Author: Roy Berman

Japan Brings Judo to Iraq as Humanitarian Aid

The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on March 18 that they will be providing 200 Judo uniforms to the Iraqi Judo Federation. Their stated purpose is:

to promote friendship with Iraqi people and to deepen their understanding about Japan and also strengthen their hope toward the future through Judo, which is one of the national sports of Japan that place importance on the spiritual side.

This is in addition to the $91,000 of judo and soccer (football for you non-Americans) equipment that they donated to Iraq just short of one year ago.

Apparently judo has a sizable presence in Iraq, with over 25,000 members in their national judo federation, and it seems that the sport is taken quite seriously there. According to this article on one Iraqi Olympic athlete (in another sport):

Iraq’s judo champion, who will carry the national flag at the opening ceremony, and his coach were once incarcerated in Uday’s private dungeons after performing below expectations.)

Korean DMZ Photos

In light of the large number of visitors coming for the public execution video from North Korea, I thought I should point out the photos I have in my web gallery from my trip to the Korean DMZ (DeMilitiarized Zone). The explanation I put on my old blog when I first posted these photos is located in the Mutanfrog archives here.

The DMZ gallery is located here, or just click on one of the two sample thumbnails and navigate upwards.

border-zone/tunnel_interior
I love this picture I took inside the invasion tunnel when the guards weren’t looking.

border-zone/korean_guard

Historical Value of the Yen

Before I go, I just wanted to post an excerpt of an email I got from Saru the other day.

* * * * *

With regard to your question about the historic value of the yen. It
was set at 360 to the dollar during the occupation. There is a story
that attributes the choosing of this value because “yen” means round
and someone thought it would be appropriate since there are 360
degrees in a circle. At any rate, this may be apocryphical.

It stayed at 360 until August 1970, when Nixon pulled the US off of
the gold standard, effectively ending the Bretton Woods System. The
Japanese call this “nixon shock.” By this point, because the Japanese
were running substantial current account surpluses, the yen was
considerably undervalued. The Japanese government tried to keep it at
Bretton Woods levels, but eventually gave up and let it float. Since
it was undervalued, it rose pretty quickly from about 360 at the start
of 1971 to stabilize around the 300 mark until the mid-1970s. It hit a
high of 183 in the late 1970s and then fell again back to the mid-200s
by 1980. Then it skyrocketed in the mid-90s. You can check out the
detailed numbers yourself at the address below if you’re interested.
The Bank of Japan used to have great stats, but I checked today and
for some reason they only have effective exchange rates indexed at 100 for March 1973.

Yen/Dollar exchange rates history.

Incidentially, when my boss first went to Japan back in 1971, he said
it was his first real lesson in economics because the yen just kept
getting more expensive and more expensive. On a similar note, 94-95
would have been a great time to have been teaching English and getting
paid in yen. Jesus I wish I were six or seven years older sometimes!

NBS takeover plot thickens, but it’s still too early for optimism that Japan is ready for change

Our friend Saru has, after a long hiatus, posted a new piece over on his blog. Neither of us here holds a candle to Saru’s knowledge of economics, so I won’t try to offer any additional comment right now. Here’s his lead, go read the rest over at his blog, and check out some of his older pieces. Posts may be rare, but always well written and informative.

Recent developments in the ongoing takeover battle between internet upstart Livedoor and old guard Fuji Television for control of Japan Broadcasting are making things interesting for Japan watchers.

Yesterday came the unexpected news that the Tokyo District court had ruled in favor of Livedoor, ordering NBS to halt its intended direct issuance of new shares to Fuji in an effort to dilute Livedoor’s holdings. Yahoo! Asia News ran this rather optimistic analysis of the ruling, describing the court’s decision as, “turning the clock forward on Japan’s capital markets.

Continue article:

US Patents and Translation from Japanese

Interesting post here from a translators mailing list that I subscribe to. I don’t have time to comment in detail, but very interesting in light of some of the current controversies over the appropriate scope of patent law.

I talked to a US patent agent yesterday who told me that there
are actually some people in the US pushing for abandonment of
examination and turning the patent system to a registration-only
system, like they have in France for example. The idea is that
there is such a huge backlog and examiners usually don’t have the
time or the resources to do a proper examination, so validity is
questionable until a patent is contested in court anyway.

I don’t think it will come to that anytime soon, but if it does, then
the obvious consequence will be that all those Japanese companies
will shift a lot of the money they spend for prosecution right now to
translation, which would lead to an even greater demand for
patent translation.