Author: Joe Jones

Flipper is tasty

Looks like I might have something new to order on the next trip to Tsukiji:

Occurring annually from September to April, the dolphin hunts are regulated by the Japanese government and conducted by groups of fishermen who herd hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dolphins and small cetaceans into shallow bays by banging on partially submerged rods that create a sonic barrier. The dolphins are then corralled into nets and dispatched in a brutal manner: speared, hooked, hoisted into the air by their tails, and finally eviscerated alive. The methods, say researchers, result in a long and painful death for these intelligent marine mammals.

The Japanese government has made the unsupported claim that the animals compete with local fishermen for limited supplies of fish and that the drives are in fact a means of pest control. Also, the “Act for Dolphins” consortium maintains that, in spite of the fact that the hunting of dolphins and use of their meat has waned in popularity, the government is actually encouraging the public to consume more dolphin meat; in addition to human consumption, dolphin meat is also used as pet food and fertilizer.

I know I’m supposed to be outraged, because dolphins are “intelligent” (read: cute), but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to take a nice bite out of some iruka sashimi.

And Kan begat Shintaro…

Where does Japan’s new neoconservative overlord Shinzo Abe come from?

We’ll start in Yamaguchi Prefecture. By the late 19th century, one of the most powerful families in the area was the Abe family of sake and soy brewers. A child named Kan Abe was born into the family in 1894, but instead of hanging around vats, he decided to go to Tokyo and study law at the Imperial University. Upon his return to Yamaguchi he became mayor of the family’s village, and then entered the Diet.

Also in the area lived two other affluent families, the Kishi and Sato families. One of the Sato patriarchs had been among the Choshu samurai who overthrew the shogun, and so he had served as governor of several areas of western Japan in the late 1800s. The families entered a merger of sorts when Shusuke Kishi married into the Sato family and adopted their name. As Shusuke Sato, he sired three sons: Ichiro, Nobusuke and Eisaku.

Ichiro joined the Imperial Japanese Navy and became commandant of a naval base in China, resigning shortly before World War II broke out in the Pacific. Nobusuke was adopted by the Kishi family (which had no male heirs), studied law in Tokyo, became Hideki Tojo’s commercial advisor, got through the purges under Douglas MacArthur and became Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. Eisaku also studied law in Tokyo, administered the railways during the war years, became prime minister from 1964 to 1972, and won a Nobel Peace Prize.

Meanwhile, Kan Abe’s son Shintaro Abe joined the navy during the war, graduated from the University of Tokyo afterward, and worked at the Mainichi Shimbun in Tokyo. It was here that he met Yoko Kishi, the daughter of Nobusuke Kishi (a cabinet minister at the time), and decided to marry her. Not long after their marriage, Kishi became prime minister and Shintaro Abe was appointed as his secretary. He went on to serve in many senior cabinet posts through the 1970s and 1980s, culminating in an appointment as Director-General of the Liberal Democratic Party from 1987 to 1989 before his political career ended due to old age and the Recruit Scandal.

So Shintaro and Yoko Abe had three sons. The eldest married a prominent businessman’s daughter and has lived a relatively uneventful life. The youngest was back-adopted into the Kishi family and now has a political career as Nobuo Kishi. And then there’s the middle kid, Shinzo Abe, who as of next week will be the 90th Prime Minister of Japan. Fear him, because he wants to kick your ass… as soon as the constitution is amended to allow it, of course.

Thank God they didn’t call him “Steve”

According to some random people in Taiwan, this new prince’s name has good feng shui or whatever you call it.

“Hisa is a good name because the Chinese character has 15 strokes which is a luckly number. The name shows the boy will be stubborn and meticulous, but will be very popular. He will bring luck to the royal family,” astrologer Yu Hsueh-hung told Deustche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Lin Da-wei, a name expert, also called the new-born prince’s name auspicious.

“The 15 strokes is the lucky number of the fate. It signifies a rolling rock and contains positive energy and vitality,” he told dpa.

I think the character in question (悠) looks way too much like the character for fear (恐). But hey, if you’re trying to give Japan a more “we pity the fool” image, it’s much better than having an empress named “love child.”

Awesome real estate, wasted on dead people

After crossing to Hakodate, Curzon and I set out on our second day to find some history. After all, Hakodate was one of the first ports opened to American trade under the Treaty of Kanagawa, and has long been associated with foreigners of the Victorian variety.

Of course, they are all dead, but they still get some of the nicest property in town.

Foreigner cemetery

This is one of the “foreigner cemeteries” located at the south end of Hakodate, about a kilometer from the nearest tram stop. This area was set aside during the city’s treaty port days as a resting place for all the gaijin wandering around town at the time.

There are several separate plots in this area, each administered by one of the local churches. What you see above is the Protestant cemetery. Orthodox Christians are buried farther up the hill.

Orthodox cemetery

That pillar on the right says “Hakodate Church of Harisutosu” — Harisutosu being the Japanese transliteration of the Greek word Χριστός (Christós) or “Christ.”

And the Chinese are right next door, on a plot maintained by the local Chinese temple, carefully walled off to keep nosy foreigners from taking pictures.

Chinese cemetery

While I like the idea of having my final resting place on a hill overlooking the whole city, I think it would be much cooler to actually live there. Unfortunately, looks like the corpses get to have all the fun this time.

Crossing to Hakodate

After our trip to Osorezan, Curzon and I wandered across the Shimokita Peninsula to the port of Oma, then boarded a ferry to cross the Tsugaru Strait to Hokkaido.

One of Hakodate’s most well-known features is Mount Hakodate, which rises over the south end of the city and is said to have one of the most amazing nighttime views in the world, on par with the mountain in Hong Kong.

There was a problem, though. As Hakodate came into sight, we noticed that the mountain was wearing a nice little toupee of clouds:

Mount Hakodate

After dinner that evening (crabs! squids!), we decided to get on the cable car and head up the mountain. We got an incredible view of the city for about 30 seconds before it all turned into gray muck: the top of the mountain offered no view at all, just fog illuminated by floodlights.

On the other hand, I must say that Hakodate’s cable cars are an awesome mode of transportation: now I want to build a line between the Mori Tower and the Izumi Garden in Tokyo. I’m sure Curzon will volunteer a photo (as I forgot my camera for the trip up the mountain).

“Hell on Earth” … well, not quite

Osorezan

Osorezan! “The Mountain of Fear.” Ain’t it quaint. It was the first stop on my recent tour of northern Japan with Curzon (who’s still wandering around the back roads of Hokkaido).

Although some misguided websites call it a mountain, it’s actually a temple in a valley surrounded by mountains. The temple is surrounded by rocky terrain lying atop a very sulfuric hot spring, which releases smelly gas from vents in the ground.

When pre-modern types saw this, they assumed that they were seeing spirits escaping the underworld. So legend has it that this is a natural gateway to Hell, and many pilgrims come to leave little offerings for the dead. One common sight around the hot springs is little stone statues dressed in children’s clothes–memorials to dead young’uns.

Anyway, if this is what going to Hell looks like, maybe I need to maintain my life of evil…

Mixi headed for IPO

Mixi, the 5 million-strong Japanese social networking service, is getting ready to go public with an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Mixi expects to get ¥6.9 billion from the deal, about 7 years’ profits at the current rate.

In case you haven’t tried it, it’s a mighty fine service. While it has the usual features–you can make a profile and leave comments about others–its real strength is in its communities and their message boards, and there’s one (or more) for just about anything imaginable. Kind of like Orkut meets Yahoo Answers. The diaries are also pretty popular, although I tend to avoid them because they’re just not that interesting.

We thought GREE was cool as hell a year and a half ago, and now we just look at it and laugh at its lameness.

New hanko, meet old public sector

One investment I might make soon is one of these new security hanko gadgets.

A hanko, for the uninitiated out there, is a personal seal that serves as your signature for most official purposes in Japan. It looks cool, but suffers from a major drawback: it’s very easy to forge. A person can get a color photocopy of your seal impression, or just take your hanko and seal all sorts of stuff in your name. Like, say, a divorce agreement. That wouldn’t be fun.

So Uniball’s new hanko uses a special security feature: you dial in a two-digit combination, which changes a pattern of marks surrounding your name. Unless a person knows the proper combination, they can’t get the seal to duplicate your registered seal impression.

But, according to Mobile Ojisan:

Mitsubishi Pencil recommends Dial Bank Hanko only for bank use. Some local government outright refuses to register this metal hanko as one’s personal seal.

Brilliant. Now I could protect myself from seal thieves, if only some mildly retarded guy at city hall wasn’t making up rules. “No, no no, your seal has to be ivory.”