2018 wrap up – Adamu’s Big Move edition

Another year draws to a close – in the Adamu household 2018 has been nothing short of momentous. Long story short – in August we moved from Tokyo to the greater DC area!

For the most part moving here hasn’t really changed my life all that much (certainly not compared to the rest of the Adamu household) – I still commute to work every day and do more or less the same job. All the same, there’s a lot that has been different – it feels really weird because having lived in Tokyo for the past 11 years I have never really had to live as an adult in the U.S. before.

For this post I will just list out and rant about some of the stuff I have noticed:

1. Basically no one speaks Japanese or cares one way or the other about Japan

This makes conversation hard sometimes because until now (and even now still) my whole life has been wrapped up in all things Japanese. The other day at a work lunch somebody brought up sumo and I couldn’t help but enter into my spiel about how the game is rigged and the wrestlers are all doped up because there is no drug testing. Of course most of the people at the table couldn’t change the topic fast enough.

2. I can walk the streets without sticking out as the only “foreigner” around, and I am not constantly asked why I am living here

This might be the single biggest thing that makes living in the U.S. more comfortable than living in Japan. It feels cliched to repeat, but it’s true that as a Westerner in Japan you’re constantly facing the same conversation topics (can you use chopsticks? can you eat natto? how did you learn Japanese?) that can get a little tiresome but also (being the surly unfriendly sort that I am) end up making me feel “othered” – can’t I ever just have a normal conversation? No, not in Japan.

But here I just look like your average everyday American, and I get the privilege of having normal everyday small talk like everyone else – weather, kids, traffic, and all the rest (although that has its drawbacks as well…).

3. I can just speak my mind in my native language and most people will understand me (though I have had to retrain myself to speak “normal” English) 

My Japanese was fine by the time I left, but no matter how well I could get by in Japanese, expressing myself always required me to think about what to say and make sure I was saying it correctly. Funnily enough, I was speaking Japanese with a colleague recently – basically my first extended Japanese-language conversation for a while – and he could tell it was making me physically tired.

It just feels good to be understood. One thing I have noticed, though, is that in Japan I had become used to speaking simplified English for the benefit of non-native speakers. Now that I am in contact with Americans all the time I have had to retrain myself to speak normally – using all the idioms, word play, cultural references, etc. that are common to everyday conversation.

4. I am actually treated like an adult and expected to be a part of society (and I hate it!!!) 

As a gaijin living in Japan I was never really held fully accountable for all the usual adult responsibilities. Part of that was structural (even if I applied for a credit card I was always denied) but part of it was just people seeing me and assuming I don’t know what I am doing. It’s a tiny example, but I always found it remarkable that basically no one EVER asked me for directions in Japan (except for tourists in Shinjuku a couple times). And at work it was usually the Japanese employees expected to do things like fire duty and even answering the phones in our island of desks. Mrs. Adamu was always the one dealing with anything that went wrong in the apartment, etc.

Here, however, I am most definitely an ADULT and have all manner of responsibilities – part of it is that Mrs. Adamu is kind of unfamiliar with how things work, so now most of the negotiating and dealing with contractors, real estate agents, and all that falls to me. It’s definitely a new layer of stress that I didn’t really have to deal with as a pampered foreigner.

And if in Japan I got tired of being asked the same questions about my personal background over and over again, here I get tired of having to repeat the same small-talk with people. But now I kind of get how small talk is a part of being an adult – if you step beyond it into topics like jobs, TV shows, or (god forbid) politics, you’re taking a risk of alienating someone that you have to deal with on a daily basis (a coworker, a neighbor, your kid’s classmate’s parent, etc.). This must sound incredibly obvious to a lot of people, but it really is a new feeling for me.

5. Businesses in America are MUCH more tech-friendly than in Japan

In Japan, I almost never texted anyone besides friends and a few coworkers.

But in the U.S., I am in a text message-based relationship with almost everyone I come in contact with, including almost every company I do business with.

I am texting photos for real estate inspections, signing contracts electronically, and even getting in heated text arguments with some of them. This would be unthinkable in Japan where just about anything official needs to be accompanied by a hand-delivered, handwritten form. I’ll never forget the number of times I have had to write out my address by hand in Japan (and of course when the staff see me write it in kanji they often ask how I managed to learn such a hard language!).

****

Four months in, I can’t really say I miss Japan or that I like living one place or the other better. Too early to tell! But it has been a big change for sure. I do hope to get back sometime soon if for no other reason than to keep from forgetting Japanese…

I hope you enjoyed this – stay tuned, I might do a few subsequent posts to list out some of the good things about the year.

Politician From Japanese Cult “Happy Science” at CPAC

(Anyone who enjoyed this post would probably be interested in my 2008 piece about ties between historical revisionary conservatives and Japan’s current Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe.)

The baby-faced alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos lost his speaking gig at this week’s CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference, essentially a conference of the American Republican party) for being increasingly gross, but we aren’t here to talk about this boring child.

Instead, We’re here to talk about the man who replaced Milo on CPAC’s schedule, Jikido “Jay” Aeba (饗庭直道、あえば直道), a former high-level member of the extremely wacky right-wing Japanese cult religion Happy Science, who went on to found their subsidiary political party, the Happiness Realization Party, and is now working to develop a career as a kind of self-appointed ambassador between the Japanese and American right, as part of the substantial Japanese right-wing media industry. There’s a lot of threads to follow, so I’m just going to give a brief overview here and then follow up with additional posts in the near (ish) future. Let us also note that his Twitter handle, @ultraJedi, is pretty sweet.

This week will be Aeba’s second appearance at CPAC, following his 2016 speech, below, where he was hailed as the co-founder of the Japanese Conservative Union (JCA), an organization which ostensibly aspires to be a clone of the successful American Conservative Union (take note of how Aeba took the URL conservative.or.jp, in transparent imitation of the ACU’s conservative.org), but in reality gives all indication of being little more than a fancy website to give his one-man operation a veneer of institutional legitimacy. Neither the English or Japanese version of his profile on the JCU website mention his history with Happy Science or the Happiness Realization party, which makes his resume look oddly thin.

Aeba’s earlier CPAC speech is a pretty bland collection of right-wing talking points common to both countries, with a hefty infusion of pandering to his audience.

The video, posted by the ACU but possibly produced by Aeba / JCU, begins with a clip from Reagan’s speech before the Japanese Diet on November 11, 1983, in which he affirms that America and Japan “are united in the belief that freedom means dedication to the dignity, rights, and equality of man”, which is given the caption “for the conservative partnership between US and Japan…” This is followed up by a triumphant little montage in which Aeba meets a series of American conservatives including Grover Norquist, Ben Carson, and ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp, who wants to tell him “how honored we are that you come to see us. That you want to collaborate and partner with us”, which is certainly true. The CPAC crowd is fairly sedate, but he gets a few moderate to strong applause lines when he generically praises conservatism, the America – Japan alliance, accuses China of planning to steal Hawaii and Okinawa, and that he arranged for the Japanese translation of Clinton Cash to be published, and gets a laugh when he accuses the American and Japanese Democratic Parties that both took power in 2009 of being “socialistic”, and calls the promise of entitlements “free stuff”. But he also gets very little reaction to parts of his speech that he clearly cares greatly about, in particular the controversy over American military bases in Japan.

In fact, although this was Aeba’s first speech at CPAC, it was not his first time in attendance. The Atlantic Magazine published an article about Aeba’s early attempts to schmooze with the CPAC crowd, back in 2012. (And good for The Atlantic for providing what seems to be pretty much the only English language coverage of Aeba prior to this post I’m writing.)

Early one Saturday in February, as the conference entered its third and final day, the three men sat down in the Marriott’s dimly lit bar to compare notes on what they had seen so far. Behind them, a man dressed in full Founding Fathers drag, complete with wig and tricorne, strolled past; at an adjacent table, two young men with CPAC badges were loudly comparing their hangovers. […]

Aeba, one of the leaders of Japan’s right-wing Happiness Realization Party, was accompanied by Yuya Watase, the founder of the Tokyo Tea Party; their interpreter, a Happiness Realization Party official named Yuki Oikawa; and Bob Sparks, their American political consultant. Together, they said, they were on a mission to export American-style conservatism—the gospel of small government, low taxes, and free enterprise—to the Land of the Rising Sun.

[…] If they had gathered nothing else from CPAC, the Japanese conservatives had clearly internalized the American right’s language of alarmism and crisis.

Aeba clearly kept up his connections with the CPAC crowd, and as mentioned above, took inspiration from them in creating his (The “Japan Tea Party” didn’t go anywhere, but Watase Yuya is still active. I’ll take a look at him in some future post.)

But what was that about a strange religious cult and the political party that they sponsor? Oh right, Happy Science, and the Happiness Realization party.

Happy Science (in Japanese: 幸福の科学 / koufuku no kagaku) is a Japanese “new religion”, that was founded by Ryuho Okawa in 1986 and has gone onto be one of the most successful of these eccentric cults. The theology itself seems to be a melange of traditional Buddhist cosmology with a wide assortment of generic new-age pablum, topped with a very strong layer of veneration of the “Master Okawa”. I don’t want to get into their highly entertaining cosmology in this post, except to say that reading a Happy Science-published book on the subject several years ago made me wonder if I was reading a Japanese translation of the Dungeons and Dragons Manual of the Planes.

To get a taste of their style, as well as the eclectic basket of influences they draw upon, here are a couple of brief excerpts from their official website:

El Cantare is the Lord, Buddha and Savior. He is the supreme God of the terrestrial spirit group who has the highest authority over the planet Earth and is directly connected to the Primordial Buddha or Primordial God – the Creator of the whole universe.

Lord El Cantare has also sent down parts of his own consciousness – brother souls – to guide humanity in the right direction at the most important times in history. El Cantare’s brother souls who have been born to Earth in the last twenty thousand years are:

  • La Mu – 17,000 years ago on the Mu continent
  • Thoth – 12,000 years ago in Atlantis
  • Rient Arl Croud – 7,000 years ago in the Incan Empire
  • Ophealis – 6,500 years ago in Greece
  • Hermes – 4,300 years ago in Greece, Crete Island
  • Gautama Siddhartha (Shakyamuni Buddha) – 2,500 years ago in India.
  • Ryuho Okawa – present reincarnation of El Cantare

Needless to say, that last line about the cult’s leader being a reincarnation of the creator of the universe is the most significant teaching in the entire religion, and the core of the entire enterprise. Although they claim that “The grand mission of Happy Science is to create utopia – a world filled with love, peace, harmony and prosperity”, Okawa from the beginning combined his religious teachings with a hard-right political ideology. I found a 1991 AP story, that describes him as follows:

Lights go off. White smoke rises on stage. A round-faced, chubby man in a dark business suit appears in a spotlight before thousands of admirers. He claims he is Japan’s Messiah, the reincarnation of Buddha.

The man portrays the Japanese as a chosen people destined to destroy the United States and the Soviet Union and make China “a slave.”

[…] In his book “Nostradamus: Fearful Prophecies,” Okawa asserts that only the Japanese Leviathan will survive the imminent end of the world after destroying the United States and the Soviet Union:

“In the 21st Century, there will be no enemies for Leviathan. It will slash throats of the old eagle and the exhausted red bear, and laugh at the aging Europe. It will use China as a slave and Korea as a prostitute.”

The same article briefly describes his business model, which may sound familiar to readers who have read about Scientology.

Annual revenues are about $45 million, most of it from donations, according to Teikoku Data Bank, an independent research company.

Group spokesmen admit that up to 90% of their members do nothing more than subscribe to a monthly magazine, “Science of Happiness,” for $100 a year. But they say as many as 200,000 people have become “true members.” Critics put that number as low as 20,000.

To become a true member, one has to read 10 of Okawa’s books and pass exams on them.

You may have noticed mention above of a book entitled “Nostradamus: Fearful Prophecies,” which is strongly representative of Okawa’s prodigious output. Of the astonishing 714 titles currently credit to him on the Happy Science online bookstore, a large proportion consist of alleged posthumous interviews with the souls of deceased figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Adolf Hitler, Walt Disney, Albert EinsteinNelson Mandela,  Zhou Enlai, Isaac Newton, Georg Hegel, Oda Nobunaga, Sakamoto Ryoma, and many dozens if not hundreds more1. He also publishes what he claims are interviews with the “guardian spirits” of living celebrities, such as this book in which he discusses the secret of beauty with the guardian spirits of Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley, or this interview in which the guardian spirits of the famous AKB48 girl-pop group explain the secrets of marketing.

Happy Science has been in the Japanese news quite a lot recently, due to the decision of young actress Fumiko Shimizu to retire from showbiz entirely and devote herself fulltime to the cult, under the priestly name of Yoko Sengen. Shimizu had allegedly been a member of Happy Science since childhood, and seems to have embraced it fully as a means to escape from a career that she seems not to have enjoyed very much.

The Happiness Realization Party is also not new, and was first discussed on this blog back in 2009, when Adam wrote a series of posts about the candidates running for a seat in the Diet’s lower house, representing his district in Tokyo. The party had only been founded that year, and the candidate Adam wrote about, Kazumasa Fujiyama, only won about 1% of the vote. In the May, 2010 election, the HRP won their first Diet seat when Yasuhiro Oe, who had been elected as a proportional member representing the Japan Renaissance Party, decided to change his affiliation to HRP post-election. As my co-blogger Adam explained back in 2010:

The Wakayama native [Yasuhiro Oe] first became an upper house member in 2001 as a PR candidate on the LDP ticket, then as a DPJ candidate in 2007. He later joined JRP as a founding member in 2008, citing problems with the DPJ’s methods. In terms of policy, he has adopted some typical right-wing positions – he’s pro-Taiwan, a firm Nanjing Massacre truther, and a vocal supporter of the victims of North Korea’s kidnapping program. He comes up for reelection in 2013.

A 2009 Campaign Poster for the Happiness Realization Party featuring Jikido Aeba, with the English language slogan “Start! Japanese Dream!” written phonetically in Japanese.

As mentioned above, Jikido Aeba was the original leader of the HRP when it was founded on May 23, 2009, and he boasted that he “Wanted to lead as the Barack Obama of Japan.” Instead, he handed over the position to Kyoko Okawa, wife of the cult leader and “reborn Aphrodite and bodhisattva of wisdom and intellect”, who he later divorced in 2011, after their candidate list was finalized on June 4 for the election mentioned above, in which they won no seats at all.

The platform of the Happiness Realization Party includes many elements of mainstream Japanese conservatism that overlap with the ruling (conservative) Liberal Democratic Party, as well as some elements that diverge sharply from any mainstream party. To quote from Adam’s 2009 post:

Among their chief policy proposals:

  • Revise the constitution to allow a pre-emptive strike on North Korea if necessary.
  • Eliminate inheritance taxes and consumption taxes.
  • In the cities, “bring work and home closer together” by building offices and residences in the same building.
  • Build an enormous monorail around the entire city of Tokyo.
  • Allow massive immigration and promote reproduction to increase Japan’s population to 300 million by 2050

Some of their most radical proposals can be found in their draft constitution:

  • Make a directly elected president the head of state. The president would have the right to issue presidential orders apart from parliamentary legislation. If an order and legislation contradict each other, the chief justice of the supreme court would decide which to follow. But if there is no decision in two weeks, the presidential order will take precedence.
  • The emperor “and other traditions” would be kept on but with their power limited by law.
  • The chief justice of the supreme court would be directly elected.
  • Payment for public bureaucrats would be based on performance (this would be in their constitution!)
  • “Equal opportunity” and total freedom within the law.
  • The state must always aim to have a small government with low taxes.
  • “The mass media must not abuse their power and must act responsibly to the people.”

So, back to Aeba.

He remained involved in Happy Science and the Happiness Realization Party, holding positions such as HPR Director of Public Relations (2011) and Director of Investigations (2013), until he resigned in 2015 to start the Japan Conservative Union. During the last few years of his tenure in the HRP he seems to have been laying the groundwork for this transition, not only with schmoozing such as the 2012 CPAC visit mentioned above, but publishing a small selection of books tactically chosen to bolster his credentials to conservatives in both Japan and America as a conduit to the other country.

It is vital here to make note of his co-founder in the JCU, Shun Eguchi, who spent his career in the Sankei Shimbun, Japan’s conservative, business focused newspaper that can be thought of as similar to the Wall Street Journal, and he ended his career as president of their more specifically business-focused publication, Fuji-Sankei Business Eye. Eguchi is also a graduate of Takushoku University, considered to be a hard-right institution, with ties to many figures known for conservative revisionist historical views.

In 2011 he published the book The Strongest Country – Japan’s Decision, and the from the book’s official description on Amazon it sounds like some pretty generic conservative pablum about strengthening national defense and the economy, mixed with criticism of welfare states such as Sweden.

More recently, he published The Trump Revolution, which came out in March of last year, and supervised the Japanese translation of the infamous Clinton Cash, which was produced by an organization run by Trump’s Leninist fascist political advisor Steve Bannon.

He has also supervised a fairly weird looking pro-Trump book called Presidential Feng-shui, co-authored by a wacky Feng-shui huckster by the name of Dr. Copa ((His real name is Kobayashi Yoshiaki, and the book was co-written with his son, Kobayashi Teruhiro)). In this book, Dr. Copa explains how Trump (perhaps inadvertently, I’m only reading so much of this nonsense) used the power of feng-shui to win himself the White House, in particular via the magico-spatial relationship between the White House and the location of the Trump hotel in Washington’s Old Post Office Building. The magazine Weekly Shincho reported that Dr. Copa is such a big fan of Trump that he was a paying audience member at Trump’s inauguration, so that he could be closer to his “research subject”. And, unsurprisingly, it was Aeba – who was also in attendance at the inauguration and “Liberty Ball”, according to his persona blog, who served as the intermediary to obtain the tickets. In an interview with Shincho, Dr. Copa briefly explains his theory of how Trump used the architectural feng-shui power of the Old Post Office in an identical way to how the location of Toyotomi Hideyoshi‘s camp relative to Kiyosu Castle allowed him to achieve a surprise victory at the 1582 conference at that castle that contributed to his consolidation of power.

On a brief search I don’t see any direct connection between Dr. Copa and Happy Science, but it is hardly surprising that a (former?) member of a weird science-fiction inflected cult is also interested in pop-parapsychology.

 

The Shincho article on Dr. Copa mentioned as an aside that Aeba had described himself as an “Advisor” to the American Republican party, but that there was no evidence of this. Buzzfeed Japan has an article on this exact topic from November of last year. In this piece they list his repeated claims, both online and in media appearances in Japan, that he is an official advisor to the GOP. They describe how, in addition to doing online research, they had their colleagues at Buzzfeed America do some investigation. It turns out that nobody at the Republican National Committee (RNC) knows who Aeba is, but Buzzfeed Japan emails Aeba to ask for clarification.

As evidence of his claim, Aeba forwards them an English language email from Bob Sparks, the American political consultant who worked as a fixer during the 2012 CPAC visit reported by The Atlantic. According to Sparks, Aeba was an “unpaid advisor to Sharon Day“, who is currently the co-chair of the RNC, but Day did not respond to queries and no additional proof was offered. Their seemingly correct conclusion is that while Aeba may have been informally told by Day herself that he was her advisor on US-Japan relations, but that he never had any official position with the RNC or any affiliated organizations. However, he continues to proudly misrepresent himself

As I mentioned earlier, despite having a genuinely substantial political career with the Happiness Realization party, Aeba makes absolutely no mention of them or Happy Science on the Japan Conservative Union website, despite describing himself prominently as an advisor to the GOP. (Although his personal blog, which goes all the way back to 2009 when the HRP was founded and is still updated regarding his current activities, so at best he has made a half-hearted attempt to truly hide his past.)

In that same article, Buzzfeed noticed that he had likewise never made note of his former HRP affiliation on any of his recent media appearances, and none of his hosts organizations or publishers had identified him as such, and so they asked Asahi Broadcasting, Fuji Television, Futaba Publishing, and Sankei Shimbun for comment.

Only Futaba, the publisher of his 2016 book The Trump Revolution, replied, saying that they had avoided mention of his ties to Happy Science in consideration of his telling them that, his “relationship with the Happiness Realization Party is not good.” Does this mean that the HRP is angry at him for cutting ties with them and starting his own personal brand, or is he simply making an excuse?

It is unclear to me whether Aeba retains any ties with Happy Science, but it is clear that his goals align with theirs. In October of last year, Ryuho Okawa published yet another of his spirit interview books, in which he “interviewed” the ghost of George Washington and the guardian spirit of Donald J. Trump, and explained that Trump is in fact the reincarnated spirit of America’s first president. “If candidate Trump becomes President, 300 years of future prosperity are promised for both Japan and America, but if it is Hillary, then America will lose its leadership role in the world.” The sequel, containing more interviews with Trump’s guardian spirit is already out, and new-age spiritual mumbo-jumbo aside, I suspect one would be hard pressed to tell the content apart from any of the speakers at CPAC.

Hopefully Aeba’s new speech will be up soon so I can see how it fits in with everything else, and I will find time in the near future for more writing on related topics.

  1. One that stood out to me on a quick skim as particularly offensive was his book of “spiritual testimony” from the great manga creator Mizuki Shigeru, claiming to have been recorded on the 12th day after his death in late 2015. []

What would doubling the JET program look like?

Recent news reports suggest that the LDP is planning to propose doubling the JET Program in three years and placing JET language assistants in *all* elementary, middle, and high schools within a decade. There are around 38,000 such schools in Japan, so that’s a LOT of ALTs!

According to internal affairs ministry statistics, in fiscal 2012 there were around 4,300 JETs in the country, so the plan is apparently to increase that by a whopping factor of nine. According to the statistics that METI keeps on language schools, there are 10,000 or so full- and part-time language teachers working for regulated schools. I believe that does not count the large number of contractors like the teachers working for ALT placement agencies or the poor devils at Gaba, university instructors, and certainly not the many student teachers or anyone operating their own eikaiwa that does not fall under METI’s purview. But even generously allowing for a teacher population of say 30,000 total (around 3 for every train station), in ten years this number will be more than doubled.

The program is designed to place youthful foreigners, generally native English speakers, in Japanese schools (and to a smaller extent, local governments) for up to five years with two explicit goals: supplement English-language education and promote international interaction at the local level. Another key benefit is that the participants often go on to take influential Japan-related jobs, be it in foreign governments, Japanese companies, or companies that do business in or with Japan. Having a stable of Japan hands around seems pretty necessary at this point, given the relatively poor state of English language ability among the Japanese population. Unlike normal employment situations, JET offers a high level of support in the form of a reasonable salary, free housing, and a network of fellow JETs and regional coordinators to help with problems.

I get the feeling that a ninefold increase in the JET Program isn’t realistic — could they even recruit that many people to come and live in Japan, or would they maybe just cannibalize the entire existing eikaiwa-for-kids market? Still, *some* increase in the program along these line seems like a fairly simple way for the Abe administration to make a bold move in the direction of “internationalization” that won’t run into much political resistance.

Regardless of your views on the merits of the JET Program or the Japanese education system in general, you must admit that even just doubling the size of JET would have a pretty profound impact.

For one thing, that is double the amount of people coming in each year. That means more foreign faces on the street and more non-Asian foreign exposure for the Japanese public at large.

It also means more “Japan hands,” maybe even double, and this can cut in different ways. I feel like Japan is sorely in need of talented Japanese-to-English translators, so an influx of native English talent that could eventually progress to ace-translator status is a good thing. At the same time, the increased supply in the market could put pressure on prices, and who knows maybe some whipper snapper could come after my job some day.

I think it would also revive the option of teaching English in Japan for graduates of US universities that (from my admittedly limited perspective) seems to have died down a bit in the wake of troubles in the eikaiwa market and competition from China, a bigger and perhaps more intriguing destination. I can envision a near future in which young men see the Tokyo Vice movie and become inspired to chase thrills and excitement in Japan.

And it would necessarily boost the number of international marriages and the resulting children, bringing Japan that much closer to becoming the Grey Race.

On the negative side, the JET Program might have to loosen standards to attract talent. Even if they don’t, the sheer number of additional people will likely result in an increase in the problems that occasionally befall foreigners in Japan – crime, drugs, suspicious visa activity, ill-advised YouTube rants, you name it.

JET is a net good, but not for Japanese people’s English ability 

I say bring it on, mainly to bolster Japan-related talent. Unfortunately, my support of the program is not for its value as an English teaching tool (disclosure: my application for the JET Program was in fact rejected. I am not bitter about it because I handed in a terrible application, but nevertheless I feel like I should own up about it).

I have spoken with/read about perhaps dozens of JET teachers and students over the years. The teachers by and large do not have a particularly high opinion of the job’s value in terms of English teaching, but they almost unanimously credit the program for giving them a great experience. And while the students might not master English thanks to their JET, in many cases they remember them being a friendly adult who helped make school more enjoyable.

From what I gather, the job of an ALT is generally to supplement a Japanese teacher of English by helping with pronunciation and various other tasks. Maybe I just don’t get around enough, but I cannot recall ever hearing someone even try to argue that they are an essential part of the learning process or that what they do has an appreciable benefit to the level of English ability in Japan. I don’t think that is really a problem though because of the program’s other upsides.

On the other hand, what I have heard and experienced is that ALTs can help inspire students to discover the joys and rewards of learning English or encourage them to keep going. I think the value of that should not be underestimated because it is life-changing and the ALTs deserve huge credit for it.

This is kind of an aside, but basically I do not share the government’s fascination with trying to make the entire country proficient in English because for most people that is just not necessary. The way things stand, the biggest result of the current system seems to be the long list of Japanized English loan words that are often such a headache-inducing component of the Japanese language.

To have a more realistic and beneficial impact, I would rather them focus on establishing separate programs for the kids who excel at languages and giving them a place to shine on their own (and while they’re at it they should devote resources to helping returnees re-integrate when they come back while maintaining their language skills). That would hold out the hope of producing a larger population of Japanese adults with near-native English skills.

I feel like there is negative feedback loop whereby most Japanese people are in an environment where the norm is to not be good at English and therefore most people choose the path of least resistance. Separating out the kids that have a real talent and placing them in a more encouraging environment might keep them from missing out just because they have to go along with the crowd.

All in all, JET seems like a worthy program for giving kids a glimpse at a world outside of Japan and the teachers an interesting start to their post-college lives in a way that usually ends up benefiting Japan in some way.

PS: This independent video guide to the JET Program is very well done. If you are reading this and considering doing the program yourself, it is definitely worth a look:

Adamu will be on Livestream helping break down the election this Sunday starting at 8pm!!

Two major elections are coming up in Japan this Sunday — a general election to choose members of the Diet’s lower house, and a race for the Tokyo governorship. The chances of a change in government are high and of all people, that great buckler former PM Abe Shinzo is the favorite to become Japan’s next prime minister!

To help make sense of it all, I’ll be participating in a Livestream broadcast with Garrett De Orio and Kozo Ota, two of the Tokyo English-language blogosphere’s foremost political (and yakyu) junkies. You can save the URL here. We go on air at 8pm, once the polls close. It promises to be a fun and informative evening, so if you like sarcastic commentary and wading deep into the swampy weeds of the Japanese political system, this one is for you my friend.

During the stream we will be answering Twitter questions live with the hashtag #japanelection. Please drop a line! Given its importance, we will be focusing mostly on the general election.

Before Sunday I will try and do some posts highlighting aspects of the election that might fall through the cracks of what has become a quite robust Japan blogo/Twittersphere of late. Outfits like Japan Real Time, Japan Probe, and Shisaku have all been great.

Otherwise you can follow me at @adamukun on Twitter for regular updates. Please let me know in the comments below what sort of issues you want to hear about, and I hope to see you on the stream! Oh and if you’re a Japanese citizen make sure to get out there and vote!!

Always-on Internet during a temporary visit home to the US from Japan

As it happens, I am visiting my hometown in Connecticut at the same time Roy is taking his trip to Japan. Before I went, I had the same problem – what to do about Internet/cell phone connectivity while I’m home? My solution to keep my Softbank iPhone 4S connected was to use WiFi at home and at friends’ houses, plus a no-contract MiFi for when I’m on the go. Overall, it worked out really well with a few unexpected bumps in the road.

Life before MiFi

I have lived abroad since 2006, but until now I have been pretty disappointed with my solutions for connectivity during visits home. Until this trip, I had opted to reactivate an old flip phone that I owned before I left. Each time I seemed to need to pay a reactivation fee plus minutes and texting fees. The whole package usually cost around $50-60 each time. It worked as well as an old cell phone usually does.

Mrs. Adamu and I joined the smartphone crowd in late 2011 by getting the iPhone 4S. We visited home a couple months later and used the old cell phone as usual. It felt kind of weird to use an outdated phone for voice calls when we had such a powerful tool at our disposal, but we went with it anyway.

The Virgin Mobile MiFi 2200 is your friend – if you can set it up right

For my next trip home for Thanksgiving 2012 I came by myself. During the preparations I started to look for some alternative connectivity options and came across what seemed like an amazing deal – a 3G MiFi selling on Amazon for just $30 or so! The Virgin Mobile MiFi 2200 is a small device that connects to Sprint’s network using Virgin’s no-contract MVNO service. I decided to order it for delivery at my destination and purchase 2.5GB of data for another $35 (top-up card pictured under the mug).

The setup went very smoothly in line with the included instructions – except that the last screen in the process said there was an error that I needed to call customer service to resolve. Weirdly, the representative said there was no problem at all, and sure enough the MiFi was already working. So if you go this route, check if the Internet is working properly before waiting on hold for 10 minutes.

All was right with the world and I had a working MiFi for my first day.This was especially useful since I took a trip down to NYC so Roy could show me the best of hipster-fied Brooklyn (see fancy pizza pic below).

The product description advertises just 3 hours of battery life, but in my experience I got around 5. I have a pretty beefy spare battery (white object in picture) that holds around 1.5 iPhone charges and extends the MiFi’s usability by quite a bit (I would estimate an extra 6 hours or so). But since the max battery life is only around 12 hours-ish, you will want to know where your next recharge station is. I ran out of juice halfway through the night and had to rely on Roy’s sweet tethering feature until we got to his place where there was WiFi and free plugs to charge all my devices.

A puzzling error

Unfortunately, the next day the MiFi inexplicably stopped working. I spent another night in NYC and did not have time to call tech support and figure things out. It would turn on and connect, but websites would redirect to the MiFi settings page, which said the device was “Not Activated.” This is apparently a common issue, and I tried many times to redo the “activation process” to no avail. So I spent my remaining two days in NYC surviving on scraps of WiFi from apartments, Apple Stores and Starbuckses.

I returned to CT and finally called to find out the cause of the problem — they deactivated me for the weirdest reason… One of my activation codes began with 00, but apparently I was not supposed to enter the 00 during the activation process. Would have been nice for them to tell me!

After clearing that up with a friendly call to customer service (the Indian-sounding lady was very helpful), the MiFi has worked very well. It is not as reliable as having the Softbank 3G connection, but close enough. I can send/receive messages, load Facebook and Twitter, and see websites with no problem. Low-res YouTube videos even load without complaints.

People forget their WiFi passwords

One thing that has surprised me on this trip is that people often do not know the passwords to their WiFi. In cases like that I have to keep using the MiFi to maintain the coveted always-on connection. Most households have spare mini-USB chargers available (especially if they have Android phones) that can recharge the MiFi, but in one case the battery ran out during a long night that ended with a viewing of Tangled on gorgeously realized Bluray. I had foolishly left behind the spare battery and did not bring my mom’s car charger, leaving me unacceptably disconnected for almost six hours. I did not make such careless mistakes again.

Concluding thoughts

All in all, the MiFi has worked out pretty well at a reasonable price, and I intend to keep using it until something better comes along.

Despite the initial difficulties and disadvantages, I liked the MiFi solution for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it costs no more than activating the old cell phone but allows me to use all my iPhone functions. Also, now that I own the device, future trips to the US will only require me to top up my data, which should be a pretty good savings after a few trips. And by using a MiFi, both me and Mrs. Adamu can connect at the same time. And if we top up before arriving, we can have an Internet connection as soon as we touch down.

Some things would have been easier if I had decided to pay Skype to get a phone number that people could have called. It probably would have made texting possible as well (I am not totally sure about this; Skype texting didn’t work for me, but I don’t know if having a number would change that). But I did not have that many people trying to contact me, so it didn’t make that much sense. And the few people in my social circle that did not have smartphones were reachable in other ways in a pinch, so texting was not exactly essential.

And this may only be worthwhile until I get my next phone. I like the iPhone, but because of my international situation it is tempting to switch to an unlocked Android device. The Nexus 4 starts at just $299 unlocked (compared to $649 for the iPhone 5), so if I get that I could probably do something similar to Roy’s solution when he came to Japan. At any rate, the convenience of always-on Internet has made my trip back home much more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise, so I would recommend anyone heading home to try and work something out like this.

LDP presidential candidate Hayashi: “Let’s play kabuki”

This morning’s NHK Sunday political show contained a disturbing reimportation of the term political kabuki.

The candidates for LDP president were debating their stances on US base relocation, and one, Yoshimasa Hayashi, made the comment (if memory serves) that if Japan cannot deliver progress in negotiations then the bilateral talks would be nothing but political theater.

Specifically, he said they would turn into “let’s play kabuki” (レッツプレイカブキ) apparently referring to the tendency for the US media to refer to kabuki theater in this sense.

Ugh. My least favorite media cliche is now being adopted by the highest levels of Japan’s political establishment.

***

I don’t even really like this show that much because it tends to be nothing but unsurprising political bromides, and whatever value they have is directed at the politicos in Nagatacho, not a general audience. I always end up watching though because it comes right after one of my favorite shows 小さな旅 (“Little Adventures” is how I prefer to translate it). It’s a fun travel show but I especially like it for its amazing theme music, written by Yuji Ohno of Lupin III fame. Here it is thanks to the magic of YouTube:

Japanese “Western” style weddings are awesome

I recently saw someone tweet this:

The Japanese are brilliant at creating unnecessary rules and rituals for adopted western ceremonies. Particularly weddings. Urgh.

Many apologies, Zee-chan, but your statement has inspired me to say something about Japanese weddings. Essentially, that thing is this – I understand the frustration, but for all the ritual and pomp and circumstance, Japanese wedding ceremonies serve a worthy purpose that deserves respect. In fact, the rigidness and ritualistic aspects are kind of the whole point!

Again, I don’t want to single out Zee-chan. I don’t know her and it’s just one tweet, so I have no idea what she is thinking in detail. She just got me thinking about the topic.

But I will say this – I personally have long had complaints about the typical Japanese “western” style wedding, and I know that many other Westerner expats have them too. They tend to consist of sentiments like:

  • Japanese Western weddings are phony-seeming because they are held in a Christian chapel even though the couples and families are rarely practicing Christians
  • It’s weird that they hire white people to act as fake priests
  • They are unnecessarily expensive
  • The cash gifts requested of guests are too high
  • Rules for how to hand out gifts, greet the bride and groom, etc. are too rigid

Many of those criticisms are all well and good, but in general I want to just tell everyone to give Japanese weddings a break! People all over the world have a need for ceremony, and it isn’t fair for outsiders to be dismissive of the necessary rituals for marriage.

For my wedding to Mrs. Adamu way back in 2007, we went through a very conventional wedding planner, but insisted on doing things very simply and in our own way. We had no “ceremony” to speak of since we are not religious. Instead, we skipped directly to the reception and invited only close family and friends to a restaurant of our choosing. We asked one of our close friends to em-cee, created the invitations and audio-visual content ourselves (an MP3 mix and PowerPoint presentations!)

We did this first and foremost because we wanted things to be more intimate and customized to our style, in order to make it more memorable. But another reason we insisted on doing it this way was because we hated the Japanese “Western” style weddings so much and didn’t want to do full Japanese-style either. We openly thought the Western ones were stupid, especially the fake priest thing, and even tried to convince some of Shoko’s friends of this (unsuccessfully).

Well, we had the ceremony and it was a success beyond our expectations. We dressed in kimonos, Mrs. Adamu’s friends performed for us at the after-party, and we were able to bring the two families together (my immediate family flew into Tokyo for the occasion).

We were so proud of how it turned out, and we look back at that day very fondly. But after everything went down, it dawned on me – in terms of the benefits, our wedding was not that different from other Japanese couples who went the more traditional route. Here are some of the good things about having a “proper” wedding:

  • It lets the people in each circle (family, friends, coworkers, bosses) know in a very public way that the two of you are coming together, and it gives the people a chance to meet the other person as well as the other side’s family members
  • More critically, it is a public meeting of the two families to show (and usually give a speech explicitly stating) that they are in favor of the union
  • It gives everyone a chance to celebrate the union and in a way say goodbye to the single person they knew – the speeches and performances by friends are part of this
  • For the couple, it is their chance to know that they are accepted, see that people are happy and celebrating, and thus feel like a real married couple
  • Doing all this formally and in public makes it all official – this was hard for me to appreciate before having gone through it, but if you’re young and not married this is a bigger deal than you might think. For example, my father died a while after this, and for whatever reason I feel better knowing he was able to see me get married.
  • Oftentimes, the gifts collected exceed the cost of the wedding itself, and thus help fund the couple’s new start together
  • It is the bride’s day to live her dream, dress up nicely, and be the complete center of attention on one very special day.
  • And of course, the proceedings are documented on video and in thousands of pictures, to share with the people who couldn’t attend and to look back on years later.

These will definitely vary for each couple/family (and of course it’s somewhat idealized), but I think it’s a decent approximation.

And for all this, it doesn’t really matter what specific form the ritual takes, as long as people recognize it as an official and real wedding ceremony. So if it takes hiring a random white person, signing a fake contract, or whatever, so be it.

It might go without saying, but a wedding day isn’t all about the couple getting married – it also has to (at least mostly) meet the expectations of the guests, especially the parents. And in the case of many Japanese people, that means checking off all the boxes on the “wedding ceremony” order form. It might be expensive, gaudy, “fake,” etc, but it fulfills a very real social need.

This is mostly my own tale of coming to my senses and growing up about the importance of the wedding ceremony. So I am not sure how much this applies to other people, but at any rate I wanted to get this story off my chest.

The Commandant’s House in Brooklyn

Last Saturday I was biking around some back streets in Brooklyn down which I had not wandered before and stumbled across what was clearly a very old fashioned mansion of landmark status, but surprisingly labeled as private property rather than a museum or public building, with no descriptive signage whatsoever.

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Poking around on the Google Maps satellite view I was able to locate the mansion (seen above) in the tiny and quaint neighborhood of Vinegar Hill, and a bit of keyword searching led me to discover that, not only is it in fact a registered historical landmark, but was the official residence of Commodore Matthew C. Perry for two years from 1841-1843, when he was first promoted to the rank of Commodore! As I am sure you all know, it was Perry who, a decade later, sailed into Uraga Harbor and began the process of forcing the opening of Japan, ending the Edo Period and leading to the Meiji Restoration.

I found a 2006 New York Times article about the Commondant’s House, formally known as Quarters A of the now defunct Brooklyn Navy Yard, where my grandfather worked during World War II.((The Yard was closed in 1964, but after being vacant for some time is now a city owned industrial park for incubating small and medium businesses.)) The article describes the history of the property as follows.

 The land for what was at first called the New York Navy Yard was bought in 1801. It is not clear whether the first officer in charge of the yard, Jonathan Thorne, was there when the house was built, a time frame traditionally given as 1805 to 1806. The archivist of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Daniella Romano, says that Thorne was later scalped and killed by Indians in 1811 while on a campaign in the Pacific near Vancouver.

The building that Thorne (or a successor) occupied is shown in 19th-century photographs as a clapboard house

four bays wide in front and five bays dee

p. The facade rose to a peaked roof and a rooftop observation deck.

The main doorway, on the right, was in an intricate Federal style with a fanlight. The cornice and roof trim also carried delicate detailing.

Charles Bulfinch, the architect for part of the United States Capitol, is often mentioned as the designer, but Ms. Romano believes that was the wishful invention of a 20th-century writer.

[…]

In fact, the terms of office in the 19th century seemed to run rather short: Perry’s successor, Joshua Sands, was commandant for only a year. The next commandant, Silas Stringham — who fought the slave trade off the African coast and pirates in the West Indies — served from 1844 to 1846.

It was halfway through his occupancy that The Brooklyn Eagle visited Quarters A and wrote that the house, “with its lawns, terraces and teeming gardens, is a conspicuous object.”

An Eagle reporter returned in August 1872 and wrote that, along with its orchard and vegetable garden, Quarters A had “a look that makes one feel that it must be a pleasant thing to be the commandant.” That was during the four-year term of Stephen C. Rowan, a Civil War veteran.

There is a more detailed architectural history of the house in its National Register of Historic Places Inventory — Nomination Form (Quarters A was eventually granted landmark status on May 30, 1974), which cites Perry’s residency as one key reason for its registration, although I think anyone would agree that it would still qualify without the commander of the infamous Black Ships.

 It is unclear who lives there today. The Times says that the house has been “In private ownership since the Navy Yard closed in 1964”, but the aforementioned Nomination Form, dated July 1969, says that “Quarters A is owned by the Navy, privately occupied, and not open to the public.” It also lists the owner as “Adm. Harry L. Horty, Jr., Vice-chairman, U.S. Delegation U.N. Military Staff Committee”, which I suppose may mean that the house is still owned by the Navy and occupied by an admiral, but sadly the only thing I know for sure is that it remains closed to the public.

Best ways to cope with routine gaijin questions? A reaction to Debito

Debito’s latest creation is a column about “microaggression,” which is his new term for the routine, repetitive questions and lines of conversation that Japanese people commonly have with white Westerners (“You can use chopsticks?” “Can you eat natto?” etc). He says they add up to a form of soft discrimination. It’s one of his better thought-out and organized pieces in a while, so I heartily recommend reading it.

I will admit at first the column touched a nerve because I easily tire of hearing these questions and have many times cut conversations short rather than continue (partly because my Japanese sucks). But while I agree with the basic framework of the idea–that people treat gaijin this way because they are different–I ultimately don’t think it’s worth calling that out and out discrimination and prejudice.

He goes into lots of details, and if you want to get into the finer points of his column in the comments, I will be there with you. But for now I just want to point out my biggest issue.

Boring, repetitive conversations are had all over the world. It just so happens that when Japanese people see a Western face, it calls up memories of learning English in school, the images on TV, and the experiences they or their friends have had with foreigners in the past.  It’s all completely natural and utterly mundane. A shout-out and a thank-you go to those rare people who can break this mold and have lively and fun conversations.

Rather than a small form of “aggression,” in my experience people who do this are almost always just sticking to the script of safe, polite conversation. Most people are not great conversationalists, so they gravitate to what’s easy. Doctors always hear the same questions about their job, so does that mean they’re being discriminated against?

I am totally on Debito’s team when it comes to being pissed off at ignorant prejudiced people. It’s just that while the ignoramuses do engage in the routine rote questions, doing so isn’t a capital offense, socially speaking. You will screen out a lot of perfectly decent people if you denounce everyone who ever mentioned your chopstick skills.  For one thing, talking about food is probably the best ice-breaker for intercultural encounters, so it’s kind of unfair to try and rule that out!

In the column Debito mentions “coping skills” like it’s a dirty word. But coping skills are absolutely essential for living in Japan, and they don’t need to involve trying to change the whole society. There might be a time and place to discuss with Japanese people the absurd repetitiveness of some of these conversations, but it’s probably not worth “resisting” someone you are meeting for the first time.

What are some go-to ways to cope with these situations? As I said I am not good at this, so my most common method for complete strangers might be to politely answer the questions and then clam up, thinking, Hurry up and finish cutting my hair! But when I am feeling festive, I’ll sometimes turn the question around, or even better– change the subject! People usually move on. Ken on Twitter had a good one: “Best part of being ambidextrous is as soon as I get [the chopstick] compliment I issue the challenge to use them lefty.” Really, this is an area where I’ve fallen into a pretty unfriendly routine, so being better able to deal with it would probably brighten these people’s days, not to mention my own.

Update: While Mr. Arudo’s column was worth our unqualified attention this time, our “no Debito” policy lives on in the comments section – our hope against hope is that you try to avoid talking about the man himself and his approach and blahblahblah

Post earthquake initial impressions by Adamu

It is still very early into this tragedy, and a lot could change in the coming days/weeks/months. But I wanted to give some initial impressions. I have been going to the office as usual and basically heading directly home to keep updated and try and calm down my mother via Google Talk. Here are some of my observations so far based on my experiences and the reports I have been reading and watching in English and Japanese. To save time, I have not included links to some stories I did not feel like digging up:

  • Japan rocks – The reaction to the earthquake has been impressive, though sadly even the best response is unequal to adequately deal with the massive destruction in northeast Japan. The buildings were strong enough to stay standing through the quake, the streets were safe enough to walk home when no trains ran, and a full court press came to the rescue the next day. As far as planning and citizen preparedness goes, Japan has the whole world beat, hands down. It seems like in many ways the authorities learned from the failings of the Kobe earthquake. I feel very proud of my adopted home. Note that the emperor agrees with me. In his recent national address, he noted with admiration that foreign observers praised the Japanese people for their calm, helpful reaction to the quake.
    Unfortunately, even the best plans cannot protect against one of the biggest earthquakes/tsunamis ever known. The damage is immense, and it will take a long time to recover. But I am confident that Japan has what it takes to get through the disaster and emerge as strong as ever.
    As the days unfold, I notice that one advantage Japan seems to have on its side is a very adversarial media. From the outset, I think the Kan administration has done its best given the circumstances, and I don’t really agree with the assessment of some media outlets that it was too slow to set up shop inside Tepco. However, on top of that the mainstream media covering this story have (admirably) shown very little deference to the prime minister and Tepco. I think this has put the fear of God into these officials to disclose as much information as possible and be as cooperative as possible. Also, the US (among other countries) is offering very generous support and has been among the most supportive governments in backing up Japan’s response. It has issued statements saying they are “in agreement” with the Japanese assessment of the nuclear situation. Betraying US confidence at this point would not go down well. With all that pressure, attempting to hide things could easily turn Tepco into the next BP (and then some) and the Kan administration into the villain that Murayama is remembered as being during the 1995 Kobe earthquake.
    Twitter has also been a big positive, in my opinion. It helps average people exchange trusted information (and lies to a much lesser extent), and there is a kind of wisdom-of-crowds quality in which certain proposals are retweeted by enough alpha-users that they grab the attention of the authorities. For instance, I saw some prominent Japanese Twitterers retweet a request to have sign language interpreters at press conferences, and a day later sure enough there they were. On the other end of the spectrum, there have been some chain letters spreading untrue rumors. I received one about “poison rain” due to the Chiba oil tanker fire, and I have heard about others. It is worth noting that the person who sent that one emailed me after she learned it was false.
  • Supply shortages in Tokyo should be resolved soon – At this point, it is hard to tell what is more to blame for the empty shelves – the hoarders or the reduced shipments? All the same, manufacturers are reporting sufficient capacity to supply the area, and any disruptions in deliveries should be relieved by next week’s release of emergency oil reserves. The reserves should alleviate the supply shortages and give time for availability even in Tokyo to get back to normal as early as next week. One big reason for the delay is that the worst affected regions got priority, which is only natural.
    Unfortunately, this is one area where average people and the government were kind of a letdown. For one thing, people seemed to start panic buying very quickly. I took a trip to Tochigi on Sunday and already the gas station lines were long. At the same time, the government only started telling people to stop panic buying today! The media seemed to be doing its job, noting the activity and noting how problematic it was, at least as far as I read.
  • People are overreacting to the nuclear crisis, big time – The risk of radiation is, by all credible accounts, very small for almost everyone in the country. I am as glued to updates as anyone, but I am not panicking. In fact, I think focusing too much on the nuclear crisis runs the risk of de-emphasizing the massive toll the tsunami took on the region. The French chartering flights to evacuate expats and warnings based on nuclear fears are overdoing it, I think. I mean, I would understand some people without a deep connection to the country leaving, or at least moving or sending loved ones to stay somewhere safer. I have my wife and in-laws in the area, so I don’t want to leave unless it is truly necessary. In addition to the nuclear concerns, there are the transit problems and hoarding/logistics problems with daily necessities, not to mention the risk of aftershocks. This is scary for everyone, but people who don’t know the language or don’t have people to rely on have that added layer of difficulty. And if you can’t follow the mainstream Japanese media (and sensible Internet sources like Mutant Frog!), you are liable to read sensationalized reports from the overseas media.
    This last bit is a sore point for me. Thanks to all the scary US media reports, my mother has been absolutely terrified. My relatives and family friends have been calling her nonstop to know if I’m OK. I know the media are in the misery business, but more than that it seems like the reporters are far too detached from the story. They focus so much on broader implications and potential scenarios that it ends up providing no practical information to people who actually want to have an even-handed idea of what’s going on.
  • The aftershocks are really scary – since the big earthquake it almost feels like there are small rumblings going on constantly. I especially feel this way at the office, where the building’s design makes it kind of easy to feel small tremors. The bigger ones fill me with dread. As they happen, I wonder if this one will build up slowly into a big quake like the one on Friday. Even when there are no quakes, for some reason I feel like the ground is shaking when I am walking down long hallways.
  • Many outside observers have failed a very easy test of decency – When reacting to a tragic event, the rules of etiquette are simple. Express sympathy for the victims and note the tragedy of the affair. This is not the time to make dumb jokes, call a natural disaster retribution for something some people from Japan did that you don’t like, or condescendingly generalize about Japanese culture. Too many people have failed miserably in this regard. If you need to react this way, keep it off the Internet at least!
  • I am a terrible investor – Last and most definitely least, what do you think is the only individual stock I own? Some hints: In the two months since I bought in, it has seen much of its generating capacity wiped out forever and been threatened with government-enforced annihilation for mishandling the disaster response. Oh and it has been limit-down for three days straight.