Category: Culture

Required Movies for American Japan Watchers

The following is slightly modified from a response to an e-mail I received requesting recommendations for good “films on Japan” such as Lost in Translation of The Last Samurai.

The recent double threat of Lost in Translation and Last Samurai (but not the dud Memoirs of a Geisha), like some other popular Japan-themed films, were all good, entertaining movies, but I never felt like any of them gave me much insight on my experiences in Japan. As an alternative, I present my picks, in descending order of how highly I recommend them, that weren’t necessarily the best-made or most purely entertaining, but nonetheless got me thinking about the US-Japan relationship or the experiences I had while I was (ostensibly) studying there:

Fog of War (2003) – Essentially a long interview with Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and WW2 vet who helped orchestrate the firebombing of Japan in 1945. The movie is great on so many other levels, but I recommend this to those studying Japan for the sections that talk about “proportionality in war” and the wholesale bombing of Japan. America destroyed a majority of most of Japan’s cities and capped it off with two atomic bombs. Consider this – the US visited upon Japan heretofore untold destruction and chaos. McNamara asks: was this proportional to US aims? Having watched this movie, it makes perfect sense to me why many Japanese seem to treat visiting Americans as if the GHQ were still around. The film serves as a good conversation starter and a challenge to the bland rationalizations that Americans learned in their US History classes in high school.

Seven Samurai (1954) – I am in no way a film buff (look at my other recommendations!), but this movie is one of the best action movies I’ve seen from any country. Seven guys, and they all get a chance to kick some ass. This film is all about being a man, so ladies should probably stay away- that is, if they can resist the mysterious allure of Toshiro Mifune.

Mr. Baseball (1992) – Tom Selleck plays an aging Yankee sent to play for Chunichi Dragons. Hates it, won’t listen to coach, but in the end learns to work within the system while teaching his stuffy coach a thing or two and, of course, sleeping with his daughter. All you male ALTs out there could only hope to be so lucky! Then again, none of you are Tom Selleck. For better or worse, this is considered to be a pretty well-done “American fish out of water in Japan” movie. Even though the plot is something of a gaijin fantasy, it’s a generally true-to-life portrayal of Japan that can at the very least serve as a heads-up to some of the more obvious culture shocks (squat toilets, low doors, weird guys screaming strange English at you).

Whispers of the Heart (1995) – This is a movie from Ghibli Studios (think Princess Mononoke) about a little girl who falls in love with a fiddle-playing wunderkind and finds mystical guidance from a magical German cat. Boring! Forget the story and take in the sights as she walks around a lovingly and painstakingly detailed animated depiction of suburban Japan. I’d recommend this more to returnees than newcomers, but this movie could come in especially handy during those inevitable “Japan-hating gaijin” periods. I mean, if the Miyazaki crew could find this much to love about Japan, then there’s got to be some good stuff left over for little old you, too. One thing that didn’t sit right with me about WOTH would have to be the “dealing with your own mediocrity” theme that is featured in this movie and common elsewhere in Japanese pop culture (See “Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana” by SMAP). Call me an idealist, but I’m not ready to give up that easily, and neither should young Shizuku!

BTW, this movie turned me into a John Denver fan, and if watching it doesn’t make you a convert, then you should at least understand why so many Japanese people like him.

MXC – Show on Spike TV that’s a (loose) dub of an older Japanese show featuring host Beat Takeshi as he presides over the painful experiences of contestants in a brutal obstacle course game show. I can imagine nothing more humiliating in life than being run over by an enormous, papier-mache boulder and then being fire hosed by a Power Rangers villain as punishment. This should serve as a great introduction to Japan’s culture of humiliation, pointless endurance, and unabashed gaudiness. Sadly, this type of stuff is no longer typical of Japanese TV (at least when I was there, lots of tame talk shows, eating shows, and dating shows – though it looks like pain TV seems to be making something of a comeback these days).

Gung Ho (1986) – Funniest scene in this movie is the corporate re-education camp in the beginning (ribbons of shame, anyone?). Michael Keaton plays a union leader in the Midwest who convinces a Japanese auto company to take over a shut down factory. The American workers, including George Wendt of “Cheers” fame, get uppity when the Japanese managers expect them to work with no sick time or human dignity, as Japanese supposedly do. Never mind that real managers at Japanese auto factories in the US never tried this in real life. The plot twists this way and that, but eventually the workers make a near-impossible promise to become as productive as any Japanese plant within a month – Can they do it? Yes, sort of. The message? If only American auto workers would give up their silly unions and work themselves to the bone, then the jobs would stay. The movie suffers from some annoying performances, one-dimensional characters, and bad writing in general, but it is still worth watching just to see how scary Japan was to the US back in 1986. We let go of those fears a bit too early, if GM’s fate is any indicator.

Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978) – The always-annoying Bears go to Japan to play an exhibition game at the urging of a scheister TV producer, and literally everyone ends up getting ticked off in the process, especially the audience. Recoil in horror as a 13-year-old “bad boy” (signified by a peach-fuzz mustache IIRC) Bear creepily stalks and tries to force himself on an unsuspecting Japanese girl. It’s pure dreck, full of unapologetically racist and willfully ignorant sentiment, and almost unwatchable. Why do I recommend it, then? Because this is probably how your mom and dad see Japan. Redeeming quality: wrestling legend Antonio Inoki makes an appearance. Grunting, fuming Antonio Inoki, folks. His shtick hasn’t changed a bit in the almost 30 years since this movie was made.

BBC special report on Burma

We`ve mentioned Burma/Myanmar a few times before on this page, but rarely hear much about this bizarre and secretive nation unless they`ve, say, just extended the house arrest of their democratically elected president. Of course, one reason we hear so little about Burma is because, whatever newsworthy events may be ocurring within the borders, communication and traffic between Burma and the outside world is so restricted that it often doesn`t get out. This is why it`s so nice to see this series of articles written by a BBC reporter who was actually allowed into the country.

The first article can be found at this address, with links to the later parts contained within. Having previously posted about speculation that the sudden relocation of the Myanmar capital was inspired by, of all things. feng-shui, this tidbit from the second article was particularly amusing.

The latest government campaign is an initiative to grow nut trees, not only as a source of bio fuel but also because government fortune-tellers believe they will shore up the military’s power.

When everything you read about an entire country is depressing, you have to take whatever little amusement you can get.

NHK goons about to get leaner and meaner

It won’t be pretty:

NHK has eight TV and radio channels: two for terrestrial TV broadcasting (general and education); three for satellite TV, including one for high-definition programs; and three radio channels including an FM service. Heizo Takenaka‘s panel argued that one satellite channel is enough and three radio channels are too many for public broadcasting.

The proposed reduction in the channels should be combined with substantial streamlining and downsizing of NHK’s bloated operations to allow a sharp cut in the viewing fees, the panel says. In return, viewers would be legally required to pay for NHK’s services under a new fee system, possibly supported by penalties for nonpayment.

If you’ve lived in Japan, you probably have some experience with the NHK henchmen who troll around apartment blocks trying to collect NHK service fees. Everyone has their own method of dealing with them: say you don’t have a TV, say you don’t get NHK reception, answer the door stark naked, scream in Turkish, etc. But I’m going to hate the day when NHK is legally empowered to collect from me. Sod off, Domo-kun.

“Youse guys bedda ‘habla espanol'”

Geno’s, one of Philadelphia’s best-known spots for crap sandwiches, is being threatened with a smackdown by local regulators:

The city’s Commission on Human Relations planned to argue that the policy at Geno’s Steaks discourages customers of certain backgrounds from eating there, said Rachel Lawton, acting executive director.

Geno’s owner Joseph Vento posted two small signs at his shop in south Philadelphia proclaiming: “This is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING ‘PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH.'”

Lawton said that violates the city’s Fair Practices Ordinance, which prohibits discrimination in employment, public accommodation and housing.

“It’s discouraging patronage by non-English speaking customers because of their national origin or ancestry,” Lawton said.

Prepare for war in Souf Philly! Man the wooder ice windows!

What to do with 10,000 yen?

A criminal who found his way to a new life through the love of a woman has returned the money he stole from a post office in March:

Repentant robber returns cash, with interest

TOKYO (Reuters) – A Japanese man who robbed a post office returned more money than he stole and turned himself in after deciding to come clean for the sake of his girlfriend.

The 33-year-old stole 340,000 yen ($2,300) at knifepoint from a post office in western Tokyo in March. Ridden with guilt, he went back to the post office at the end of May and left 350,000 yen in an envelope on the counter before running off.

The Mainichi newspaper quoted the man as saying he gave an extra 10,000 yen back because he was sorry for what he had done.

A Tokyo police department spokesman said they were still discussing what to do with the extra cash.

How much discussion does it take to decide what to do with 10,000 yen in cold hard cash? I have some suggestions:

  • Buy 1 air-conditioned T-shirt at the special online price of 9,500 yen. That would leave enough for a beef bowl, with 20 yen leftover to phone home and let your mom know how delicious it was.
  • Acquire 1 share in Fast Retailing, operator of bargain clothes chain Uniqlo. With Japan’s economic reform drive set to stall before it comes to true fruition, the prospects of the low-price retail market in Japan continue to look brighter and brighter! Again that would leave you with 500 yen left over, which you could use to celebrate your soon-to-be-newfound wealth with some ice cream at the Cold Stone Creamery located in the swanky Roppongi Hills office complex.
  • Save it at Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ Bank. With interest rates at 0.001%, assuming that Japan’s prices are just about exactly flat at this point, in a year’s time you’d have 10,010 yen!
  • Get the luckiest guy in the precinct to play pachinko and double the money to buy a semi-legal prostitute. You can use the 80 minutes that can be purchased at 20,000 yen to convince Yuki to leave this sinful lifestyle a la He Got Game.

    • Anyone else have some suggestions for the Tokyo police?

    Was Osamu Tezuka a Racist?

    I stopped at Book Off, that wonderful oasis of a Japanese used bookshop in midtown Manhattan, on my way home from Connecticut last weekend. I wasn’t intending on actually buying anything, but the first all 4 issues of Osamu Tezuka’s manga Adolf (Adorofu ni Tsugu) at a dollar apiece were too tempting to pass up. It’s an interesting work of historical fiction that answers the question: “What if Jews living in Kobe during World War 2 found definitive proof that Hitler was 1/4 Jewish?” As someone relatively unfamiliar with Tezuka’s work, I’ve been surprised to see depictions of torture and mass murder peppered throughout – I had thought he traded mostly in cute robot boys and little lions, but if you look at his bibliography he’s pretty freakin’ prolific!

    What caught my eye, though, was this disclaimer at the end of the first volume (loosely translated):

    In this “Complete Works of Osamu Tezuka (published in 1996), the images of many foreigners, mainly blacks and Southeast Asians, make an appearance. Some of those images depict those people as they were when their countries were undeveloped or exaggerate past eras and differ greatly from the present situation. Recently, there have been claims that such depictions are racially discriminatory toward blacks and some other foreigners. As long as there are people who feel uneasy about these images or feel insulted by them, we believe we must seriously listen to those opinions.

    However, the exaggeration and parody of people’s features is the most important method of humor for comic books (manga). This is especially prevalent in Tezuka’s works, so people of many countries are the subject to parody. Further, beings from the animal kingdom to the world of the imaginary are very humourously caricatured, not only humans. Not even the author’s self-portrait is an exception to this, with his nose drawn several times longer than it actually is. Also, the author is a person who always and continually held the belief that all hatred and conflict is evil, including that between the civilized and uncivilized, advanced nations and developing nations, the powerful and the weak, the rich and the poor, and the healthy and the sick – beneath his stories runs a strong “love of humanity.”

    The reasons we have ventured to print the “Complete Works of Osamu Tezuka” are that the author has already passed on and therefore cannot edit his works. Not only would a third person changing the work of the dead would pose a problem in terms of the person’s dignity, but also cannot be considered an appropriate measure to deal with the problem at hand, and not only that, we have a responsibility to protect works that are regarded as the heritage of Japan’s culture. From the beginning, we oppose all discrimination and will work to eliminate discrimination. We believe this is the responsibility of a publisher. We hope that readers, too, will use this Tezuka work as an opportunity to recognize the fact that various discrimination exists and deepen understanding of this issue.

    So, Tezuka’s manga aren’t discriminatory but should be used as an opportunity to reflect on the issue of racial discrimination? Sure, Kodansha. Maybe you’ve gotten smarter in the last 10 years, but I kind of doubt it.

    This comment is a direct reaction to moves by a group in Japan called “The Group to Eliminate Discrimination Against Blacks,” a fairly sanctimonious group that originally started without a single “black” member to its name. The group claimed that Tezuka’s “Kimba the White Lion” included racist depictions of black Africans and demanded it be changed to reflect a more culturally sensitive era. The move resulted in the removal of Kimba panels from several museum exhibits dedicated to Tezuka. Indicative of Japan’s general isolation from global debate in general, majority public opinion in Japan seems to be against a movement to eliminate discrimination against blacks led by a hypersensitive NGO.

    Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any images online that demonstrate the sharp “satire” of Osamu Tezuka, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a few bones through noses in Kimba the White Lion. Next time I’m in Japan or Book Off I’ll be sure to look out for them.

    For the record, I have yet to encounter any stereotypical-type images in Adolf, though one of the Nazis is deliberately depicted as lizard-like to emphasize how evil he is.

    Selling my kids to a Caymans entity

    I was working on an international divorce case recently, involving parties in Japan and the US. If you know Japanese family law, you know this is going to suck for someone, because the rule in Japan is that the wife gets the kids and the husband pays for them without having the right to see them (unless there’s some sort of amicable agreement to the contrary, but there never is when the parties are completely nuts, as is generally the case).

    So here’s my plan if I ever marry a Japanese person: We agree to give up our kids for adoption by a third party. Like placing assets in trust. I’m thinking of starting an offshore corporation—Joe’s Kids Limited, registered in the Cayman Islands.

    Little help?


    Reader mail on our ever-popular “Fuck Zapan” Post:

    Mr. Berman (of Mutant frog)

    I stumbled across your posting on the song F_UCK ZAPAN, and was so offended that I looked up information in the Internet to find out more information about this racist hate.

    However, I checked DJ DOC’s Japanese website, and they emphatically deny that they were the group responsible for this single. It’s a song by the indies band Kudara. http://ampoko.daa.jp/djdoc/

    Since I don’t read Korean, would it be possible to find the source that lists the artist for this single? Maybe we could check the Korean indies chart to see if this song even made it to #2 on the indies chart.

    Your help would be appreciated. Right now, a Japanese band (DJ Ozma) has made a cover of DJ Doc’s Run to You, and so interest in DJ Doc has run high in Japan. If you read
    Japanese, you can read about the rumors of DJ Doc and F_ck Zapan at:
    http://music4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/dj/1143802542/

    Indeed, it would be um, irresponsible of us to…you know.. report facts without checking them out, right? So, my Korean brethren: who feels like taking a trip to the library and looking up chart information? Little help here? Does this so-called “Kudara” group exist? If so, did it include any members of this DJ DOC group?

    Before we go that far, thanks to the rise of easy video sites like youtube.com, we can compare the original anti-Japan rap and songs that are verified to be by DJ DOC.

    Here‘s the original song. Give it another listen, why don’t you?

    Now let’s listen to that “Run to You” song – it’s a very professionally produced remix of Nirvana’s “Come as you Are”! What about “Street Life“? Different! Watch as these thugs rock out in their rollerblades! None of the amateurish qualities of the anti-Japan song. These DJ DOC people seem like actual professionals who might even be above using Starcraft samples. If it’s really not DJ DOC, then we at MF certainly owe them an apology.

    Now here are some more clips available at the website of major Korean broadcaster KBS (clips require Windows Media Player). Here we learn that the DOC stands for “Dream of Children”… makes me think more of the Neverland Ranch than “street life” but whatever.

    But I have to admit… the chubby guy with the blond hair does sound like one of the guys in the “Fuck Zapan” song… could it be that the Fuck Zapan group was some kind of precursor to DJ DOC? According to the KBS biography,

    However, from their 4th album, the hip-hop group started to experience some difficulties in performing in public. As the lyrics of some songs contained vulgar and too direct expressions of criticizing the society and sexual depictions, some words had to be changed in order to be performed in public. Although there were some obstacles in pursuing their music, DJ DOC still managed to record a hit, probably their biggest, with the song “Dance With DJ DOC” included in their 4th album.

    This is too confusing! We need our Korean friends to look this up for us please!

    More Wrestlers in Politics: Nikolai Volkoff for MD State Assembly!


    Remember Nikolai Volkoff, the “Soviet” wrestler everyone loved to hate? Well turns out he was actually from the former Yugoslavia. And he’s most recently been spotted following in the footsteps of greats such as Jesse “the Body” Ventura, Antonio Inoki, the Great Sasuke, and Hulk Hogan (ran for president of course) and run for office. But this time, his opponents seem to be playing the role of the heel. The Washington City Paper has a great story on it. Highlights:

    (Reacting to leaflets distributed claiming he used to spit on the American flag in his wrestling persona) “Spitting on a flag, that’s cheap heat,” he says. “I was a professional. I didn’t work for cheap heat.”

    Volkoff truly believes that the anti-Commie mood he helped foment in the West through his un-American activities in the ring hastened the fall of the Wall.

    …

    (Opponents) Impallaria and McDonough both deny any connection to the fliers. But they don’t mind echoing the message.

    “He was the Tokyo Rose of the 1980s,” says Impallaria. “He made his living spitting on the American flag and singing the Russian national anthem. Now he can say he was just doing a job. Tokyo Rose was just doing a job, too.”

    Adds McDonough: “He did spit on the flag. I consider that reprehensible. Anybody can run for office. You can’t go around saying your wrestling career doesn’t matter. Volkoff isn’t even the name on his birth certificate. People need to know everything.”

    As any good wrestler would when given a platform, Volkoff leveled some smack of his own at his antagonists. “Impallaria—that guy has 27 arrests,” he says. “How do you get arrested that much?”

    Asked to respond to Volkoff’s blast, Impallaria says, “A lot of people are charged with a lot of things, but the real question is: Have you ever been convicted of anything?”

    OK, OK, OK. Have you ever been convicted of anything?

    “Anybody can look that up,” Impallaria says, declining to answer “the real question” any further. “I’m going to stick to the issues. I’m not going to lower myself to dirty politics.”

    The Republican primary will be held in September. Vineberg says that despite his adversaries’ tactics, Volkoff has no intention of hiding his wrestling past as the campaign progresses. In fact, the press secretary has been contacting former ring colleagues to ask them to come to Maryland.

    “We’ve been talking to the Iron Sheik,” says Vineberg. “Nikolai and the Sheik made a great tag team. America really hated them. I’m sure he’ll be up here to help.”

    What is it about wrestlers that makes them such appealing political candidates in Japan and the US? Is it their masculinity? Giant authoritative boots (If so, Condee Rice might be considering running for office!)?

    Perhaps it’s easy for the wrestlers to adapt to the campaigning process’s similarities to the carnival sideshow aspects of pro wrestling. I mean, pro wrestling and politics have a lot in common – head to head confrontation, tag teams, battle royales (battles royale?), playing to the crowd, constant touring, factionism. One difference – the winners aren’t decided beforehand in politics (we hope).

    I wonder – do pro wrestlers enter politics in Mexico? The most famous luchador of all, El Santo, seems not to have made that career decision. Have there been any politicians from the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling?