22.5% of food left uneaten at Japanese wedding parties

That’s a whole course! Maybe for my wedding party I should volunteer 1/5 of my wedding meals to get sent to North Korea.

Other stats from this Shukan Toyo Keizai article:

Average cost of a wedding: more than 3 million yen (US$25,000) in 2006. The cost of weddings has been rising since 2003, when the Japanese economy started turning around. (Source: wedding planning site Zexy.net)

Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF) researched how much food is left uneated at wedding parties (披露宴 routinely make up 3/4 of the cost of an entire wedding) by surveying 40 wedding halls nationwide. The figure of 22.5% (19.2% when you exclude drinks) is light-years away from the amount of food left uneaten at home (1.1% according to a 2005 survey) or in restaurants (3.1% as of 2006). And it’s a high percentage even compared to food at regular banquet-style parties (宴会) that offer alcohol, 15.2% of which goes to waste.

Perhaps that has something to do with the sheer amount of food served at wedding parties, which is averages an enormous 2230g — almost four times the average 600g served at cafeterias and restaurants. That means people who simply can’t finish more than what they usually eat in an entire day are wasting an entire meal’s worth of food, or 500g.

Why so much food? The STK conjectures that since people want to give their guests the best possible service, it’s either become a tradition or people are trying to be ostentatious by offering more food than necessary. But as someone planning a wedding party myself, I think the most obvious explanation is that the event halls need to justify charging 10,000 yen per plate plus open bar charges.

Happy retirement, Bob Barker!

The Washington Post is reporting that Bob Barker is stepping down as host of the Price is Right after 35 years. It’s a sad day. That used to be my favorite show as a kid, when I stayed home “sick” from school as often as I could convince my mother. The reporter puts it well:

Just the sound of it feels, somehow nostalgically, like being in bed with the flu. (“Come on down!” roars the announcer, Rich Fields — who replaced the late Rod Roddy in 2003, who replaced Johnny Olson in 1986 — as you beg some 7Up and toast to stay on down.) There is the sound of it starting at 11 a.m., over those gooey-warm CBS airwaves, just when the day is still technically young and yet already somehow wasted. It feels like skipping class again and again, the MWF 10:30 section of Lit 125: The Emerging Self.

And this is so true:

“Think about it this way,” Dobkowitz offers. “The median age in this country is 36 or 37, which means half the country does not know life without Bob Barker. You’re young, you go out in the world and all the new things happen — jobs, marriage. But turn on the set and Bob’s doing the television show, and it’s all okay.”

Though I’m no longer around to catch the show, I had kind of taken Bob Barker’s existence on mid-morning TV for granted. He will be sorely missed!

Tokyo Shimbun on the Faltering Council for Economic and Fiscal Policy

Even though today is a lamer-than-lame newspaper holiday, I thought I’d take some time out of my busier-than-usual schedule to introduce a sharper-than-you’d-think editorial from the unexpectedly-lucid-and-candid Tokyo Shimbun:

[Editorial]
A Thought to Begin the Week: The CEFP Has Forgotten How to Fight
May 6, 2007

The Council for Economic and Fiscal Policy, which is supposed to be an “engine for reform,” has started to lose steam. Most papers emanating from the Council look like they were written by the bureaucrats, and we do not see an attitude of striking at the vested interests.

The CEFP debates the Basic Policy (an outline of the Kantei’s budget proposal) and critical issues of economic and fiscal policy an advisory body to the prime minister. The meetings are attended by the PM, who serves as chairman, the Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy, who runs the meetings, along with 4 private-sector members, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry, the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, and the Governor of the Bank of Japan.

Legally, the Council is no more than a forum for “investigative deliberations,” but during the Junichiro Koizumi administration it had become a de facto “policy-making institution.” How did it get that way? It had a lot to do with their dynamic style of infighting.

Strategies Formed at Behind-the-Scenes Meetings

Former MIC Minister Heizo Takenaka, who was a key actor in the Koizumi-era reforms, wrote in a recent book that there were 3 interrelated keys to managing the Council: “strategizing at behind-the-scenes meetings,” “unified statements from private-sector members,” and “authoritative statements from the prime minister.”

You may think: “What? There were secret meetings?!” But in fact that’s what happened. Prior to Council meetings, Takenaka held detailed discussions with his small group of trusted staff made up of secretaries and reformist bureaucrats, finalized policies, and submitted them to the Council as private-sector member papers. In other words, he finished deliberations behind the scenes before his policies were brought out in the open for debate.

And that’s not all. He made backdoor preparations for critical policies and objectives that were close to being finalized, and even the occasional conclusion to debate on policy details, by meeting with the prime minister beforehand. He would then allow the opposing forces to speak for as long as they like at the actual meetings, then have the prime minister make a definitive statement when he saw that the debate had played itself out.

And statements from the prime minister carry considerable weight. The last word would then become the conclusion, finalizing the direction of reform. It may not have gone exactly according to plan all the time, but this sort of scrupulous planning was absolutely critical to promoting reform. It feels like this is a secret that needs to be told now.

Make Proposals that Kasumigaseki Won’t Like

In the same book, Takenaka points out that “passion of the minister of state” and “conflict with the opposing forces” are golden rules for reform. In order to garner public interest and get public opinion on the reformists’ side, dramatic battles with the opposing forces within Nagata-cho (Tokyo’s political district) and Kasumigaseki (location of most bureaucratic offices) are essential. Takenaka pragmatically states that “Battles are actually welcome.”

Compared to the previous Council meetings, at present we are forced to conclude that they have lost the power to reform. That is made obvious by the conspicuous absence of scuffles with the opposing forces.

At the start of 2007, Kasumigaseki went after proposed reforms to the civil service with vigor. The placing of retiring bureaucrats in private-sector jobs using the government’s authority and budget to pressure companies will be banned completely. But even after this bill is submitted to the Diet, the opposing forces in Kasumigaseki are poised to continue their fight against the new proposal from behind the scenes.

Yet except for civil service reform, we can’t fight the impression that the Council is lamely debating topics with little element of conflict with the bureaucracy, such as economic growth, globalization, and productivity issues. One bureaucrat gave us the inside story:

“That’s because Minister Ota has avoided battles with Kasumigaseki and started meeting with bureaucrats at the paper-writing stages. If the bureacrats get their hands on something beforehand, it’s already clear who will win. There is just no chance for fierce conflict at the meetings.”

The last word from PM Shinzo Abe have also tended to fall short at “Please continue to consider this thorougly.” The number of reporters attending post-meeting press conferences has also shrunk.

Policies such as using IT to boost productivity are certainly important policies. Compared to before, the economy is steadily recovering, and we can understand that there is a diminished sense of crisis. Still, there will be no reform if all the Council talks about are general topics that receive unanimous approval.

Looking at the policy challenges listed early this year, they include issues such as fundamental reworking of government functions/organization (including reform of Independent Administrative Corporations), creation of a progress schedule for fiscal spending reform, and regional autonomy, but they have yet to be debated. These are just the sort of issues that Kasumigaseki hates, and therefore the ones that should be prioritized.

There are those who say “There is little benefit in making a show of bureaucrat-bashing.” However, isn’t breaking the current enmeshed system of vested interests, as seen in bureaucrat-led bid-rigging, what reform is about? If the Council aims to be the engine of reform, it cannot avoid a fight.

Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Hiroko Ota, who worked as Deputy General Director for the Minister and Director General for Economic and Fiscal Management under Takenaka, should understand this. Before she became minister, she even published a book titled “The Battles of the Council for Economic and Fiscal Policy,” from which we quote the following:

“Even if the Winds are Strong”

“Both the fight with vested interests and tension with the government ministries and agencies will likely continue. We should be much more concerned if the tense relationship evaporates easily… We must keep on fighting even if the winds are strong, and I think that if the pressure dies down under the current conditions, that means that the Council’s allure and raison d’etre have disappeared.”

We’d like her not to forget that original feeling.

Comment: I wouldn’t count on it. Abe’s pet causes, like constitutional reform and education, along with the possibly disruptive results of the upcoming Upper House Election, leave little room on the agenda for the relatively less sexy issues of economic reform. Abe will be happy to leave economic issues relatively out of the public light as long as the economy remains stable. And if an easy victory on civil service proves elusive, watch for that to fall to the wayside as well (which is sort of already has).

But with the Abe administration, the practice of setting up kantei-led committees to take the lead on policymaking (essentially to take the lead away from the traditional committees that operate under the auspices of various ministries) has caught on in the areas he really cares about, and while none of them have escaped derision in some corners of the press, they have continued to produce results in one form or another, such as the attempt to create a US-style National Security Council. While Koizumi was never able to get the LDP consensus he needed for his pet issues, Abe has the allies on national security etc (and the Diet numbers) to go the more traditional route.

Leeds-based Jazz Bassist has a hep name

Cafe Adam might be an acquired taste, but I wish my namesake all the best anyway:

To put it bluntly Café Adam are absolutely ridiculous, but that’s the whole point! Comprising the technical ability of Jazz bassist Adam Richards and manic vocal talents of Adam ‘Benbow’ Browne, the two Adams have undeniably created something that they can entirely call their own.

I feel it’s important to point out that I have seen Café Adam before, because musically and conceptually they are quite difficult to digest. Heavily influenced by the likes of Kraftwerk, The Fall and extreme electronic music pioneers Whitehouse, Café Adam sound like Techno Pop terrorists. Very political and very un-PC at the same time, they blast out songs about wearing women’s clothing, cooking ‘poncey’ food and why you shouldn’t take a full time job at a bank. Armed with slogans like ‘Café Adam will take your face off’ Adam ‘Benbow’ Browne delivers his lyrics with a manic jerkiness reminiscent of Ian Curtis and with all the pompous melodrama of a Morrissey chorus. It may take you a little time to fully ‘get’ Café Adam but it might just be worth the effort.

Japan Times, Foreign Office organ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The straight dope on getting a Japanese credit card

I was interested in this topic, but Googling it just led to a bunch of conflicting anecdotes, some from foreigners who couldn’t get credit and others from foreigners who could get lots of credit. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it in Japanese:

To get a credit card, one must first undergo a review by the card issuer. The standards for the review vary by card type and issuer, but essentially, the review is conducted based on the applicant’s “attributes” (occupation, income and credit history).

Generally, because it is mandatory for the applicant or their spouse to have confirmed regular income, it is difficult for unemployed people (excluding students and pensioners) to pass the review. On the other hand, in many cases, a person with real estate, investment, inheritance or gift income who is doing business with a financial institution, even if they are unemployed, can receive a card from an issuer within that insitution’s keiretsu.

In the past, “freeters” and dispatched employees (other than dependents) would not pass the employment and income review of many issuers because they were viewed as having uncertain employment, but due to the changes in working patters in recent years, this is currently less stringent than it was before.

Moreover, in cases of past lateness in credit card payments or periods of nonpayment due to debt restucturing (whether voluntary or through legal restructuring such as bankruptcy), a new credit card cannot generally be issued for the following five or ten years as a penalty, although this varies from case to case. This information is stored at a credit information institution in which the various card issuers participate, so if a person were to apply for a new card from another issuer, in many cases, they would be denied credit during that period. However, because the reviewer is given discretion (there are no laws or regulations on point), there are rare cases where a card is issued. Also, even credit cards which have been regularly paid may be stopped by the card issuer, but the handling of this varies among issuers.

Now, the anecdotes from foreigners in Japan suggest that:

  1. “Dedicated” credit card companies, like American Express and Saison, will issue a card to anyone, while issuers tied to banks, like Sumitomo Mitsui, are much more difficult to deal with (in part because their cards are much sexier).
  2. There are some foreigners who get credit cards on the day they land in Japan; there are others who live in Japan for years and can never pass a single credit review. Oddly enough, when they talk about this on the internet, they never speculate as to why this might be the case. (Maybe it’s because a NOVA salary barely pays the rent?)
  3. Being a permanent resident helps a lot.
  4. Being a lifetime employee (as opposed to working on a fixed-term contract) REALLY helps a lot.
  5. It is completely unnatural for a country to be this stingy about consumer credit. (Especially considering that in the US, a Doberman/newborn baby/ice sculpture can get a credit card in the mail without even applying for it.)

Personally, I’m amused and appalled that reputable American financial institutions have given me something like $10,000 in additional credit lines this year when I’m living off of student loans. But I’d like to know: do any of our loyal readers have experience with the Japanese credit review game?

In the news

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

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

Memories of Thailand: The Sylvanian Hedgehog

Sylvanian Families is a line of Japanese-made toys featuring doll houses and anthropomorphic animal pals, “a quintessential part of the 1990’s boom in craze (or fad) toys” says Wikipedia. This little guy was greeting shoppers outside a Sylvanian specialty shop at Central World, a Bangkok mall with kind of a nonsense name:

p3100123-resize.jpg

After this photo was taken Mrs. Adamu and I helped ourselves to copious free samples at the mall’s upscale supermarket (hummus and pita anyone?) and watched the movie Sunshine (the new one by 28 Days Later/Trainspotting director Danny Boyle that’s not released in the US yet) for the equivalent of US$12 for two, with popcorn. Hm, I may have the dates mixed up on that (it might have been Deja Vu that I saw instead) but basically that was a good spot for myself and Mrs. Adamu.

Kokaryo update

Back on February 1st I wrote a post on the battle over the “Kokaryo” (光華寮) Chinese students dormitory in Kyoto, between the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China. Those who don’t remember the details of the case or need a refresher should read my initial post on the subject and/or some of the linked news articles.

Since my initial report the case, which 40 years after filing was apparently the longest running lawsuit in Japan, has ended-at least in its current form. While the outcome of the case was exactly what the PRC wanted for diplomatic reasons, it was still not technically a complete success in terms of the primary substance of the lawsuit.

Note that Yomiuri Shimbun’s March 28 headline, “Top court rules China, not Taiwan, owns dorm” is factually incorrect. In fact, the court ruled that because the lawsuit was originally filed by “China” and that recognition of “China” has shifted from the Republic of China (Taiwan) government to the People’s Republic of China (Mainland China), not Taiwan but the PRC is now the plaintiff. The original lawsuit was filed by “China” as represented by the ROC (Taiwanese) authorities against the Chinese (mainlander) dorm residents, whom the ROC wanted to evict due to their support of the PRC. While the defendant was technically the individual students, they were supported by the PRC government, and the case essentially became ROC vs. PRC vying for control of the dorm, even though the original motion that started the trial was calling for an eviction order of the mainland Chinese students from the dorm. Because the original lawsuit was filed by “China,” the court’s judgment that “China” was now represented by the PRC and not the ROC meant that in essence the People’s Republic of China was now playing both sides of the field, and as the plaintiff they had the right to decide not to continue prosecuting the case. In fact, it seems that the court never ruled on the primary issue of property rights one way or the other, and technically their decision allowed the plaintiff to continue to pursue the case by having it returned to the Kyoto district court, which they naturally did not do.

As PRC Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a January 26 news article, “The Guanghualiao [note: “Guanghualiao” is the Chinese pronunciation of “Kokaryo”] case is not merely a property case, but a political case concerning China’s legitimate rights.” While China has always insisted that this is a political case and has publicly demanded satisfaction from the Japanese government, Japan has always pleaded separation of powers, and insisted that it was both illegal and impossible to intervene in the court system for diplomatic and political reasons. However, some observers find both the timing and verdict of the case suspicious. Coming on the heels of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s highly publicized and politically significant official visit to Japan, cynics might suspect that the Japanese government did in fact “encourage” the court to resume the long-stalled case, and adjudicate it in China’s favor as a subtle diplomatic gift to counterbalance moves by the Japanese administration over the last few years to strengthen diplomatic and military ties with Japan.

Despite the high court’s decision that the PRC was in fact the plaintiff in this case, which has effectively nullified all of the previous judgment’s in Taiwan’s favor, there is still a chance for Taiwan to prevail in their property rights claim. The April 4 Taipei Times reported that Taiwanese authorities were looking into how to continue the case, despite having lost the standing to pursue the lawsuit as originally filed on behalf of the Republic of China. “We will continue our fight, considering the possibility of a fresh civil lawsuit or other legal means,” said their attorney Noriyasu Kaneko. According to an April 21 Kyoto Shimbun article (apparently not available online), Taiwan is in fact planning to file a new motion in the Kyoto court asserting their property rights as a “body” and attempting to sidestep the entire hornet’s nest of “one China” and diplomatic recognition. While this case has been a victory for China and a potential danger for Taiwan’s property rights abroad, it is also worth noting that the original premise of the case, that the ROC is the proper representative of “China” is a decades old doctrine that is effectively disavowed by the current Taiwanese administration anyway. Although I doubt that there has been anyone in Taiwan celebrating this verdict, it can also be looked at as the collapse of yet another piece of the “One China” diplomatic fiction. Now that Taiwan no longer has to pursue this Chiang Kai-shek era lawsuit based on the obsolete premise that they are the “One China,” there is at least some sliver of hope that they can turn around and use the new lawsuit to reassert their rights as a body separate from China.