(Edited to delete full copy-paste)
A friend who recently visited Penang noted that at the Penang Musuem, a room that described the contributions of different peoples to the island, the Japanese section read: “[…] Besides traders, women were prominent in this emerging society. Most of them were prostitutes.”
(Note: This report is unconfirmed and I myself failed to notice it during my own quick trip through the same museum)
I live in Ayase, a nice little suburb on the Tokyo city limits of Adachi-ku. It is not a very well known area (neighboring Kameari is famous for the anime “Kochikame“), save for crime-related issues. First, Tokyo Detention Center is a 10 minute walk from the station. It is the successor institution to the now-closed Sugamo Prison and has hosted a cavalcade of famous prisoners, recently the fallen star and former Livedoor president Takafumi Horie and Aum Supreme Truth cult leader Shoko Asahara (who recently ran out of appeals in his death penalty case).
Also, some famously heinous crimes have taken place here:
1. A man who was convicted with a suspended sentence in Hokkaido for imprisoning a 20-year-old woman for two weeks in his home in 2001 repeated his crime in 2004 when he lured an 18-year-old Hyogo Prefecture woman he met in a chat room into his apartment in Ayase. Just as he had done in the first incident, he used a dog collar to keep the woman under wraps. She escaped after 3 months but has suffered from PTSD ever since. The man was not arrested until May 2005 (Wikipedia seems to suggest that he was able to claim psychological troubles to avoid arrest, perhaps due to being from a prominent Aomori prefecture family), at which time more than 1,000 “human pet” themed adult video games were confiscated from his apartment. I first heard about this when apartment hunting because a room was open in the same building where the crime took place. We ended up not taking it partly for the creepiness factor but mainly because it was too expensive considering its distance from the station.
2. In 1989, a group of at least 6 young men (4 of whom were successfully prosecuted; all were between 16 and 18, under the age of majority in Japan of 20) imprisoned a 19-year-old high school girl in one of the boy’s homes (located in Ayase) for 41 days, raping and abusing her until she finally died. The boys then placed the girl in a barrel, filled it with concrete, and hid the barrel in Wakasu, Koto-ku, Tokyo. The incident was only discovered after one of the boys confessed to it when police arrested him for another crime.
So as I get to know my area a little better, I plan to keep track of some of the news about town. This time up, we have an murder-attempted-suicide:
80-year-old man stabbed to death, wife severely injured in apparent murder-suicide attempt (Adachi Ward, Tokyo)
August 10, 2007
At approximately 8:10PM on August 9, a passerby reported to 110 (Japan’s 911) that a man had collapsed in the doorway of a hardware store in Towa, Adachi Ward 2-chome. Tokyo Metropolitan Police Ayase Precinct sped to the scene and found the 80-year-old store own stabbed in the abdomen. He died almost immediately after beeing rushed to a nearby hospital. His wife (age 75) was found in the 2nd floor bathroom with severe stab wounds to her stomach. She told police that she stabbed her husband and then tried to kill herself. The police view the incident as a non-consensual shinju (murder-suicide) and are investigating the wife’s motive.
Investigators say the man fled his house and asked passersby for help, saying his wife had stabbed him. A suicide note apparently written by the wife was found at the scene.
ZAKZAK reports that while authentic North Korean army uniforms have been available for sale in China near the North Korean border for some time, until recently you could only find low-level grunts. But now real rarities have found their way to China – actual ceremonial uniforms worn by colonels at occasions attended by Kim Jong Il himself. In the DPRK’s Korean People’s Army, colonels are 8th from the top of the 24-rank hierarchy of which the late Kim Il Sung remains the top.
Normal usually sell for about 37,000 yen (2300 yuan or about $340) and usually go to South Korean or Japanese tourists, according to one seller. The uniforms are in abundance as soldiers pawn them to pay for daily necessities. Experts quoted in the article felt that this indicated some further degradation of whatever order is left in the North Korean military, who are supposed to be some of the best taken care of people in the country.
The uniforms make it to China through a small network of traders who move back and forth along the border, often making deals from within NK with carefully hidden mobile phones.
You can talk on the phone using your INDOOR voice, thank you very much. And get back to work! You’ve been chatting with your coworkers for the past 20 minutes.
Two songs that have been on my mind recently:
Snoop Dogg at his best:
I mean look at him — he’s young, energetic, and he’s got that bomb Dr. Dre beat (hell, I’d sound awesome with Dre backing me). These videos are great too — pointless cut scenes, parties, censored corporate logos.
And this, a little after the unfortunate “fo shizzle” stage and after he had given up drugs… It’s not his worst but he’s never really topped that early era (I mean consider this — he’s come full circle from proclaiming that he’s got no love for “ho’s” to complimenting them for having “bomb-ass pussy” — I take it as a sign of age and diminished popularity that he can’t just strip women in public and spray them with seltzer water or whatever he does and still expect them to like him).
** Asahi, in an editorial praising the supposed end of back-room deals between Diet ruling and opposition camps:
The new president of the Upper House is a son of the late Saburo Eda, who served as general secretary of the Japan Socialist Party during the 1960s. When he was a student at the University of Tokyo, Satsuki Eda earned a reputation as a leading campus activist. Eda was deeply involved in the student movement opposing the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, which was signed in 1960. In a tragic episode in this movement that occurred on June 15, 1960, Michiko Kanba, a University of Tokyo student, died in a clash between police and demonstrators who crashed into the Diet premises. Eda was among the protesters on that day.
At that time, Nobusuke Kishi was the prime minister. Kishi’s house was often surrounded by demonstrators. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was then a young grandson of the conservative politician and would play with Kishi at his house, as Abe recalls in his book. Kishi is said to have looked amused as his grandson repeatedly said two words: “Anpo Hantai!” (Down with the security pact!), which was the main slogan of the demonstrators.
Ironically, Eda, who once fought fiercely against Kishi, will look down at Abe, who reveres his grandfather, from the seat of the Upper House president.
** And in other news, in case you needed confirmation that Koizumi is interested in forming his own party, check out this reecnt editorial in Nikkei by Naoki Tanaka, a former Keidanren-related think tank head who now is in charge of “Center for International Public Policy Studies” the Koizumi think tank:
LDP leadership concluded, without much thought, that if the party openly criticized civil servants for their perceived sins in those areas, then the electorate would take the view the ruling party was indeed successfully taking over the baton of reform from the Koizumi. However, the electorate must realize that the new LDP leadership is an entirely different team from the one led by Koizumi and it was not something that could be easily grafted on Koizumi’s legacy of reform. What it all boils down to is that the LDP already suffers from reform fatigue, and the need for a party that can replace the LDP has become imperative.
Through the nationwide discussions that took place prior to the latest election, there was a shared understanding among the electorate that the purpose of the upper house poll was to give a score to the sitting government. Considering these results, one can expect the Japanese media to press Abe, who has vowed to stay on despite his party’s election rout, to dissolve the lower house and call a general election. This would take Japan into a season of fundamental political upheaval in which all involved, particularly the electorate, will have to re-examine the essence of the reform agenda and the political methods employed to attain reforms.
You can interpret that line several ways, but given the fact that the DPJ and Kokumin Shinto are submitting a bill that would freeze postal privatization, I doubt Mr. Koizumi or his cronies will have much use for them either.
I’ve posted on this before and I guess it’s kind of old news, but check out Captain Japan’s gripping description of a recent visit:
Inside this 25-table eatery of hermit kingdom blandness, slim and fair-skinned North Korean waitresses sing, dance in teams, and play violin in between serving a mix of Asian fare to customers who are afforded a zoo-like peek inside the illicit dining room of Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il.
“I enjoy this job so much,” said one of the attendants, who like her comrades speaks a bit of English and Chinese, about working in Cambodia’s capital.
…
As cigarette smoke fills the air above each table, Korean firewater like the grain alcohol Jinro soju and draft Tiger beer are standards for washing down such menu items as beef rib soup ($10), roasted pork ribs ($9), and roasted eel ($15) – selections that do not match the mushrooms and grasses of foreign-correspondent lore, and considering a typical monthly wage for a government worker in Phnom Penh might only be $50 a month, such prices are quite high.The stage show, which is the main attraction, starts at 8 p.m. One waitress, who like her sisters has been trained at an arts college in North Korea, will run through a karaoke number into the reverb-challenged sound system mounted on a small platform pushed into a corner. A duet, perhaps a slightly hip-shaking version of “Let it Be,” might follow. Customers are then encouraged to take their best shot at any of the thousands of English titles or Communist classics in the library. Finishing the set is a rather rousing violin and synthesizer piece.
…
The dance numbers get the most applause from the customers, who will pack each table on Friday and Saturday nights. With a backdrop of gold drapes adorned in tassels, the gals line up, spin and flail their arms in near perfect military-like unison to synthesizer accompaniment over a brown tiled floor.Such uniformity seems to be stressed: shoe heels have been trimmed, giving the appearance of identical height; narrow mirrors are mounted intermittently between the windows to ensure that hair bows can be slightly adjusted while out on the floor; and housing on the property of the restaurant ensure that the girls room together. But lighter moments are possible, such as before the shop’s 11 a.m. opening, when the ladies can be seen happily folding moist towels and exercising their vocal chords.
…
In the northern Cambodian city of Siem Reap, where the majestic temples of the Angkor Wat complex are found, a sister restaurant operates under the same business model. And like the Phnom Penh outlet, which is slightly smaller and a year older, profits are funneled back to North Korea’s coffers. Similar properties have sprouted across Asia, including outlets in China, Thailand, and a fast-food variation in Vietnam.
Is adjusting shoe height (as Kim Jong Il is notorious for doing) some kind of virtue in North Korea? Check out the rest for awesome photos.
Here’s some video footage:
While I am sure most of you are watching the LDP get trounced by the DPJ in today’s upper house election (just as I predicted, of course), I just wanted to let you know that this isn’t the only election happening today (thanks to ZAKZAK):
Elections in North Korea, too? A Sunday election with no losers and 99.8% voter turnout.
On July 29, an election will take place in North Korea. However, with a voter turnout of 99.8%, just one candidate for each election district, and no writing implements to vote with, it would be better described as a “ceremony” than an election.
North Korea uses single-member election districts similar to Japan’s, but there is no proportional representation because of the de facto dominance by the Worker’s Party of Korea. Citizens can vote from age 17, and in this election provincial, city, and county representatives will be selected. On August 3, an election will be held to select members of the Supreme People’s Assembly (NK’s parliament), in which even dictator Kim Jong Il (age 65) will run as a candidate. Kim has won a consecutive 5 terms in office starting in 1982 (but of course, none of the “candidates” ever actually lose in this election).
An unnamed private researcher explains: “The election form says ‘I vote affirmatively to make X a representative’ and if the voter agrees, he/she simply places the vote in the box. The rules state that you are to place an X on the election form if you disagree, but they do not provide any writing implements at the election office.”
There are supposedly more than 600 members of the SPA, but the election districts are listed by number and do not specify which region the candidate is supposed to represent. Neither are voters informed who the candidates are before the election, so it makes no difference to the voters who is in office.
Kim’s election district changes each time: for example, in 1998 he ran in the “Korean People’s Army 666th Electoral District.”
Kazuo Miyazuka, a professor at Yamanashi Gakuin University who is familiar with NK’s internal situation, notes “Since 100% of the voters vote affirmatively, this is not an election at all. It is a chance to test whether the people will faithfully participate and is used as a way to dominate the people.”
This from the Nikkei this morning:
Govt Seeks To Locate Fault Lines Near Nuclear Plants
Why on earth would they want to do that, and just how would they propose to move these fault lines??
*The article actually refers to finding out whether there are any more nuclear plants located under fault lines.
I admit, I have been out of commission recently, and with my prep classes for the Securities Dealer Type II exam coming up (plus a bunch of other commitments) it looks to sort of stay that way. Still, I couldn’t stay totally silent on the upcoming election.
Since I haven’t seen anything like it in English yet, I’d like to show you a little chart I made up. It breaks down the seats in the Japanese Diet’s Upper House in terms of party affiliation:
Now here’s something you can get from news reports (Yomiuri):
If the LDP’s coalition partner, New Komeito, secures 13 seats–the same number of seats it won in the 2001 upper house election–the LDP would need 51 seats to maintain the ruling bloc’s majority. To accomplish its goal, the LDP aims to win 20 prefectural constituencies where one seat is being contested, and 18 seats in multiple-seat contests. “We’ll still reach our goal even if we only win 13 seats in the proportional representation contest,” an LDP source said.
But winning in 20 out of 29 constituencies where one seat is being contested is a high hurdle for the LDP, which is under fire over the pension fiasco.
But what the news reports probably won’t give you is a wildly speculative prediction of the results. I am here to deliver, but I want to add the disclaimer that my prediction, much like all the English-language election coverage, presumes no changes in party affiliation from some existing Upper House members. However, two Diet members have recently defected from opposition parties, and what’s more, many are predicting major party realignment depending on the election results. Anyway, here’s what I think will happen:
And there you have it. Where do you think the political landscape is heading? One thing I would hate want to see happen is the LDP to lose just enough seats to make it possible to stay in power through bringing the Kokumin Shinto into the coalition. That would really put the nail in the coffin to any pretence the LDP had of trying to continue on a path to leaner government and realistic solutions to Japan’s problems.
As noted before, the beset agricultural minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka committed suicide yesterday. Today I want to show you some people’s reactions:
First off, Matsuoka himself left a whopping eight handwritten suicide notes, addressed to various people including the prime minister and “the people of Japan and everyone in my support club.”
The police have only released a fraction of the notes to the public so far, and they shed little light on why he decided to take the easy way out:
“People of Japan and everyone in my support club… I am very sorry and take the blame for everything. I apologize for causing so much trouble. Please take care of things after I’m gone.” And another note states: “My wife knows the circumstances behind this. Please don’t look for the whys and wherefores. Please be gentle.”
Martin Fackler of the New York Times explains for the American audience “Suicides have a long and often romanticized history in Japan, where they have been seen as a face-saving escape from public humiliation.” This sentiment is familiar to anyone living in Japan, and the suicide notes seem to back up that face-saving motivation. However, it should be noted that Matsuoka is the first serving cabinet member in Japan’s postwar history to kill himself, and only the 7th serving Diet member. While some Diet members have killed themselves over scandal (Shokei Arai in 1998 among them, who took his own life over getting caught in several stock scandals), some were due to terminal illness (See Asahi for details). And while Matsuoka may have tried to conjure up images of Japan’s face-saving suicide culture, there aren’t actually so many people who (at least overtly) sympathize with his choice to die rather than face the facts.
To get a quick perspective from both sides of the debate, today’s Asahi editorial notes: “Wasn’t there another way, such as stepping down as MAFF Minister or leaving your Diet seat?” and later “We do not intend to speak ill of the dead, but [revealing the facts and starting over if you are in the wrong] is the right way to take responsibility as a Diet member and a cabinet minister.”
The more right-leaning Yomiuri takes a different tack, portraying Matsuoka’s death as a “tragedy” somehow caused by the “psychological pressure of this string of problems” that could happen again if political fund accounting regulations are not reformed adequately. This sort of argument strikes me as patently irresponsible and implies that Matsuoka’s death was the opposition’s fault for, as they put it, using the political funds issue as a “political football” as opposed to the truth, which was that Matusoka’s suicide was a personal choice and no one’s fault but his own.
And there are still other theories as to why he killed himself. One rumor proffered by freelance journalist Takashi Kitaoka (citing “police” sources) is that Matsuoka was in 1 billion yen in debt, and that even the money he gained from immense utility expenses and political funds from forestry contractors would not pay for the interest.
The opposition parties (including the DPJ, Communists, and Social Democrats) have taken an almost uniform line that PM Abe’s protection of Matsuoka actually contributed to his death. Anonymous blogger Kikko explains the reasoning behind this:
Now the Abe cabinet, with its ministers encountering one scandal after another, is now called “the most miserably bad cabinet in history.” The irresponsibility of Shinzo Abe, who thinks of nothing but protecting his own position, has at last taken a person’s life. Minister Matsuoka, whose scandals and crimes, from the “something something recycled water” office expenses scandal, to his connections with organized crime, to the political funds scandal, and finally the “J-GREEN” government-led bid-rigging incident, had reportedly told people close to him that he wanted to quit. But Abe would not let him quit for the sole reason that “if any more cabinet ministers are made to quit, the prime minister’s responsibility for appointing them will be questioned.” In the Diet, Matsuoka was subjected to a fully-mobilized attack from the opposition, questioned harshly by police on the bid rigging incident, and even people within the LDP were calling for his resignation. Yet he was not allowed to quit even though he wanted to, all to save face for Shinzo Abe.
Pushed into a corner, Matsuoka in the end took his own life. In other words, he was forced to kill himself for the convenience of Shinzo Abe. Despite the fact that Abe’s responsibility for appointing him was obvious, what with the discovery of so much improper and illegal activity, Abe protected his own position by not letting Matsuoka quit, and this is the cause that pushed Matsuoka toward suicide. Abe should be questioned aggressively on this. Many people are killing themselves due to the growing societal disparity caused by bad policies, but for Abe to cause a suicide in his own cabinet just shows how selfish, incompentent, and irresponsible he is, and I’d like him to quit immediately.
Add notoriously corrupt (yet still alive, showing there is another way) politician Muneo Suzuki (formerly of LDP, now of the Hokkaido regional “Shinto Daichi” party) to the list of “it was Abe’s fault” proponents. As a former partner in crime, Suzuki speaks with the perspective of someone who really knows what was going on in his head:
The last time I saw [Matsuoka] was when we met on the night of May 24. I made a suggestion to him: “I am going to question you at the Committee on Audit and Oversight of Administration tomorrow, so why don’t you apologize to the people from the heart? Your explanations that you are following the law and acting properly based on the law are not understood by the public. You should bow low on the ground before them and frankly apologize by saying that you did not fulfill your responsiblity to explain yourself.” But he lamely replied: “I thank you for the advice, but my orders from the Diet Affairs Committee, the top, are to stay quiet for now. I can only follow that.”
I asked him again: “This issue will go on whatever you do, so I think you should hurry up and honestly explain to the people.” He smiled and said: “Suzuki-sensei, you’re the only person who says that.”
I feel like I understand Matsuoka’s heart. Up to the day I was arrested, Matsuoka called me to express his support almost every day.
And some are speculating that there are some members of the farm “tribe” who must be relieved that Matsuoka will never be forced to testify as to what he knows about the various dealings that go one with the network of agriculture-related publicly owned corporations. His cryptic messages also show that he kept quiet to the end.
In all, the man whose career was made on smart, if shady, political decisions seems to have miscalculated the effect his death would have on the political scene. Or perhaps he knew exactly what sort of bind it would put the Abe administration in. Unfortunately, “the people” will probably never find out the truth, partly because Abe has declined to investigate the matter.
