whole thing if you haven’t before!
I’d be welcome to hear contrasting views of the man, but right now I am having fun imagining someone capable of producing “utter disgust” in his professors, who proudly boasts to a journalist of “screwing” the companies who pay him to give presentations, and flies off the handle at the mere mention of his home country.
Today Clark appears to have settled into comfort at Akita International University, taking a leadership position there, and otherwise completely stagnating with his schtick about Japanese uniqueness. Unenviable to say the least.
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:38 am
Frankly, dredging up a 13 year-old article says more about Debito than Clark, imo.
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:45 am
I really don’t care about their personal squabble. This article was just a great read. BTW its 16 years, written when I was 11.
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:25 am
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,28632.0.html
Nothing really comfortable about AIU for Clark.
I don’t use the word skull#^@% lightly, but that’s what it has been for his reputation.
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:53 am
I was about to post that link. The JA-Wikipedia page for AIC is mostly generic PR stuff, including some bragging about their 24 hour library, which makes this comment from the talk page kind of amusing:
“図書館で勉強してる生徒は全然いません。かなりの生徒が遅くまで勉強してるというのは違う気がします”
There is also, in good Wiki tradition (including lack of source) an entry claiming that in 2007 a bunch of faculty (mostly foreign but 2 Japanese) didn’t have their 3-year contracts renewed, through their union they demanded 5 million yen each in compensation, the demands were rejected, and are now applying for mediation.
I’d like to see some report on this school in Japanese.
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:03 am
“I’d like to see some report on this school in Japanese.”
There seems to have been a lot of criticism in the Akita press.
While I agree that Clark’s day is done, Debito’s statement that the future belongs to “us” (the eikaiwa teachers who visit his site?) is a little silly.
The Japan Times article that started all of this was dumb, but no worse than Debito’s “n-word” stuff. And… at least Clark demonstrates that he reads lots of Japanese materials in his NBR posts so he’s actually in on some debates instead of yelling at a wall.
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:28 am
I’m not sure you can really say that ONE article by Clark started it. He’s been writing insane columns for years, and Debito’s probably been counter-arguing the whole time.
“Debito’s statement that the future belongs to “us” (the eikaiwa teachers who visit his site?) is a little silly.”
I guess Debito means “immigrants” in general. For all his activism, I’d like to see some evidence that he is working with, or at least trying to work with with, immigrant and minority groups in Japan that really matter long term, unlike eikaiwa teachers. (I mean as a group, of course a few eikaiwa teachers will stay and do important stuff.)
Have you ever actually read much Akita press?
February 3rd, 2009 at 6:18 am
Akita International—partnered with a “domestic” student exchange program with Ritsumeikan University.
February 3rd, 2009 at 6:25 am
Very amusing article, but I do have to agree that it is quite sad for Debito to dig this up and post it on his blog.
It reminds me of the petty attacks posts Debito directs at Tony Laszlo (the “Darling wa Gaikokujin” dude).
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:50 am
It’s pretty funny, but anyone who has had read anything that Clark has written recently, particularly his last JT article, knows the score already. Debito may feel its a victory airing the dirty laundry of a grumpy old man though, so more power to him. If the future really belonged to all those guys at NOVA who recently got laid off, maybe he wouldn’t bother.
February 3rd, 2009 at 9:29 am
“and Debito’s probably been counter-arguing the whole time.”
I think that their feud goes back to “Dead Fukuzawas” – do you guys know about that? I think that the archive may still be online. Fascinating bit of history. Someone was actually driven to nervous breakdown by one of their online debates!
“Have you ever actually read much Akita press?”
Just brief snips elsewhere. Not my neck of the woods.
If Debito were going out there and working with Brazilians who lost their jobs or helping to advocate for illegals, I’d have mad respect for the guy. Of course, all of that is being done by hundreds of JAPANESE groups, a point that goes unmentioned on Debito’s site. As far as I can tell, Debito filed a few lawsuits years back (one was entirely personal, 2ch defamation) and now he posts links to info easily available elsewhere and sells t-shirts at speeches largely attended by eikaiwa teachers. It also seems that more and more of the posts on his blog have to do with rivalries (Clark, Laszlo) and how he is being victimized (Google).
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:15 am
Just came back from the government job training course for unemployed Brazilians,I can safely say none of them had ever heard about neither Debito nor Clark.
All I can say about Gregory Clark is he is pretty gentle in person.
The article isn’t very new.Clark has been talking on Canberra spying on J-embassy,and it showed up on J-media only int he 90’s.(Along with New Zealand Intelligence and Canadian intelligence are also reading J-embassy’s confidential cables) There has been a tendency among Japanese medias until mid 80’s,to ignore the activities of foreign intelligence within Japan.Part of the reason was they didn’t want to take part on LDP rightists campaign for legalizing counter intelligence acts.
I have this little memory on Aussie embassy in Mita.
Back in 1993,I was student at university that locates near by and went to the embassy library looking for books on Australian aboriginals.There,I discovered some books and that was 1980 best seller by Kuramae Morimichi titled “Logic of Evil,What is Geopolitics悪の論理・ゲオポリティク（地政学）とは何か”.There is a chapter in this book mentioning why Timor Gap has critical importance in Japanese national security.This episode always appears in flashback whenever I read either Clark or Robyn Lim leave their comments on NBR discussion board…..
I think I’ve posted on AIU about two years ago in discussion with M-bone.but it does have interesting scholar like former U.S State department North Korea specialist Kenneth Quinones and former South China Morning Post’s china page editor Willy Wo-Lap Lam(expelled by the paper’s owner Robert Kwok for his critical analysis on CCP).And ofcourse the guru of China hawk in Japan,Nakajima Mineo中嶋峰雄(one time close buddy of Chalmers Johnson back in the 70’s.)Can’t say AIU is below average in terms of working environment for the foreign lecturers.
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:39 am
“Can’t say AIU is below average in terms of working environment for the foreign lecturers.”
The Chronicle thread has some grim stories of mistreatment. It also has some of the worst BS that I have ever seen on the internet. One poster actually comments that students interested in studying in Japan (who mostly have an interest in studying Japan or East Asia) should avoid Japanese universities like the plague and go to…. Temple’s Japan campus. Yeah, right. Temple Japan better than any Japanese uni? I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. The best research in just about every Japan area is being done at Japanese universities.
Of course, all of the debate over AIU and foreign lecturers SHOULD take place in the context of one of the favorite CHEeducation topics – adjuncts. By some estimates, 1/2 of university faculty in North America are on contracts of less than 3 years. Many are paid by the course. I’ve heard of as little as $1200. There have been a few scandals where parents, paying $35,000 a year tuition at an Ivy, discovered that their kids’ lecturer was on contract and giving exactly the same course at the $1000 a year Community College night school up the road.
Don’t get me wrong, US universities are great, great, great. But one of the reasons why they dominate international rankings like they do is the weight given to student faculty ratios – which can be bought by using lots of overworked, underpaid, couldn’t be arsed to go the extra mile for the students because of their downright abusive working conditions, contract labor. Shocking.
In short, Debito has a “black list” of Japanese universities that offer short term contracts to foreign lecturers with no promise of tenure. If there was a similar blacklist for the United States, every last institution of higher learning would be on it.
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Damned straight. Contract grunts are pretty much everywhere these days, at least for basic undergrad classes. And getting tenure without a PhD is something that just doesn’t happen in English speaking countries any more, unless you are really, really special. In that sense conditions are better in Japan than they are in the U.S. and elsewhere.
February 3rd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Don’t some of the schools on Debito’s blacklist give foreign hires crap contracts, and offer better contracts to the Japanese faculty they hire?
February 3rd, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Yeah, I also thought that was the point of the blacklist—discrimination, not crappy hiring practices in general.
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Yeah. I haven’t checked Debito’s blacklist recently, but at least in principle its for schools that advertise jobs as being for foreigners, as opposed to being for someone of a certain skillset, or hire foreigners and Japanese for the same job, but for different contracts. Keeping track of this information (as long as its reliable and reasonably up to date) is a very good service.
I don’t think that a non Japanese speaking foreigner who is essentially an eikaiwa teacher in a university should really expect anything better than a 3 year contract, but if you have an advanced degree and teach classes that go beyond language training it should definitely be a different story.
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:56 pm
“I think that their feud goes back to “Dead Fukuzawas” – do you guys know about that? ”
I don’t. Got a link?
February 3rd, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Maybe I shouldn’t be quite so voyeuristically eager to pore through archives of past Japan-hand debates, but yes, I too would like to look at the thread that caused a nervous breakdown.
February 3rd, 2009 at 9:58 pm
“Don’t some of the schools on Debito’s blacklist give foreign hires crap contracts, and offer better contracts to the Japanese faculty they hire?’
Well, the major conflicts are over English teaching jobs.
There are two types – short term jobs to fill demand and tenure track positions. Debito chooses to take the very existence of short term jobs as examples of discrimination. They are the norm for Japanese hires and are, as I mentioned above, 50% of American uni jobs. There are tenured foreign English teachers (and those in many other areas) working side by side with people on short term contracts. There is nothing odd about this in the international context apart from the assumption that locals are unsuitable for the jobs. Advertising for foreigners effectively locks out Japanese teachers of English.
Many of the schools on the blacklist have non-Japanese faculty in tenured positions. You can get on the blacklist just for advertising for a 3 year non-tenure position for English teaching, even if you have tenured non-Japanese at your school and even if the ad IS open to Japanese.
Temple University does this on their Japan campus, just like they do it on their US campus for EFL positions. They are not on the list.
One school, for example, was blacklisted for this. It looks no different than ads in any number of other contexts for short term staff –
“Tokyo Denki University in Japan announces three temporary fulltime English instructors’ positions for the next academic year beginning in April 2003. This is one year position and is renewable up to five years. Applicants must have native-like proficiency in English. Applicants must also have strong interests in English education to the Japanese students and in the people, society and culture of the country.
Applicants must have MA in TESL/TEFL, Linguistics, English literature, or related fields. Ph.D. preferred. Applicants with Science or Engineering backgrounds are strongly preferred.
Successful candidates will teach 12 classes (90 minutes) a week and will proofread graduate students’ and faculty’s research papers. Salary will be 4,380,000 yen a year (approximately $36,000 in the U.S.).”
It is absolutely aimed at English native speakers but includes “native-like proficiency”, and I don’t see the discrimination issue or how it is worthy of a blacklisting, based on the widespread adjunctification of university labor in Japan and elsewhere.
Here is another example –
“Qualifications: native speaker of English, M.A. in ESL or Applied Linguistics, teaching experience at the university level, some Japanese language ability preferred. Duties: teach seven 90-minute classes per week, mainly focusing on conversation skills, discussion, and debate; attend meetings and plan/attend annual events. Salary: based on Japanese national university scale; one-year contract renewable up to 5 years; pleasant, non-intrusive working environment.
Application Materials: resume, statement of teaching philosophy, recent photo, copies of publications if available. Interviewing throughout October and November or until position filled.”
I can see a few legit blacklistings (offering clearly different terms to foreign and Japanese hires for the same job), but they are less than 10% of the total.
The “gaikokujin kyouin” system that is complained about is common everywhere – it is native speakers that are hired for language jobs and almost always to do labs on contracts that are often far, far worse than the ones provided in Japan.
Here are sample ads –
“A one-year visiting position at the Assistant Professor level is available beginning in the fall semester of 2009 at St. Lawrence University. Successful and experienced teacher who can work at all levels of an undergraduate language curriculum. Specialization is open, but those with a background in Spanish Peninsular contemporary literature and culture are especially invited to apply. Candidates should have native or near-native command of Spanish, with a completed or nearly complete Ph.D. in Spanish.”
“The Chinese Department at Reed College announces a search for a two-year visiting appointment in Chinese literature to begin fall 2009. This position is open to all fields of Chinese literature. Reed College is a small, highly selective undergraduate institution with an emphasis on excellence in teaching and scholarship. We seek candidates who have a strong commitment to teaching excellence at the undergraduate level. Candidates should be able to teach Chinese language at all levels from beginning to advanced, offer courses in Chinese literature, and advise Chinese major senior theses. Candidates must have native- or near-native fluency in both Chinese and English, and the Ph.D. in Chinese literature or a related field in hand or near completion. Applications must include a letter of application stating teaching and research interests, a vita, and at least 3 letters of recommendation.”
Zero difference with the blacklisted example above, apart from the fact that English fluency is either taken for granted or demanded while Japanese fluency is not, and this is now by far the most widespread type of academic job offer in circulation. These ads are heartbreaking as they are basically telling young academics that they are not wanted for long periods.
Debito has, dishonestly I think, made people think that the blacklist is for ads that offer one sort of job to a foreigner and another for Japanese. It is not. Foreigners are free to apply for Japanese job ads for tenure track positions when they appear be they in classical Japanese, Japanese history, physics, etc. I personally know TEN tenured foreigners at one of the blacklisted universities who won their jobs in non-language areas in competition with Japanese. In contrast, there are lots of other places where the hiring of locals is encouraged. In Canada, every single university job ad is required by law to have “All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada will be given priority.” Japanese universities do not have this barrier.
When foreigners in Japan are not given a fair shake for full-time positions as they become available, the unis involved deserve to be on a blacklist. This list, however, should not be watered down by what is now the areas most common hiring practice.
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:07 pm
“Maybe I shouldn’t be quite so voyeuristically eager to pore through archives of past Japan-hand debates”
The Dead Fukuzawa society is where it all began. It is the start of Japan debate on the English-speaking web and is the best historical source for this. You get to see the whole wacky cast of characters. You get to see, basically in real time how Debito decided to become an activist and the roots of his feuds with Tony and Greg.
I was not in on any of this. Way before my time. I read parts of the archives WAY later.
I now cannot find the archive. Perhaps it has vanished.
There are some highlights still out there in cyberspace.
“You are an utter asshole Mr. Aldwinckle, an utter asshole. Your wife must truly be a fool, or must be just as assanine as you. I pity your children and the community in which you live. Blah, blah, blah…. Am I upset, not in the least. The shit I have written above, is the kind of thing you can find in any gutter in the street. You are a coward Aldwinckle, because you only appear after I have sworn reprieve. Look in the mirror Aldwinckle, and give us all a big break!———”
That Debito always was a divisive character.
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:13 pm
OMG, more! We want more!
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:30 pm
I had a great day or two reading the Dead Fukuzawas list a few years ago. I’m actually sad that it has vanished. Just the kind of thing that I’d like to write an article about.
The nervous breakdown went something like this – a guy going through his fear and loathing Japanese are so racist I can’t stand them watching me on the train I hate my job my Japanese GF is a B*&# phase started to claim that the police were after him, he was being followed by yakuza, things like that. He had made a LOT of the types of comments that usually get me fired up – Japanese are all clones, etc. and some people on the list REALLY didn’t like him. So they started calling his house. In the middle of the night. Or at least he thought this was happening. And seemed to have lost his marbles right there on the list. Sure beats NBR.
Other people got caught pretending to be Japanese.
Sorry guys, if you had access to that archive, you could mine it for 500 great blog posts.
Here is preserved a rather funny thing from the list –
http://www.japanreview.net/essays_no_exits.htm
Here is a classic example of Debito being a bit crazy on list –
http://www.debito.org/umbilicalcord.html
This sort of thing was typical of Dead Fukuzawas.
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:39 pm
If you can find the URL of the original list it might be on archive.org.
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Well, if Debito rephrased the “blacklist” aspect and just made it a database showing historical examples of job advertisements then there’d really be no issue. Regardless of whatever viewpoint he editorializes, it is still a useful reference page, like a lot of the other content on his site. You just have to make your own interpretation.
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Here it is – couldn’t find the actual posts, though. Must sleep….
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://twics.com/~briank/fukuzawa.html
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:14 pm
So it was a listserve from UCSD. Maybe the sysadmins there would still have it in the archives? If you’re serious enough about wanting it as material for an essay it might be possible to get it.
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Hoping that somebody will see this thread and come out of the woodwork. Won’t be working on it any time soon in any case…. Will keep that in mind.
As for the blacklist – I’m not sure that it is useful. For me, blacklist suggests “this university will screw you”. And yet many of the universities on the list have foreigners in some of the sweetest deals at Japanese unis. There is a chance that some people have looked at the list and decided NOT to apply for potentially plum jobs at those schools, simply because they put up a crappy contract job ad 10 years ago. On the flip side, there is no guarantee that the greenlist schools won’t up and advertise for a contract lecturer. I’ll bet my socks that every single one on the greenlist uses adjuncts, likely foreign adjuncts. In the end, the “black” and “green” just tell us nothing.
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:35 pm
http://jrecin.jst.go.jp/seek/SeekTop
BTW, have you seen this? This is the really useful one, the master list for Japanese uni jobs. I imagine that you will be giving it a whirl in a few years.
February 4th, 2009 at 2:26 am
I haven’t checked recently, but last I saw Debito’s blacklist was based on the results of a survey someone else did from 1997. Nor is it up to date – one mention of the university I graduated from advertising for a 国籍問わない post, and no followup at all. I do know that the person who got that tenured post IS a foreigner, from Todai, and in fact my Korean prof was the first tenured foreign prof there (one of my other profs did tell me he and others had to fight quite a battle to get the university to give her tenure though).
That umbilical cord link has a classic quote: “I cut her off there and, in front of the whole nursing staff, gave their middle-aged head nurse a furious dressing-down.” He couldn’t leave it be “without roaring at somebody.” And yet the answer was simple and obvious: “Under Japanese law, the hospital is not allowed to permit an untrained person to perform any kind of medical operation (iryou koui). Cutting the cord qualifies as such, and it puts the mother at risk of infection. If something bad should happen and people found out, the authorities would take away the doctor’s licence.” I can imagine the same thing in the US, but even more so – malpractice suits and the like.
The “Hashimoto Iwato” posting is also fun.
February 4th, 2009 at 2:29 am
I used to follow the Dead Fukuzawa Society on a regular basis. Chalmers Johnson was one of the originators of the project and it attracted a lot of top Japan hands in government and business. At one point, policy wonks would even cite DFS as a legitimate source. It was brought low by flame wars and spam and the NBR Japan Forum grew directly out of its collapse. The reason NBR is heavily moderated and not anonymous is to avoid the problems Dead Fukuzawa faced. You can still see a number of old Fukuzawa contributors (e.g. Jim Breen) in Japan newsgroups and there are also a few on the FG Forums.
You can find details of one notorious contributor – certainly the man M-Bone alludes to above – in Debito’s archives:
http://www.debito.org/hashimorihumbug.html
The man has his own websites but I won’t link to them because he will track them back here and you really don’t want that. For the same reason, I recommend not using the guy’s name directly because he will come to Mutant Frog. No matter how much fun he might appear to be at first, you will rue the day you brought him up. The same is true for DFS contributor T0m0yuki T*naka who you can also track down fairly easily.
Whenever I read Debito, I find it difficult to shake off the image I had of him in DFS days as a “net kook” but he’s basically harmless. If I have one bone to pick with him it is when he calls himself an activist. Roy makes a similar point in his comment earlier. An activist, in my book, is someone who has a series of goals and then builds up support to achieve them. Debito’s priorities are pretty unclear and mostly seemed to depend on what’s in the daily news. I recall reading recently his approval of Taro Kono’s proposal to introduce some form of dual nationality. I could only wonder why, if dual nationality is his goal, Debito hasn’t actively tried to figure out who, like Kono, is on his side and then work alongside them. That’s what a bunch of Filipina mothers did and they won a Supreme Court decision which obliged the government to revise the Nationality Law. That’s real activism and their group still doesn’t even have a website. It doesn’t surprise me that Aceface reports the Brazilians he met have never heard of Debito.
Perhaps Debito feels that such a big issue is out of his reach. However, he is clear that he regards “No Foreigner” signs as a bête noire and yet he hasn’t come up with a systematic plan to deal with them either. I would have thought one course of action would be to lobby shopkeepers associations nationwide. You could also reach out to METI, who regulate the signs that shops and businesses put up. You don’t always need to change the law to get change. Instead if you build up momentum in the right places then you can get people to come around to your point of view. Yes, it requires a little more application and effort than picking off the signs one-by-one as he comes across them but that would be what a real activist would do. To that extent, Gregory Clark has a point but, unfortunately, whenever that gentleman talks about other foreigners’ interactions with Japan, he generally appears to be saying “There Can Be Only One Highlander”.
To be fair to him, Debito has belatedly realised some of this and has written about trying to get this FRANCA organization off the ground. Most people who have read his newest book – I haven’t seen a copy – report that it contains a lot of useful information so he probably deserves credit for that. However, I don’t think you can call him an activist for what he’s done to date.
February 4th, 2009 at 4:18 am
It seems that Debito would like to do that sort of “real” activism, but he doesn’t have the sort of organization it requires, and he is so good at aggravating his cohorts that I find it pretty unlikely that he will ever get the manpower together to pull anything big.
It’s sad, because the man has a lot of piss and vinegar in him, and there’s a gaping hole at the top of pro-foreigner advocacy efforts. It certainly doesn’t help that the various communities (like the Brazilians and the eikaiwa teachers) never talk to each other.
February 4th, 2009 at 4:23 am
My sempai were the founders of DFS. Most have left Japan. A few are still here.
February 4th, 2009 at 4:27 am
Separately, if I was able to get Kono to speak on the topic of his dual nationality proposal and what we could do in Japan to support such a future, would there be interest? Would you help me find a location, help me promote/get the word out?
@Joe: The fact that minority groups do not work together in Japan to fight common causes or enemies is one of the critical failures for minorities in Japan.
February 4th, 2009 at 6:34 am
About two months ago I went to a lecture in Osaka on proposed revisions to the immigration law, which was organized mainly by a Zainichi Korean group. Now, I happen to know some of the people involved so I didn’t feel rude asking why the only speakers were Zainichi Koreans or Japanese activists involved specifically in Zainichi activities. I was told that the lecture had been organized too quickly for them to arrange for anyone outside of their own circle, but they were hoping to plan some sort of larger event down the line involving other minority groups, such as the Brazilians or other foreign workers and residents. You have just reminded me to send out an email or two and see if there’s any progress on that.
Incidentally, I do see potential for more cooperation. For example, I get an impression that the Zainichi activists I know in their 20s or early 30s are kind of tired of the politically divisive games of their elders, and events I’ve been to include Korean ethnics of ROK, Chosen, and Japanese nationality. If they aren’t getting involved in the Mindan/Chongryon games, they would probably also be open to working with other groups entirely.
February 4th, 2009 at 8:55 am
“I cut her off there and, in front of the whole nursing staff, gave their middle-aged head nurse a furious dressing-down.” He couldn’t leave it be “without roaring at somebody.”
His CHILD HAD JUST BEEN BORN. I don’t get this mindset at all. He takes a “happiest moment of life” type moment and turns it into a rant!
“No matter how much fun he might appear to be at first, you will rue the day you brought him up.”
This sounds %#^@ed up.
February 4th, 2009 at 10:35 am
M-Bone: Did you see his page dedicated to berating Debito? It starts out with some smart-arsed line like “The only person in Japan with a four-character given name” and goes downhill from there. They must have been spiking the gaijin water here in the early 90s, because there are some inner-head mutations going on…
February 4th, 2009 at 11:07 am
“The fact that minority groups do not work together in Japan to fight common causes or enemies is one of the critical failures for minorities in Japan.”
Last Sunday,I’ve covered the mass rally by the Brazilians in Nagoya and talked to dozens of unemployed workers there.And some of them had hostility toward Chinese “trainees” for taking their jobs.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
“Did you see his page dedicated to berating Debito?”
Have not. Do you mean Clark? I checked his site but couldn’t find anything. Can you give me a link?
As for the Gaijin enviornment back in the day – now there are a lot more fish in the pond, nobody thinks that it is really special that we can read Japanese, etc., people don’t get so crazy, I guess.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
“His CHILD HAD JUST BEEN BORN.”
Actually, that was even before the birth if I remember rightly – it was just the preliminary discussions about whether it would be possible. And I find that even worse – I can understand emotions running high on the day of birth, but beforehand?
Don’t know if it’s the site Joe means, but I found this with a quick google:
http://evildebito.blogspot.com/2008/02/more-folks-jump-on-anti-debito.html
February 4th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
This is in extremely bad taste:
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Arudou_Debito
February 4th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
No, I was referring to that hashi-mori dude who we aren’t supposed to name lest he torment us as well. Go to his site and you’ll see the nutty anti-Debito rant.
Perhaps there needs to be a Japan corollary to this:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
February 4th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Joe, do you know what this “legally registered Sino-Japanese alias” business is all about?
February 4th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Yeah. Any foreigner can make up a name for themselves in characters and register it as a quasi-legal name—it will appear on your alien card and driver’s license, and you can use it on bank accounts, your registered seal and other formal documents as if it were your real name. I believe the original point of this rule was to help zainichi blend in, but you don’t have to be zainichi to do it. (Debito also adopted his Japanese name as a legal alias before he naturalized, if I recall correctly.)
I have an alias as well, although it’s just my legal name in katakana—I had to register it in order to register a katakana seal. This rule apparently varies between city halls.
You can register any name you want, so long as it isn’t offensive and stays within the kana and joyo kanji. The only real limitation is that you need evidence that you are actually using the name in public, although many people get this by writing a letter to themselves with the name on the envelope. I could theoretically go to city hall today and re-style myself for all practical purposes as 小泉純一郎.
February 4th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
So Joe, to be clear, your legal name in Japan must be in katakana unless your legally registered name in your home country is in Kanji? It would not be legal for me to register in Japan using all-Kanji for my legal name?
February 4th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I was sure there was an ordinance in my town that said there had to be some relationship between the sound of the name and the kanji. And it seemed to differ between towns as well. I know when I moved I wasn’t allowed to use my kanjified name. And it wasn’t just because the formulation was lame, although that might have been part of the reason.
February 4th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
—but this only applied to my hanko.
February 4th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Yeah, apparently there are two competing rules depending on where you live:
1) Your hanko has to match the orthography of your name/alias (i.e., same script, not necessarily same order)
2) Your hanko just has to sound the same as your name/alias
But Roy, just to clarify: Any foreigner can register an alias in kanji or kana regardless of where they come from. So you could register your Chinese name (Wong Ba Man was it?) as a legal alias, provided that you have evidence of actually using it (i.e., a letter to yourself). Your registered “legal name,” on the other hand, would be whatever appears on your passport, and I think you can only have your legal name in kanji if you’re a Chinese or Korean citizen.
The sample naturalization application at the MOJ web site shows a fictitious Korean applicant with two aliases (listed to the right of the real name):
http://www.moj.go.jp/ONLINE/NATIONALITY/6-2-1.html
February 4th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
“This rule apparently varies between city halls.”
“And it seemed to differ between towns as well.”
It’s funny how that is. In that sense it would be good to have some standardization.
Roy: any desire to get a driver’ licence with 変種 蛙....?
February 4th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Roy – what are the Kanji for your Chinese name?
I’m going to write my net name like this 恵無菩濡
夜露死苦
February 4th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
I’ve been frustrated by attempts to kanjify my name because “Joe” is the only component that can be decently transliterated.
I’ve considered making 譲 or 城 my family name and endowing myself with an awesome given name like 家康, but this would interfere with my plans to name my sons 譲一郎, 譲次郎, 譲三郎 ...
February 4th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Well, if I translate “Roy Berman” literally I get: 王熊男 which actually looks a lot like a name an old Taiwanese man might have, with a Chinese family name and a Japanese-ish personal name. Of course, it also reversed my family and personal name, which is pretty weird. Maybe it would make more sense to just make my family name “熊” and then transliterate Roy using conventional characters for transliteration like “羅伊” or something kind of silly with the same sounds, like “駱蟻”. Or I could try and pick something really nerdy with a classical allusion, but having fairly little interest in or knowledge of the Chinese classics I don’t think I’ll be going there.
In short, I haven’t picked a good one yet, but you may notice that I’ve only thought about it based on Chinese and not Japanese. I guess 熊羅伊 (Xiong Luoyi) isn’t too bad. I like the idea of translating my family name, but still having people call me something fairly close to “Roy”.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Nowadays if I want to kanjify my name I take the bu from my old transliteration of buraisu: 武雷主 (lame, I know, and the last character is a stretch phoenetically. My friends wanted me to take 無頼州) and then whack a (kindof) straight translation of my last name to get 起田武, a fairly normal Japanese name.
By the way, if anybody is still interested in the issue of tenure in Japan there is a discussion going on at NBR now. It seems that in Japan, the practice of moonlighting at other universities is pretty common, so much so that it’s difficult for new PhD’s to get full time work. I didn’t really notice it at my university in Japan, and I’m not sure that allowing current PhD students to act as contract lecturers for basic classes, which is what they do elsewhere doesn’t have the same effect. (In fact I’ve done it at home. It is pretty rare in Japan – actually nonexistent in my experience).
February 5th, 2009 at 12:31 am
I rather like Wang Kumao. My name is a major major hassle as both parts contain letter combinations not used in Japanese, or at least not as kanji. But I have always been partial to one that sounds not too dissimilar: 世阿弥. Nice literary connection too.