Category: Japan

Japan Times infiltrated by Soka Gakkai?

Weekly Friday printed an article in their July 21 issue taking a look at the controversy surrounding Soka Gakkai leader Daisaku Ikeda’s recent series of op-eds in the Japan Times, the “only independent English-language newspaper in Japan.” Let’s have a look:

FRIDAY, 2006.07.21

Indicting Reportage: Internal conflict arises at Japan Times over “Daisaku Ikeda” columns

Field reporters lodge fierce protests, claiming “promotional articles for giant religious group Soka Gakkai”

In our last article, we reported the behind-the-scenes power struggle that is ripping Soka Gakkai apart, but a “Soka scandal” has also embroiled the Japan Times, the English-language newspaper boasting the longest history in Japan (founded 1897).

It all started when the paper started running a serial column by Daisaku Ikeda (78), honorary chairman of Soka Gakkai. This column runs on the 2nd Thursday of each month, with 12 columns planned in total. But Japan Times emloyees have fiercely protested and it has reached a state where they have requested that the upper management cancel the series. A Japan Times employees explains:

“Soka Gakkai has been dubbed a cult in France, and it is united with a specific political group (New Komeito). It is absurd for us to let the leader of a religious group with these kinds of issues to write promotional articles and on top of that give him our serial space. Even from the perspective of journalistic impartiality, it isn’t to be permitted.”
Continue reading Japan Times infiltrated by Soka Gakkai?

Saaya Irie on YouTube

My quick letter to YouTube:

Dear Youtube:

It looks like dozens of videos of 12-year-old Japanese actress Saaya Irie are making their way around your site. At least one video was popular enough to appear on the top videos of Japanese YouTube search site, Qooqle Clippers. I watched the video, and it’s of Irie in a white bikini with a cameraman in the background telling her to pose. She is 12 years old making suggestive poses. It looks like something out of a Stephen King novel. One hopes that a nightmare sewer clown killed the cameraman moments after the video was shot.

As much as I like your service, videos of this nature are highly inappropriate and may be illegal under US law. In the off chance that you view one of the many videos on your site depicting Saaya Irie and conclude that she is engaging in nothing more risque than normal child modeling, let me assure you that she is intended for the Japanese softcore child porn consuming public, as has been documented (see links below). Often in Japan, child acts make a show of appealing to fellow youngsters while in fact courting older fans who then purchase “photobooks” that feature no nudity but are nevertheless softcore pornography. While tolerated in Japan, an American site should not in good conscience enable this behavior. Considering the extent to which you accommodate copyright holders to ensure that infringing content is deleted in good faith, I can only hope you will make the utmost effort to remove material that depicts child exploitation as well.

Regards,

Adamu

Links: 1 2

What to ask Alex Kerr?

Kerr and InoseOn Nov 20, I’m going to see a lecture by Alex Kerr (pictured, bottom), a businessman in Japan and Thailand and author of Dogs and Demons, one of my favorite books on Japan. He’s giving some kind of talk at the Japan Foundation. Here‘s the promo copy:

Alex Kerr Lecture: “Lost Japan”

Alex Kerr, the East Asia scholar who was praised by Ryotaro Shiba as “a protector of Japanese culture, from America,” continues to express his melancholy at the state of affairs in which Japan’s beautiful scenery is in the process of being destroyed, as well as the need to protect traditional culture. Won’t you lend your ears to the warning bell that Kerr has sounded out of love for Japan and take another look at modern Japan from the perspective of someone who has lived abroad?

As I mentioned, Dogs and Demons is one of my favorites. It’s Kerr’s tale of woe, a follow-up to his previous love letter, Lost Japan, and it criticizes the social, economic, fiscal, and other problems facing Japan. He concludes that a runaway bureaucracy has ravaged Japan’s natural beauty and culture. The metaphor “dogs and demons” comes from this story by Chinese philosopher Han Feizi:

[T]he emperor asked a painter, “What are the hardest and easiest things to depict?” The artist replied, “Dogs and horses are difficult, demons and goblins are easy…. Japan suffers from a severe case of “Dogs and Demons.” In field after field, the bureaucracy dreams up lavish monuments rather than tend to long-term underlying problems. Communications centers sprout antennas from lofty towers, yet television channels and Internet usage lag. Lavish crafts halls dot the landscape while Japan’s traditional crafts are in terminal decline. And local history museums stand proud in every small town and municipal district while a sea of blighted industrial development has all but eradicated real local history.

Kerr goes on to detail initially covered-up river pollution that ended up being so bad they had to name a disease after what it did to people, nuclear reactors clumsily repaired with duct tape, massively wasteful public works spending that robs local areas of the chance to develop a real economy, unconscionable levels of government debt, and countless other examples of Japan’s “policy challenges” circa 1999.

The most effective parts of the book are where he talks about the destruction of Japan’s landscape and city planning, areas that directly affect Kerr personally as an art lover as well as his businesses in dealing artwork and urban restoration. Why are all of Japan’s rivers paved? What is the need for all the noise pollution in public areas? Why was Kyoto’s priceless architecture and urban culture allowed to be put on the chopping block? Why don’t they just tear down Kyoto tower?! OK, that last idea was my own, but he does at least call the tower “garish.”
Continue reading What to ask Alex Kerr?

Don’t mess with 2ch: ZAKZAK, Sankei Sports report

A couple interesting articles on the building discontent with 2ch and its founder’s scofflaw ways. Debito has the articles full-text in Japanese only on his awesome new blog (such discrimination!) but I have decided to translate them (not verbatim but true to the original, as usual) for the discerning English-reading public. BTW, I’ll only have really nice things to say about 2ch in the future:

ZAKZAK!

2-Channel in a state of lawlessness – Attacks on individuals left on the site

A 30-year-old customer service worker recalls her painful memories:

hiroyuki 061105sha20061105001_MDE00430G061104T.jpg“I went back to my parents’ house after my home address was revealed on the Internet, but harassing phone calls kept coming into my office. Even my customers started to distrust me, thinking that I had someone (harassing me).”

The woman took the brunt of insults such as “ex-prostitute,” “too much plastic surgery,” and threats including “I’ll kill you,” and “Just die.”

There were rumors that “an old acquaintence in the same business posted the offending material around the time when (the woman) opened her own store,” but the “culprit” could not be identified. The woman filed a civil law suit holding message board’s moderator Hiroyuki Nishimura (age 29, pictured) responsible.

The Tokyo Regional Court ordered deletion of the posts and 1 million yen in compensation, but the court victory spawed a second round of attacks. On 2ch, there were several posts including “don’t get bent out of shape over such things,” “I’ll beat you to death,” and “Hurry up and hang yourself.” Her workplace’s web site was also flooded with similar posts, shutting it down. The woman took leave from work for a while due to the stress.

Nishimura’s reaction at the time was, “Since it wasn’t just a demand to delete the posts, but litigation to take money from the message board’s moderator, I think it happened because it provoked protest from regular users.”
Continue reading Don’t mess with 2ch: ZAKZAK, Sankei Sports report

What’s behind the issue of readmitting “postal rebels” to the LDP?

When Koizumi kicked 37 Lower House members out of his own party for opposing his postal privatization bills, it made for brilliant political theater. But as the upper house has pointed out, banishing experienced politicians with extensive support networks can prove counterproductive in tougher election years. So, recently there has been a debate within the LDP over whether to allow some of the “rebels” back into the party. But apart from the general concerns over the upper house election, just what is behind this debate?

Thankfully, my efforts to scour every single Diet member’s web site have started to pay off. Opposition DPJ upper house member Tetsuro Fukuyama (Kyoto), has some guesses:

Tetsuro’s Diary, Nov. 6
…

(1) Of course this is a measure for next year’s upper house election. In single-member districts in every prefecture, success in the election will turn on whether powerful postal rebels take action. On top of that, Taiju, an association of [former] special post office [postmasters], and other groups are more than likely of a mind to fight in the proportional representation race using the organizational strength of the postal rebels. It’s first and foremost geared toward the election.

(2) As you may know, the deadline for Diet members to register for government subsidies for political parties is the last day of December. As you can see from the fact that the timing for people to join and leave parties has almost always been at the end of the year, it would not be surprising if this recent scandal, too, centers around the money. That’s because if the postal rebels and unaffiliated members were already members of the LDP, then the party’s subsidy, in other words the funding for its activities, would probably substantially decrease. Meanwhile, if the rebels manage to rejoin the party by the end of the year, their party subsidies coming to the LDP will increase. (tr: here he seems to be implying that the postal putsch was a scam to earn more party subsidies)

(3) Leading up to next year’s nationwide local elections, local assembly members have to deal with two Diet members in their districts, the postal rebels and the “assassins” sent in to replace them, likely resulting in quite a bit of confusion in the regions. This is a life-or-death issue for local Diet members of various affiliations, so they probably want to resolve this issue quickly.

(4) If the rebel issue continues to drag on, then the LDP will have to campaign for the upper house next year with an unpleasant aftertaste, and after the upper house election, a great amount of time and effort will be wasted sorting things out in preparation for the next lower house election. If the issue of bringing the rebels back into the party is left unresolved, then they cannot get to work preparing for the next lower house election.

(5) Still, public opinion would object if the LDP easily let them back, posing the risk that it might have a negative effect on the upper house election. This makes judgment difficult, and a decision cannot be reached. The Japanese people are watching the slowdown after ex-PM Koizumi closely, as they should. Although Abe and the LDP leadership are placing some sort of conditions on reinstatement, such as agreement with Abe’s policy speech and principles, it would be an understatement to say that such statements lack persuasiveness.

This reinstatement issue is only for the LDP and Diet members and election, and the Japanese people have nothing to do with it. In any case, they are taking the Japanese people for fools. The Japanese people should be more angry at the fact that this type of debate is taking place.

MOF vs. MIC, local entities in deepening conflict over budget

I’m just trying to get my head around this story from FujiSankei Business-i:

MOF vs. MIC, local entities in deepening conflict over budget

FujiSankei Business i. 2006/11/6 　

Hot issues: JFM, early return of FILP funds

Leading up to the 2007 budget revision, conflict is deepening between the Ministry of Finance, which touts fiscal reconstruction, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), which is backed up by the sentiments of local self-governing groups (i.e. municipalities). The two major issues are the scheme of how to deal with the Japan Finance Corporation for Municipal Enterprises (JFM), a government-owned financial institution slated for abolishment, and compensation for the early payback of funds from the Fiscal Investment and Loan Program (FILP). Debate is likely to heat up going into Nov 21, when the Deliberative Council on the Fiscal System (an advisory body to MOF) is set to finalize its budget proposal.

The MIC/municipalities side has taken the stance that the national government should subsidize the regional areas through various program revisions. MOF, meanwhile, has emphasized that the nation’s fiscal condition is even worse than that of regional areas. The two sides have collided head to head, with MOF offering up such criticisms as “The regional areas are not making serious efforts to reform the civil service.”

A typical example of this conflict is found in the JFM issue. The JFM historically procured funds from the market by issuing government-backed bonds, and lent those funds at long-term, low interest to municipalities’ water/sewage systems, hospitals, etc. However, after it is eliminated in 2008, it will transition into a new organization owned by the municipalities. The issue here is how to deal with the 2.6 trillion yen in reserves that the corporation had built up in preparation for a rise in interest rates.

MOF is of the position that, since the JFM is a 100% govt-owned financial insitution, “the leftover assets should be widely used for the people for fiscal reconstruction etc,” and is demanding that the reserves be placed in the national treasury. The MIC, in response, claims that the entire sum should be handed down to a successor organization to be jointly owned by the municipalities. At present there is no compromise in sight.

Meanwhile, the issue of compensation for early return of FILP funds began with a proposal from the municipalities. most loans received by municipalities from the government-owned financial institutions are long-term, with payback periods ranging from 20-30 years, and many of those loans were taken out during the era of high interest rates. As a result, the municipalities want to refinance while low interest rates continue, but in that case they will be required to pay compensation. Since the compensation depends on the number of years left on the loans, in reality, it will cost the majority of the future interest burden.

To that, the MIC is demanding the introduction of a system to eliminate the compensation requirement, but MOF has expressed virulent opposition. Since the compensation system was made clear in the contract signed at the time of the loan, the MOF’s stance is that the arrangement is valid whether the interest rates go up or down. Masaaki Honma, chairman of the MOF’s FILP Committee and member of the Deliberative Council, harshly questions the MIC’s attitude, remarking, “Eliminating the payment of compensation that was stipulated in the contract would be defaulting.”

The rift between the two sides is deep, placing focus on how the Prime Minister’s office will judge the matter. It will likely also be used as fodder to divine the depth of the PM’s leadership on near-term fiscal management.

RSS Feeds of Diet Members’ web sites, aggregated

Don’t say I never gave you anything.

I sifted through each individual web site of Japan’s lawmakers (members of the Diet) and placed any RSS feeds I found into Google Reader. Compared to the 722 seats in the Diet, only I only picked up 150 individual members with feeds.

That doesn’t mean Japan’s politicians are not active on the web. All but about 10 or so (mostly the elderly and entrenched – like “Don of the Upper House “Mikio Aoki” – or just too cool for the web – like our man Koizumi) had websites (another 10 members’ sites were down for various reasons), about 90% of them kept up-to-date content on the site, and a good majority provide a wealth of content either in the form of opinions or activities reports. There is, perhaps, a downside to that – they aren’t spending their time drafting legislation (in many cases the job of the PM’s office or autonomous bureaucrats). What I am saying, however, is that most of them are behind the times – lots of websites with early-2000s site designs, and one member even had a Geocities page!

But that aside, here are the links to the RSS feeds that were available, broken down by cameral and party affiliation (Click the party link to see the aggregator site):


Lower House (House of Representatives) (480 seats total; 114 feeds)

  • Liberal Democratic Party (295 seats as of 10/22/2006; 62 feeds)
  • New Komeito (31 seats, in a coalition with LDP to form ruling coalition; 3 feeds)
  • Democratic Party of Japan (113 seats; 43 feeds)
  • Japan Communist Party (9 seats; no feeds, but here’s their sweet English-language site)
  • Social Democratic Party (7 seats; 3 feeds)
  • Minor parties/unaffiliated (total 25 seats, includes Kokumin Shinto (New People’s Party, 4 seats) and Shinto Nippon (New Nippon Party, 1 seat); 3 feeds total)

    • Upper House (242 seats; 37 feeds)

  • Liberal Democratic Party (112 seats; 12 feeds)
  • New Komeito (24 seats; 6 feeds)
  • Democratic Party of Japan (80 seats; 19 feeds)
  • Japan Communist Party (9 seats; no feeds)
  • Social Democratic Party (6 seats; no feeds)

    • That’s 151 feeds, or about 21% of the members (this isn’t an exact total – one member had multiple feeds, of which I subscribed to 2). How is this useful? Well, not at all if you don’t read Japanese. But at least I will be checking back on it whenever I want to see what people are saying on a given issue, possibly keeping it updated after elections, but who knows? I was bored.

    Now, it is possible that I missed a member’s feed for reasons including not seeing the link or it not actually being linked on the member’s official site. Also, a good percentages of the feeds I did find came after digging through the settings page of members’ “e-mail magazine” services, chiefly mag2. Also, many members had “blogs,” but either used primitive Japanese “diary” software, manually updated the sites the old school way, or simply didn’t offer a feed.
    Continue reading RSS Feeds of Diet Members’ web sites, aggregated

    USJ’s Xmas tree almost certainly pissing off KWBB workers

    Nikkei gives shameless free promotion to Universal Studios Japan’s Christmas festivities. This year, like most others, the park has an enormous Christmas tree as the centerpiece of its nightly Christmas-themed fireworks jamboree:

    USJ xmas tree im20061102NN002Y4980211200613.jpg

    Ah, memories… I used to work as a hamburger cook at the KWBB hamburger restaurant at USJ, which was located right next to the big tree at Christmastime. Though I was explicitly banned from criticizing the theme park when I was an employee, I feel that 3 years is sufficient leeway for me to complain about how annoying it was for us to listen to the ultra-perky Disneyland ripoff that passed for a Christmas show every night as I toasted buns and burned myself on the industrial-strength hamburger grill. Occasionally, the closing shift would end just as the Xmas show (and non-xmas park-closing shows) reached its finale, allowing me to catch the tail end- lots of explosions, lots of jetskiing, lots of loud lipsynching to 50s doo-wop standards as hundreds of Japanese middle class families looked on in ultra-earnest wonder.

    Now don’t get me wrong – your average visitor will no doubt find USJ an enthralling thrill of Hollywood cinema come to life, and the Christmas fireworks show at closing time can be an excellent end-cap to a day filled with ET rides and Terminator 2 action shows.

    It’s just that for me, hearing the same bit every day got to be excruciating, just like hearing the same 20 American pop songs (“Happy Ending” by Avril Lavigne and “In da club” by 50 Cent in addition to standard 80s songs like Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf”) over and over can get tiring, as in any job. One song that I never got tired of for some reason was “Magnet and Steel” by Walter Egan, a song used as “atmosphere” music just outside the restaurant.

    My all-time favorite USJ attraction was the Universal Monsters Live Rock And Roll Show™, the ultimate in high-concept irony in which the famous “Universal Monsters” led by none other than a wisecracking Beetlejuice, croon topical pop songs (as of 2003 featuring “Smooth” by Carlos Santana feat. Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas). Quoth the corporate literature:

    Beetlejuice cranks up Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein for a mega-monster rock show filled with screamin’ demons and wailin’ guitars.

    \m/ !!! Watch these video clips of the rockin’ monsters covering Bon Jovi and Kiss to see how awesome it really is. This clip of the Orlando version of the show is a bit more topical (Outkast’s “Hey Ya” makes an appearance – rock!).

    DPJ’s Yukio Hatoyama and his magical Pegasus

    I’m still obsessively sifting through every single Diet member’s web site. There are a slew of gems that I’ll get to later, but I wanted to point our loyal readers as well as newcomers to the website of Yukio Hatoyama, a senior leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition in the country. His opening flash movie depicts Hatoyama in what looks to be an odd interpretation of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty: Hatoyama rides in on his magic pegasus, wields a broad sword and cuts through thick, brambly, bloodthirsty roses (labeled “bureaucratic-led big-rigging,” “mad cow disease,” “Livedoor,” “abandoning the weak,” and “the falsified earthquake safety issue”) to save the Japanese citizenry, who I guess is Hatoyama’s sleeping beauty. Watch and be swayed!

    The animation is by freelance illustrator Satoru Morooka and is just one of a series of Hatoyama site intros. In the archives, you can see gems such as Hatoyama depicted as a quarterback whose football turns into a dove (a pun on his name, which means “dove mountain”) when he runs it to a 4th-and-inches touchdown in the “change of government” endzone. Fitting for Hatoyama, since his website says he’s a fan of two-hand touch.

    Go to Morooka’s website to see some similarly wacked-out flash shorts (I enjoyed Dracula vs. Santa quite a bit)

    Mr. Arai and his dream

    Candidate for my new favorite Diet member now that Koizumi has decided to stop being awesome:

    Etsuji Nii.jpg

    Meet Etsuji Arai, LDP lower house member from Saitama’s 11th district. Doesn’t he look like a Japanese Napoleon Dynamite?

    His web site address is “My Dream” – one of those English phrases that every Japanese person knows, but in Japanese rather than sounding lame, it absolutely reeks of conviction and sincerity.

    As an LDP member, his basic stances should be pretty predictable, but he stands out in the following ways:

  • He remains one of the few LDP Diet members to have an official web site featuring an RSS feed (more on that later).
  • He’s a dentist.
  • He’s not the son of a former Diet member (but his older brother is “reformist” mayor of Fukaya City, Saitama, Iemitsu Arai.
  • He was elected to the Diet last year as one of the “Koizumi Children” to replace Dietman Ryuji Koizumi, who opposed the postal privatization bills.

    • Anyway, I just liked his picture really. He is apparently very active as a new Dietman, so let’s look forward to his continued success!