NK’s July 4 missile tests: rained on America’s Independence Day
Monday’s nuclear test: Screws up Columbus Day in the US and Sports Day in Japan.
Both were long weekends, both incidents required top US leaders to wake up in the middle of the night.
Exploding an in-your-face nuclear bomb just isn’t enough for Kim Jong Il, he’s so evil he won’t even wait till the US has had its morning coffee! Well, I’m sure the government pays overtime for whatever non-exempt employees have to respond.
UPDATE 7: Why today, you might ask? Well, Korean-language Money Today suggests that because today—Oct. 9—falls between two holidays in Korea: the anniversary of Kim Jong-il assuming the position of Korean Workers Party general secretary ( Oct. 8 ) and the anniversary of the founding of the Korean Workers Party ( Oct. 10 ).
Root beer is not popular in Japan, which makes things tough for me as both Japan watcher and root beer lover. During my stays in the country, the high prices at the import stores – formerly the only place that sells the stuff before the rise of discount stores – forced me to regard my beloved root beer as a rare treat to be enjoyed alone or in the company of other foreigners.
Attempts have been made to add the drink to the usual lineup of carbonated drink products, but the Japanese consumers are apparently having none of it. Why?
Japanese friends have told me it tastes like medicine. Wikipedia tells me that the specific reason root beer fails to gain popularity outside Okinawa (a legacy of extended US occupation) and US military bases (see previous paretheses) is because drinking it makes you smell like you’re wearing a compress. I have always found the comparison somewhat insulting. I mean, root beer used to be a folk medicine – it’s supposed to taste that way!
Thankfully, the Thais have absolutely no problem with stinky food (take dorians – please!). It was with great pleasure that I have found root beer to be plentiful here. Not only can one find A&W cans on the shelves of the ubiquitous 7-11s, right next to Coke and some unsettlingly hypersweet Lipton Iced Tea, but the A&W fast food chain is alive and well throughout Bangkok. You might be unfamiliar with A&W restaurants as they have a limited presence in many US states, but they but are, rest assured, a nationwide chain (and big in Canada!). They serve a lot of fried food and are known for having good curly fries (true) and chili dogs (not as true). Here I am hugging a statue of their beloved mascot the Great Root Bear (who knew they had a mascot?!) before enjoying their signature root beer in a frosty mug:
Unlike the A&W cans, which for some reason taste almost like Dr. Pepper (blech), the root beer at the restaurant is authentic and delicious. We also had curly fries, which were good as ever, and some fried chicken that was OK but doesn’t hold a candle to some of the awesome fried chicken you get at street vendors around Bangkok. One interesting feature of the menu is that waffles a la mode are offered along with the rest of the value meals, served with curly fries and apparently intended to be eaten as a full-fledged meal. Sounds good to me!
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer, right, is all smiles as he tries out beef bowl with his wife Susanne, left, at Yoshinoya in Tokyo, Monday, Sept 18, 2006. Japanese queued up before a downtown Tokyo fast-food chain on Monday as the restaurant began offering the first servings in more than two years of a popular rice dish topped with American beef. (AP Photo/Pool)
Something tells me he didn’t have to wait all night.
The US coverage of the return of US beef has something of a relieved/celebratory feel to it:
Sept. 18, 2006, 1:48AM
Japanese Line Up for American Beef
TOKYO — The U.S. Ambassador was among customers thronging a major Japanese fast-food chain Monday to savor the return of a popular rice dish topped with American beef that was off the menu for more than two years due to mad cow fears.
“It was great. It was well worth the wait,” U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer said after eating Yoshinoya D&C Co.’s “beef bowl” with chopsticks.
Click to learn more…
Japan and nearby South Korea banned American beef in December 2003 because of fears about mad cow disease. Japan eased the ban in July, and South Korea earlier this month.
Mad for U.S. beef, herd heads for Tokyo eatery
POSTED: 9:22 a.m. EDT, September 18, 2006
TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) — Hundreds of people lined up at a central Tokyo restaurant on Monday to savour a dish not tasted for more than two years — “beef bowl” made with U.S. meat.
Some Japanese had even camped out overnight outside a popular branch of fast-food chain Yoshinoya, which resumed sales of its famed specialty following the July lifting of a government ban on imports of U.S. beef.
The ban was imposed in December 2003 after the discovery of the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, forcing Yoshinoya to drop its flagship dish of braised beef and onions marinated in soy sauce and laid on top of rice.
Hardcore fans had shunned the “beef bowl” when it was made with Australian beef because the meat was too lean.
As happy as I am to see Yoshinoya back in action, I don’t really see the reopening of beef trade a cause for consumers to celebrate, especially in the US. The flap over beef could have served to make the US consider whether its own testing standards were protecting consumers, but that never happened. The US government is shamelessly pro-business and the media is just not interested in covering FDA topics unless they involve a scary new drug that kills a tiny amount of people.
If you ask me (and you did) the US put way too much pressure on Japan to lift this ban in a relatively small export market (2 billion dollars a year in sales in Japan compared to 40 billion in premium revenues for US insurance companies). The dangers of mad cow are real and every country has to be careful. For the US industry to rush to political solutions (which as an industry supported by massive subsidies is their bread and butter) to the point of getting the president involved and threatening sanctions that would violate WTO rules rather than trying to reassure consumers only harms the United States’ image and makes the beef industry look bad as well. The compromise, which is basically that Japanese inspectors will be able to look around US slaughterhouses to ensure that no spinal tissue is getting into beef headed for Japan, seems satisfactory, but I would have liked to see a little more – perhaps a more constructive attitude toward testing from the American side – maybe not universal testing like Japan, but something more than self-regulation would be nice. Unfortunately, the US saw quick resumption of the status quo as more important than building consumer trust, and I think they’ll suffer for it.
Residents of Sakae-cho, Ushiku City, Ibaraki Prefecture line upin the middle of typhoon-induced rain for this one day only offering of their flagship beef bowl “gyudon” product now that imports of US beef have resumed. Security guards were on hand to maintain order as previous limited offerings have resulted in violence from disappointed latecomers.
There are no such reports of crazed ojisan as of yet, but hopefully our correspondents in Japan will have some news for us later this evening.
According to Asahi, Yoshinoya will offer gyudon from the 1st through the 5th of October and November before restoring their flagship product in December on a daily basis for a limited number of hours per day.
Sankei reports that some gyudon fans waited all night for their chance at luscious beef in a bowl. I’d gladly do the same. Unfortunately there are no gyudon in Thailand, not even cheap knockoff gyudon. Decent katsudon though.
[Note, this article as posted had been screwed up by a couple of misplaced cut/paste operations, and I believe has now been fixed.]
Currently caught up in a fit of techno lust over Canon’s recently announced
EOS 400D/Rebel XTi/Kiss X and feverish speculation over what they may be announcing next I’ve been spending quite a lot of time reading article and forums about their latest camera technology.
In the results of a routine Google search for “Canon history” I stumbled across this forum post on the very active photogrpahy discussion website photo.net, which in responding to a link to Canon’s own camera museum website says that he “was very interested in the brief reference to the involvement in Canon development by the American consultant, William R. Gorham, who became a naturalized Japanese citizen shortly before WWII.”
There was an unusual American engineer whose name was William R. Gorham. He became a naturalized citizen of Japan in l941, and made strong contributions to the establishment of Nissan Motor Company. He had his Japanese name as Katsundo Gorham, and visited Canon often during the 1940s to provide valuable suggestions and recommendations regarding the procurement of machinery and technological innovation. He proposed and implemented the concept of “Scheduled Daily Production,” in which the daily target of the production was predetermined to achieve the uniform flow of camera production. Gorham also suggested a system in which the product inspection department becomes independent of the plant manager and is placed directly under the president. In this manner, the inspection could be performed without regard to the whims of the plant manager. In addition to the introduction of the rational improvement plan, which was somewhat akin to the American method, Gorham made a tremendous contribution to the modernization of Canon through his warm and energetic personality. When Gorham passed away in October 1949, at his bedside was none other than Takeshi Mitarai.
Takeshi Mitarai was the president of Canon from 1942, and longtime friend of Saboru Uchida, co-founder of the company formed to produce the “Kwanon” Camera, which was later renamed Canon-a brand which eventually became the name of the company itself.
Amazingly, this single paragraph is virtually the only information online in English about Mr. Gorham, with scarcely more avaliable in Japanese. This one mention though is intriguing enough, with my strong interests in both history and photography, to inspire me to gather all of that information.
Probably the single best source I found is a small press / vanity press English language translation of a biography said to have been written by his colleagues following his death in 1949. Interestingly, the translator is his son Don Cyril Gorham. We will return to Cyril later on. Luckily, Lulu.com offers this book both in a $12.99 paper version and a digital download, refreshingly priced at a mere $4.41. Or perhaps I should say, potentially the best source. For the moment, I have only bookmarked this page. I will buy the download later on tonight, but only after I have finished this exercise in purely online research. While one might be able to make a case that this digital download counts, I believe that a file which a: required payment and b: is not indexed by search engines does not count.
I also did a search for William R. Gorham in Amazon’s search inside a book feature, and found only a handful of mentions worth noting (Amazon does not seem to carry the biography, for some reason). No book seems to mention him more than once, or give any more information than the following three.
The first is from Making and Selling Cars: Innovation and Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry by James M. Rubenstein, which on page 339 says “Nissan was founded in Yokohama in 1933 by an entrepreneur, Yoshisuke Ayukawa, with engineering provided by an American expatriate, William R. Gorham.” This is the only mention in the book.
The other book which mentions Mr. Gorham is Datsun 280, Nissan 300 Zx, a coffee table format book for fans of this discontinued automobile written by Brian Long. Like the Rubenstein book, it mentions Gorham just once, in this brief passage which begins at the bottom of page 9 and continues onto page 10, in a section on the history of automobiles in Japan.
In 1925, Kaishinsha had changed its name to the DAT Jidosha Seizo Ltd (the DAT Motor Car Manufacturing Co. Ltd) following a merger with the Jitsuyo Jidosha Seizo. This firm had been founded in 1919 to build three-wheelers designed by the American engineer William R. Gorham, who later helped with the design of the Mitsubishi Zero fighter aircraft. Although the three-wheelers were unsuccessful financialy, they did provide the basis for the four-wheeled Lila light car of 1921. Many were used as taxis in Japan, and the continued to be made for several years after the DAT merger.
And if the Japanese had been too ingrown to learn from William R. Gorham, the American electrical engineer who is considered the founder of the Datsun (Nissan) motor company in terms of technology, Nissan might not be the success we see today.
The same Google search also provided me with the Japanese edition of the same Canon history page, which gave me Gorhman’s Japanese name, 合波武克人(ごうはむ･かつんど) pronounced Gohamu Katsundo, that he had taken upon naturalization as a Japanese citizen. I then searched for his Japanese name on Japanese Google. There were exactly three results. The first was the same Canon history page from which I had learned his Japanese name in the first place.
Next was this page on Nissan’s pre-war history, which credits Gorham as one of the two fathers of the company for his invention of the “Gorhman automotive tricycle,” (picture above from Nissan) which combined a harley engine with a rickshaw to produce a primitive automotive vehicle that could be affordably produced in an as-yet industrially underdeveloped nation. Gorham’s design, which should strike a cord with anyone familiar with more primitive automotive vehicles such as Thailand’s tuk-tuk or the Phillipino jeepney currently being manufactered in some less developed yet partially industrialized economies, and which became the basis for the first 4-wheeler produced by Jitsuyo Jidosha Co., Ltd, one of the three companies that formed the modern Nissan company.
Last of all was a really special find- a photograph of Gorham’s grave with two-paragraph biography on the homepage of the Tamarei’en cemetary in Tokyo (described on Wikipedia as the first public cemetary in Japan), where he is buried. The cemetary web page has similar info on many dozens of notable figures interned there (note: in Japan, cemetaries are usually Buddhist style, only containing the cremated ashes of the deceased within or under a memorial), including several other foreigners, such as the man who introduced Indian curry to Japan or a Russian who fled to Japan due to the revolution, lost his citizenship, and became a pro-baseball player for the Giants when the players were increasingly called away for military service in the 1930’s.
Anyway, here is my translation of the mini-bio from the cemetary website.
William, R. Gorham
Lived 1888 (Meiji 21) to October 24, 1949 (Showa 24)
A machine technician of the Taisho and Show periods
Burial location: Ku 24 Shu 1 Soku 11
Born near San Francisco, in the United States of America. Came to Japan in 1918 (Taisho 7) to introduce and use his technology, with the goal of developing air mail systems and establishing an aeroplane manufacturing company. He designed and introduced Engines, airplanes, automobiles, telephone switches and fast turret lathes. He also imported single engine biplanes and sold them to the Japanese military. In later years he became a consultant for Canon and assisted them by developing a more efficient production system. He also worked as a consultant for Kokusan Seiki (Later became Hitachi Seido Co., Ltd.) and was also involved in designing machine tools. In the early 1940’s the international situation began growing tense, and the Japanese government started deporting foreigners. After painful consideration, Gorham became a naturalized Japanese citizen on May 26, 1941. He took the Japanese name of Gouhamu Katsudo (合波武克人).
His son, Don C. Gorham, graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in March of 1941, and although he wanted to continue his study of Japanese literature in graduate school, in accordance with his parents wishes he instead returned to the America, received his Doctoral degree in literature, and found a job related to the improvement of Japanese/American relations. Thinking of the circumstances of the antipathy towards gaijin at the time and the Tokko [Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu; Special Higher Police, Japan’s equivalent to the Gestapo], one can understand how heroic Gorham’s decision was, and how much he must have loved Japan. Postwar Gorham became an employee at Nissan Automobiles and challenged himself in the industrial field. He worked not just for the sake of his own company, but became a key figure in the rebirth of Japan’s industrialization and economic development, and was a forerunner to the later high growth period. He died a premature death due to illness in 1949. Grand Prix press’s, “The legend of William Gorham: the American Engineer who became Japanese”and others have appeared.
When I read this I was happy to see that it confirmed my strong suspicion that the translator of the biography on Lulu.com was in fact William Gorham’s son. There was, however, one thing I had overlooked. On the biography page there is actually a link to view the back cover of the book, which would have told me this fact earlier. Since the low-res jpeg is very hard on the eyes, I will transcribe it here.
Don Cyril Gorham, the translator, is the younger son of William R. and Hazel H. Gorham. Born in California, but taken as an infant to Japan an 1918, Don Gorham is fluent in Japanese, having spent his entire pre-war education in Japan–from nursery school through graduation from Tokyo Imperial University in March of 1941, with a degree in Japanese language and literature. Shortly after graduation, he returned alone to the United States, where he was commissioned into the U.S. Naval Reserve and served on active duty for the next six years, followed by further U.S. civil service work. In 1972, he retired from the U.S. government and began his career as a freelance interpreter/translator. He has served as interpeter for senior U.S. and Japanese government officials, including two U.S. presidents, several U.S. Cabinet members, as well as several Japanese Prime Minsters and Japanese Diet members.
In addition, Don Gorham is a graduate of the Naval War College and has been a member of the American Translators Association (ATA) for over 30 years. In 2000 the ATA made him an honoraary member, an award reserved for individuals who have distinguished themselves in the translation/interpresting profession. At present, the ATA has only seven living honorary members.
Don Gorham has three grown children and lives with his wife of 61 years in Silver Spring, Maryland.
While it does not directly tell us anything new about his father, this back-cover authors biography of William’s son Don Cyril was interesting, and I figured I should also try running a search on Don Cyrcil to see what else I could turn up. What I found was this article at the ATA Japanese Language Division newsletter from Spring 2000, announcing his selection as an honorary member, as referred to on the book cover. The article does not have much new in the way of information, but does have this picture, captioned “Gorham (in university student uniform) practices shodo with family and friends in Tokyo.”
So now that I have found probably almost all I can about this man’s live using only Google searches, let’s say that I was going to prepare a genuine biography of William R. Gorham. Where could I look, what sort of resources could I turn to?
Even though the information collected so far is somewhat sketchy, it does give us several good leads. The most obvious place to start would be with his son, who at least as of 2005 was still living in Maryland. Since Don Cyril Gorhman cared enough about the story and life’s work of his father to translate and arrange some form of publication for the biography that had been written by his father’s colleagues after his demise, I think it is probably a good bet that he would be forthcoming with documents and information about his father.
Probably the the next most fruitful place to turn would be the companies in Japan that honor him in their official company histories: Canon and Nissan. If both companies care about their own history enough to keep an official timeline on their website, then there must be someone in the company whose job includes supervision of the archives, and they would probably be willing to help dig up the needed information. These certainly were not the only companies with which Gorham was involved, and if others are discovered they would also be worth investigating as well, but he seemed to have had more impact on the early development of Canon and Nissan than any other to which he contributed.
Next might be government records. Certainly there are record of his naturalization-a very rare event in that period, and probably not too difficult to track-and his death (we even know exactly where his grave is), and upon finding his place of residence it may be possible to find other documents, such as his koseki, juminhyo, not to mention all of the US government documents, birth certificate and so on, that may exist in dusty filing cabinets in some basement or geneaological databank.
We could search for correspondence beyond what his son possesses. Although none of Gorhman’s contemporaries are likely living today, their own children or grand-children, probably are, and may have preserved their personal effects as well. Calling upon the descendants of, let’s say, Canon’s Takeshi Mitarai might uncover some more information.
Of course, the existing English biography must contain a wealth of information itself, although as a book written by his own friends is probably more of a third-party memoire than a scholarly biography. I will purchase and download the PDF shortly after completing this post, since having access to it would have ruined my Google only experiment. The ATA newsletter article on the honorary induction of Don Cyril also tells us that their was a biography of William R. Gorham reviewed a few issues ago, by the name of 日本人になったアメリカ人技師、桂木洋二著(The American Engineer Who Became Japanese, by Yohji Katsuragi). This may or may not be the same one translated by his son, but either way a Google search for the author’s name produced no useful results. Perhaps one of the many rare book dealers in Kyoto would be able to locate it.
This experiment, of choosing an interesting seeming but obscure figure and attempting to research as much as possible about that person, is really an exploration of the limits of what information is readily avaliable online. While I was lucky enough to find something as unexpected as the photograph and exact location of his grave, and a number of general facts about his life, the overall picture remains very sketchy. There was no biography longer than a couple of hundred words, no quotes from him or about him, only a single photograph of the vehicle he designed for Nissan’s predecessor, no clear details on the contents of his work for Canon, etc. The important thing, however, is that there was just enough information to suggest the several possible avenues for research, and even these modest results would probably have been considered an almost unfathomable resource by historical researchers before the age of Internet searching.
For some reason, foreign financial reporters on Japan seem to have the best perspective. Here are two examples:
William Pesek, a columnist for Bloomberg, earned my admiration back in June when he cut through layers of government spin to find the real reason why BOJ Governor Toshihiko Fukui should resign:
The scandal involving his 10 million yen ($86,950) investment in a fund led by a shareholder activist jailed on insider-trading charges has gone beyond theater and farce. It now threatens to tarnish Japan’s global reputation.
Even if it turns out Fukui didn’t break any laws, his actions were dumb. Fukui invested in Yoshiaki Murakami’s fund in 1999, when he was at the Fujitsu Research Institute. He applied in February to sell his shares, raising questions of propriety as the BOJ prepares to boost rates for the first time since August 2000 and after his investment more than doubled in value.
The bigger problem is how vehemently Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has come to Fukui’s defense. It means the BOJ governor, who is supposed to be independent, now owes the prime minister. The upshot is that a rate hike that was widely expected in July may be delayed until after Koizumi steps down in September.
Fukui, 70, yesterday said “monetary policy isn’t affected by politics” and that the BOJ needs to adjust rates “without delay.” Even so, the mere perception that BOJ policies are paralyzed thanks to Fukui’s missteps is reason enough for him to resign.
Preach it!
Coming in at No. 2 (only because he doesn’t cover issues I’m curious about often enough) we have David Piling, the FT‘s correspondent in Tokyo. Like Pesek, he’s adept at cutting through the BS, even when it comes from his fellow Britons as in this book review:
To wish [the “unique” aspects of Japan] away would be to miss something recognisably Japanese. Yet, to treat Japan as inherently odd can quickly stray into stereotype, even prejudice. Just as bad, it can bolster the case of those Japanese exceptionalists who assert that Japan is unique, superior and unknowable by foreigners.
…
In Atomic Sushi, May seeks to break the deadlock by recounting, wittily and often brilliantly, his personal experiences, greedily amassed during a year spent teaching at the University of Tokyo.
…
The approach, as befits a professor, is to tell a story (often hilariously) and then to offer analysis. The interpretations are sometimes amusing and astute, but sometimes they are so sweeping as to be virtually meaningless. Take the account of a beautiful girl who, though standing, falls asleep virtually draped over a commuting businessman. Apparently in the depths of slumber, she nevertheless awakens the instant the train reaches her destination.
She apparently displays the Japanese people’s “pervasive and acute alertness to their environment and its subtle signals, instilled perhaps by their constant vulnerability to earthquakes”. Or maybe she just heard the station announcement.
As a reporter, Piling will undoubtedly be replaced when his time comes to be promoted or the FT feels that his closeness to Japan could pose a conflict of interest problem (one major reason why many news companies replace their foreign correspondents so often). I can only hope that they find someone with as keen judgment.
There are many who feel that Japan shouldn’t have to put up with foreign criticism, or that Japan’s image needs to be mollycoddled by official propaganda and numerous underdisclosed shills. But I can’t stress it enough that open debate and frank discussion (most especially when it’s available for free on the Internet), such as the above examples, are desirable when you’re talking about understanding another society, discussing policy choices in a society in which you’re invested, in monetary terms or otherwise. It results in a better informed public and a broader range of ideas from which to draw inspiration and guidance.
Best Prime Minister ever? You bet. Too bad he’ll be checking out next month.
What I really liked about Koizumi was his knack for political spectacle – you may remember his recent Elvis impersonation. We’ve spent a lot of time looking at Koizumi’s sheer presence on camera. He’ll be remembered in the US for his horrible karaoke at Graceland, but in Japan he is likely to go down as Japan’s biggest reformer since MacArthur.
Now, R. Taggart Murphy at the New Left Review points out that Koizumi did precious little to shake up Japan’s real power structure – unchecked and all-powerful bureaucrats who are loyal lapdogs of the US because Japan’s immense dollar holdings leave them with few options. I can’t offer a complete response to the article, but he dismisses Koizumi’s reform drive as a “convincing act,” a claim that’s irritating as someone who looks at some of the trees among the forest of Japan’s government.
I mean, he’s basically right. Of course any responsible Japanese politician isn’t going to commit political suicide by disrupting the precarious world financial system (Taggart admits that elsehwere in the paper), and any policy pursued by the PM’s office is going to be riddled with concessions to the “real power holders” – hence the directionless postal privatization policy and failure to get Japanese bond issuances down under 30 trillion yen, as well as leaving many other unanswered questions. And he makes a good point – that the push for so-called “neoliberal” economic policies that has been going on since the 90s were often nothing but smoke and mirrors hiding more cynical policy objectives.
But at least in terms of political reform, Koizumi did a lot – the dismantling of the LDP’s faction system (as seen in the rush to support Abe), the rise of the CEFP style of policy making, and the fruition of Japan’s new electoral system, all Koizumi-led developments. These are not merely “imported suits of clothes” as he puts it but (late) responses to demands from the public to take power away from the bureaucrats, who have lost significant public trust in the last decade or so.
But it looks like Japan’s next PM, Shinzo Abe, in addition to offering very little on policy issues (reports on his new book and promotional campaign seem pretty wishy washy – I mean, 2nd chances for failed business owners?!). And it’s certain that he will offer nothing even remotely closely resembling Koizumi’s early classic bike safety display in full, shiny reflective business attire.
I mean, just look at this guy (on the left of course):
As much as I’d like to know what this picture is all about (Chinese source!), it’s clear enough that this man is zombie Jon Arbuckle – boring, lame, and flesh-eating. He’s typical LDP blah and Japan needs none of it.
Koizumi, you’ll be sorely missed. I’ll be crying as I clutch my lion keychain (get them at the LDP HQ while they’re hot!) during Abe’s swearing in.
After glancing at a few developments in Japan’s news, something has hit me – Japan’s interest in the English language seems to be on the decline! Let me give you some examples along with my own speculation as to why this is happening:
Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications reports that Japan’s municipalities will accept 5,508 foreigners as teachers/token foreigners in the JET program. More interestingly, this year marks the 4th straight decline in the number brought in by the program after a peak in 2002 (see the announcement for a clearer chart):
My explanation for this decline – JET salaries and other costs are covered by the central government in the form of kofuzei, or tax revenues collected from local governments and redistributed back so as to achieve an equilibrium in economic development nationwide. Since kofuzei has been the target of major cuts as part of Koizumi’s reform program to make outlying regions more autonomous, it’s likely that the municipalities had to make a decision between an ALT and money for a new bridge. Not a sign of a lack of interest per se, but the dynamic of the incentives to accept these people is changing, forcing towns to reexamine their priorities.
The decline in the English teaching market is even more striking in the private sector. FujiSankei Business-i examines the glut in English teachers in Japan in a July 12 article. According to NOVA’s estimates, the market may have peaked in 2004. The increased competition among schools is exerting pressure toward innovation, improvement of service, and the closure of schools (NOVA, the king of eikaiwa schools, is restructuring – not a good sign!). While this could spell a period of decline for the eikaiwa schools, maybe this will actually inspire the schools to actually get results.
The JET Program and private eikaiwa schools share the same essential method and selling point – put a recent college graduate from an English-speaking country in the room with Japanese person/people, wait for magic to happen. Call it English by Osmosis. For a long time college students have considered “teaching English in Japan” a valid first job option if nothing else panned out or if they really really liked Evangelion. But considering the above developments it could be only a matter of time before teaching English in Japan ceases to be an automatic option for undergrad students in English-speaking countries looking for something easy.
After something like 25 years of the “eikaiwa boom” it should come as no surprise that just about every Japanese person has given eikaiwa a try in one form or another. And once the majority realize that it’s not a magic replacement for a lack of motivation/talent, they get bored, leaving three things behind: 1) new generations of suckers; 2) hardcore students who know how to work the system and learn despite the flaws; and 3) disgruntled students who may no longer believe in the method. I realize that there are many teachers in Japan working very hard every day (I used to be one of them), but it is simply a flawed system.
And in a not unrelated development Japan’s pop culture is starting to look more into the Asian market these days at the expense of Hollywood. Just as we here in the US finally picked up on the trend of US celebrities making extra cash by appearing in Japanese commercials, it looks as though Hollywoord stars are no longer the commercial pull that they once were:
A Hollywood in-house secret, Japanese TV commercials were once talked about with a wink and a shake of the head. Piles of cash were paid to stars willing to peddle anything from whiskey to cigarettes, cars to coffee, instant noodles to cafe latte — as long as nobody told the fans back home. Hey, did you know Dennis Hopper did one for bath products? How much do you figure Leonardo DiCaprio got for that SUV spot? A million? Three?
Sadly, the days of seeing, say, Harrison Ford guzzling Kirin beer may be over. American stars have not vanished from the Japanese advertising landscape, but their numbers have dropped dramatically since the heyday of the 1990s, when even Mickey Rourke was considered bankable here.
The article goes on to say that the recent popularity of Korean dramas has spurred the shift in focus. Thankfully, the good times aren’t over – you can still see the many many ads that the Japan-pandering era produced at the wonderful Japander.com.
Another development in the background of all this is the political backlash against Koizumi’s reform agenda. Those who decry economic reform often cite their distaste for “market fundamentalism” (such as privatization of public corporations etc), considered a mechanical application of the American system to Japanese society. Regrdless of the validity of such claims (even though the US is unlikely to privatize its postal service anytime soon!), it may be inevitable that the anti-America rhetoric translates into fewer people taking up English as a hobby.
While the JET Program and eikaiwa schools are here to stay as an institution in Japan, it seems to me that the underlying support for grassroots English interest is waning a bit – the Japanese are getting a little bored with the “English through osmosis” model. While I dread the uncomfortable oyaji conversations that will no doubt result from the popularity of tripe like Dignity of a Nation, Japan’s shift away from its fascination with English/Hollywood (and perhaps by extension the rest of Europe/the entire “white race”) may at least have the fortunate side effect of making people realize that foreign-born TV personalities in Japan such as Dave Spector and Pakkun aren’t intrinsically all that interesting despite their mad Japanese skills. One can only hope.
But seriously, getting away from this flawed approach toward language learning is a promising sign for Japan. I tend to agree with calls to “learn Japanese first” (made in a recently popular anti-American diatribe Dignity of a Nation and elsewhere) that recently seem to be hitting a nerve. The logic in Japan of “English is the world language, so everyone needs to study English” is just basically wrong (as is the general curriculum that forces students to memorize a series of codes that only happen to be English and have no bearing on applied use of the language). In short, if you don’t learn your native language well and can’t express yourself on a deep level, there’s not much point in you being conversant in another language – you’ll have nothing to say! I think it’s best to provide quality opportunities for people to learn languages, and encourage those who are interested to pursue it to a high level. That might not make Japan into a nation of English speakers, but I don’t think that it’s politically possible for Japan to take the real steps needed to do that (i.e. make English essentially a second official language).
And another thing: it’s a little unfair for the JET Program to lure some 5k foreigners to Japan every year knowing that most of them are wasting their time. Considering that everyone is hired on contracts that last a maximum of 3 years, just what do 2 years at an elementary school or sitting at a desk in a city hall in the middle of nowhere in Japan have to offer anyone in terms of skills that can be applied elsewhere (outside maybe education)? In my own experience, I have met dozens of former JETs who are completely at a loss for what to do after completing terms in JET. They often want to use their Japanese language skills in their careers but for a number of reasons (never got any decent chance to take their Japanese to a high level, no meaningful job training except very little in education, and no meaningful further job opportunities for them inside Japan) it just doesn’t happen. But at the same time I can understand the mass interest in Japan and the eagerness of college grads to take a job in an interesting foreign country.
But rather than frittering their time away in a classroom, both sides would be better served if Japan had a JET Program for areas in which the country actually needs foreigners, like nursing, factories, finance, and IT jobs. Some recent proposals to promote these less parasitic foreigners, such as enhancement of visa programs, elimination of corrupt “language schools” and “entertainment visas” that serve as hotbeds of illegal immigration and crime, and attraction of more foreign students, whose numbers keep growing, are intriguing steps in the right direction IMO. This way, maybe all those people thinking about living in Japan might try studying something in a field that they know Japan needs, so when it comes time to graduate maybe they can get jobs that actually contribute to Japan’s GDP rather than padding its massive fiscal deficit. And for the Japanese, perhaps living in tandem with folks like this will provide a real incentive (“This person is my neighbor and I want to be her friend” rather than “I don’t want to waste the lessons I’ve already paid for”) to deal with foreigners and perhaps actually acquire the diversity and fresh experience that they seem so willing to pay for with eikaiwa.
Now that the troops are home, Japan’s government (and its good buddies in the Japanese media) can’t stop patting itself on the back for “completing its humanitarian mission” building schools and so on in Samawah even as the rest of Iraq succumbs to civil strife. From the initial announcement on June 20:
The Government of Japan decided today that it will redeploy the Ground Self-defense Force (GSDF) troops in Samawah, Iraq. This decision is based on the judgment that the humanitarian and reconstruction assistance activities in Iraq being conducted by the GSDF in Samawah have fulfilled a certain role. The Government of Japan has also taken into consideration the establishment of the new Iraqi Government by the Iraqi people themselves and the ongoing process of transferring security responsibility in Al-Muthanna Province, where the GSDF troops have been operating, to the new Iraqi Government, and close consultations with the United States (US) as well as the Multi-National Forces (MNF) and other nations including the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia.
President Bush apparently agrees with this sentiment during Koizumi’s June 29 US visit:
We — as I mentioned, we discussed Iraq and Afghanistan. By the way, the Japanese defense forces did a really good job when they were in Iraq. And they’re able to leave because they did such a good job. And now the Iraqis will be running the province in which the Japanese forces used to be. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister, as he mentioned in the comments, will continue to provide airlift capacity and naval help.
Japan’s top newspaper, the Daily Yomiuri, gushes over the SDF’s apparent accomplishments:
As Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi put it, “There were no pistols fired, and no guns pointed at anybody,” and there were no fatalities among the GSDF personnel.
The work carried out by about 5,500 GSDF members has been given high marks by the Iraqi government, and their mission was a success.
According to a Yomiuri Shimbun poll conducted earlier this month, 68 percent of pollees said the activities by members of the Self-Defense Forces “contributed” to the reconstruction of Iraq, compared with 28 percent who said they “made no contribution.” Gradually, the public are backing the activities of the SDF.
This is frankly pathetic. Let’s remind ourselves of what it’s like in Iraq right now:
In the first half of this year, 4,338 Iraqi civilians died violent deaths, according to a new report by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq. Last month alone, 3,149 civilians were killed — an average of more than 100 a day.
Some would say “What could Japan realistically do, given its pacifist constitution and the limited mandate provided by the special law that allowed them to be there in the first place?” Well, yeah. But in that case what were they doing there in the first place? And what right do they have to give themselves credit for cursory jobs that could have easily been covered by Americans?
The Nikkei at least admits the self-centered political calculations behind the deployment and doesn’t attempt to trumpet non-existent accomplishments:
EDITORIAL: GSDF Iraq Mission Ends With Constitutional Issue Unresolved
TOKYO (Nikkei)–Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force on Monday finished withdrawing its troops from Iraq after two and a half years of humanitarian activities there in a mission that marked a significant milestone in the postwar history of the nation’s defense policy.
Almost miraculously, GSDF troops suffered no casualties during the dangerous mission, which signaled Japan’s desire to play a greater role in the international arena and raised some important legal questions.
The GSDF’s operations in Iraq, which started in January 2004, were based on a special law to support the country’s reconstruction that came into effect in August 2003.
The government carefully planned and prepared for the operations to ensure that GSDF troops would not get embroiled in any armed battles. It selected the southern Iraqi city of Samawah as the site for the GSDF activities, rather than northern areas where U.S. troops are stationed, mainly for safety reasons. It was apparently the right decision.
I’ll agree with the editorials on the obvious point that Japan has crossed a certain line on its way to normalizing its military. But don’t let that delude you into thinking that somehow equates some actual accomplishments in Iraq, especially since it’s becoming clearer than ever that Iraq is on its way down the toilet.
The speculation can stop: Yes, the CIA didfund and advise LDP election activities in the 50s and 60s. But only about $75k per year, says a recently released “U.S. diplomatic document” according to the Mainichi Daily News. The real focus was on crushing and dividing the left, on which the Agency spent an average of half a million per year (presumably to pay informants/agents?). I wish I could get a hold of these documents, but it looks like the entire country is trying to access the State Dept. Website now for some crazy reason.
William, R. Gorham
