As I am about to permanently disassemble this computer and bring only the hard drives with me to Japan, where I will then assemble a new system after finding a place to live, I figure it would be a good time to post the various things that had been sitting around my desktop in case I ever found the time and motivation to write something about them.

• Genetic tests have shown that the Taiwanese aborigines are likely to be the ancestors of the entire Polynesian and Micronesian population, which also includes the Malay group, comprising the majority population of the three large countries of Malaysia, Indonesia and The Philippines. While study of archeology and linguistic variation, as well as phenotype analysis of modern populations, had led some researchers to suspect that the ancestors of most Pacific islanders were descended from the ancestors of the pre-Chinese Taiwanese aboriginal population (who themselves migrated across the Taiwan Strait thousands of years ago, when the Han Chinese probably still lived far to the north) but this genetic study provides the strongest evidence yet for the theory.


• Although Japan may be the only country in which a unique word exists for “chikan”, the phenomenon is hardly unique. I once linked to a New York Times article on the prolificicity of flashers or “bumpers” in the NYC subway, which likely occurs with frequency in any city with a crowded public transit system. Another place famous for it- Mexico City. Apparently the problem is bad enough so they have introduced women only buses, perhaps inspired by Japan’s women-only commuter train cars.


• U.S. anti-terrorism special operations forces assisting the Philippines military have contracted a Manila-based marketing firm to create comic books with an anti-terrorism message. American style superhero comics are extremely popular in the Philippines, but I am very skeptical that a marketing firm would be able to create a comic with a genuinely compelling story, regardless of how slickly produced the graphics and printing may be. I would love to actually see the comics though, which sound like a prime example of the force that American cultural products still carry in the country, over 60 years after colonialism officially ended there.


• Korean’s Chosun newspaper has a truly hysterical article entitled Manhattanites Served Korean Food as Japanese. Just read and laugh.


• “Samurai-Sword Maker’s Reactor Monopoly May Cool Nuclear Revival”. An amazing headline and a pretty amazing article. Apparently, Hokkaido’s Japan Steel Works Ltd. is the world’s largest-and virtually only-supplier of steel-cast nuclear reactor containment chambers, which naturally must be built to VERY exacting standards. Despite an apparently massive surge in demand for these massive products, the company is skeptical how many plants will actually be built in the end, and are therefore reluctant to make the capital investments required to raise their output above the current level of 4 pieces per year. Yes, FOUR. The fact that this single plant is a bottleneck for the global nuclear power industry seems to be the result of some past failure in strategic planning, but the solution is unclear. And yes, they really were a maker of samurai swords- and apparently still are!
  “They’re made in a traditional Japanese wooden hut, up a steep hill from the rest of the Muroran factory. It’s decorated with white zigzag papers called ``shide’’ used in Shinto shrines, creating a sense of sanctity in the workshop.Inside, as the factory clangs and hisses below, Tanetada Horii hand-forges broad swords from 1 kilogram (2.2 pound) lumps of Tamahagane steel.”


• Suriname, the tiny South American nation which was formerly a Dutch colony has been searching for an appropriate national language. Currently this is Dutch-which is also used in government and law- but English has surpassed it for international business, and Sranan-a local language derived from an English creole-has surpassed it as the language of the street. The language situation gets even more complex:
  “Slip into one of the Indonesian eateries known as warungs to hear Javanese, spoken by about 15 percent of the population. Choose a roti shop, with its traditional Indian bread, to listen to Surinamese Hindi, spoken by the descendants of 19th-century Indian immigrants, who make up more than a third of the population. And merchants throughout Paramaribo speak Chinese, even though the numbers of Chinese immigrants are small.Venture into the jungly interior, where indigenous languages like Arawak and Carib are still heard with languages like Saramaccan, a Portuguese and English-inspired Creole spoken by descendants of runaway slaves who worked on plantations once owned by Sephardic Jews.”
  What is an appropriate common tongue in a country like this? When deciding on a common language, what weight is given to the linguistic history of the state itself, the background of the people, ability to communicate with (much larger) neighboring countries or international business?

Given our recent focus on Thai-Japanese relations, I thought I would share some excerpts from a translation I did about a year ago on the topic. The essay was written by a Japanese scholar as part of the catalog for the Show Me Thai museum exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

Art Exchanges Between Thailand and Japan in the Modern Era

by Masahiro Ushiroshoji

Thailand and Japan in the Early Modern Era

Thailand is the only Southeast Asian nation to have escaped Western colonization. Squeezed between the balance of power between the British Empire, which merged Burma into British India and brought the Malay Peninsula under its control, and France, which controlled the Indochina peninsula, King Mongkut (made famous in the movie “The King and I”) and King Chulalonkorn succeeded in their modernization policies and in keeping the country independent. The turning point in modern Thai history came in 1932 with a coup d’etat, whereupon the nation of Thailand started on the road modernity as it became a constitutional monarchy similar to Japan under the Meiji emperor.

Thailand’s modern art, distinct from its neighbors in Southeast Asia that became colonies of the Western powers, developed under the art policies of the government, which aimed to create a nation state. In this sense Thailand’s experience mirrors Japan’s modern art. More specifically, Thailand invited a foreign expert from Italy named Corrado Feroci, among others, to build a national school of fine arts (Rongrien Praneetsilpakam) in 1933 (which in 1943 became Silpakorn University). As a modern nation, there was a need to quickly train Thai artists, especially sculptors, to build the Democracy Monument to commemorate the democratic coup, and the “Victory Monument” intended to celebrate Thailand’s victory in a war with France, as well as monuments to the king. Since then, many Thai artists have emerged from this art school.

What is crucial to note when considering Japan’s role in Thai art history is the presence of Japanese artists in Thailand before and during the Pacific War. The Thai government invited not only Western advisors but also Japanese advisors in various fields. Accordingly, records remain of gakou (artisans specialized in painting) and choukokushi (artisans specialized in sculpting) dispatched by the Ministry of Education to Thailand.

There were three Japanese artisans/ artists who taught at Rongrian Poh-Chang—lacquerware artisan Sakae Miki, Western-style painter Niro Yokota, who joined Rongrian Poh-Chang as a teacher in 1930 and opened the school’s bamboo craftwork course.

Thai Students in Wartime Japan

It was rare for Thai students to study in Japan before the war, but Jitr Buabusaya stands out as an early pioneer.
In November 1941, Jitr, who had hoped to study in Europe, ended up in Japan since Europe was in the middle of the World War II. Ironically, Japan entered the Pacific War a mere two or three weeks after Jitr arrived in the country, and his five years in Japan coincided with the war he tried to avoid.

Jitr was born in Bangkok in 1911. He studied at the teacher training course at Rongrian Poh-Chang, and after more than a decade of teaching experience went to Japan on a Thai education ministry a scholarship. In Japan, he studied oil painting and sculpture at Tokyo Fine Arts School. It is often noted as historical fact that he studied oil painting under Kunzo Minami and sculpture under Fumio Asakura, but Jitr himself professes that he did not study under any one specific master.

As one of the few foreign students to come to Japan from Southeast Asia, Jitr was invited to events held throughout the country, such as the opening ceremony of the Kanmon undersea locomotive tunnel. He painted gorgeous scenes of Japan, rich with seasonal beauty, using his travels as inspiration. In 1942, Jitr held a solo exhibition at the Nichido Gallery and planned an exhibition in his home country as well. But tragically, most of his works, which would have served as important artifacts in the history of Thai-Japanese relations, were burned in bombing raids, and Jitr was only able to bring a few small pieces back to Thailand. Still, it is possible to glean from his remaining body of work that he had mastered portrayal of external light in the impressionist style as seen in his brilliant paintings of Japan’s vistas. Impressionism was not yet known in Thailand at the time, and Jitr is credited as the painter that brought the impressionist style to his homeland.

Jitr’s Artistic Contributions and Japan

Jitr returned to Thailand in 1946 to find the Poh-Chang school building destroyed in a bomb attack. He worked to rebuild the school and served as its headmaster. Jitr modeled the school after the Tokyo Fine Arts School where he himself had studied. He was impressed by Japan’s teaching methods, which struck a balance between Western influence and Japanese tradition, and used them to structure the school’s curriculum. He added new courses, including anatomy, composition, color theory, and art history.

Outdoor nature sketching also came into practice under his leadership. Moreover, Jitr designed the school building by himself — it was erected in Japanese-style mix of Japanese and Western convention known as the “Imperial Crown style,” only with a twist: he added a Thai-style roof to a Western structure.

Jitr’s art studies in Japan were in line with the Thai government’s goal of establishing an art system, and took place within the framework of public art administration and the training of art teachers. But Jitr the painter brought the impressionist style that took root in Japan after the establishment of the Hakubakai in 1895 which was the first Western style painters’ group in Tokyo, and from the mid-1940s to the early 1950s, Jitr provided the opportunity for French impressionism, imported via Japan, to take the Thai art scene by storm. In the late 1950s, Fua Hariphitak’s cubism made an impact among Thai painters, quickly pushing impressionism into the annals of history, but Jitr’s role in the history of Thai-Japanese art exchange will not be forgotten.

Postwar Exchanges: From Prints to Modern Art

On Jitr’s heels came many postwar artists who went to Japan to study, mainly printmakers. This group returned home after learning Japan’s advanced woodblock techniques and played a key role in the development of printmaking in Thailand. The pioneer artist who studied abroad was woodblock printmaker Praphan Srisouta. Srisouta was more interested in Japanese traditions, not in the latest printmaking techniques. Born in Lamphun in the Northern region of Thailand, he went to Japan in 1964 after studying at Silpakorn University. He reportedly spent most of his time studying Ukiyo-e woodblock prints by famed masters such as Hiroshige.

He journeyed from Japan to Germany before returning home in 1967 and went on to gain notoriety for his first solo show,
which showcased 90 of his original woodblock prints. These prints, which were dually influenced by Thai temple mural paintings and Ukiyo-e, portray the daily lives of children and feature vibrant depictions of people and beautiful black and white contrasts, and are considered some of the most precious masterpieces in all of Southeast Asia.

In recent years, Thailand’s modern art has received increased exposure in Japan, ushering in a new era of art exchanges between the two countries. Notable among these artists is Montien Boonma, who is often exhibited in Japan. His installations, which reflect an almost meditative Buddhist mindset, have remained popular even after his sudden death.

One artist of the younger generation has set in motion yet another new turning point in Thai-Japanese art exchange. That artist is Navin Rawanchaikul, who is married to a Japanese woman and works out of Fukuoka, Japan and Chiang Mai. Navin is not content to simply work out of this regional Japanese city. He closely examines the Fukuoka community where he lives and creates pieces that deal with issues within it.

These works have in turn allowed him to become involved in the Fukuoka community. He will continue to be watched as a new harbinger of Thai-Japanese interchange whether from the perspective of a teacher, learning as a foreign student, or showcasing his art.

About a week ago the New York Times had an article entitled “Seeking Recognition for a War’s Lost Laborers” on the lack of recognition for the Asian victims of Japanese forced labor in the construction of the famous “Railway of Death.” According to the article, the history of the 200,000-300,000 Asians who were employed, and often killed, in the construction of the railway, which was being constructed to link Bangkok and the Burmese (Myanmarese) capital of Rangoon (Yangon) to provide logistical support for Japan’s invasion of Southeast Asia, has been almost completely overshadowed by stories of the smaller number of Western POWs.

Between 200,000 and 300,000 Asian laborers — no one knows the exact number — were press-ganged by the Japanese and their surrogates to work on the rail line: Tamils, Chinese and Malays from colonial Malaya; Burmans and other ethnic groups from what is now Myanmar; and Javanese from what is now Indonesia.

“It is almost forgotten history,” said Sasidaran Sellappah, a retired plantation manager in Malaysia whose father was among 120 Tamil workers from a rubber estate forced to work on the railway. Only 47 survived.

[...]

By contrast, the travails of the 61,806 British, Australian, Dutch and American prisoners of war who worked on the railway, about 20 percent of whom died from starvation, disease and execution, have been recorded in at least a dozen memoirs, documented in the official histories of the governments involved and romanticized in the fictionalized “Bridge on the River Kwai,” the 1957 Hollywood classic inspired by a similarly named best-selling novel by Pierre Boulle.

One reason given for this inequality of historical memory are that virtually none of the Asian victims were from Thailand, giving the local government little incentive to commemorate them. Another is that, unlike the American and British POWs who wrote memoirs and gave countless interviews to journalists and historians, virtually none of the Asian laborers were literate, and they lacked ready access to mass media.

At this point, I would like to present some photos I took at a very peculiar museum that Adam, his (now) wife Shoko, and I visited when we were in Kanchanaburi, the location of the famous Bridge on the River Kwai.

The Jeath War Museum (JEATH is an acronym for Japan, English, American and THai) is a rather eccentric museum based on the collection of a wealthy Japanese history buff, who apparently purchased a building a number of years ago, stocked it haphazardly with local WW2 memorabilia of both great and small interest, and has not had arranged to have it cleaned since.

First, some photos from outside the museum itself.

This is a picture of the famous Bridge which I quite like.

Here are Adam and Shoko posing with the bridge behind them. I do not know the sleeping man, but I have to assume that he is a war criminal of some kind.

This is a silly little train which lets  tourists ride across the bridge and 1 or 2km into the jungle on the other side, and then ride backwards to the other side.

I blurrily snapped this memorial obelisk in the jungle across the river, from aforementioned silly train. It says something along the lines of “the remains of the Chinese army ascend into heaven.”

This plaque is location near the bridge. I did not, however, see one for the British POWs, although I certainly could have just missed it.

And now we reach the museum portion of our tour. I do not seem to have any photographs of the entrance area, but the first thing you see upon approaching the entrance to the museum proper are these statues of historical figures, with biography written on the wall behind them. I will transcribe the highly amusing text another time.

Here is Tojo.

Adam and Shoko again, with their good friends Josef Stalin and General Douglas MacArthur.

The lovable Albert Einstein gets a wall as well.

Inside the museum we are confronted with more dramatic statues, such as this tableau of POWs constructing the railway.

Here is one in a cage. Note the real straw.

Eerie closeup of another caged POW statue’s face.

Adam and his new friend, the WW2-era Japanese soldier driving an old car.

The driver.

Another old car. I do not recognize the make, but it is covered in dust that may weigh as much as the steel.

US Army signal core teletypewriter

Recreation of Japanese army tent

Read the text carefully. Do you know when the CD was invented?

A message from Japan to the Thai people. It’s a bit hard to read, so if anyone wants I can transcribe it.

A British anti-Japan political cartoon

Overall, the museum is a complete shambles. While it has a huge array of cool stuff, it is strewn about almost at random, covered in dust, and sometimes behind other stuff. Not to mention placed in crowded and un-lit cases with poor labeling. Despite the numerous flaws, it is certainly worth a visit if you are in the area, but I can’t say that it will do much to provide any sort of historical narrative, and certainly does not even try to meet the standard hoped for by the Times article I began this post with.

At least, that is how it is described in the words of Carol Lloyd, blogger on women’s issues at Salon.com. Due to the centuries as a Spanish colony, The Philippines is a firmly Catholic country-one in which the Church holds a level of influence rarely seen in the western world. Although the Catholic Church has oddly never managed to have any appreciable effect on the Philippines endemic Southeast Asian liberalism towards homosexuality and gender identity, they have managed to keep abortion illegal in all circumstances but to save the life of the mother. (More information on abortion in SE Asia here.) Although pre-conception birth control remains legal throughout The Philippines, in 2000 conservative Catholic Mayor Jose “Lito” Atienza of Manila issued an executive order removing all contraception from free clinics within the city. Many women in the desperately poor slums of Manila find it impossible to fit contraception in with food and other basic needs into their family budget, which has the eventual effect of a larger and even harder to feed family. This is what has women living in three urban slums to file a lawsuit demanding revocation of the order. From Reuters:

Emma Monzaga, one of the petitioners, said she was getting injections once every three months to prevent her from becoming pregnant, but was told on her third visit to a public clinic that the treatment was no longer available. “I was asked to go somewhere else to get the shots because the city hall has stopped funding the family planning program,” Monzaga said, adding her family could not afford to spend extra for contraceptives. “We used to get it for free. It’s becoming a burden because we have to eat and send our six children to school.” She said she has given up the idea of saving some money from her husband’s 300 pesos ($7) daily wage as a construction worker to pay for the vaccines because of rising cost of basic needs.

Amazingly, it took almost eight years before a local NGO managed to file the lawsuit “because the women feared political reprisals.” Unsurprisingly, there is now a different mayor in charge, and many hope that he will revoke the previous order without the need for the lawsuit to proceed. The Center for Reproductive Rights has a 50 page report, full of testimony, on the issue entitled “Imposing Misery: The Impact of Manila’s Contraception Ban on Women and Families,” which may be downloaded in PDF from their website at the above link. The report claims that the executive order violates the Republic’s 1987 constitution, stating:

The 1987 Philippine Constitution guarantees the
rights to liberty, health, equality, information and education for all citizens,
as well as the right of spouses to found a family in accordance with their
personal religious convictions. These basic principles, reinforced by
several pieces of legislation, create the foundation under national law for a
right to reproductive health, including access to contraception. [p. 9]

The report suggests that “The Manila City government should revoke Executive Order No. 003” as well as various further plans. [p. 11]

While many people look at issues such as these primarily in terms of individual rights and their effect on individuals and families, it is critical to consider the broader picture as well.

The Philippines today has a population of just under 90 million, a staggering number of whom live in poverty. I can attest from my own visit to the country that the cities are clogged with slums, illegal shanty-towns line the rivers and fill public parks, and the ratio of the population with no gainful employment appears to be easily several times that of anyplace else I have ever been. I have even heard that the unemployment rate in Metro Manila may be almost 50%.

Without high quality and aggressive family planning, that 90 million could nearly double in a generation- and the country’s scarce economic resources would be stretched even thinner. Could the unemployment rate rise even above 50%? Will The Philippines be plunged into a Malthusian crisis like Bangladesh or parts of Africa? Lack of birth control is hardly the only factor that has made Manila, and many other third-world regions, into dystopias, but it is one.

I’m far too sick at the moment to think of anything clever to say about it, but I’d like to just make sure everybody noticed that Australia’s Liberal Party-led government is set to issue a national apology for wrongs committed against the Aborigines.

a decade ago the Victorian Parliament had unanimously passed a motion moved by then Liberal premier Jeff Kennett apologising to Aboriginal people for removing children from their families.

[...]

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said the apology would be made on behalf of the Australian Government “and does not attribute guilt to the current generation of Australian people”.

[...]

But some prominent Opposition MPs defended the actions of churches and government agencies in removing children from their families.

Opposition health spokesman Joe Hockey said churches acted “only with good intentions”.

Queensland Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce went further, declaring that some indigenous people had actually benefited from the removal.

“If you are rescuing a child from a violent or from a threatening situation then that is the right thing for a state to do,” Mr Hockey told Radio 2UE.

Senator Joyce said an apology would be “an empty rhetorical statement for the chattering classes in the inner suburbs”.

An article in today’s NYT on the uniqueness of the United States commercial bail bond system includes this very interesting tidbit.

Commercial bail bond companies dominate the pretrial release systems of only two nations, the United States and the Philippines.

Although the article does not actually say, I think it is safe to assume that this is a direct result of the fact that the Philippine legal system was constructed during the period of US colonial rule. Those non-American readers who may be unfamiliar with the commercial bail bond system may with to read the explanation in the NYT article to fully appreciate the global oddity of the system. From my brief perusal of some Philippine web pages, it certainly looks like both countries share the institution. For example, look at this page from a Manila metro area attorney’s office:

Paying Bail

 

You can pay the full amount of the bail in Cash. If you are acquitted, you can withdraw the Bail that you posted. You can also buy a surety bind or post your property to pay for your bail.

 

Bail bond is like a check held in reserve: it represents the person’s promise that he or she will appear in court when required to. The bail bond is purchased by payment of a  non-refundable premium (usually about 15% – 35% of the face amount of the bond).

 

A bail bond may sound like a good deal, but buying a surety bond may cost more in the long run. This is so because you have to renew the surety bond upon its expiration otherwise, upon motion of the prosecution, a warrant of arrest will be issued for failure to renew the surety bond. If the full amount of the bail is paid, it will be refunded (less a small administrative fee) when the case is over and all required appearances have been made. On the other hand, the 15%-35 premium is nonrefundable. In addition, the bond seller may require “collateral.” This means that the person who pays for the bail bond must also give the bond seller a financial interest in some of the person’s valuable property. The bond seller can cash in on this interest if the suspect fails to appear in court.

 The curious may also want to see the amounts of bail set for various crimes under Republic of the Philippines law.

This is already a week old, but did anyone notice that the very same day US Congressman Mike Honda (D, California) issued yet another call for Japan to issue a more concrete apology to former comfort women, New Jersey became the first Northern state in the United States to issue a formal apology for our state’s history of slavery? Although four Southern states of Virginia, Maryland, Alabama, and North Carolina had previously issued similar resolutions, the fact that many Northern states still allowed slave-holding well into the 19th century has been largely ignored. New Jersey, for example, did not finally ban slavery until 1846. There has been no such resolution at the federal level.

While it might be nice to see the Japanese government officially acknowledge past crimes in more specificity, perhaps the US Congress should apologize for slavery at the national level before its members go overseas to demand that foreign governments do the same thing. Maybe by setting a moral example, Mister Honda might convince a wider audience of his credibility.

Oh, and as for the Japanese government’s previous apologies. While they were a good start, they really could be more specific. Take a look at the actual text of last week’s New Jersey slavery apology resolution and think about how they compare.

Update: I feel like I should add that I don’t consider a simple apology in and of itself very worthwhile. The important thing about the New Jersey resolution is not so much that it apologizes, but that it lists both the actual crimes and in historical context and legacy in a decently comprehensive outline, and then also explicitly calls for continuing education on the subject. Let me quote the “statement” at the end of the resolution.

This concurrent resolution issues a formal apology on behalf of the State of New Jersey for its role in slavery and discusses the history of racism and inhumane treatment toward African-Americans in the United States from the arrival of its first settlers to the present day. It calls upon the citizens of this State to remember that slavery continues to exist and encourages them to teach about the history and legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws.

While I think it was sloppy phrasing not to say something like “continues to exist in parts of the world,” resolutions like this are important not because they can make people feel good about their awesomeness in making said apology, but because it can contribute to the education of the populace.

Following on the theme of my previous post on place names and decolonization, the BBC gives the best explanation I’ve seen for the confusion over the two names by which this country is known internationally.

The ruling military junta changed its name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, a year after thousands were killed in the suppression of a popular uprising. Rangoon also became Yangon.

The Adaptation of Expression Law also introduced English language names for other towns, some of which were not ethnically Burmese.

The change was recognised by the United Nations, and by countries such as France and Japan, but not by the United States and the UK.

A statement by the Foreign Office says: “Burma’s democracy movement prefers the form ‘Burma’ because they do not accept the legitimacy of the unelected military regime to change the official name of the country. Internationally, both names are recognised.”

It’s general practice at the BBC to refer to the country as Burma, and the BBC News website says this is because most of its audience is familiar with that name rather than Myanmar.

[...]

They have both been used within Burma for a long time, says anthropologist Gustaaf Houtman, who has written extensively about Burmese politics.

[...]

“There’s a formal term which is Myanmar and the informal, everyday term which is Burma. Myanmar is the literary form, which is ceremonial and official and reeks of government. [The name change] is a form of censorship.”

If Burmese people are writing for publication, they use ‘Myanmar’, but speaking they use ‘Burma’, he says.

This reflects the regime’s attempt to impose the notion that literary language is master, Mr Houtman says, but there is definitely a political background to it.

Richard Coates, a linguist at the University of Western England, says adopting the traditional, formal name is an attempt by the junta to break from the colonial past.

I’ve always been slightly puzzled that the democracy movement was in favor of maintaining the country’s colonial name, but considering that the name was changed at the behest of the Junta, one sees how it makes symbolic sense. I look forward to seeing whether the democrats currently protesting can win their battle and topple the Junta (naturally I hope that they do,) and I am interested in seeing whether they restore the official name of Burma, or continue the linguistic decolonization policy that had been started under the Junta, but giving it a popular aegis.