Mutantfrog Travelogue – Page 67 – Photos, Stories and articles on East Asia

In a world full of knowledge, there is no more excuse for ignorance!

Friday food for thought: I think a lot of people didn’t really need a university study to tell them that some people are just wilfully ignorant. But just in case you needed proof, here is an article from last month:

Robert Proctor doesn’t think so. A historian of science at Stanford, Proctor points out that when it comes to many contentious subjects, our usual relationship to information is reversed: Ignorance increases.

He has developed a word inspired by this trend: agnotology. Derived from the Greek root agnosis, it is “the study of culturally constructed ignorance.”

As Proctor argues, when society doesn’t know something, it’s often because special interests work hard to create confusion. Anti-Obama groups likely spent millions insisting he’s a Muslim; church groups have shelled out even more pushing creationism. The oil and auto industries carefully seed doubt about the causes of global warming. And when the dust settles, society knows less than it did before.

…Maybe the Internet itself has inherently agnotological side effects. People graze all day on information tailored to their existing worldview. And when bloggers or talking heads actually engage in debate, it often consists of pelting one another with mutually contradictory studies they’ve Googled: “Greenland’s ice shield is melting 10 years ahead of schedule!” vs. “The sun is cooling down and Earth is getting colder!”

I notice this all the time. On the one hand, Wikipedia has effectively made asking people questions obsolete — for any given factual question, Wiki is almost always going to give you a more reliable answer (with sources!) than any of your friends. And Google Maps and the like have destroyed the art of giving directions.

But at the same time, the human mind has an instinct to filter out unnecessary information. Sometimes you just have to ignore stuff you don’t care about, but at other times, for example, I find myself subconsciously avoiding looking up the history of bands, and the only reason I can think of is that I like believing in the image of the band better than I would knowing the actual facts.

Coming soon: Europe to Haneda?

It looks like the legal framework is now in place for flights between Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and the Netherlands. As mentioned in this space last year, the Japanese government has been pushing the notion that Haneda can replace Narita during late night and early morning hours as the capital’s terminal for long-range international flights, and this pairing seems to be the first beneficiary of the idea.

For those detached from the airline industry, KLM (the Netherlands’ main airline) is now owned by Air France, and has been partnered for something like 15 years with Northwest (the #3 international carrier in Tokyo) which is now owned by Delta. Haneda-Amsterdam service could be a boon for the AFKLDLNW bloc in securing a more solid position among frequent business travelers to Tokyo. JAL might be interested in the route as well, but they wouldn’t have the benefit of intra-European feed that KLM enjoys.

Fake investment update

On Dec 22, 2008, I announced that my good friend Dork Yenbuyer and I decided to go all in and invest our life savings in the asset of our choosing, his being yen and mine oil. To recap, here are our initial investments:

– Mr. Yenbuyer invested USD $10,000 at an exchange rate of USD $1 = JPY 89.81 and received 898,100 yen.

– I bought 233 barrels of oil at $42.96/barrel, also a $10,000 investment.

Today, here is where we would be if we immediately liquidated our positions:

– Yenbuyer: at a rate of 89.92, he is down about $12 or a value of $9987.77

– I am not doing nearly so well: 233 barrels of oil at the current price of 35.82 = $8346.06.

How are the prospects?

The yen continues to look good:

The Economist notes that forces appear aligned in favor of further yen appreciation. The article quotes former finance ministry bigwig Eisuke Sakakibara predicting that once the rate hits 85, it “will trigger a wave of stop-loss orders, sending the exchange rate quickly to ¥80 or even ¥75,” precipitating crisis response by the government to intervene, possibly in concert with the US and other G7 nations.

Oil, on the other hand, not so much. With demand likely down for the full year, prices seem to hang on whether OPEC will seriously cut production:

Tough decisions ahead

Despite oil’s record slide from $147 last year to the sub-$40 level, as production cut by OPEC is not a simple matter. Historically, when the market has been oversupplied and the price trend is bearish, some OPEC member become reluctant to cut production, in order to maintain needed revenue to fund government spending, Felson said. That tactic to maintain revenue at all costs has historically driven prices even lower, as was the case in 1997-1999. Hence, those who assume that $30 represents a floor for oil, are assuming incorrectly, he said.

“So far, it looks like a repeat of the late-1990s market. If anything, the pressure to continue to pump oil may be greater now, given the large increase in social spending many OPEC nations undertook during the oil price boom. But the reality is that OPEC must cut production now, or else,” Felson said. “If OPEC doesn’t cut again, we will see prices fall into the mid-$20 range.”

METI rushes to adopt anti-SLAM policies

When you are trade minister and the economy is in trouble, the last thing you need is to get SLAMMED!!!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

ANALYSIS: Exit Strategy Needed As Govt Role Expands

TOKYO (Nikkei)–The Japanese government is becoming more active in combating the ongoing downturn, and while such efforts might be necessary, an exit strategy must be formed so that the economy is eventually able to thrive without life support.

The government is under immense pressure to take action amid the crisis. In early January, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) hastily created a program to inject public funds into nonfinancial firms. Late last year, METI was flooded with complaints — not only from small and midsize companies, but also from big ones — about the difficulty of securing loans from banks and fundraising through the issuance of corporate paper and bonds.
…
The trend toward greater state involvement seems clear in Japan, with ruling-coalition lawmakers and business leaders now calling on the government to save jobs.

“Speed is essential,” said METI Minister Toshihiro Nikai. “Unless we do something now, we will be slammed (by criticism).”
…
Private-sector activity is essential to healthy markets. Without an exit strategy, the Japanese government and the BOJ will find it difficult to withdraw to their proper supporting roles, and the Japanese economy will be worse for it in the long run.

Given that the current crisis is arguably the worst since the Great Depression, the government and BOJ likely have little choice but to take action.

I realize this is a semi-serious argument against how offering protection to industry over short-term concerns could crowd out the private sector and possibly lead to a deleterious trade war. But Nikai has it wrong — come September at the latest, the LDP is going to get totally SLAMMED no matter what.

And weren’t “the Japanese government and the BOJ” already fulfilling a fairly intrusive role in the Japanese “markets”? Sure, many of the lost decade/Koizumi-era programs had been put to rest, but not that long ago. Japan remains full of so-called “zombie” companies kept afloat by previous bank bailouts and the like, but these new measures outlined in this article would presumably create a new breed of these – companies that would be insolvent without direct government support (or indirect through government-mandated loans). So while I share the Nikkei’s concern that the government of Japan will soon essentially become the “main bank” of a sizable number of companies, I just want to mention that rather than going from a state of being merely in a “supporting role” to an active role, these measures appear to push the GOJ from an already pretty active role to a very active role.

German expats in Thailand discuss Japan’s “charisma ones”

Machine-translated from the “Schoenes? Thailand” forum:

RATIO:

Which Bruno over Frodo says in such a way meets in some will coincidence also on me

Rear Schnacker, make for you not too much nen thick head, everyone must these “are I also like that?” Moment have, because there is ne quantity of Paralellen to have with the men the Asian friends, from Thailand to North Korea.

I had mean moment, when I am discovered a blog, in which a Japanese over its view on men write, who have a Japanese friend. Unfortunately I do not find the left any longer, at that time but I noted the most important points (with those some also to me to apply) more fuer to mean blog, did not gepostet her then however, because the whole topic somehow too negatively rueberkam:

1. The men came to Japan in a recent age and them come around this journey as part of the arising becoming to use.

2. They became acquainted with your wife in Japan and not in its homeland.

3. Most speaking very well Japanese, it prefer the society of Japanese, since they can impress these easily to be simply only thereby foreigners. They fall themselves into that learn the language.

4. Few of them had ever a western friend.

5 most of you has very negative stereotyped ones over western women.

6. however very positive opposite Japanese women, above all these is as feminine.

7. Many are arrogant and have large problems if their ideas and opinions are contradicted.

8. They may not other western foreigners and compare their language abilities and its cultural knowledge permanently with these over unterschwellig say them would be better.

Is to be become “gotten” always dumb and in generalizing Characteristika be recognized.

Interesting about also charisma one https://www.mutantfrog.com/2007/02/22/superman-meets-charisma-man/

A Comic over Canadian loose, which mutates in Japan to the Supercasanova.

Greeting:
Ben

Tokyo-based scammers targeting gullible UK investors in Nigerian-style scam

This is pretty shady, but I wonder if they are really even in Tokyo?

Phil, a Financial Mail on Sunday reader from Berkshire, was contacted by Calderton Capital Partners, a Tokyo firm that offers investment advice as well as acting as middlemen in mergers and acquisitions.

Calderton had some good news for Phil. It wanted to buy his holding of shares in a small American company called TBXR, and it was willing to pay $130,000 (about £90,000). This priced his holding of just over 31,000 shares at more than $4 apiece – even though the last time Phil had checked the shares were closer to five cents (less than 4p). Still, it was certainly a generous offer. In fact, it topped the almost equally generous offer made to another reader, John from Cheshire, who was also contacted from Tokyo.

This time the contact came from a firm called Cook Capital Partners, and the caller told a curious story. John held shares in an American company called Accupoll that had filed for bankruptcy in 2006. But the caller said Accupoll had been taken over by a different company, Rudy Nutrition, and he represented a bidder who was willing to pay over $98,000 (about £68,000) for John’s shares.

Cook Capital Partners certainly seems to be a busy firm. At the same time as contacting John, it was also in touch with another Financial Mail on Sunday reader, Roger, wanting to buy his shares in yet another company, Genmed Holding Corporation.

And this was the biggest offer of them all – a mouthwatering $240,000 (£166,000) for shares that Roger had every reason to believe were actually worthless!

Now for the snags. Roger, John and Phil were all told that the shares they held carried a legal restriction that stopped the deal going through. But the good news was this restriction could be removed, if they paid legal fees up front.
…
The up-front fees were not quite the only snags though. According to investigators at Japan’s watchdog Financial Services Agency, Cook Capital Partners is a scam. It is not registered with the FSA or licensed to carry out shares deals. There is even doubt that it is actually at its Tokyo address and telephone number.

Wow

New Kindle model – not yet

Ever since the first Amazon Kindle came out, I was extremely excited by the opportunity to use electronic ink technology to read PDFs, online books, and even the news without having to choose between staring at a backlit computer screen or print out hundreds of pages. The major features all sounded very convenient, and I could even envision using the device as a glare-free translation display. It would almost be worth shelling out $360 if only it weren’t such a new and untested technology.

So now that the next edition is out, things are looking better, sayeth the New York Times:

The Kindle 2 has several incremental improvements over its predecessor, which went on sale in 2007. Amazon said the upgraded device has seven times the memory of the original version, turns pages faster and has a sharper display.

It also features a new design with round keys and a short, joysticklike controller — a departure from the earlier design, which some buyers had criticized as awkward. The device will ship Feb. 24. The price remains at $359.

CNET:

The Kindle 2 is much skinnier than its predecessor, slimming down to 0.36 inches in thickness from 0.7, but it’s only a tenth of an ounce lighter. The storage capacity has jumped from 256MB to 2GB, or about 200 to 1,500 books, and the electronic ink display has improved from a 4-shade to 16-shade grayscale.

The layout of some of the buttons has been restructured, and the new Kindle also has a text-to-speech reader.

But there are still some serious drawbacks that force me to wait until they make further improvements. The Kindle 1’s current blurb about how to read your personal files doesn’t look very attractive:

Personal Files
Eliminating the need to print, Kindle makes it easy to take your personal documents with you. Each Kindle has a unique and customizable e-mail address. You can set your unique email address on your Manage Your Kindle page. This allows you and your contacts to e-mail Word documents and pictures wirelessly to your Kindle for only $.10. Kindle supports wireless delivery of unprotected Microsoft Word, HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files.
PDF conversion is experimental. The experimental category represents the features we are working on to enhance the Kindle experience even further. You can email your PDFs wirelessly to your Kindle. Due to PDF’s fixed layout format, some complex PDF files might not format correctly on your Kindle.
If you are not in a wireless area or would like to avoid the $.10 fee for wireless delivery, you can send attachments to “name”@free.kindle.com to be converted and e-mailed to your computer at the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account login. You can then transfer the document to your Kindle using your USB connection. For example, if your Kindle email address is Jay@Kindle.com, send your attachments to Jay@free.kindle.com.

And who wants to pay 99 cents a month to read blogs?

Blogs
Unlike reading blogs on your PC, Kindle blogs are downloaded onto Kindle so you can read them even when you’re not wirelessly connected. And unlike RSS readers which often only provide headlines, blogs on Kindle give you full text content and images, and are updated wirelessly throughout the day. Get blogs wirelessly delivered to your Kindle for as little as $.99 per month.

This system appears not to have changed with the new version. Basically, you need to convert any file into a proprietary Kindle format before it can be read on the device. But instead of offering an offline tool, they require you to send all files to the Amazon service first to either wirelessly transfer to the Kindle (for a 10 cent fee) or sent to a PC email address so you can use a USB connection to transfer files (converted into Kindle format) from your PC to the Kindle for free. I am guessing they intentionally make this a little cumbersome in order to direct customers to the fee-based services. This library blogger apparently had a relatively easy time of it. Still, as the over-demanding consumer, at this price it just doesn’t seem worth it. When the time comes, however, I am sure I will make full use of user-created guides like this one.

UPDATE: I should mention that this product has never been rolled out for an official Japan release (though the Kindle 2 may be changing this soon), and from what I have heard it does not work properly in the country. So my visions of owning a Kindle are contingent on me either living in the US or the product becoming usable within Japan.

Women set to overtake men in US workplace. What about Japan?

Amazing news from the New York Times:

With the recession on the brink of becoming the longest in the postwar era, a milestone may be at hand: Women are poised to surpass men on the nation’s payrolls, taking the majority for the first time in American history.

The reason has less to do with gender equality than with where the ax is falling.

The proportion of women who are working has changed very little since the recession started. But a full 82 percent of the job losses have befallen men, who are heavily represented in distressed industries like manufacturing and construction. Women tend to be employed in areas like education and health care, which are less sensitive to economic ups and downs, and in jobs that allow more time for child care and other domestic work.
…
As of November, women held 49.1 percent of the nation’s jobs, according to nonfarm payroll data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By another measure, including farm workers and the self-employed, women constituted 47.1 percent of the work force.

With that in mind, I wondered what the figures were for Japan. As it turns out, they are released monthly by Japan’s statistics bureau. The figures (PDF) include farm workers and the self-employed.

As of December 2008, of Japan’s 63.31 million workers, 36.92 million, or 58.3%, are men, and 26.39 million, or 41.7% women. Not even close!

Architectural preservation and history in Taiwan updates

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed three stories in the Taipei Times on the topic of preserving notable or historical architecture in Taiwan.

Taipei County looks to rebuild site of weird UFO houses – I had actually written that I wanted to stop by this area and see the UFO houses before my trip to Taiwan last summer, but just couldn’t find the time. Alas, they may be completely gone by the time I next visit Taiwan.
Taipei to preserve historical Japanese-era buildings – I have previously discussed the many Japanese houses that can be found all over Taiwan in stages of repair ranging all the way from crumbling ruin to well preserved monument. Here is a gallery of photographs I took at one ruin in Taichung, and here and here are photographs of the one behind my apartment building in Taipei. Although Taipei is not proposing a general preservation rule for such historical buildings, which might be nice, they are designating an area near the intersection of Zhongxiao E Road and Jinshan S Road, which contains a cluster of 10 surviving houses built for Japanese civil servants – reportedly the largest single cluster in Taipei – as a special historical zone.
Miaoli officials caught in a lie – Another piece of grim news. Apparently officials in the Miaoli County actually pretended to hold a meeting to discuss the historical preservation of the last three surviving kilns in what was a center of the pottery industry during the Japanese colonial period, but in fact never even convened the meeting. The claim that the kilns had “no historic or cultural value” sounds shaky at best, and it seems that they likely violated the Cultural Heritage Protection Act [文化資產保護法] to make way for an industrial development. Angry preservationists are filing lawsuits against the officials who cleared the kilns for distruction.

There were also three other stories of note related to historical topics I have discussed on this blog before.

Chiang Kai-shek plaque to return to memorial hall – “Rectification of names” continues in Taiwan. I have discussed this phenomenon several times in the past, as committed by Chen Shui-bian’s DPP administration here and here, who was replacing China-centric names with Taiwan-centric ones, and then with the reveral of Chen’s Taiwanization moves by Ma Ying-Jiu’s KMT administration here and here. As of January 22, Democracy Hall nee Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is now once again Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. However, the new KMT administration has magnanimously decided to preserve the renaming of the area surrounding CKS Hall to “Liberty Square”.
Descendents of ‘Orphan Army’ dream of home – I previously discussed the KMT/ROC army remnant of Southeast Asia here, noting in particular their fascinating historical association with the SE Asian drug trade, and the unlikely direct connection forged with 1970s Harlem druglord Frank Lucas, as portratyed in the film American Gangster starring Denzel Washington. As descendants of KMT soldiers, there are actually a fair number of “overseas Chinese” from Burma or Thailand who have gone to Taiwan to study using fake documentation, and although they are apparently not deported from Taiwan due to the tricky historical ROC links, they also find it difficult to obtain proper documentation that would allow them to travel back and forth. I imagine there is some sort of process by which they can apply for legal status, but it may very well require geneological or other documentation that is hard to come by. This is a story well worth checking into more.
Study backs findings on Polynesian origins – Linguistic, genetic and archaeological research in the past has suggested that the entire Polynesian/Austronesian group of peoples, ranging from the Malays of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines to the Maori of New Zealand and the native Hawaiians, are all descended from seafaring explorers that set out from Taiwan thousands of years ago. Although only about 2-3% of Taiwan’s current population officially belongs to these “aborigine” tribes whose ancestors were also the ancestors of the Polynesians, a much, much larger percentage of “ethnic Chinese” Taiwanese are actually at least partially descended from aborigines who became culturally Sinicized generations ago. This is of particular pride to proponents of Taiwanese independence who use it as evidence that Taiwan is not inherently Chinese. It is actually a popular theory (if not fact) that much of the “Han” population of southern China is actually descended from natives who became culturally Sinicized in a similar way hundreds or thousands of years ago, and have a noticably distinct genetic history from the northern Han Chinese.
Descendants of victims mark ‘Taiping’ tragedy – Not specifically related to anything I have written about before, but the story of how over 1000 immigrants from China to Taiwan died in a shipwreck near Shanghai in 1949 is new to me, and well worth knowing. I am a bit skeptical of how one can wring out a 20-episode drama from this story though. James Cameron’s Titanic was long enough for me.