Personal/Blog News – Page 6 – Mutantfrog Travelogue

Ayase to start fining smokers starting in October

In my last post about bicycle parking, I noted that the enforcers didn’t seem to be making much of an impact on illegal bike parking, except maybe at the margins (I’d be tempted to park there more often if I didn’t have a reliable space at my apt. building).

Another rule in Adachi-ku that’s only effective at the margins is the ban on smoking on the streets. In a reverse of the common American rule, in Japan smokers are often allowed to smoke in designated areas of public buildings but banned from smoking on the street. This makes for some smoky izakaya, but to me it makes sense because Japan’s narrow streets and urban lifestyle mean you are affected more by street smokers than you would be in a big American city.

Unfortunately, the bans tend to be ignored by whoever is insensitive enough to light up. They obviously know it’s against the rules but wear a “screw you” scowl on their faces and no one does anything.

One effort to combat these scowlers has been to enhance enforcement in high-traffic areas by dispatching workers who enforce the rules by collecting small fines on the spot. Adachi-ku has imposed such a ban since October 2006 starting with a 1,000 yen fine in the Kitasenju Station area. Ever since I have been in the area I have seen elderly people (volunteers I presume) asking some very surprised and incredulous smokers to pay 1,000 yen on the spot.

Similar exchanges are expected to come to my neighborhood this October as the fine is set to be expanded to include the Ayase Station area:

From Adachi-ku bicycle parking enforcers

The details of anti-smoking ordinances vary from place to place, but most appear to follow similar guidelines – ban smoking on the street everywhere (except some small smoking areas) but only enforce in areas of major foot traffic such as train stations. Many places such as Tokyo’s Chiyoda-ku post their enforcement stats online. Since beginning its policy in November 2002, Chiyoda-ku has fined a total of 42,230 people. Though I could not find figures on whether these people are actually paying the fines, if everyone has paid they have collected a total of 84.5 million yen, which adds up to something like 11.3 million yen a year.We also don’t know how many people the enforcers tried to stop but couldn’t.

For its part, Adachi-ku claims to have issued 3,498 fines in the Kitasenju area. As noted above, the preferred collection method is to demand payment on the spot. Enforcers are required to show proper ID upon request, and you are allowed to appeal if you don’t think you deserve the fine. However, there appears to be nothing the enforcers can do if you simply ignore them or refuse to take possession of the ticket.

In the initial period of enforcement, Ayase can probably expect a similar reaction that was documented when Kobe expanded its enforcement in 2007 – refusals by people who claim ignorance of the rule, people tossing out cigarettes just before entering the restricted area, and lots of people simply refusing to acknowledge the existence of the enforcers. Seeing the jerks who light up even when they know the smoke bothers everyone is one of my pet peeves, so here’s hoping our friends the elderly enforcers can get the job done.

Meet the bicycle parking enforcers

Yesterday evening on the way home I caught Adachi-ku’s bicycle parking enforcers in action:

From Adachi-ku bicycle parking enforcers

The open area outside Ayase Station’s east exit is normally filled with illegally parked bikes (because it basically serves no other function). As in most areas, Adachi-ku bans bike parking near stations except in designated parking lots (there is one that’s free of charge on the south side and several fee-based ones). But in reality, most of the time the only thing stopping people from parking in this area are some old men in yellow vests (apparently officially sanctioned volunteers) who verbally warn people not to park there (even as 5 others are parking their bikes directly behind them).

But about once a week the enforcers come around, and it’s on these days that the park becomes oddly bike-free. On this Saturday in particular I was walking in an area that’s usually so flooded with bikes it’s impossible to walk through comfortably, but when the enforcers came around there were only two or three bikes to be found. Somehow everyone seems to know what day the enforcers will be there.

According to the Adachi-ku homepage, the district only enforces bicycle parking within a 300-meter radius of train stations, as those are the places where offenders concentrate.

If your bicycle is caught by the enforcer’s net outside Ayase Station, you must make your way to the Kita-Ayase relocation center (on foot, presumably). To retrieve a bike that’s been confiscated will cost you 2,000 yen and require you to produce proof that you own the bike along with a working key. Act fast, though – bikes in custody for two months will be “disposed with.” While I don’t know exactly what Adachi-ku does with the orphaned bikes, many abandoned bicycles nationwide end up exported to North Korea, so if you don’t want to fund Kim Jong Il’s regime, you need to retrieve your bike as soon as possible!

A Yomiuri photo of bicycles slated for export.

The Wikipedia article on this issue makes an interesting point – in most cases, there are more people who benefit from illegal bike parking than who are adversely affected by it. No one might be explicitly advocating that bikes should be permitted to park wherever they want, but the fact remains that the fee-based parking lots are expensive and often inconvenient. This means that politicians have a hard time taking decisive action as it would upset the population.

Time Suck is funny

Let’s close out this intense week on a lighter note:

1. The Time Suck section of Houston-based culture website 29-95.com is hilarious. It’s written by a team of people including Joe Mathlete of “Marmaduke Explained” fame (he now posts his explanations on this site). Here is one video of a “translated” rap battle they recently recommended:

2. Mad Men is back for its third season starting August 16 and I for one can’t wait. It’s turned into a total soap opera but I love it because in a lot of ways the office atmosphere is remarkably similar to the corporate culture at Japanese firms. Here is a photo gallery they posted to help promote the new season (thanks to Time Suck for the link).

Renting in Japan vs America – Part 1

Inspired by the news the other day that a Kyoto district court has rules that housing rental contract renewal fees are a violation of consumer rights, I thought I would write a brief introduction to how renting works, based primarily on my own experiences.

I have rented twice in America, three times in Japan, and one time in Taiwan, with an asterisk. As this post was getting quite long, I’ve decided to split it up into three pieces. Since I want to go in chronological order, I’ll first discuss America with a brief mention of Taiwan, then part 2 will discuss how it works in Japan, and finally in the third part I will break down my actual housing contract as specific examples.

I went to college at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in the small city of New Brunswick. After two years in various dorms I decided to move out, and went looking for a house or apartment to share with a friend or three. The Rutgers campus is surrounded by a zone of houses (with a very few apartment buildings) which are occupied almost entirely by students renting from year to year, formed as if the city were insulating itself from the campus in much the manner of an oyster generating a pearl to protect its soft, fragile body from a piece of grit. Since houses in the area are almost entirely for students, landlords can advertise directly to them quite easily through the housing office bulletin board etc, so there is no need for anyone to involve real estate agents. In most cases, the owner of the house rents directly to students, and are usually very amateurish about arranging repairs etc. The security deposit is equal to 1.5 months rent, as specified by city ordnance, and must be kept in a special bank account which may be used only to store the security deposit. When first moving in, the only thing you pay are first month rent, last month rent, and the security deposit. There is no “renewal fee” or anything similar, and in ordinary circumstances, most of the security deposit is returned.

This is pretty much the procedure throughout the US. While houses may be rented directly by the owner or through a real estate agent (who I presume earns some sort of fee), one often has contact with the landlord (i.e. the actual owner) after moving in, but owners of multiple properties may hire a company to deal with residents for them. Large apartment buildings generally have a superintendent who manages building, particularly construction, although I am somewhat vague about how small apartment buildings generally work. Security deposit is usually legally restricted to an amount of 1.5 or 2 months rent, and contract renewal fees are illegal. There is one big exception in the case of ‘key money’, which I will discuss later.

I should also add that exclusion by race or nationality is highly illegal, to the point where realtors are legally prohibited from even discussing the racial makeup of the neighborhood, should the renter be trying to, for example, avoid living near black people. This is very strictly enforced (at least in some states.) My mother had a good friend who worked as a realtor, who told me that the New Jersey state board of real estate (or whatever the official name is) actually sends undercover inspectors to do random checks of real estate agents and make sure they are following the discrimination guidelines. Realtors who break the rules lose their license.

I lived in one such house for a year (actually the first story of a two family house, as many houses are in the area), went to Japan for two years, where I lived in school dorms, and then returned for my final year at Rutgers, where I shared a second-story apartment of a different two-family house, which had been arranged while I was away by the girlfriend of a good friend (the girl being Jess Rees and the friend being Brian Cervino, both members of the band Huma whose music I recommend), and another guy that she knew. I’m afraid I forget now exactly what the rent was, but it came out to somewhere between $300 and $400 per person, plus some more for utilities. The security deposit in New Brunswick is set by law at 1.5 months, and in both cases most of it was returned, although well after the 30 day window required by law. As a student with no independent source of income, the landlords also required parents to co-sign as a guarantee. This is common in the US in such situations, but is not usual for renters who actually have a stable job. In both cases, everyone living in the apartment signed the lease, but the room and rent allocation was not explicitly spelled out, which in retrospect might have been a good idea, as there were some minor arguments in that area in the first house (although none at all in the second.)

I next went to study in Taiwan for a few months, where had arranged no housing in advance aside from a one-week reservation in a youth hostel, but almost immediately found a promising room advertised on a bulletin board at school. This experience gets an asterisk because as a subleter I never signed, or even examined, a contract and know relatively little about the local procedures and laws. My general impression, however, is that it works more or less the same as in most of the US, with no ‘key money’ or renewal fees, and only moderate security deposits. It seemed to me that rentals often go through agents (at least in apartment building-dominated Taipei) but perhaps in smaller cities/towns there are more landlords renting directly.

Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow.

Blogger party tomorrow – Adamu will be there

Sorry for the short notice, but I just wanted to let people know I’ll be at The Pink Cow in Shibuya tomorrow night attending a Japan politics blogger party. Observing Japan‘s Tobias Harris, Japan Economy News‘s Ken Worsley, and other luminaries will be “dropping knowledge” and “busting freestyles” – should be a good time!

Here is the info:

Following our successful nomikai in January of this year, some of us politics bloggers have decided to hold another party to give our readers an opportunity to ply us with drinks to put faces to blogs.

Once again we will be gathering at The Pink Cow in Shibuya, at 7pm on Saturday July 25th.

If you are interested in attending, please send an email — the sooner the better — to me (observingjapan@gmail.com) and Ken Worsley (japaneconomynews@gmail.com) so that we can get a rough sense of how many people to expect.

Tokyo assembly election: Meet the candidates (Part 7 of 10) – Naoki Takashima (LDP)

In our next installment we turn our attention to the other LDP incumbent running for re-election, third-term assemblyman Naoki Takashima (59).

From Tokyo Prefectural Assembly Election

Takashima is your typical career politician, with one kick-ass difference – he is the president of his own anko (red bean paste) factory. Born and raised in Adachi-ku, after graduating from nearby Dokkyo University Takashima became a staffer for a prefectural assemblyperson. After that, he spent two years working at the bean paste factory before running and winning a seat at the Adachi-ku assembly in 1983, where he would stay until attempting to move to the next step in his career. He lost his first attempt at the prefectural assembly in 1993 but won on his second try in 1997 and has been there ever since. Since August 2008 he has been the secretary general for the assembly’s LDP caucus.

Policy: As a loyal LDP man, Takashima supports all of Ishihara’s controversial policies, including the bailout of Shinginko Tokyo, moving Tsukiji Market to Toyosu, and bringing the Olympics to Tokyo in 2016. He also promotes a series of building plans and, of course, juicier welfare options for Adachi residents.

Chances of winning: Takashima’s position appears to be solid, barring a complete collapse in support for the LDP. Unlike fellow LDP incumbent Masatsugu Mihara, he’s never been voted out of office (though he lost his first attempt at the prefectural assembly) and thus is less likely to get drawn into the strategy of some of the minor candidates to split the conservative vote, which I’ll get to in a later installment.

Something interesting: Like a true playa, Takashima’s campaign office doubles as a bean paste factory. And since he is a powerful local politician, he’s been able to keep the decrepit building standing in the shadow of several enormous apartment complexes. Here’s the Street View image of the building:

He considers himself to be computer savvy, bragging in his profile that he communicates with prefectural bureaucrats via e-mail. But since he is used to the keyboards on older Japanese PCs – he mentions the If-800 model from Oki Electric – he claims to have trouble typing Japanese characters using romanized spelling. Older keyboards in Japan used a unique keyboard layout that assigned a key to each kana character (the relics of that system remain on the current keyboards).

(Wow, there’s a printer inside the keyboard…).

In 2002 his koenkai (support association) held a dance party, resulting in some precious moments of seniors having fun:

David “Lizard People” Icke in Kitasenju

Now, don’t get me wrong – Takashima has nothing to do with infamous conspiracy theorist David Icke. But thanks to the magic of Google Maps, I now know that in 2008 Icke gave a talk just a few blocks from Takashima’s bean paste factory. Let’s watch:

Personally, I want to know where I can get a sweet gig interpreting speeches for David Icke. I bet he pays pretty well. Icke’s Japanese page is here. You can read his theories of how humanity is controlled by lizard people here in the original English.

Tokyo assembly election: Meet the candidates (Part 5 of 10) – Haruhisa Tomotoshi

As the election looms, I am frantic to get these profiles done. To that end, tonight I will cover one of the New Komeito candidates: Haruhisa Tomotoshi (63). He is an incumbent and (like fellow Komeito candidate Nobuyuki Nakayama) has a near-certain chance of keeping his seat – LDP estimates of their party’s chances to keep control of the assembly assume that all 23 Komeito candidates will win.

Thanks to close ties with lay Buddhist movement Soka Gakkai, the Komeito enjoys a solid base of support among believers in Tokyo. Adachi-ku is also home to Akihiro Ota, the current president of the national New Komeito.

Some also speculate that the Komeito systematically inflates voter rolls by instructing Soka Gakkai followers across the country to move into election districts three months before the vote (the minimum residency period to become a valid voter). This may be true, but I would be kind of surprised if other parties didn’t at least try and employ similar tactics if they work so well.

Mrs. Adamu and I have a hard time supporting Komeito candidates because, like the Communists, they claim to be moderate but in fact have a hidden agenda. In the Komeito’s case, it is to protect the interests of Soka Gakkai, the Buddhist sect that provides election funding and sets their political agenda. The agenda itself tends to be quite mild, but I find the sum of their activities unacceptable: they inject religion into the political process, they maintain an aura of intense secrecy and refuse to explain why Soka Gakkai feels the need for political representation, and their activities appear to openly flaunt the democratic process to to protect a very narrow segment of society.

Anyway, let’s look at these guys.

Haruhisa Tomotoshi

From Tokyo Prefectural Assembly Election

As this poster might suggest, Tomotoshi “the man who really gets it done” does not feel he needs much introduction.

He is a veteran politician who spent five terms as an Adachi-ku assemblyman before moving on to the prefectural assembly, where he is currently on his second term. According to a JANJAN video, he was born in Manchukuo in 1945 just as WWII ended. He was never able to attend high school after his father died around 1960 when Haruhisa was 15. He had to work to support his mother and siblings before becoming an elected official at age 38.

One of the toughest fights of his political career was against Communist-backed Adachi-ku mayor Manzo Yoshida. Yoshida, who was mayor from 1996-1999, cancelled an unpopular building project and pushed to expand welfare services. Tomotoshi and other conservatives in the assembly fought Yoshida tooth and nail, and eventually successfully ousted him through a no-confidence motion.

As for his accomplishments, Tomotoshi takes some of the credit for completing the Tsukuba Express and Toneri Liner (two new train lines that run through Adachi).

It is unclear whether he is a Soka Gakkai believer.

In closing, watch this paranoid anti-Komeito propaganda video. They claim that the Komeito are being used by Soka Gakkai in an anti-Japanese plot to destroy the Japanese people’s lives:

Love the Final Fantasy-esque background music!

Tokyo assembly election: Meet the candidates (Part 3 of 10) – Masatsugu Mihara

(Update: Changed top photo)

Next up we have LDP incumbent Masatsugu Mihara (age 66, pictured campaigning below).

From Tokyo Prefectural Assembly Election

Like rival DPJ candidate Satoru Onishi, Mihara was a political secretary for a national MP before becoming a politician himself. Since then, Mihara appears to have split duties between serving time and giving full-throated support to Governor Ishihara.

Judging from his website, this guy is not trying very hard to get re-elected. Nothing about it even suggests there’s an election coming up. It’s almost an insult to someone like Katsuhiro Suzuki who has yet to taste electoral victory and spends every waking moment campaigning. Sure, Mihara is on top of a bus giving speeches, but even then he didn’t seem as passionate as the other candidates. Then again, as a connected guy he may not need to work all that hard, at least not in public.

But while you get the impression that Mihara feels entitled to his assembly seat, his political career hasn’t been all peaches and cream. Though he served three consecutive terms starting in 1993, Mihara was voted out in 2005 and then back in 2007, when he easily won a by-election to replace LDP assemblywoman Yayoi Kondo after she ran successfully to become the mayor of Adachi-ku. (Mihara’s own profile fudges this fact but it’s backed up by election data)

Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture on the western tip of Honshu, Mihara joined the Ground Self Defense Force straight out of middle school. After leaving the force, he earned his college degree and in 1970 became a secretary to the late Lower House MP Ryosuke Kujiraoka. Kujiraoka, who grew up in and was elected from Adachi-ku, was known as a conservative pacifist and member of former Prime Minister Takeo Miki‘s faction. Like Miki, Kujiraoka gained respect as a squeaky clean politician. Presumably, the Kujiraoka connection (he served the man for 22 years) is why Mihara is running from Adachi-ku.

Policy: Like everyone else, Mihara trots out a series of enhanced welfare initiatives to help kids and foster development. Interestingly, he places “small and medium size corporations” first on his list of groups he wants to help. Contrast this with the consistent “people’s lives first” campaign of the DPJ.

Chances of winning: Mihara won the 2007 by-election by a substantial margin, so as the successor to popular mayor Yayoi Kondo, Mihara will likely land within the top six despite the anti-LDP sentiment.

Tell me something interesting about this guy: On his list of accomplishments, Mihara claims to have led the fight to ban “legal drugs” in Tokyo which I assume refers in part to magic mushrooms, which were legal in Japan until around 2001. According to his site, his efforts led to “Japan’s first anti-drug ordinances” (which in Japan is kind of like banning werewolves) though he doesn’t say when. He is also a big supporter of Governor Ishihara’s efforts to install security cameras around the city.

If you spend most of your adult life serving under a loyal factionist LDP Diet member, that apparently means you get to earn extra money by serving on various boards and committees. That’s at least true for Mihara, who sits on the board of an organization that runs group retirement homes and as a “councillor” (member of the management council) at a Buddhist-run school. He also heads the Adachi Gateball Association (had to look that one up).

Mihara Easter Egg

If you load just the top-level domain of Mihara’s site it opens what appears to be an older version. It contains some of the typical profile info, but toward the bottom of the page he links to a bunch of fad diet websites and then this dude:

This is James Skinner, a US-born motivational speaker for upwardly mobile Japanese. He speaks native Japanese and gives high-energy talks encouraging the audience to focus and make their companies more profitable:

His audience apparently consists primarily of corporate managers. I don’t know what this says about Mihara’s qualifications, but considering all he’s accomplished in his career maybe paying for these life coaching services was worth it.

Tokyo assembly election: Meet the candidates – Katsuhiro Suzuki

Katsuhiro Suzuki (51) – This first-time candidate has DPJ backing and is running on his status as a born-and-raised Adachi-ku resident and his achievements as a businessman. He has spent most of his career in the job training industry and is currently active as a member of the local DPJ’s policy committee.

After starting at Recruit and then “a consultant company,” in 1996 he became involved in the establishment of Nagase PC School, an IT-related job training operation that, in his words, specialized in turning part-timers and “NEETs” (people Not in Employment, Education, or Training) into full-time employees. After that experience he moved on to other job training businesses before entering politics. Former colleagues from Recruit and his job training businesses are advisors and managers of his political campaigns.

Policy: His policies nominally focus on furthering the mission of his private-sector experience (getting underutilized young people into the workforce) in the political field. But other than that external flavoring, he seems to propose throwing money at Tokyo’s problems just like everyone else.

Generally, he is very proud of his achievements in the private sector and believes those lessons apply to government. Though not part of his official campaign literature, his Livedoor blog features commentary on issues of the day and provides clues to his way of thinking.

One of his most passionate blog posts comes from March 2009, in which he outlines why former executives like him belong in politics. He thinks politicians need “private sector skills” (民間力） defined as: creativity 創造力, the ability to be a producer プロデュース力 (meaning to put together and follow through on projects), the ability to know what’s happening on the ground 現場力, competitive strength 競争力, the ability to manage people マネジメント力, the ability to manage a business 経営力, and the ability to evaluate results 評価力.

Chances of winning: As a new and untested candidate he might have a tough time against several incumbents. From 2001 to 2005, the DPJ has picked up a seat from the LDP, moving the party standings in Adachi-ku from

LDP – 3
Komeito – 2
Communist – 1
DPJ – 0

To:

LDP – 2
Komeito – 2
Communist – 1
DPJ – 1

With the polls behind the DPJ, Suzuki might have a chance to edge out another LDP candidate (I expect the Communists and Komeito have the votes to keep their people in power). However, the election in Adachi-ku is more competitive than usual, contrary to the prefecture-wide trend. There were 7 candidates in 2001, 8 in 2005, and this year there are 10. On top of that all the incumbents except are running again, save for the Communists. If the vote splits among new candidates Suzuki might be in trouble.

A touch of humanity: He once headed his local PTA and claims to have had a dual-income household with his wife for the past 20 years, but that is all he is apparently willing to tell us about his personal life.

I went through this guy’s entire blog to try and find something truly interesting, and the closest I could come up with was that rant about how awesome corporate executives are. But I have a theory for why this is so: he spends all day every day speechifying in front of Ayase station. As his blog will back up, he seems to always be either in Kitasenju or Ayase station speaking into a microphone about how badly he wants to represent Adachi-ku. For months now I have seen him outside Ayase Station.

One reason I have trouble supporting this guy is he apparently forces his interns to wear uncomfortable-looking business suits:

And for good measure here’s one of Suzuki and Ren Ho (taken at a Rengo-affiliated local union meeting):

Tokyo assembly election: Meet the candidates – Satoru Onishi

(Corrected below)

July 3 marked the start of the Tokyo prefectural assembly election. The sound trucks are out in force:

From Tokyo Prefectural Assembly Election

Hype over the election on the news is almost exclusively focused on whether it will be perceived as an LDP loss. The LDP-Komeito coalition currently controls the assembly in a rough equivalent of the current Lower House situation, so failure for the LDP is defined as whether the DPJ unseats the LDP as the top party. If that happens, LDP members are expected to call for Prime Minister Aso’s head on a platter (and possibly make ex-comedian Miyazaki government Sonomanma Higashi PM install a caretaker PM ahead of the general election that must be held by September. Correction – Higashikokubaru could realistically only become PM after the general election. Apologies for the brain lapse).

Each party has stressed some local issues: The LDP/Komeito emphasize their efforts to help the local economy, while the DPJ tries to inject hot-button issues like the ailing bank Shinginko Tokyo and opposition to plans to move Tsukiji fish market to Toyosu.

For their part, the Happiness Realization Party (the new political arm of neo-Buddhist religion Happy Science) is playing up the threat of North Korea to scare people into supporting their party’s suggestion that Japan go ahead with a pre-emptive strike.

These are the issues candidates mention to the national media and in open-air speeches, though the campaign literature barely mentions them. At least in Adachi-ku, on paper every candidate has almost the exact same policy proposals – more welfare, more infrastructure, more of anything you can spend money on.

In Adachi-ku, 10 candidates are competing for 6 seats. Today I’d like to briefly introduce the one candidate Mrs. Adamu and I found somewhat reasonable:

Satoru Onishi – incumbent DPJ member

Satoru Onishi (48) – A current first-term assemblyman running for re-election, his political experience comes from a turn as the public secretary to DPJ Lower House Member Ritsuo Hosokawa (a former Socialist MP and current Shadow Defense Minister). He left the secretary position in 2001 to mount an ultimately unsuccessful run for the Tokyo assembly but succeeded the next time around in 2005.

Policy: Onishi predictably advocates generous welfare programs, such as a monthly 26,000 yen handout to families with children and lower classroom sizes, to benefit “your IMPORTANT children and grandchildren, for the NEXT GENERATION.”

Chances of winning: In the 2005 election Onishi came in 4th behind an LDP and two Komeito candidates. This year polling would indicate his party is set to do much better at the expense of the LDP, so it’s a pretty safe bet he will win re-election.

A touch of humanity: As graduate of Ritsumeikan University’s economics faculty, he and I share an alma mater (I was a one-year exchange student).

Since the Tokyo election commission publishes the home addresses of the candidates (PDF – don’t tell the personal information worry-warts), I was able to locate the apartment complex where Onishi lives. According to Google Maps, he lives right next to the mall where this stupid human trick took place: