History – Page 15 – Mutantfrog Travelogue

Why horizontal strokes are thinner than vertical strokes

If you look at Sino-Japanese text printed in the Chinese Song or Japanese Mincho typeface (similar to serif typefaces in European languages), you’ll notice that the horizontal strokes in characters are much thinner than the vertical strokes. Here’s why:

The printing press appeared in China during the Song Dynasty. At the time, each print block contained two portrait-oriented pages placed side by side. The print blocks were all cut from rectangular planks such that the wood grain ran horizontally. Because the grain ran horizontally, it was fairly easy to carve patterns with the grain, like horizontal strokes. However, carving vertical or slanted patterns was difficult because those patterns intersect with the grain and very easily break. This resulted in a typeface that has thin horizontal strokes and thick vertical strokes. To prevent wear and tear, the ending of horizontal strokes are also thickened. These design forces resulted in the current Song typeface.

A brief and random tribute to Masaru Inoue, father of the Japanese railways

If you go to the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station, you can see a big statue of this fellow, Masaru Inoue (井上勝).

Inoue was one of five Choshu samurai ~~sent~~smuggled to England in the mid-1860s to figure out how to modernize Japan. He studied railway technology at the University College London, and following his return to Japan served as head of the Japanese national railway program, in some form or another, from 1869 to 1893. During this time he supervised the building of Japan’s first railway line from Tokyo to Yokohama (the first Tokyo station has been reconstructed and can now be seen in Shiodome), and the eventual completion of the Tokaido Main Line between Tokyo and Kobe in 1889.

In his later years he was made a Viscount and served in the House of Peers (sort of the old Japanese equivalent of Britain’s House of Lords). He is also the last “i” in the Koiwai food company, which he co-founded in 1891.

So next time you pass through Tokyo Station, tip your hat to a fellow who helped pave the way for the most awesome railway system in the world. (Or, if you don’t have a hat, do what I do and just take pictures.)

Japan Times, Foreign Office organ?

In an 1937 article from the journal Far Eastern Survey, I saw The Japan Times described as a “Foreign Office organ.” There is no mention on the Japan Times’ own history timeline they had ever been anything other than an independent media organization, but a quick Google search turned up this article on the very topic from the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. The following paragraph summarizes the questions discussed in this article.

Here’s what we need to know about The Japan Times: How close was the paper to official Japan, and to what extent did it serve as a mouthpiece of the Japanese government (in itself neither unusual nor categorically inadvisable at times of international tension)? Closely connected to these questions is a third: Were The Japan Times’ acquisitions in October and December 1940 of Japan’s two best-known English-language newspapers, The Japan Advertiser and The Japan Chronicle, motivated purely by the desire for total media control and the need to speak with one voice through one conduit to the Western world, or were other plans afoot? A fourth, more speculative, question is whether The Japan Times could have served a more temperate purpose during the crisis in U.S.-Japan negotiations in 1940-41.

The author discusses the perennial problem of where to draw the line between journalists’ access to government officials and inappropriate cooperation or agreement with them – an issue recently being discussed with great frequency in the United States following various scandals – and concludes that “the reputation of The Japan Times as an official mouthpiece may well have been earned in its early years, but it was less deserved in early Showa, when most other newspapers not only took their lead from government sources but zealously exceeded official enthusiasm for expansion in East Asia and for the cause of ‘Holy War.’ ” This statement includes the period of time – 1937 – in which the reference I discussed at the beginning of the post was published.

On the other hand, the Japan Times’ acquisition of the two rival English language
newspapers in October and December of 1940 was likely orchestrated by Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke, so as “to have an organ close to the Foreign Office in which their opposition to the Military Party could be expressed.”

However, Matsuoka’s access to the Japan Times, and hence his ability to promulgate pro-diplomacy messages to the foreign media through Japan’s sole surviving English language newspaper was eliminated in July 1941, when “the second Konoe Cabinet resigned in order to form a third Cabinet for the express purpose of jettisoning Matsuoka.” (Matsuoka had been trying to persuade the cabinet to abandon the Soviet-Japanese neutrality agreement and join Germany’s declaration of war against the Soviet Union. This would also have complicated the ongoing negotiations with the United States for the purpose of avoiding war between the two countries, in which Matsuoka was attempting to trade a withdrawal from continental China in exchange for recognition of Manchukuo and a guarantee of safety for trade routes of resources through the South Pacific.) This left publisher Go Satoshi to pen editorials which ended up inflaming relations between Japan and the Allied powers, although it is unclear whether this was at the behest of the subsequent Foreign Ministers or not.

The article concludes that “The Japan Times (until Matsuoka’s fall from grace) made a doomed but valiant effort to set up a rational, internationalist alternative to the bellicose rumblings emanating from the General Staff and the Foreign Ministry,” but also brings attention to the fact that after Matsuoka’s departure the paper’s editorials, written by Go, contributed to the climate of mistrust that led to the breakdown of negotiations, which eventually caused Japan’s attack against Pearl Harbor. While the Japan Times of today (which in my experience has a generally liberal and pro-internationalist slant) should hardly be criticized for the ways in which it was used as a vehicle of propaganda during wartime under an imperialist regime, I imagine that the readers of this blog will be as interested as I was to learn a bit about the history of a newspaper whose articles all of us read with regularity. Now I am curious to know if the Japan Times’ close relations with the Foreign Ministry continued after the war, and how the country’s primary English language news source may have been used by the occupying American authorities and post-occupation government of Japan.

On a tangential note, Matsuoka Yosuke was arrested and indicted as a class-A war criminal by the Tokyo Tribunal, but died of tuberculosis before the verdict was read, without his ever having actually appeared in court. Based on the brief biographies of Matsuoka that I have read, I’m not entirely sure on what grounds he was charged. It may have been related to his orchestration of the alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, although Japan was not yet engaged in war against any allied powers by the end of Matsuoka’s term of office. He also advocated war against the Soviet Union, but was ignored and in effect fired for that position. However reprehensible his attempts to promote Japanese-Soviet war may have been, it seems a little bit peculiar to prosecute someone for a policy which was never taken up by the government or military. It also seems possible that his efforts to avoid war between Japan and the US may have been a possible argument in his defense, which due to his premature death was never made. I would be very curious to know exactly what the charges against him were.

Update: I forgot to mention that Matsuoka is also one of the 14 class-A war criminal suspects controversially enshrined in Yasukuni. Apparently Emperor Hirohito mentioned him by name as one of those who should not have been enshrined, and whose listing caused the Emperor to cease visiting the shrine.

In the news

Although I did end up doing a post yesterday on the Kokaryo case, I’m sure you’ve all noticed that I have been on a vacation from the blog for about a month. To catch up a little bit, here are a few headlines of interest to my themes on this blog that have been kicking around my desktop for the past couple of days. I normally don’t like to do the “here’s a bunch of links” format, but putting them here is as much for my own future reference as for everyone else’s enjoyment.

The Japan Times has a FAQ about the new National Assessment of Academic Ability exam, given to all sixth year elementary and third year junior high school students in Japan. Of special relevance to some recent discussions on this blog over Japan’s adaptation to foreigners is this sentence. “Foreign students who take classes with Japanese nationals at Japanese schools are also required to take the test, but are allowed to receive support from interpreters.
In September of 2005 I posted about Osaka’s Kongo Gumi (金剛組) construction firm, which was then probably the world’s oldest continually operated company, having remained a family firm ever since its founding in A.D. 578, over 1410 years ago. Sadly, Kongo Gumi is now no more. Read the tale of how a decline in construction by their traditional Buddhist temple clients and excessive borrowing during the bubble period in an ill-advised attempt to expand into other areas of construction led to the bankruptcy of the world’s oldest company. They technically still operate as a subsidiary of Takamatsu Construction, but it’s just not the same without the 40th head of the Kongo family as CEO. According to Wikipedia’s list of the world’s oldest companies, this now leaves formerly second place Hoshi Ryokan, formerly just the world’s oldest hotel, as the world’s oldest independently operated company. Founded in 717, they are nearly 140 years younger than the former Kongo Gumi.
Historian and journalist David Halberstam has died in a car crash, at the age of 73. I mention it because several months ago I read his excellent book The Reckoning, on the history of the American and Japanese automobile industries from the very beginning to the mid 1980s when it was published, focusing largely on the stories of individual personalities in Ford and Nissan-the number two car companies of respectively the US and Japan, as well as some key bureaucrats in the case of Japan. This is recommended reading for people who are interested in learning generally how Japanese industry developed, thrived on technology transferred from abroad, to specifically why Japanese car companies and Toyota in particular are now leading the market. I strongly believe it should be on the short list for people interested in these topics, along with such better known books as Charlmers Johnson’s MITI and the Japanese Miracle, particularly for the chapters in which Halberstam explains precisely how Nissan management created a company union, crushed the independent labor movement within their company, and created the harmonious management/union structure we see throughout Japan, which the misinformed believe to be a symptom of Japan’se traditionally harmonious culture.

C.P.U.S.A.

Just on the heels of my post the other day on the virtually ignored doings of Japan’s modern left-wing terrorist wannabees, an article in today’s New York Times informs us that the Communist Party USA still technically exists. In fact, the existence of this formerly very active organization is so marginal that their official website even seems to be down. And even worse for them, their Manhattan offices are being rented out to someone else. The good news, however (for the record, I consider the demise of the CPUSA merely “interesting” and neither good nor bad) is that in the process of cleaning out their offices, they are donating their entire 12,000 carton document archive to New York University. And for those readers who need a Japan connection, according to the article, one of the more curious documents found in the yet un-cataloged archive so far is “a letter from W. E. B Du Bois in 1939 denying he took money from Japan for propagandizing on its behalf.”

A brief history of lawyers in Japan

Since Roy requested it in an earlier comment, here’s a brief history of the Japanese bar, culled together from various sources (the best being Rabinowitz’s 1953 Harvard Law Review article on the subject).

In this day and age, legal services are necessary when dealing with digital crimes. I found myself reading through emails with legal threats and didn’t know if I was being scammed or genuinely in trouble. Thankfully, I got solid advice after reaching out to https://www.newjerseycriminallawattorney.com/white-collar-crime/internet-crime/, and they broke down exactly what was going on. Their team provided practical steps that helped me avoid a serious misstep, which could have worsened the situation.

c. 1700: Innkeepers in Edo begin offering simple legal services to transient guests, such as preparing documents to present to the shogunate. Over time, these “kujishi” take on more bailiff-like functions, such as effectively imprisoning people who are forced to appear before judges. They have no code of ethics, and actively practice extortion, encourage conflicts of interest and generally mess with their clients to make a quick yen.

1811: The first known reference to European-style lawyers in Japanese literature. They are described as “natural philosophers.”

1854: The second known reference to European-style lawyers in Japanese literature. They are described as “accompanying stupid people to court and writing documents for them.”

1872: The new Meiji government enacts regulations which provide for people to be represented in court by advocates (daigennin). This is the first time that anyone has ever been allowed to represent someone else in a Japanese court. There is no qualification to become an advocate, so the existing kujishi assume the new title and continue in their sleazy ways.

1873: A new regulation comes into effect which requires all court documents to be prepared by a scrivener (daishonin). The scrivener is mandatory but the advocate is not. However, there is no qualification to be a scrivener either, so anyone can do the job, the only restriction being that the scrivener cannot also be the advocate. Nobody is sure why this rule was put into place: one common theory is that the Meiji oligarchs were trying to copy the French system but misunderstood how it worked.

1875: A new position is created for criminal trials: the bengokan. This is sort of kind of like a defense lawyer, except he can’t argue the law: he can only perform factfinding. He can be appointed by the court whenever they decide it’s appropriate.

1876: The government requires an advocate examination before a person can use the title of advocate. The examination is performed on a court-by-court basis, often by judges with no legal training, and is so difficult that only 56 advocates are admitted by 1878. This proves to be not too consequential, because advocates are not given a monopoly on the practice of law: anyone can appear on someone else’s behalf in court, so long as they don’t use the advocate title.

Also in 1876, foreigners are granted the right to counsel in criminal proceedings. Japanese are allowed counsel later in the year, but only with the consent of the Ministry of Justice. However, the Ministry of Justice institutes a policy which says that consent will not be withheld, which makes this sort of like a right to counsel even though it isn’t.

1880: New regulations institute a national examination for advocates, and the new Criminal Code (which takes effect in 1882) provides for a right to counsel in criminal trials. The Tokyo Advocates’ Union (Tokyo Daigennin Kumiai) is formed, which is the first real bar association in Japan.

1893: Finally, we see the profession of attorneys (bengoshi) appear with the passage of the Attorney Act. This statute makes all existing advocates attorneys, and provides that a Japanese adult male may become an attorney if they pass a fiendishly difficult national bar examination, hold a doctorate in law, have served as a judge or prosecutor or have a bachelor’s degree in law from one of the imperial universities. The new law also creates a bar association (bengoshikai) corresponding with the jurisdiction of each district court. Attorneys are strictly limited to courtroom work.

1923: The Attorney Act is revised to eliminate automatic admission for imperial university graduates, and modify the bar association system so that lawyers can form more than one bar association in their jurisdiction. The highly politicized lawyers in Tokyo form a splinter bar association immediately, and a second splinter bar association in 1926, splitting the Tokyo bar into thirds. (More on this in a future post: the political history of the Tokyo bar is an interesting topic but probably too much of a diversion to include here.)

1933: The Attorney Act is overhauled again. Women lawyers are allowed for the first time. The new statute also provides that each bar association must administer a two-year apprenticeship system for newly-minted lawyers. The central government wants to control the apprenticeship process, but decides that the politics in the legal community are too nasty at this point.

1936: Another amendment allows attorneys to provide legal services other than courtroom advocacy.

1946: In the wake of World War II, the government takes over the apprenticeship process (as it originally intended), requiring all lawyers to attend a Legal Research and Training Institute (Shiho Kenshujo) for two years before being admitted. The first set of lawyers to graduate from LRTI are referred to as “the first class” (dai-ichi-ki), and subsequent classes are counted from there. Nowadays, attorneys establish seniority among each other by stating their LRTI class number. The 60th class entered in 2006.

1949: A new Attorney Act is passed. The bar associations become independent (they were previously answerable to the Minister of Justice) and are organized into the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (Nichibenren). Foreign attorneys are also expressly allowed to join the Japanese bar as quasi-members (see this post). Another new statute replaces the old profession of scriveners with judicial scriveners (shiho shoshi).

1951: Yet another profession, “administrative scrivener” (gyosei shoshi), is created by statute. These are essentially lawyers who are limited to civil matters and government filings. They do visa applications, DMV paperwork and other thankless legal tasks that don’t merit the higher pedigree of an attorney.

1955: The system of admitting foreign attorneys is repealed. The existing quasi-members are pretty much the only foreign lawyers allowed to practice in Japan for the next 30 years or so.

1972: The US occupation of Okinawa ends, and Japan regains control of the legal system there. Lawyers practicing in Okinawa, including a handful of foreigners, are grandfathered in as Japanese lawyers.

1977: The Legal Research and Training Institute receives its first non-Japanese trainee, a Korean national. Although the Supreme Court initially denies him admission, they relent after a few months of negotiations, opening the floodgates to people of any nationality who want to become attorneys. (However, the low passage rate on the bar exam doesn’t really invite a flood.)

1987: After years of lobbying by American and European trade groups, Japan opens its legal services market to foreign attorneys and law firms by allowing foreign attorneys with five years of practicing experience to qualify as foreign legal consultants (gaikokuho jimu bengoshi). (The requirements to become a gaiben have been weakened over the years, and many foreign attorneys now practice in Japan without the qualification, although it’s still required to open a branch of a foreign law firm.) Many of the largest multinational law firms rush to open offices in Japan.

1998: Foreign lawyers are allowed to form joint ventures with Japanese lawyers for the first time. The multinational firms start snapping up Japanese lawyers, forcing high-end Japanese law firms to merge so as to keep up. In 2000, the firms of Nagashima Ohno and Tsunematsu Yanase merge to form Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu, the first Japanese law firm with more than 100 attorneys. By 2007, there are four firms with over 200 attorneys: Nagashima, Mori Hamada & Matsumoto, Anderson Mori & Tomotsune and Nishimura & Partners.

2002: Attorneys are allowed to form professional corporations for the first time, making it possible to create a more-or-less permanent law firm rather than a more transient partnership.

2004: Japan decides to copy the American system of legal education, creating two parallel systems for admission as a lawyer. As of 2007, you can either go in on the “old exam” track, which only requires you to pass the fiendishly difficult exam, or you can go in on a “law school” track, which requires three more years of education but allows you to take a less fiendishly difficult exam.

2010: The old bar exam will be administered for the last time. From 2011 onward, only the new bar exam will be offered. However, prospective attorneys will still be able to waive the law school requirement by taking a “preliminary exam.”

Tokyo bridges and their late German relatives

If you want to get a glimpse of the Weimar Republic, one way to do it is by visiting Tokyo and walking along the Sumida River. There, you can see two famous bridges inspired by German bridges that didn’t manage to outlive the Third Reich.

Eitaibashi (“Long Reign Bridge”) is one of the most famous bridges in Tokyo, and rightfully so. It crosses the Sumida River close to what would naturally be Tokyo Bay, were it not for Odaiba and all the other little islands built up there over the last few decades.

Back in the days of old Edo, Eitaibashi was a sharply arched wooden bridge, as captured in this classic woodblock print by Toyoharu Utagawa. This first bridge was built in 1698 to commemorate the 50th birthday of the fifth Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. It was a Big Deal at the time, because the only other way to cross the river was by ferry.

The Tokugawas planned to dismantle the bridge in 1719, but the locals on the east side (the opposite side from central Edo) were so adamant on keeping the bridge that they agreed to take over the bridge themselves. This proved to be a bad idea, because the bridge collapsed in 1807 under the weight of travellers trying to get to the Tomioka Hachimangu shrine on the east side. 1,500 people died.

Although the later Tokugawas discussed building a second Eitaibashi, the Meiji Restoration put a hold on their plans, and the new bridge was not built until 1897. It was the first iron bridge in Japan, although much of it was made of wood. This also proved to be a bad idea, because the Tokyo earthquake of 1923 tore the wood apart and ruined the second bridge.

So the third and final Eitaibashi, constructed almost immediately after the earthquake, was built entirely of iron. It was modeled after the Bridge at Remagen on the Rhine River in Germany. This wasn’t a bad idea per se, although the Bridge at Remagen was itself ill-fated: the Germans blew it up to stop Allied troops from crossing into central Germany, inspiring a Hollywood production in the process.

Anyway, the third Eitaibashi is (perhaps miraculously) still intact. Its sky-blue paint job makes it not particularly picturesque during the day, but its lighting at night is downright gorgeous. The lights turn off around midnight, much like the Tokyo Tower’s.

Kiyosubashi (“Pure Cay Bridge,” named after the adjoining districts of Kiyosumi and Nakasu), just up the river from Eitaibashi, is equally famous, although it’s more picturesque during the day thanks to its lovely blue paint job. It was also built right after the Tokyo earthquake of 1923, although it had no predecessor in that location since “central Tokyo” was not quite as big in those days.

The inspiration for Kiyosubashi was the old Mülheim Bridge in Cologne, not far from the Bridge at Remagen. Ironically, the Mülheim Bridge was also blown up, just days before the Remagen Bridge. This was only partially intentional. The Germans had set up explosive charges on the Mülheim so they could blow it up if the Allies began to cross. Then, before the Allied troops were even close to the bridge, a bomb went off near the bridge. The strengh of this bomb wasn’t enough to damage the bridge, but it was enough to set off the charges on the bridge, thus causing the Germans to suffer the ignominy of accidentally destroying their own bridge. A more modern, utilitarian Mülheim Bridge was built after the war and completed in 1951.

The crime of abortion in Japan

While doing some research work for a local professor of Japanese law, I came across an interesting statistic: there was one arrest in 2003 for the crime of abortion. This piqued my interest, so I decided to go off on a little tangent and figure out what this crime entails. Here’s my Americanized translation of the Criminal Code:

Chapter XXIX. Crime of Abortion

§ 212. Abortion. A pregnant woman who commits an abortion using pharmaceuticals or another method shall be subject to imprisonment of no more than one year.

§ 213. Consensual Abortion; Death or Injury Thereby. A person who causes an abortion while employed by a woman, or with her consent, shall be subject to imprisonment of no more than two years. A person who kills or injures the woman thereby shall be subject to imprisonment of no less than three months and no more than five years.

§ 214. Abortion In The Course Of Practice; Death or Injury Thereby. A doctor, doctor’s assistant, pharmacist or seller of pharmaceuticals who, while employed by a woman or with her consent, causes an abortion shall be subject to imprisonment of no less than three months and no more than five years. A person who kills or injures the woman thereby shall be subject to imprisonment of no less than six months and no more than seven years.

§ 215. Non-Consensual Abortion. A person who causes an abortion without being employed by a woman or without her consent shall be subject to imprisonment of no less than six months and no more than seven years.
2. A failed attempt of the above crime shall also be punished.

§ 216. Death Or Injury By Non-Consensual Abortion. A person who kills or injures a woman through the commission of the above crime shall be judged as having committed either the above crime or the crime of mayhem, whichever is more serious.

Abortion was legalized in 1948, decades after the Criminal Code was enacted. Some characterize this as a victory of an emerging feminist movement in Japan, but the truth is a bit darker, and pretty darn obvious from the abortion statute’s original title: the Eugenic Protection Act (優生保護法). Its stated purpose: “To prevent the birth of progeny which are undesirable from a eugenic standpoint, while protecting the life and health of mothers” (優生上の見地から不良な子孫の出生を防止するとともに、母性の生命健康を保護すること).

Certainly attitudes were different back then. This was at the peak of the Japanese government’s long-running policy to prevent people with leprosy from procreating. Under this policy, “male patients had to be vasectomized before they were allowed to marry, and female patients were enforced to have abortion and even infanticide.”

In 1996, the statute was given a new name: the Mother’s Body Protection Act (母体保護法). It’s been clipped and amended so many times that it’s hard to parse, but basically the rules are:

Abortion becomes absolutely illegal at the point when the fetus is viable outside the uterus. (Technically, this is because the abortion statute ceases to apply at that point, and the Criminal Code takes over.) The Health Ministry decides when viability occurs, and has changed its mind on the subject several times. Its current verdict is after 23 weeks (props to Japanese Wikipedia for providing an easy link).
Abortion must be performed by a doctor specially licensed by the prefectural government.
Abortion can only be performed:
1. When the health of the mother would be threatened, either physically or economically (define the latter yourself), by carrying the child to term, or
2. When the child was conceived through violence or intimidation, or
3. When the child was conceived through fornication, and at a time when the mother was unable to resist or reject the advance.

This is all very interesting to someone who comes from the land of Roe v. Wade and the notion that abortion is a right. But then again, you can kind of see the loophole-ability of the abortion law. How easy must it be for the mother to lie about the circumstances surrounding the conception? And how many mothers could invoke the economic harm provision?

I’ll leave you with some factoids from a medical journal abstract on the subject:

In one case in 1988, when the fetus of a 16-year old girl was aborted in the 25th week of pregnancy and left unattended although alive, the doctor was indicted and punished, although the probability of survival of the child was estimated at about 50%.

Since 1955, when the abortion rate was the highest (about 1,150,000 abortions), the number has been decreasing steadily. In 1991 the abortion rate was 13.9/1000 women of reproductive age (15-50 years); however, great differences existed between prefectures (6.4-26.0/1000).

It is alarming that the rate of abortions has increased among women under 20 years of age and at later phases of gestation. … Unquestionably, the abolition of the requirement in 1952 mandating that the abortion seeker undergo an examination by two doctors has liberalized the abortion law. However, many young pregnant women who need help do not get adequate support and counseling and may end up in prostitution.

The last of the “junkaiin”

Practicing law as a foreigner in Japan is riddled with regulatory issues. Technically, you’re not supposed to handle legal cases unless you’re admitted to the Japanese bar. And while you can be admitted to the Japanese bar by virtue of being a lawyer in a foreign state, you become a gaikokuho jimu bengoshi or “foreign law attorney,” and you’re only technically allowed to advise on your home state’s law.

This wasn’t always the case. Until the late 1950s, a foreigner could be admitted to practice law in Japan by becoming a junkaiin or “quasi-member” of the bar association, which required special permission from the Supreme Court, but gave the foreign lawyer all the privileges of a Japanese lawyer. The junkaiin admitted at the time of the system’s abolition were the only foreigners allowed to practice law in Japan until the mid-80s (with the exception of Thomas Blakemore, a nutter who managed to pass the bar exam in Japanese).

There are only four junkaiin still alive today. Last time I checked last year, there were six! So we’re watching an interesting piece of legal history fade away with time. Here are the four who are still around to tell their stories:

JAMES ADACHI

James Shogo Adachi (photo, right) is a partner in the Tokyo law firm of Adachi, Henderson, Miyatake & Fujita. It looks like a small firm, as it only has four attorneys at present, but it has trained many of the top corporate and commercial lawyers working in Japan today (including the managing partner of the firm where I once worked).

Adachi was president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan in the early 1970s. Now, he is essentially retired and lives in San Francisco.

His late wife Barbara (who died in 2005) is also an interesting figure. She was born in Harbin before the war, as her father was managing Citibank’s operations there, and she spent most of her youth in prewar Tokyo, leaving for college in the US just in time to miss World War II. She came back in 1946 to work for the occupation government and stayed in Tokyo until her death, becoming prominent in the local foreign women’s community. She was also a bunraku (traditional puppet theater) fan, and donated a massive bunraku library to Columbia University.

FRANCIS SOGI

Francis Sogi (pictured with his wife Sarah) is a first generation Japanese-American born in Hawaii. He entered the University of Hawaii shortly before World War II broke out: while his ROTC unit was pulled into active service, he was almost deported from Hawaii before he volunteered to stay in the Army. He was in Army Intelligence for the duration of the war, and then completed his business degree at Hawaii and a law degree at Fordham.

Sogi is a “lifetime partner” in the law firm of Kelley Drye & Warren, which seems to practically mean that he retired from the firm on good terms (he’s no longer listed in active practice there). Most of his career was in New York, but he qualified as a junkaiin and still holds that status today. He maintains an office in Kioicho, Tokyo, which has the somewhat awkward name of “Sogi Foreign-Qualified Attorney Law Office” (蘇木外国弁護士資格者法律事務所). He’s a very charitable fellow, a big figure in the Japanese-American community and a major benefactor of the University of Hawaii.

RICHARD RABINOWITZ

Richard Rabinowitz is currently a part-time advisor to Tozai Sogo Law Offices, a smallish firm in Kioicho that handles international litigation and commercial work.

He studied Japanese during World War II, went to Yale Law School after the war, was admitted in Japan in 1953 and co-founded the law firm of Anderson, Mori & Rabinowitz. Although Anderson Mori was initially run by Americans (Mori was a Japanese-American), all three name partners left by the end of the decade and the firm was taken over by Japanese lawyers. Following its merger with Tomotsune & Kimura it became Anderson Mori & Tomotsune, and is now one of the largest law firms in Japan, with offices on top of the Izumi Garden Tower in Tokyo. (It’s also known as one of the least hospitable work environments for foreign lawyers in Tokyo: the “NOVA” of law firms, if you will.)

After departing from Anderson Mori, Rabinowitz obtained a Ph.D. from Harvard, in the course of which he wrote the first comprehensive English article on the Japanese bar. He was later admitted to the bar in South Korea (although I have no clue how), and taught for several semesters at Harvard and Yale.

REINHARD EINSEL

Reinhard Einsel is an intellectual property specialist at Kawamitsu & Einsel, a firm in Okinawa.

He was admitted to practice law in Okinawa in 1965, when the islands were still occupied by the US, and was grandfathered in as a Japanese junkaiin when Okinawa was returned to Japan in 1972. (There are only eleven other practicing lawyers who joined the Japanese bar as a result of the Okinawa handover, and all of them are Japanese.) So Einsel has the advantage of being slightly younger than his counterparts on the mainland, and will probably be the last of the junkaiin because of the unique way he came into the system.

Abe’s turn to get SLAMMED

I wanted to go back to ignoring the recent flap over a House resolution to condemn Japan’s supposed failure to adequately deal with the “comfort women” issue. But how can I sit quietly when the Prime Minister himself is getting SLAMMED?

Growing Chorus Slams War-Brothel Remarks Japanese P.M. Under Fire For Comfort Women Remarks
AP

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – March 3, 2007 – South Korea again criticized Japan’s prime minister Saturday for disavowing his country’s responsibility for using Asian women as sex slaves for Japanese troops in World War II.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday there was no proof that so-called “comfort women” were forced into sexual slavery during the war.

The remark triggered outrage throughout Asia.

Abe’s statement is “aimed at glossing over the historical truth and our government expresses strong regret,” said a statement from South Korea’s Foreign Ministry.