Ranting – Page 14 – Mutantfrog Travelogue

Cheney, Abe reaffirm blah blah blah BORING!

Put these two men in a room together and magic happens:

And please, read on to learn of this historic meeting of the minds!

Abe, Cheney Reaffirm Unity On Abduction Issue, Iraq

TOKYO (Kyodo)–Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney agreed Wednesday to boost the bilateral alliance and cooperate to resolve the issue of North Korea’s past abductions of Japanese citizens as a common matter of the two nations.

Cheney expressed U.S. understanding over Japan’s policy of not offering energy aid to North Korea due to the abduction issue, while Abe gave reassurances over Tokyo’s support for U.S. efforts in Iraq and its commitments to promoting missile defense and U.S. military realignment, Japanese officials told reporters.

OK, I’m asleep now. I fell asleep just reading this article. Could there be a less relevant visit to Japan by an American leader? I mean, sure Cheney isn’t going for no reason at all, but he and his staff are just decidedly disinterested in making his visit media-friendly. I guess we can wait and see if Cheney is trying to get anything concrete out of Japan in terms of Iraq support, or if he focused more on easing so-called “tensions” in the security alliance that are so slight as to be almost figments of the media’s imagination in their struggle to wrap some narrative around this dull, dull official visit.

My own theory on why Cheney’s there: he’s actually trying to reaffirm US-Japan unity in the six-party negotiations amid accusations that the US is pressuring Japan to back off on its insistence that North Korea make progress in resolving the issue of NK abductions of Japanese citizens before Japan provides NK with any aid. Cheney will be meeting with the parents of abductee Yokota Megumi tomorrow, which will probably be the highlight of media coverage on the Japanese side. Meanwhile, the American media-consuming public will be subject to images of Cheney strolling off the plane and addressing a crowd of adoring troops on the USS Kittyhawk. And conveniently enough, the Scooter Libby trial is about to end, so some attention can be deflected from the torrent of negative press the trial has given Cheney and his shady attempts to manipulate the media. Or more likely still, the longer Cheney’s out of the country, the longer he can avoid answering questions about Libby etc. Thankfully, Cheney will return to his now-famous undisclosed location after the trip is over.

For a PM as boring as Abe, even a doctor’s visit makes the news

abe-blazer-turtleneck20070210-05016834-jijp-pol-view-001.jpg

Abe on the way home from getting his health checked. I can’t say for sure why they published this almost totally un-newsworthy photo, but it goes to show how doggedly the press in Japan is hounding the Prime Minister no matter where he goes. Why would he wave to the camera? My guess is in response to the reporters’ catcalling. The caption? “‘This is my regular checkup. There were no problems at all, so I can work at ease again.’ Will the embattled prime minister now be refreshed to mount an attack to reverse his fortunes?”

The constant media hounding is nothing new, but here’s one possible reason this otherwise unremarkable photo made the news: People miss Koizumi’s consummate newsworthiness. As the right-leaning policy monthly Shokun! (Hey You!) has pointed out, at least Koizumi had hobbies (even though they were lame ones like opera). Abe hasn’t been seen doing much besides his job, except for when he’s very obviously posing for the cameras (such as when he was seen holding hands with his wife or when he made a trip to buy dictionaries). So these bored reporters might have been desparate to capture the prime minister doing anything.

There have been reports comparing the Abe and Koizumi styles of leadership ever since Koizumi left office. TV commentator Terry Ito puts it bluntly: “Koizumi spoke to the people, Abe speaks to Nagatacho.” But ever since the K-man made a well-received campaign appearance during lower house by-elections in October, reports of rumors/hopes started bubbling up that Koizumi might try and take back the premiership. The above-mentioned Shokun! article outlines one wild scenario:

The Abe cabinet will hit a dead end over the nonstop scandals and dissolve the lower house. The DPJ, internally divided as it is, will win the general election as it rides this wave of dissatisfaction in a “marriage of convenience.” Part of the disjointed LDP will break off and join the DPJ. Ozawa will step down for health reasons and leave the DPJ leadership to either Yukio Hatoyama or Naoto Kan, forming a coalition government with the Socialist Democratic Party. It will, of course, immediately falter. People will then start calling for a “strong leader” amid the fluid political conditions. This is a prediction for 2, 3 years into the future, but it could well be that Junichiro Koizumi is quietly waiting for that day to come.

The “Koizumi comeback” storyline (always proffered by unnamed sources, of course) picked up momentum after Abe’s administration started to stumble in December. All the while, Koizumi himself has been indirectly quoted as saying he has no interest whatsoever in running the government again.

But the idea has picked up such steam by now that Koizumi’s longtime personal assistant Isao Iijima came out and flatly stated at an appearance in his native Nagano that there would be “100% no comeback” for Koizumi.

The coverage of Iijima’s comments may have been due to the fact that Iijima himself has become a part of the “Koizumi comeback” story, partly for his reputation as a shady manipulator of media coverage (he’s been called “Japan’s Karl Rove”; read a 2001 profile here). This report in January 15 edition of news weekly AERA, quotes unnamed political insiders and a passage critical of the Abe administration’s use of special advisors to explain that Iijima is disappointed with the Abe administration. The article goes on to speculate that Iijima harbors a “wild ambition” to put Koizumi back in power. Amid this coverage, Koizumi has been indirectly quoted as saying he isn’t interested.

Even though Iijima has denied that Koizumi is making a comeback, the very fact that Koizumi’s personal secretary is out making speeches makes me suspect something’s up. His comments were somewhat cryptic: “Koizumi has been keeping silent for the time being. I see that as the best support for Abe,” referring to the fact that Koizumi has largely managed to stay out of the press, at least directly, after leaving office. But this conspicuous absence only seems to make Japanese reporters’ hearts grow fonder.

Foreign Crime File – is all the fuss really necessary?

Today I want to talk about the “Foreign Crime Files” manga. It’s an offensive, disgusting book that tries (albeit poorly) to exploit Japanese people’s fears and prejudices. By now many of my readers will have heard about this since the Japan bloggers have duly reported it with furious anger. But my preliminary and very unscientific research seems to indicate that this book has not made much of a splash in Japan as of yet. It’s enough to make me worry that this outrage might actually be building more of a market for the book (and a platform for its fear-mongering) than it would have had otherwise.

The sole Amazon review (1 star): “Uses lots of discriminatory phrases, low level content. It seems as if the author has a major inferiority complex as a Japanese person. This will engender a bias against foreigners among ignorant Japanese people.” Also from Amazon: People who bought this book also bought “Completely Master the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 1!” (a test of Japanese as a second language). Amazon rank: 1004 in books.

Japanese-language Technorati results: zero!

2ch presence: One very short thread on the “Books” board. Overview:

Thread starter: Did you know about GAIJIN HANZAI FILE, this horrible, discriminatory book?!
2channeler 1: It’s an ad!
TS: No, it’s not an ad, I just want to know why Japanese people allow this kind of thing?
2channeler 1: Well, I guess it’s more that we don’t really care about foreigners.
2channeler 2: My opinion is that people who overreact to this discrimination are pretty depressing. Just leave it alone. The fact that the foreign media has picked this up is just what I’m talking about. They understand that life and racial discrimination can’t be separated. A worldview that relates and compares issues to one’s own life is very Christian.

No mention in a news thread on the lower “foreign crime rate” reported by the National Police Agency.

Google results: The multitude of booksellers’ websites selling the book and foreign Japan bloggers’ reactions, plus one blogger/J-pop singer cocco (wiki), who explained: “It isn’t being talked about much by Japanese people yet, but one book (Foreigner Crime File) is enraging foreigners who live in Japan… I worry that this might turn into an international problem!”
According to cocco, there is a movement going on within mixi to boycott Family Mart over this book, one that debito has helped organize outside of mixi and that has in the end kept it off the shelves there as well as in other places.

It could be early to conclude that Japanese people just aren’t all that interested in this book, or perhaps they’ll just never have the chance to read it due to the success of Debito and others to get this book censored. But in this era of viral marketing and unscrupulous people, you have to wonder if all the coverage we foreign Japan bloggers are giving this awful book are giving it more attention than it ever really deserved. I feel like this book would have died a death in the sleazy porno section of the convenience stores if it weren’t for its almost made-for-the-Internet inflammatory illustrations.

Good foreigner, bad foreigner

I’ve noticed several English-language articles on foreigners in Japan lately: Tony McNichol takes a trip to Tokyo’s Indiatown in Nishi-Kasai, the Japanese government’s PR machine coincidentally also dips into the Indiatown well (English-language video report here) and dedicates a whole magazine issue to portraying multiculturalism as a “force for change” moving Japan “toward a multicultural society”, and Joseph Coleman sees some similarities between Brazilians in Oizumi, Gunma prefecture and the dissaffected Africans in Paris.

Why all the interest now, when no major government reports have been recently released or any groundbreaking events are taking place? Beats me, but remember: there is one thing we can all agree on:

“Everybody, I think, is agreed on one thing: We want to attract the `good’ foreigners, and keep out the `bad’ ones,” said Hisashi Toshioka, of the Justice Ministry’s Immigration Bureau.

While this statement, taken out of context, begs all sorts of questions, I am fully prepared to take it at face value. Bad foreigners not only need to be kept from coming to Japan, if they make it to the country they need to get stomped. My favorite case in point? This drunken sod who gets his ass beaten by a garbage man in Osaka:

That’s bad. Thankfully my youthful carousing occurred in a time before cell phone cameras.

Fewer Japanese people studying English in the UK

The changing landscape of Japanese people’s English learning practices is a factor keeping Japanese students out of ESL classrooms in the UK, reports Kyodo News:

(Kyodo) _ The number of Japanese learning English in Britain has slowed in recent years, amid signs that growing numbers of young people from East Asia are opting to study in their home country rather than venture overseas.

Experts put the tailing off down to many factors, including the state of the Japanese economy, falling birthrate, the popularity of Chinese and the increasing provision of English language teaching in the region.
…
According to figures provided by the Council, the number of weeks spent in Britain by Japanese studying English fell between 1997 and 2001, and has plateaued out in recent years. In 1997, Japanese spent 170,100 weeks in Britain. By 2001, this had fallen to 123,626 weeks.

In 2002, the figures picked up again and in 2004 Japanese spent 135,347 weeks in the United Kingdom. However, numbers are expected to be down for 2005.
…
Emma Parker, education promotion officer at the British Council in Japan, said all of the large English-speaking countries — Britain, the United States and Australia — had seen reductions in Japanese students. She added that the number of Japanese going to overseas universities appeared to be falling, and this inevitably impacted on applications for English courses. (many students take English language courses before studying at a foreign university).

As well as the simple fact that there are fewer younger Japanese people, Parker put the decline down to “more and more potential study destinations, and so increased competition.”

She said there were several Japanese-owned English language schools located in nearby Asian countries and, “although English skills remain very important in Japan, people’s interests and employers’ requirements are diversifying.

Essentially, if this article’s assertion that people are choosing to study at home is to be believed (though why they chose to measure that in hours as opposed to people escapes me), that would mean Japan’s domestic ESL market (for Japanese adults, anyway) has become so developed (to the point of saturation) that people may be taking seriously the idea expressed in top English conversation firm NOVA’s slogan of “study abroad near your local train station.” That would be a sad development — the peculiar nature of the still-flourishing interest in the English language in Japan has now been officially blamed as a factor keeping Japanese people from studying abroad, which ironically means less overseas exposure for the average Japanese. The pros and cons of eikaiwa-style English education aside, it simply cannot serve as an effective replacement for studying abroad if one’s goal is to learn how a language is used and the culture it comes from.

That said, it would take more study to see how true that claim is (I wish I could get my hands on that report for one). And it seems like this story is talking about ESL students only, not undergraduate or graduate degree programs. I’m having trouble locating more recent statistics, but as of 2000, the number of Japanese people studying abroad (including all 3 categories and more, and most of them going to English-speaking countries, presumably) continued to rise, though at a much lower rate than in years past. My guess is it’s a combination of factors: families who are facing lower incomes (and shrinking disposable incomes) may be forced to see eikaiwa as a second best option since they can’t afford to send their kids to study abroad. Or there may be other factors at play: Japanese universities are becoming easier to get into (fewer kids, same number of universities) meaning that studying abroad isn’t being used as Plan B for kids who had trouble on the entrance exams; or perhaps parents/students are getting wise to the fact that ESL programs often aren’t what they are cracked up to be. One explanation mentioned in the report that I don’t buy is the competition from other languages. English is still king in Japan and will be for the foreseeable future.

I’ll try and keep an eye on things, but in the meantime: what do you think?

A brief look at free English-language online sources on Japanese politics

Happy New Year, everybody. 2006 was Mutant Frog Travelogue’s 2nd year of existence and a good one for a number of reasons: our readership has surged, we’ve been dubbed a top 10 Japan blog, and most importantly we have learned a lot in the process, both through researching for blog posts and through reader comments. Loyal readers: thanks for the support. Newcomers: Stick with us!

We don’t pretend to offer anything but whatever inspires us to click the Publish button, but we do hope you’re interested in what we have to say. Of course, you wouldn’t want to use this site as a main source for information, especially since there are much more comprehensive and professional sites out there.

For example, if you want information on Japanese politics in the English language, there is a wealth of sources to consult. For background, you can consult Wikipedia or the CIA World Fact Book to brush up on the basics or find papers by various experts in the field (the two best sources I am aware of: JPRI and Japan Focus), all free of charge.

On top of that, the Japanese government (such as METI’s think tank RIETI and MOF’s research institute, the websites of the various political parties, especially the LDP, as well as every ministry and agency’s English websites) and various think tanks (Keidanren, Daiwa, and other corporate-sponsored tanks are often quite interesting though they often focus more on the economy) provide much of their research and information in English free of charge.

To find out what’s happening now, there are several excellent English-language sources that are either straight, on-the-scene reporting or translations thereof: Japan Times, Asahi, and Yomiuri all offer different perspectives on daily events. Though you often won’t get the “story behind the story” you can nevertheless keep yourself informed of the details. And if you’re looking for a lighter side of the news, there’s even Mainichi’s WaiWai section that includes many translations of weekly magazine articles, rife with speculation and sensationalism.

And then there are various sites run by foreigners with a particular axe to grind or focused interest. The source most narrowly focusing on politics is the Japan Considered Podcast, run by a veteran Washington Japan policy hand Robert Angel. And there are plenty of others: the people at the new TransPacificRadio take a comprehensive look at the latest news, Debito has a blog chronicling developments surrounding Japan’s treatment of foreign residents, Marxy keeps an eye on pop culture and its gatekeepers, and (until last year at least) Japan Media Review took a look at Japan’s news media industry and let us know how awful the kisha club system is.

Even compared with 2 years ago, the amount of good information out there has become almost staggering. So with so many great resources out there, what can I, Adamu, offer? Biting analysis? Not so much. I try, but there’s a lot I need to learn about Japan, and I feel that I lack a certain perspective by not actually living in the country. In essence, I try to give you two things: (1) My observations as someone who follows the news in Japan with an almost religious devotion; and (2) Translations of interesting articles that would otherwise never find their way to an English-speaking audience. And if you think the increase in freely available Japan information in English was impressive, the surge in Japanese-language online content is even more staggering. It’s not as impressive as the revolution that’s occurred in the US: Japanese newspapers have not followed their American counterparts in posting their entire contents online, for starters. But that may only be a matter of time, and meanwhile there’s enough to keep me busy in my offtime at least.

Jesus in action!

One of the more fun fixtures in Japanese politics is Jesus Matayoshi, a fellow who’s kind of like a lovable combination of Lyndon LaRouche and that guy from Heaven’s Gate. As his name indicates, he claims to be God: he can occasionally be spotted cruising around Tokyo shrieking out of a speaker truck when he’s campaigning (unsuccessfully) for a seat in the Diet.

While trying to explain his phenomenon to my lady-friend, I stumbled upon this wonderful clip from YouTube, showing one of his official election speeches. (Unfortunately, it’s only in Japanese, with no subtitles.) It starts off slow, so if you’re in a hurry you should skip forward to the last minute or so, where he lets loose his money quotes: “Koizumi should cut his belly and die!” and “I, the One God Jesus Matayoshi, will cast Koizumi into the depths of Hell!” Gotta love the kabuki voice, too.

After seeing this, Barack Obama is just not that interesting…

Akie Abe wants to help you “like Japan”

An interview with PM Shinzo Abe’s wife Akie appeared in the BBC recently. In the interview, she indicates interest in an issue that I have had personal experience with:

Another interest of mine is to increase care for those students from abroad who are studying in Japan – I wonder if there is anything I can do in my present position to help them like Japan more.

The wife of the prime minister is a very special position. If there is something only I can do while I am in this position then I would like to contribute and I would like to be useful.

That’s a noble pursuit, indeed. However, as far as I can tell she has zero history promoting any such agenda. She may be studying Korean, but it’s apparently just because she’s such a big fan of Korean soap operas.

No, it’s far more likely she, like her husband Shinzo most of the time, will be using her position to promote existing education ministry policies.

According to the latest outline of Japan’s educational exchange program (PDF), there are already several government programs in place that could be interpreted as encouring a positive opinion of Japan. These include generous government scholarships (for a lucky 10%), subsidized Japanese language education, subsidized housing, access to Japan’s 70%-off national health care plan, and the ability to work part-time while studying.
If that’s not enough, students also commonly have access to cultural activities such as calligraphy:

And interaction with the community:

Compared to the US, where visa procedures, stringent restrictions on work, and a general atmosphere of distrust would seem to be counterproductive to fostering a positive attitude of the country, Japan’s system seems to already coddle its foreign students quite a bit. But most of the foreign students who get their undergrad degrees in Japan cannot find work in the country and end up having to go back. The way I see it, Japan can do two things to make its foreign students “like Japan,” and they are both things the US does a pretty good job of — offer a top-rate education and the opportunity to get a piece of the economic pie by allowing the students to stay and make a career in Japan. Statements like Mrs. Abe’s show that this still isn’t the priority. The scholarships that give educations that foreign students can take back with them are certainly beneficial, but I think Japan can do more than the limited opportunities it gives now, especially when many companies are clamoring for foreign labor.

Buddhist Teachings Part 1

My reading style since I graduated from college has generally been to maintain a steady diet of constant Internet reading between translations while slowly making my way through 3 books or so that are interesting but not “inspiring” on the back burner, reading each occasionally until I finish them, get more into one of them, or discover something else entirely that excites me enough to finish it in a few sittings. Now that I have recently finished Bob Woddward’s State of Denial (Rumsfeld was a jerk), I’m currently in the middle of 3 books: Matsumoto’s Suicide Notes, a repring of a series of columns by comedy duo Downtown foil Hitoshi Matsumoto, Business Nonsense Dictionary by the late Ramo Nakajima, and finally The Teaching of Buddha, left in my Penang hotel room by “The Society for Promotion of Buddhism.” Maybe now that I’ve posted my reading material publicly it’ll get my ass off the computer chair for a bit to actually read this stuff in earnest.

But for now I’ll just post a couple interesting bits from the Buddhist teachings book:

At one time there lived in the Himalayas a bird with one body and two heads. Once one of the heads noticed the other head eating some sweet fruit and felt jealous and said to itself: “I will then eat poison fruit.” So it ate poison and the whole bird died.

Continue reading Buddhist Teachings Part 1

Adamu scoops the Japanese mainstream media

ZAKZAK cites a Mainichi investigation that estimates that the LDP could earn up to 250 million yen in extra public funds allotted to political parties if they act by the end of the year to readmit some of the LDP members who were ousted for voting against the bills to privatize Japan Post. Since the tallies for how much each party gets in this funding scheme are calculated based on the number of Diet seats the party holds at midnight on January 1, the shuffling of party affiliations to maximize the subsidies is a practice that has been going on for years, and was especially fierce during the political turmoil of the 90s when new parties were popping up and fading out constantly.

This year, however, the LDP opened itself up to extra criticism after kicking out the postal rebels, a group of connected, effective politicians whose only crime was to violate party discipline and stick up for their sleazy bloated constituencies. Letting the ones who are really really sorry back in would prove that the move was just another Dentsu-inspired publicity stunt and leaves the less experienced new lower house members who the LDP ran against the rebels with their rear ends exposed. Leaving the rebels hanging means the party not only loses money but also a good deal of political talent that could end up working actively against them. Making it all worse is a divided LDP that can’t decide one way or the other – Secretary General Hidenao Nakagawa met with the rebels’ leader Takeo Hiranuma to help seal the deal, while the new Diet members and their supporters such as ex-LDP sec gen Tsutomu Takebe fight to guard the positions of the “Koizumi children.”

It’s nice that the major news organizations are focusing on a more cynical angle that may motivate the LDP. Too bad I already covered this more than two weeks ago! Remember this post?

(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)

The only Japanese-language news source that even came close to my level of intestinal fortitude was the Sanyo Shimbun, a Chugoku regional paper that brought up the funding issue in a Nov 7 editorial, noting that not only will the LDP lose money by not bringing them back in by the end of the year, but the rebels themselves would lose possible monetary impetus to go back and could even form a new party themselves. Sankei may have picked up on it last week with some sweet graphics, but I still beat them both. And that’s all that matters.

Looks like these so-called “reporters” should have been listening to DPJ Upper House Dietman Tetsuro Fukuyama (or reading Mutant Frog, as it were). I owe this man a beer.