If you thought politicians in your country were immature — Part II

In keeping with Roy’s recent post on immature politicians, my previous post on a past dissolution of the Japanese Lower House, and the recent dissolution of the current Lower House by Koizumi, I thought it apropos to write today about a past instance in Japanese politics where immatuure politics led to the dissolution of the Lower House — the バカヤロー解散, or “name-calling dissolution.”

The incident in question occured on February 23, 1953 during a meeting of the Lower House Budget Committee (衆議員予算委員会) as then Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru (吉田茂) was questioned by Nishimura Eiichi (西村栄一) of the rightist faction in the Japan Socialist Party (右派社会党). Yoshida’s outburst during the questioning session would eventually lead to Yoshida’s dissolution of the Lower House, and finally to elections.

Here is an abridged transcription of the exchange:

西村「総理大臣が過日の施政演説で述べられました国際情勢は楽観すべきであるという根拠は一体どこにお求めになりましたか」

吉田「私は国際情勢は楽観すべしと述べたのではなくして、戦争の危険が遠ざかりつつあるということをイギリスの総理大臣、あるいはアイゼンハウアー大統領自身も言われたと思いますが、英米の首脳者が言われておるから、私もそう信じたのであります(中略)」

西村「私は日本国総理大臣に国際情勢の見通しを承っておる。イギリス総理大臣の翻訳を承っておるのではない。(中略)イギリスの総理大臣の楽観論あるいは外国の総理大臣の楽観論ではなしに、(中略)日本の総理大臣に日本国民は問わんとしておるのであります。(中略)やはり日本の総理大臣としての国際情勢の見通しとその対策をお述べになることが当然ではないか、こう思うのであります」

吉田「ただいまの私の答弁は、日本の総理大臣として御答弁いたしたのであります。私は確信するのであります」

西村「総理大臣は興奮しない方がよろしい。別に興奮する必要はないじゃないか」

吉田「無礼なことを言うな」

西村「何が無礼だ」

吉田「無礼じゃないか」

西村「質問しているのに何が無礼だ。君の言うことが無礼だ。(中略)翻訳した言葉を述べずに、日本の総理大臣として答弁しなさいということが何が無礼だ。答弁できないのか、君は……」

吉田「ばかやろう…」

西村「何がバカヤローだ。バカヤローとは何事だ。（以下略）」

(My) Translation:


Nishimura: What exactly was the basis of the Prime Minister’s statement during a recent policy speech that the international situation was optimistic?

Yoshida: I wasn’t saying that the international situation should be optimistic. I think that the British Prime Minister and President Eisenhower themselves had said that the danger of war was receeding and because the American and British heads of state said so, I also belive it to be so (abbv.)

Nishimura: I’m asking for the Prime Minister of Japan’s outlook on the international situation. It’s not like I’m asking for a translation of the British Prime Minister`s outlook. (abbv.) This isn’t about the optimism of the British Prime Minister or some other foreign Prime Minister (abbv.) The Japanese people are questioning the Prime Minister of Japan. Isn’t it natural that Japan’s Prime Minister should state his outlook and policy on international affairs? I think it is.

Yoshida: My answer just now is my answer as the Prime Minister of Japan. There’s no doubt about that.

Nishimura: I don’t think the Prime Minister should get so excited. There’s no need to get that worked up, is there?

Yoshida: Don’t be so impudent.

Nishimura: What’s impudent?

Yoshida: You’re impudent.

Nishimura: I’m just asking you questions. What’s so impudent about that? What you’re saying is impudent. (abbv.) What’s impudent about my asking you, as the Prime Minister of Japan, without using [Churchill’s*] translated words, to answer me? Can’t you answer? You…

Yoshida: You Idiot!

Nishimura: Who’s the idiot! Who are you calling an idiot?

The transcription ends here, but Nishimura went on to demand that Yoshida retract his comments, which Yoshida finally agreed to do. However, this was not enough to mollify Nishimura, whose party introduced a disciplianry measure (here’s a great new Japanese word one does not often run across –> 懲罰動議•ちょうばつどうぎ) on March 2. The measure passed in part due to the absence of a number of Yoshida’s own Liberal Party (自由党) members (it would still be two years before the formation of the LDP), notably those members close to Hatoyama Ichiro, who would later suceed Yoshida as Prime Minister, and Hirokawa Kozen, who at the time was serving as Agriculture Minister in Yoshida’s third cabinet.

But the retaliation did not stop there. Tweleve days later a motion of non-confidence was passed, which resulted in Yoshida’s dissolution of the Lower House and call for elections. Yoshida managed to be reelected Prime Minister and would hold on to power for almost two more years before resiging as Prime Minister and head of the Liberal Party.

(For the single, but excellent, online English language account I was able to locate, please see Mayumi Itoh’s article The Depurging of Hatoyama Ichiro: Power Struggles in Postwar Japan in the online journal E-ASPAC I should point out that it is from this source that I have used the english translation, “name-calling dissolution.”)

* Because the transcription provided by Wikipedia was abridged in several places it does not specifically mention Churchill’s name. However, this additional transcription found here fills in some of the gaps, including Nishimura’s criticism of Yoshida’s frequent quoting of foreign leaders, Churchill among them.

I thought I had something to say but I lost my train of thought completely

1) Hip Hop Gospel Mimes — The best in the business. (Thanks SA)

2) Link to DPJ Candidate’s Website Goes to Porn Site Instead — Remember last year’s vice presidential debate? NO?! Well in it Cheney kept repeating some site name, and I thought it would be totally within the realm of possibility for the link he gave out to automatically forward you to goatse.cx.. You know, since he’s so evil and all. Well anyway, Hiroko Mizushima, an opposition party member running for office in Japan’s upcoming election, came close to fulfilling my fantasies. A link to her site posted on the Osaka Prefectural Chapter of the Democratic Party of Japan’s website mistakenly pointed instead to German site “Porn Diamonds” (LINK NOT SAFE FOR WORK). According to Mizushima’s staff, she had changed her site’s address after her provider went out of business, but the Prefectural Chapter just never updated it. Oops!

The face of international togetherness...

3) U.S. Targets Sex Abuse of Exchange Students — Think of it as a little like that scene in American Pie, only instead of an American supermodel faking an accent and stripping in front of a camera it’s a pathetic biology teacher (pictured above) sneaking into a girl’s bedroom and begging for head. Or it’s a fat Asian man feeding booze to Scandinavian boys and then trying to grab their ding-ding-dongs.

I wasn’t molested when I spent my senior year of high school in Japan, but I easily could have been, as the article explains:

Foreign students are among the most vulnerable minors because they usually do not know U.S. laws, are unfamiliar with customs, are dependent on host families or sponsors, don’t know what to do when abused or are afraid to act, according to Lt. Frank Baker of the Allegan County Sheriff’s Office…

“For a predator, this is the ideal situation,” Baker said.

Continue reading I thought I had something to say but I lost my train of thought completely

Primitivism

Every time I think I’ve plumbed the limits of human craziness, the internet proves me wrong.

Case in point: Primitivism.

I’m not going to bother to try and explain it, except to say that it’s what you get if you cross through ‘hippy’ and come out the other side. It would be sublime comedy if it weren’t so damn boring. And what kind of primitivist writes their official web page using CSS? For shame! Again for emphasis. For shame! You should be using HTML 1.0, if not gopher.

Do you think these people are the case for or against the primitivist philosophy?

If you thought politicians in your country were immature

From Penghu links to be `case by case’

Speaking at a separate event, TSU Chairman Shu Chin-chiang (蘇進強), however called the government a “liar” in front of DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) at an activity held by the Hand-in-Hand Taiwan Alliance that both men attended yesterday morning.

Shu’s remarks immediately made the atmosphere awkward.

[…]

Sitting beside Shu, Su looked embarrassed and did not respond to his criticisms.

The two men did not talk to each other and left the news conference separately.

Romanization in Taiwan

I just spotted this article on romanization in Taiwan at a good and brand-new Taipei related blog with the unfortunately bland name of Taipei, Taipei. This article he(she?) links to, as well as the blog post on Taipei2 do a good job of introducing the problem of completely un-standardized, incompetent romanization of place names in Taiwan.

At least the situation seems to be improving in a way. Here in Taipei, all official signs now use standard Hanyu pinyin.

Let’s look at the way 古亭 has been romanized. The MRT stop is labelled “Kuting.” But because the apostrophes are routinely omitted in Taiwan, it is completely impossible — even for the relatively few people who are familiar with Wade-Giles — to know if the name is really Ku-ting (Guding ㄍㄨ ㄉㄧㄥ), K’u-ting (Kuding ㄎㄨ ㄉㄧㄥ), K’u-t’ing (Kuting ㄎㄨ ㄊㄧㄥ), or Ku-t’ing (Guting ㄍㄨ ㄊㄧㄥ). (Note that hanyu pinyin, Guting, has no such ambiguity and works well to show the correct pronunciation.)

That’s four equally likely possibilities — and that’s without considering tones, which are an essential component of Chinese. If tones are included in the computations, there are 64 different possible pronunciations of the two syllable “Kuting” — hardly a useful representation of 古亭.

As it so happens, I live right by 古亭 MRT station, and it’s official romanized name is, of all things, Guting! Exactly what it should be. The Taipei city/county government has, sometime in the past few years, rewritten all of the signs in proper Hanyu pinyin.

Another example that those of us currently living in Taipei luckily do not have to deal with.

But Tamshui is the historical Taiwanese name for the city.

No. Tamsui (no h) is the correct historical spelling, reflecting the Taiwanese name for the city. Tan-shui would be correct Wade-Giles, and Danshui correct hanyu pinyin. Of course, the “Tam-shoo-ee” pronunciation formerly used on the MRT is quite beneath contempt.

Like Guting, 淡水 is now rendered in the correct Hanyu pinyin of ‘Danshui.’ It may not match 17th century Dutch maps, but it sounds closer to the Chinese pronounciation, and it’s consistent with, for a start, the way people write Chinese words in the Roman alphabet in the other 99% of the planet that isn’t Taiwan.

Unfortunately the problem persists in other areas of Taiwan. For example, I have seen the character 中 romanized as, zhong, chong, chung, jhong, and now thanks to Taipeitaipei, the inexplicable ‘jhorg.’

How on Earth is this inconsistency helpful to anyone?

A Happening Happpening.

Since Roy and I seem to be trading rather interesting posts on language (here, here, and here), here’s another great Japanese word that I just happened upon and happen find amusing. It’s also an example of how as words become transplants from one language to another, they often undergo slight changes in meaning or nuance.

From today’s Asahi online edition:

ヤンキースタジアムで３階席の少年がネットに転落

2005年08月10日22時29分

９日の大リーグ、ヤンキース―ホワイトソックスでファンが観客席から転落するハプニングがあった。

I’ll be nice this time and spell it out, but it says: Kokonoka no dai ri-gu, yanki-zu- howaitosokkusu de fan ga kankyakuseki kara tennraku suru hapuningu ga atta.

I’m not quite sure how to translate that literally using the actual word “happening” as it is used in the original Japanese without adding additional, implied information. I guess it would read something like this: “At Tuesday’s Yankees – White Sox game there was a happening (where a fan) fell from (his) seat.”

The reason I find this word so amusing is that the word happening is overwhelmingly used in English as a verb, not as a noun – though it also occasionally shows up as an adjective. Nevertheless, it somehow managed to make the jump to Japanese as a noun and has survived. I tried to think of common usages as a noun in English, and the best I could come up with is “fortuitous happening.” A few fruitless Google searches later, I gave up and just turned to the The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, which had this to say:

A happening is an event, especially a noteworthy or dramatic one, or one staged deliberately for theatrical effect, as in Her parties were always planned to be happenings, intended to be talked about for weeks afterwards. The word is Standard.

Being very unscientific about this inquiry, I feel that using happening as a noun has always had a slightly antiquated feel to it. It’s the type of word that I might expect to hear a Brit use with regularity, but one that just somehow sounds a bit odd coming from the mouth of an American too often.

In Japanese, happening is used only as a noun (although there is an entry in 英辞朗 of the noun ハプン but I’ve never heard or seen this word used before) and refers to an unexpected or surprising event – like some kid falling out of his seat into the safety net at a Yanks-White Sox game. Here’s the definition as provided by goo 辞書:

ハプニング 1 [happening]

(1)思いがけない出来事。偶発的な事件。
「―が生じる」

(2)予想外の、意表をついた出来事の表現効果を積極的に追求する演劇・絵画などにおける前衛的芸術活動。

Coincidentally, while reading up on Japan’s September 11th general election, I happened across ハプニング once again, which I could only call a fortuitous happening. On May 19, 1980, then Prime Minister Ohira dissolved the lower house and called for elections. The name of the dissolution?

ハプニング解散

Bears, oh my

As the New York Times reports that my home state of New Jersey is gripped by the furry paw of a bear epidemic…

State biologists estimate that as many as 3,400 bears now roam New Jersey, the nation’s most densely populated state, and say a hunt is the most effective way to control the increasingly troublesome population. Two bears were killed last weekend in Sussex County in northwest New Jersey after one broke into a house and another broke into a shed.

“We are going to have a large population of bears way into the future. It’s a prolific problem,” said Martin J. McHugh, the director of the state’s Division of Fish and Wildlife. “Our aim is to reduce the growth of the population.”

Here in Taiwan we see what happens when bears are allowed to run completely rampant.

A three-year-old boy was critically injured yesterday after a caged circus bear nearly ripped off his arm in southern Taiwan, a hospital official said. Doctors performed emergency surgery to reattach the right arm of the boy, who was found lying in a pool of blood by the bear’s cage on a farm where a circus from Vietnam was performing, an official from Chi Mei Hospital said. Farm staff said the boy, who went to see the bear perform stunts like riding a bicycle, might have provoked the animal by trying to pat it. The incident occurred while his mother was talking to performers. The performance was suspended after the attack. The boy’s parents blamed the farm owners for the attack for failing to put up warning signs in front of the bear’s cage, local newspapers said.

Classic WW2 Japan footage

Everyone has probably already seen some news coverage of the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Nagasaki’s anniversary is today, and as always, overshadowed by their big-brother in nuclear devastation.)

Archive.org has an excellent collection of public domain films of various types, and here are links to some of the good ones I’ve found related to Japan, WW2, and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

First of course we have Tale of Two Cities, A (1946), a film produced by the US War Department. While it clealy shows the devastation wrought on the cities, there is a conspicuous lack of human victims.

Next is My Japan (1945)

Complex and disturbing anti-Japanese propaganda film produced to spur the sale of U.S. war bonds. CONTENT ADVISORY: Explicit racism and extreme violence.

While, as the label says, this film is narrated in a bizarre Charlie Chan-ish yellowface manner, it’s actually one of the more interested presentations of Japan from that time that I’ve seen. It clearly presents Japan from the standpoint of an enemy that must be defeated, but does so by describing them as relentless adversaries worthy of respect.

Another notable must-see propaganda film is Our Enemy: The Japanese (1943)

Stridently anti-Japanese film that attempts to convey an understanding of Japanese life and philosophy so that the U.S. may more readily defeat its enemy. Depicts the Japanese as “primitive, murderous and fanatical.” With many images of 1930s and 1940s Japan, and a portentious and highly negative narration by Joseph C. Grew, former U.S. ambassador to Japan.

And last, Japanese Relocation (ca. 1943)

U.S. government-produced film defending the World War II internment of Japanese American citizens.

Universal Studios was good enough to, in 1967, put much of their pre-TV newsreel footage into the public domain.

Some relevant highlights from this collection:

Pres. Truman Warns Japs To Give Up, 1945/06/07 (1945)

“In a speech to Congress, President states that Japan faces the same complete destruction that was visited upon Germany. To that end, millions of troops, and their implements of war, are being transferred more than half way around the earth. The President adds that though many key industries have already been leveled by U.S. air attack, all of Japan’s industries will be completely destroyed unless Japan surrenders.

Jap Films of Hiroshima, 1946/08/05 (1946)

(1) Japanese Films of atomic bomb blast at Hiroshima, released one year later (2) Underwater atom blast rocks Bikini (line down middle of film frames) Admiral Blandy commander of task force, 2nd test of Operation Crossroads, cameras point to site of underwater explosion Test Baker, mushroom cloud of explosion, carrier Saratoga finally sinks, another view of the blast from overhead airplane. (sound track cuts out at very end)

B-29s Rule Jap Skies,1944/12/18
(1) “At Saipan, after briefing, the members of the 21st bombing Command take to Super Fortresses and roar into the sky – destination Tokyo! They shower tons of bombs and incendiaries on the huge sprawling city as they hit factories, steel mills and docks. Mass civilian evacuation of Tokyo was ordered after this raid. Japs Raid Saipan – Saipan is attacked by Jap raiders, 14 of which are shot down, after they had started spectacular fires and caused minor damage.” scenes of Japan fighter planes st…

Damage Foreshadows A-Bomb Test , 1946/06/06 (1946)

(1) “Japan: Dramatic pictures of atom bomb damage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki foreshadow the coming Bikini Atoll experiment. Intense heat and light of blast scarred shadows of human beings on destroyed bridges!” scenes of visual evidence of atomic damage in Hiroshima (2) Italy Joins Democracies – “Italy: Following mass demonstrations and a democratic referendum, Italian voters cast their lot with the democracies and oust their king. The majority, who voted republican, wanted ‘No More Balconies!'” (partial newsreel)

Unfit for the Salamander – A lesson in Japanese etymology

Occasionally I run across a word or phrase in Japanese that I recognize only because I know I’ve looked it up at least two or three times (if not more). Yet for some reason the meaning just won’t stick with me. This happened earlier today while reading the Asahi at work. This time I intend to do something about it, as well as provide an interesting language lesson for any of our readers who are slowly killing themselves learning Japanese.

The phrase in question today is particularly irksome because of its idiomatic nature. I know the meaning of the individual words, but haven’t an inkling what the hell the phrase as a whole means. It’s as if someone was conversing with you in English and described a situation as “unfit for the salamander.”

So now that I’ve hopefully gotten everyone’s attention, here’s the sentence with today’s mystery phrase in bold:

森氏は会議後、記者団に「はっきり言って、さじを投げた」と語った。

Literally, it means, “to throw the spoon.” So the entire sentence literally translates as:

After the meeting Mr. Mori told reporters, “Honestly speaking, [I] threw the spoon.”

So what’s it mean? It means to give up on something.

And just how did it come to mean this? Isn’t that obvious? The Japanese eat with chopsticks, don’t they? Just as the occasional foreigner who visits Japan today and manages to master the art of eating with chopsticks will be repeatedly praised by his hosts, at one time it was equally difficult for Japanese to master the art of eating with a spoon. As anyone who’s tried eating with chopsticks knows, sometimes you just want to throw them on the ground, go for a fork and just dig in. Well, apparently Japanese used to feel the same way about spoons and would often throw them down in resignation.

Okay, okay. I just made all that up. And honestly speaking, that story was about as unfit for the salamander* as one can get.

Actually, the real story as best I can tell is this. The meaning derives from a situation where a doctor diagnoses a patient’s recovery to be hopeless. At one time medicine was prepared with a spoon and once it was determined that someone was a goner, there was no further need to continue preparing medicine and the doctor could just “throw in the spoon,” so to speak.

If anyone out there can add any clarity to this little history lesson (and my money says that Roy can), I will be looking forward to any additions in the comments section.

* As of 6:41 pm on August 8, 2005, the phrase “unfit for the salamander” did not show up on a Google search. It may be a safe assumption that I am among the first, if not the first, to actually use this phrase in a sentence.