Author: Roy Berman

Now your entire meal is embargoed

We’ve all been hearing so much about how the mad cow disease related beef embargoe is going to damage Japan/US relations so badly that we might as well be going back to the day before Little Boy fell out of the Enola Gay, but according to this article in The Mainichi, there’s actually been another large-scale food embargo going on for some time.

Japan will allow foreign potatoes into the country for the first time, accepting a U.S. proposal to brush or wash off all dirt before shipping, send them in sealed containers, and limit their use to processed potato chip snacks, an official said Wednesday.

Japan decided to accept the proposal after 17 months of deliberations, which included sending a team of experts to the United States from July to August 2005, said Masashi Kaneda of the Plant Protection Quarantine Division at the Agriculture Ministry.

Until now, Japan banned imports of foreign potatoes to keep out potato wart fungus and a potato eelworm, the ministry said.

Potato wart fungus has been eradicated in the United States since 1992, while potato eelworm has been limited to areas in New York state, the ministry said.

If potatoes had been banned until now, why is beef attracting so damn much attention?

A sad day for robot-kind

Kyodo article via Japan times:

U.N. robot envoy last of its kind

RIO DE JANEIRO (Kyodo) Sony Corp. recently announced it will cease development of QRIO humanoid robots. Nevertheless, the machines continue to entertain children around the world.

A QRIO robot enchanted a group of students with a samba and soccer performance Tuesday at a school in Sao Paulo.

QRIO, the product of cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology developed by Sony Corp., is touring Brazil sponsored by the National Federation of UNESCO Associations in Japan.

“It surprised me when (the robot) danced samba,” said Gustavo Vencigueri Azedo, 10, as he mimicked the robot’s steps of Brazil’s national dance.

The performance at Colegio Magno School demonstrated the robot’s ability to dance to different rhythms. It stumbled and got back up, reacting to sounds and talking to students in Portuguese.

“My classmates were very impressed when the robot walked toward a soccer ball and kicked it,” Karen Pincelli Izzo, 11, said.

Izzo could hardly conceal the excitement in her voice as she described the scene, adding the encounter has inspired her classmates to pay more attention in science classes.

“The robot has shown us that this is the right track for motivating students toward technology,” Principal Miriam Tricate said, adding that she was impressed by the students’ interest in talking to the Sony technicians who attended the event.

Colegio Magno School, which is part of the United Nations Educational and Scientific C Organization’s Associated Schools Project Network, was selected as one of two schools in Sao Paulo to host the first leg of the robot’s Brazilian tour because of its emphasis on technology in its curriculum.

Students at the school have several science projects under way, including construction of a solar-powered vehicle and robots that can help blind people.

The Brazil tour is the association’s first event involving the Sony robot outside Asia. Previous technology education tours have been conducted in India, Vietnam and Thailand.

“Brazilian children have behaved in a more lively way in comparison to what I have seen among children in these three Asian countries,” said Toyoko Sakamaki, deputy director of the association’s education and culture division.

Sony developed the prototype for QRIO in 1997. The latest version can walk across uneven surfaces and recognize faces and voices.

China angry over Japan’s arms trade

Younghusband pointed out this brief news article related to my earlier post.

BEIJING — A Chinese newspaper and the Japanese Embassy in Beijing are in dispute over coverage of Japan’s firearms exports. The dispute was triggered by an illustrated, full-page Jan 17 article in Elite Reference, a newspaper under the China Youth Daily, that Japan exported $65 million worth of arms in 2003, becoming one of the world’s top eight arms exporters.

The article, titled “Examining the Reality of Japan’s Military Spending,” said that in 2001 Japan exported $55.7 million worth of bombs, hand grenades and other arms, mostly to the United States. Embassy spokesman Keiji Ide visited the newspaper’s offices in Beijing on Jan 19 to meet the reporter, Qiu Yongzheng, question his sources and challenge some parts of the article.

Ok, I know that Japan exports handguns under the claim that they are sports equipment and not actual “arms,” but bombs and hand grenades? Is there any truth to this whatsoever? Keep in mind that the report comes from Chinese state media, not widely knows as the most reliable source.

Dishonourable men use the internet, heaven forfend!

Since I’m heading back home soon and still haven’t gotten final word about the job I’ve applied for in Japan I was looking around on craigslist for jobs in NYC when I ran across this entry, accidentally searching in the general listings instead of the job section.

Japanese Girls Be Careful of Japanese Language partners!
Reply to: see below
Date: 2006-02-03, 5:05PM EST

Please be careful of some English language partners.

Some guys pretend to like Japan.
Maybe they want to hurt Japanese girl.

My girlfriend came from Japan.
She had a bad experience with New York guys.

When my male friend answer their ad, they did not want to meet him.

Please be careful.

Good Luck.

Did Iran and Japan make the same mistake?

Or to phrase it as another SAT analogy: Israel is to Iran as Norway is to Japan.

I just wrote a post last week, largely about Japan’s illegal whaling, in which I pointed out the absurdity of Japan having voluntarily signed an anti-whaling treaty they had no intention of following and opened up themselves to international criticism, while Norway, who simply never signed the treaty, is perfectly content carrying out their own whaling activities.

For the other half of the analogy, look at this quote from the other day’s NYT:

The resolution was passed after the United States agreed late Friday to a clause indirectly criticizing Israel’s secret nuclear weapons status. Initially Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had rejected any compromise, arguing that Iran would use the clause for propaganda purposes to criticize Israel, which unlike Iran is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and suffers no consequences as a nuclear power, diplomats in Vienna and American officials said.

Of course the real reason that Israel can get away with having nuclear weapons and Iran can’t is not because of the treaty, but because the USA and Europe are willing to tolerate Israel’s possession of such weapons, but it does raise the question of why Iran bothered to sign the treaty in the first place. I’m sure there are plenty of other examples of countries that signed up for treaties that they then turned around and violated without a second thought, but I found this parallel particularly apt, despite the vast difference in scale of importance.

Maybe people would still be protesting Japan’s whaling activities even if they hadn’t entered into the treaty, and Iran would definitely still be under diplomatic pressure to curtail their nuclear research, but why in both cases did they only make it easier for their opponents by breaking rules that they never had to agree to be bound by in the first place?

An SAT question

Q: West Palm Beach, Florida is to New York as what place is to Japan?

A: Taiwan.

If that makes no sense to you, then you probably haven’t read this article in Japan’s Asahi Daily.

Taiwan authorities ready longterm visitor visa aimed at Japan’s “baby boomers”

Starting on February 1st, Taiwanese authorities began issuing multi-visas targeted at retired Japanese pensioners. With an eye on the rush of retiring “boomers,” they are aiming to attract long term Japanese visitors thinking that “after retirement, I think I’ll live in Taiwan, where things are cheaper.”

With pensioner Japanese citizens as the target, they will have to produce documents such as proof of pension recieval and proof of a clean criminal record issued by the police department when applying for a visa. With this visa, the greatest period that can be spend in Taiwan at one time is 180 days. Within this period, the visa holder can leave and reenter the country as many times as the like. Their spouse will also be issued a multivisa.

Taiwanese authorities, which are trying to promote an increase in visiting tourists, have noticed an increasing movement of Japanese seniors spending long periods in Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia. Plans are moving forward to construct special “long term visitor condos” in places such as Nanto county, where the climate is warmer.

Sounds like a good deal all around. Japanese retirees will get to live in a nicer climate where prices are lower, and yet the standard of living is not dramatically lower, and the Japanese government has to spend less money on its own expensive domestic healthcare. On the other side, Taiwan’s coffers gets to make up some of the tax shortfall caused by their own aging population, and local service industries get a significant cash infusion.

I should not that a standard Taiwanese visitor visa has an absolute limit of six months, but must be renewed in person every two months at the local police station’s foreigner services office, which I imagine they are rightfully considering would probably be too much of a hassel for elderly people. Of course, a large part of the reason that Taiwan has such strict visa rules is to keep out illegal foreign labor, which from what I’ve seen includes a truly astonishing number of illegal language teachers, in addition to the expected factory and construction workers. Of course, elderly retirees are unlikely to take away jobs from local people, and instead of burdening the local government to pay for more services, they only import wealth.

One key thing remains unclear to me though. With a six month visa, would these residents be elegible to apply for an Alien Residence Certificate (ARC)? If so, that would let them register with Taiwan’s generous national health program, which would be rather counterproductive to the whole scheme.