Ahhhh. Finally something like autumn has arrived. No frost on the pumpkin, but except for Sunday night when I was hunting mosquitoes in the mansion, it has cooled enough and enough leaves have turned to make it seem like October back home.

Luckily for me, autumn brings learning opportunities and I needn't go to school to experience them. Why just yesterday a fellow as telling me about how Japanese enjoyed walking under under the canopy of ginkgo trees. Then he moved on to maples and how Japanese like the red leaves of those trees. I was both happy and confused as since I enjoy those things too, I am apparently turning Japanese. Except that I also enjoyed them before I came to Japan----as do most folks I've ever known. Except my for wife who often responds with something like, "It's just trees." I was worried that I might have confused my friend too, for when he mentioned Japanese liking maple leaves, I thought of the Canadian flag and said, "Oh, Japanese are like Canadians."

Then this morning I read some learned (?) discussion concerning the internationalization (or lack of) of Japan. I discovered that in addition to the many famous entertainers and athletes of non-Japanese background, there are also a lot of restaurants serving foreign cuisine in Japan. Now if that does not show internationalization, I don't know what does.

I was also educated that the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism who wrote the UN report about discrimination in Japan was apparently some sort of lackey for minority interest groups in Japan. These sneaky devils led him around for 9 days or so showing him only what they wanted him to see, and they, unlike some fellow from the government or perhaps even academia, had political interests at heart. Even worse, the Special Rapporteur could not speak Japanese and had to rely on his deceitful escorts. I am not sure if that is unusual, for I doubt that the fellow could speak Swahili if he went there on an investigation, but then again, this is Japan and we must apply different rules and standards here. Always.

I can not be sure what I should think of this until I consult an unbiased, unfettered by personal day-to-day experience person of letters who can explain everything to me in an abstract moonbeam sort of way that seems to have no connection to reality. I certainly cannot trust my own lying eyes as I am a member of a minority group with a vested interest in not being discriminated against.

But best of all, Diane Sawyer took ABC and Hot Stud Reporter David Muir to China investigate just how China is poised to overcome the US in every possible way pretty darn soon if we don't take hints from ABC news. ABC promised to have several of these reports on what China does differently than the US and what we should learn from it to keep from being surpassed in the next few weeks. Wonder if Diane and babe-magnet Dave took a listen to Joseph Nye below (or did any relevant research) before they flew over to China to give us the latest version of the 1980s Japan threat. Doesn't the ABC interview with Thomas Friedman sound almost word-for-word like what was being said about Japan 20-25 years ago?

Nah, it's not that!

There's a perfectly innocent explanation.

Imagine, if you will, that the following was written about Tokyo instead of New York:

Almost invariably, after I have hustled aboard early and occupied one half of a vacant double seat in the usually crowded quiet car, the empty place next to me will remain empty for the entire trip...

...I can rule out excessive body odor or bad breath; a hateful, intimidating scowl; hip-hop clothing; or a hideous deformity as possible objections to my person...

...I can’t accept the bounty of an extra seat without remembering why it’s empty, without wondering if its emptiness isn’t something quite sad. And quite dangerous, also, if left unexamined... The Seat not Taken: NYT Opinion

Apologists and explainers, both Japanese and non-Japanese, would be all over the fellow explaining why the reason for this in the US is not the reason for such behavior in Japan. No, it would have to be tradition, innocent naivety, provincialism, or maybe zen.

And no, it need not be examined by the citizens of this special land.

Edited to correct nativity to naivety.

Back about 20 years ago (good lord I must be getting old, but no problem as I am still a spring chicken in Japan) James Fallows wrote in one of his books something along the lines of "Every white person in the US should spend some time in Japan to learn what it is like to be discriminated against."

The esteemed Dr. Laura, who is very familiar with the need for a sense of humor since someone with one awarded her a doctorate, has announced that she is quitting her radio show. She announced that just a short while after getting in trouble (and later sincerely---I'm sure---apologizing) for using the N-word repeatedly on her program. After listening to her broadcast, one could be forgiven for thinking that her use of the N-word is not the most troubling part of her bizarre, illogical rant.

I would not say that living in Japan as a non-Japanese---especially a white non-Japanese---is equal in the extent and history of discrimination that African-Americans face in the US, but maybe Dr. Laura should spend a little (a lot) of time living here not as a monied expat in a gaijin ghetto, but living among the hoi polloi. Maybe then the psycho psychologist would have some clue of what her caller felt. Of course had the trained expert actually listened to the caller, she might have had a clue without moving here.



Aug 23: As for the euphemism itself, the Washington Post has some thoughts.

Goggle/blogger spell-check does not recognize either hoi polloi or monied as words.

Controversial in Arizona, hunky-dory in Japan

Racial profiling had never struck me as a personal issue. I am a Japanese woman living in Japan after all, where less than 2 percent of the population is foreign....

...I was stunned by the officer’s blatant profiling of me... [she believes it was based on her being a bit taller than the average Japanese woman which led some of Tokyo's finest to suspect that she might be a non-Japanese.]

...“The same thing as in Arizona has been in place in Japan for a long time without much criticism,” says my cousin and lawyer Genichi Yamaguchi. NYT/IHT 7 July 2010 Op ed.

Ms. Makihara goes on to state that most Japanese don't know about the racial profiling that goes on as a rule in Japan and wonders just how much anyone would object.

She continues with some indications that Japanese may be becoming less willing to try to understand anything beyond Japan's borders. Some not-so-generous people would wonder how that would be possible since most of the past attempts to understand seem to be as much about reaffirming the uniqueness of the Japanese (or selling cars and radios) than a real attempt to understand others as humans of the same species.

Ms. Makihara plans to protest the next time that she is stopped that such behavior is racial profiling. I wonder how the couple of fellows from Down Under who occasionally write columns for the Japan Times in support of discrimination and bigotry would respond to Ms. Makihara. Would they explain that this is being done for her safety?

By the way, one of those fellows was writing a book about what the world could learn from Japan (the usefulness of discrimination based on race, ethnicity national origins?), but as eagerly as I have awaited it, I have not found it yet. Wonder what happened?

If that is not enough, the troublesome foreigner---oops! Can't say that as he's a Japanese citizen---Debito Arudou has penned another article at the Japan Times (perhaps to be rebutted by one of the above mentioned apologists for bigotry soon) concerning the long-time and apparently never-ending illegal refusal of service to non-Japanese by many hotels in Japan. Tyler Brule, when are you gonna visit one of those and let the well-heeled know about that kind of wonderful Japanese service?

(My understanding of the law in Arizona is that it is not nearly as broad as what exists in Japan now.)

Blinky the bigot

cannot trust himself, for folks of foreign roots owe allegiance to their foreign ancestors. Where did the Japanese---whomever "the Japanese" are---come from? Is Blinky-the-bigot Ainu by any chance?

Well, although Blinky was elected and has been re-elected governor of Tokyo by the citizens of this fine prefecture, we can't assume that just because he is a racist that everyone else is.

However, as Debito Arudou writes in The Japan Times: Last Gasps of Japan's Dying Demagogues, some are:

[Citing research from M. G. Sheftall of Shizuoka University---good god, A furriner! Who can believe him?] Ishihara's "Showa Hitoketa generation" (1926-1935) was "completely immersed, from birth until late adolescence/early adulthood, in prewar Japanese ideology at its most militantly militaristic, chauvinistic and xenophobic. It is unsurprising many never quite recovered from the trauma they suffered when their ideology was suddenly and catastrophically delegitimized in August 1945."

Arudou points out that the argument of the folks who opposed the partial foreign suffrage proposed by the DPJ that bakagaijin should naturalize if they want to vote is purely fatuous (he does not use those words) as folks of Blinky's ilk will never accept naturalized citizens as Japanese when they won't even accept people who have been here for generations as Japanese.

We can only hope Debito is correct when he calls these types a dying breed. I ain't so sure, at best I think that they are a diminishing breed as there will always be others to pick up the flag.

I have nothing against that old extremist that the citizens of Tokyo decided to have represent them. The fact that he is a well-known racist, misogynist/misanthrope, and all-around kook was not important enough to give them pause. I wish him no bad luck, but if he were to be hit by a freight train, I would not spend the night crying. (What a mean thing to say!)

Google spell check does not recognize delegitimized as a word.

Edited 1010pm

Arudou's speech to UN Special Rapportuer on Human Rights

I hope to have a new post once a week for the time being, and occasionally finish and post a few still relevant drafts:

...we are not officially registered — or even counted sometimes — as genuine residents. We are not treated as taxpayers, not protected as consumers, not seen as ethnicities even in the national census....According to government polls and surveys, we do not even deserve the same human rights as Japanese....Debito Arudou Japan Times.

A well-written speech, at least from my point of view. Will it make any difference? I will wager no and pray* (without faith) that I am wrong. Doubt I will be though since we've been reading and saying the same things for years and years and years. The fact is that the whole issue is not important enough to most citizens to care much about except for the occasional sympathizing with affected gaijin.** I think Debito's final paragraph says it all, especially the plea for help outside of Japan. Don't expect much inside.

*Are an agnostic's prayers answered?

**An innocent, neutral term that simply means gaikokujin. We know it is innocent and neutral because many people use it all of the time mostly, but no longer exclusively, for those of certain non-Eastern ethnic origin.

PM Hatoyama has emphasized that there is no connection between the abduction issue and tuition waivers (or not) for "pro-Pyongyang" high schools. Yukio explained, "But the problem is whether we can examine the curricula of a country that does not have any diplomatic ties (with Japan)...."It has nothing to do with the abduction issue." Japan Times.

So related or not, it seems very likely that the end result will be no tuition waiver for children in those schools.

Just recently, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, issued it's report on Japan. According to the report, things have improved somewhat since 2001, but there's still plenty of to room to go. Some of the criticism was aimed at the treatment of Chinese and Korean "nationals" such as the lack of accreditation for their schools. One NGO showed a video of kind nutjobs in Kyoto:

...waving flags and protesting aggressively in front of a North Korean school in Kyoto Prefecture, shouting phrases such as "This is a North Korean spy training center!" Japan Times: Japan faces UN...

According to that article, other members expressed concern that these schools received no "government funding at a time when the government is considering removing tuition fees for public high schools."

I, too, would like to state that the abduction issue and the tuition waiver are not, and could not possibly be related. It's a simple matter of coincidence and bureaucratic rules.

Take a leak for group accountability

Although I have found it to be personally counter-productive to spend much time focusing on discrimination---I know its around, and seeing and experiencing it at times is more than enough without reading about it every day---I can't help but to learn about some of the new tricks that our friends in the government are doing in order to help foreigners behave themselves.

Debito Arudou* has written an article for the Japan Times concerning a "crackdown" in Roppongi in which non-Japanese (and perhaps some Japanese too) are being persuaded to pee for the boys in blue to prove that they aren't dopers. Of course, this seems to go against common sense---how can anyone be non-Japanese without doing drugs?

Naturally people have rights. After all, this is a democracy, not a benevolent police state run by some of the most incompetent goofs on earth. Debito was able to interview a very busy servant of the people (I am maybe going a little too far here by claiming that non-Japanese are people in the same way that Japanese are, or that a bureaucrat is serving anyone except himself or his department, but as usual, I digress.) and in a reluctant response to Debito's questions, our fearless sit-on-the-old-kiester-all-day-in-a-koban fellow clarified our rights should we be asked to whiz for him:

• Urine tests are only done "when necessary."
• Only folks who "look wasted on drugs" will be tested.
• Urine samples are only taken "after persuasion, never under threat." (See your real rights here.)
  

Naturally, we can assume that the urine samples are properly taken and tested and a strict, verifiable chain of custody is followed. Of course, you will be able to challenge these tests, and the police will have to support the procedure in your case in a impartial hearing in a court of law. The fact that you are a foreigner who probably comes from a place where everyone uses drugs, will not be prejudice anything.

I don't really know, but since I used to be very much involved in finding drugs and drug users, some of this seems just a bit questionable. No, not that I doubt that the persuasion will be done without threat: After all, wouldn't a few kind words be enough to get anyone to urinate in a cup? Maybe they could say something like: I'll pee too, if you will. Or perhaps a contest: I bet I can pee more than you! Or perhaps---for men---they'll offer to hold it for you. None of these are threats and there are even more possible ways to politely persuade.

The problem is, what if you are persuaded by the kindness, sincerity, and unquestionable integrity of the investigating officers, and the test comes back positive? A false positive. Whatcha gonna do? Hire a good lawyer who will be able to successfully defend you in court?

Seems the US military went through this sort of thing years ago and got a number of false positives. After they fined, incarcerated, or discharged the "guilty" they found that there had been problems with the testing. Oops! Had to offer to let them back in the military and upgrade discharges to honorable. Things improved as time went by, but those tests have never become infallible. (I am sure the criminal justice system in Japan realizes that and is taking steps to prevent false arrests/prosecutions.)

And really, what does a person who is wasted on drugs look like? Could someone wasted on the drug known as alcohol look and act similarly? Ahh, but the odor of alcohol would be present, and the use of one rules out the other. How about certain medical conditions? Never mind, let's not worry about these things as the police are trained professionals and a mistake here would hurt them more than you.

Unfortunately, I rarely go to Roppongi---especially since the US Embassy warned us about the place. I'd think the best thing to do now is to avoid it entirely (including Roppongi Hills and the other over-priced shopping areas there.) I am sure that the merchants, bar-owners, and massage girls, would prefer not to get money from the type who frequent Roppongi.

Oh, and speaking of competent law enforcement and government, it seems a school boy stabbed another school boy to death on a train platform with a 17cm knife. This was the same day that the ban on double-edged knives with blades longer than 5cm went into effect. Who could have foreseen that?

*I know the fellow is controversial and that he is not perfect. I have even read that he thinks Japan is the US---although not from his writing. However, he is one of the few who are actually trying to do anything about discrimination in Japan. Others write books excusing it.

Hospitals take action to avoid (foreign) flu germs

Some patients were rejected by hospitals after reporting that they worked at Narita International Airport or have a foreign friend. Japan Times.

As usual, some hospitals are refusing to treat patients for some rather curious reasons. That's not a problem though, for they can do that here even if someone dies (a number of such cases have appeared in the news over the last few years).

Now some are refusing to treat people with a fever, instead telling them to go to the special flu clinics set up earlier. This doesn't always work, for some who have visited a flu clinic have still been rejected by hospitals after being directed to go to one by a clinic.

The Tokyo government might investigate these incidents as violations of the medical practitioner's law. Thank goodness! Expect immediate and decisive action to end this sort of practice forever!

Wonder what happens when someone with a foreign friend who happens to be non-Japanese herself asks for treatment at one of these sleazy places? I wondered how long it would take before the "dangerous foreigner" angle appeared. It is never a question of if, but of when and to what degree.

Google prejudiced

Google included some historical maps of Japan in its online collection which showed the boundaries of burakumin "lower-caste" areas. These folks were and are still discriminated against.

...still face prejudice, based almost entirely on where they live or their ancestors lived.

An employee at a large, well-known Japanese company, who works in personnel and has direct knowledge of its hiring practices, said the company actively screens out burakumin-linked job seekers.

(The same thing can still happen to those of Korean descent, illegal or not.)

"If there is an incident because of these maps, and Google is just going to say 'It's not our fault' or 'It's down to the user,' then we have no choice but to conclude that Google's system itself is a form of prejudice," said Toru Matsuoka, an Upper House Diet member. (He is also a member of the Burakumin Liberation League.)

When complaints reached Google, they removed any reference to burakumin on the maps.

The result?

"This is like saying those people didn't exist. There are people for whom this is their hometown, who are still living there now," said Takashi Uchino from the Buraku Liberation League headquarters in Tokyo.

The Justice Ministry is investigating. Not sure, but it seems that the discrimination against these folks is not Google's problem but Japan's and hiding the fact of continuing discrimination is not going to resolve anything. But then again, "This is Japan." One of E.O Reischauer's sugary books (The Japanese Today, I believe) mentioned the eta/burakumin and those references were removed from the Japanese edition. Reischauer must have been a bigot too.

All quotes from the May 5 Japan Times article.

What's the problem?

If this is true and racial discrimination has occured, I fail to see anything wrong with it. After all, according to a couple of fellows who write columns for the Japan Times, there is no problem with Japanese discriminating against others:

Mitsui & Co., ... have been accused in a lawsuit of discriminating against non-Asian employees by denying them equal pay and promotional opportunities.

"Mitsui USA and Mitsui Japan have a strict policy requiring that the top positions and virtually any position managing personnel at the company be filled by the all Japanese/Asian staff," according to the complaint. Japan Times.

Anyway, I know that this sort of thing could not possibly be true. I mean, it would be so unlike a Japanese organization to have such a policy. Unimaginable. The suit is in the US too, where everyone selfishly sues over every little thing.

Discrimination validated

by some fellow who wrote an article for the Japan Times last week. I read it and considered replying, but I honestly did not know where to begin. It was like reading Fujiwacko Masahiko's book of two years ago. One has to wonder if he is actually as silly as he seems.

Our explainer basically justified bigotry by claiming it was all made fine and wonderful by his view of "group accountability." Apparently, he thought that it was just dandy that public bath operators in Hokkaido could ban anyone who did not "look Japanese" as this was just a way of making a whole group (those who did not look Japanese) accountable for the actions of a smaller part of that group (Russian sailors).

Naturally the problem is also somehow related to the US because the US is/has been racist and this fact magnifies the feelings of injustice to Westerners. So, I guess we gotta assume that the non-western, non-Japanese who reside in Japan (as well as many Japanese) don't see a problem with it. Anyway, we can't hold it against Japan for discriminating based on "group" because 'merika and the west in general is racist whilst Japan's racial and other discrimination isn't racist.

In Japan, you see, group discrimination---bigotry---is evenhanded. If you ain't a "pure" Japanese, that's sufficient. Since the bath claimed that the reason that no non-Japanese looking person could enter was because some Russian sailors caused problems somewhere, and since Russian sailors are not Japanese then they could---at least until a Japanese court said they couldn't---discriminate against all who are not.

(This brings up the problem of which group must be held accountable for the actions of the mass-murdering Japanese in Akihabara last summer, or the guy who a few weeks ago stabbed 3 people, killing two, because he was supposedly angry that the government had killed his doggy when he was a child. All Japanese? All men? All Japanese men? All young pet owners?)

Our writer then equates the discrimination with the rules for female-only train cars during peak hours and finally makes the utterly bizarre, absurd claim that since this group accountability is a major reason that Japan is safe (prove that) if Japan abandons it, then Japan will become like the mythical US or other countries---unsafe, full of selfish criminals where one cannot walk the streets without being a crime victim. Japan will, in effect, become a foreign country.

"Japan will become one more nation in which the individual is to be feared. That is an outrageously high price to pay for the occasional racial, national, generational or gender-driven slight."

I am not the first to write this, but if that is the case, then the US can become a safer country by openly (or secretly) and intentionally discriminating against groups of people whom those with power may assume (or simply claim) may be troublemakers. We should repeal the Civil Rights laws and go back 150 years to become "safe" again.

The case the apologist-for-bigotry-and-discrimination wrote about was the Otaro onsen case brought by naturalized Japanese citizen, Arudo Debito. Debito has posted the original article and a short response on his blog along with other responses.

The author of the article is putting the finishing touches on a book that is bound to become a classic on what the world can learn from Japan. Although topic sounds like a rehash of the 1980s books of this genre, there are things which folks elsewhere could learn from Japan. Whether or not those things could be adopted is another question. Let's hope, however, that excusing racism, bigotry, and other discrimination based on group membership is not one of them.

Fingerprintin' them thar furriners

Over the last few days, the government and media have been reporting that last year's law requiring all non-Japanese (including permanent residents) to be fingerprinted when entering or re-entering Japan, has been a success as it has kept 800-odd "undesirables" out of Japan.

The law was controversial when passed, as many---permanent residents in particular---were angered and offended. Too bad, said the government (and most others, including many non-Japanese) it's for safety and security and it stays.

So where did all this fingerprinting of non-Japanese begin? We all know that it was done to ethnic Koreans for decades until the law was rescinded mainly due to their protests in the 80s. While reading Mark E. Caprio's article in Japan Focus I found this interesting little tidbit:

...in May 1947, just months prior to SCAP’s January 1948 announcement that Koreans would be treated as “Japanese nationals,” SCAP reversed course by subjecting Japan-based Koreans and Taiwanese to its Alien Registration Ordinance. Mirrored after the U.S. Alien Registration Act of 1940, it required all non-Japanese over the age of 14 to register their alien status and carry with them at all times their alien registration passbook. It further stipulated that violators would face deportation. This legislation served as the forerunner for the more comprehensive Alien Registration Act of 1952 that introduced mandatory fingerprinting of foreign residents. See Japan Focus: The Cold War explodes in Kobe---the 1948 Korean Ethnic School "Riots" and the US Occupation Authorities.

I suppose the Japanese government of the time could have objected to Dugout Doug, SCAP, and Uncle Sam, but they didn't. Just like today, when the US passes tougher laws controlling foreign visitors or residents, Japan rarely declines adopting a similar law because of moral reasons as long as it citizens (or industries) are not affected. .

The invasion of evil (baka) gaijin

Some 51.8 percent of Japanese said a rise in foreign tourists visiting Japan made them "concerned about safety" and thought "some steps should be taken" to address such concerns, according to a government survey released Thursday. Japan Times.

Remember back in the 80s and early 90s when things were simpler and folks only had to worry about sneaky, dangerous, drug-using, quasi-criminal non-Japanese spreading AIDS? Now da' gubbermint is actually tryin' to git more of them to visit the Land of Purity.

What else could be expected when people are exposed to government officials promoting xenophobia; when the media often dwells on crimes committed by non-Japanese in a way that is all out of proportion to similar crimes committed by Japanese; when nearly everything people are exposed to from childhood on claim a unique Japanese "race" which is different from all other human beings? When the government wants to take attention off of its (and society's) own failings by exaggerating problems elsewhere so as to make those of Japan seem minor in comparison, why would fear of others even be newsworthy?

Since neither the poll results nor the questions are described in any detail, It's hard to know what to make of it. There is nothing at all surprising unless one considers the 51.8% low. In fact, 48.2% not feeling concerned (I'll generously assume this) about non-Japanese visitors could be considered progress, little or no thanks to the media and government.

However, I agree that "steps should be taken". It could be called education, perhaps. We could start with the elite then move down the ladder to the folks who think Japan is the only country that has four seasons and drinkable water.

Remember the minister (Nariaki Nakayama) who was fired because he said (among other things) that Japanese do not like foreigners?

It's not worth worrying about. I just had to do something as I postponed my trip to the mountains for a week and had some free time for ranting.

Thank god

For a while there, I was beginning to think I was all alone:

Over a summer dinner, a Japanese colleague shook his head at the yet unsolved gunshot murders of three supermarket clerks in Hachioji in 1995.

"It had to be a foreigner that did it. No Japanese would commit a crime like that."

"Hello?" I knocked on the table. "Look at me, please." Was not his dinner mate a foreigner too? And might not foreigners be offended by such an indictment?

The man squirmed and said he meant to emphasize the "gun." Japanese crooks would never be so cruel as to shoot people in the back of the head with a gun.

Right. They might ram a car into a crowd and then knife everyone in sight, a la the killing spree in Akihabara this year. Or like child-abductor Tsutomu Miyazaki, they might drink their victims' blood*...Thomas Dillon in the Japan Times.

Live in Japan? Don't you know exactly how Thomas felt? Have you not been in the exact same conversation yourself?

Just as I have been trying ignore this kind of "thinking" and live in a fantasy world Japan where it doesn't exist... Some do, why not me too?

*There was also the fellow who used a shotgun to commit mass murder earlier this year, but perhaps that doesn't count since he did not simply shoot his victims in the back of the head.

A great sense of humor

In a new report to the United Nations, the government outlines the situation of ethnic minorities and foreign residents in Japan, claiming it has made "every conceivable" effort over the past several years to eliminate racial discrimination....

...The government has long held that Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality under the law, makes any antidiscrimination legislation superfluous, a point reiterated in the report.

"Japan has taken every conceivable measure to fight against racial discrimination," the report's introduction says, later adding that apartheid is unknown in Japan...Japan Times

Are we talking about actual apartheid or legal, open discrimination often encouraged and supported by the government if not originating from it?

Just a few weeks ago, I was talking to a woman who had just recently married a guy from Europe. She was shocked* to discover that the landlord of an apartment they wanted to rent refused because he was a non-Japanese. She was able to get another apartment after finding an additional guarantor (2 in total) that the landlord required because her husband not Japanese. The first landlord refused to rent because he claimed to have rented to a non-Japanese before who did not pay the rent. Therefore, anyone who is not of the pure Japanese blood is untrustworthy.

Her husband is fluent in Japanese (JLPT 1 fluent---also in actual non-test usage) and intends to get Japanese citizenship as he believes that this will help him get a better career. She is skeptical, saying "He's still just a white boy."

What kind of idiots and liars are coming up with this nonsense to BS the UN? Does anyone on earth actually believe it? (Yes, many apologists do, or want to. Others excuse it because it is not as open as in country A, B, or C.)

12:25 *She was not shocked because non-Japanese are discriminated against in housing and other areas, but because she and her husband were being refused housing even though the rental agreement would have been in her name.

In another huge shock---at least to me---a resolution has passed recognizing the Ainu as indigenous people and admitting that they have been discriminated against by the government. If this resolution is followed up with effective action, it will be a big change for Japan.

It's not the first surprise, as Japan has also signaled that it will sign the Hague Convention with regards to abducted children. It this occurs and laws are passed and upheld to ensure that Japanese parents can no longer openly abduct children involved in overseas custody battles, then it will be another huge, huge change.

I won't be holding my breath until these good intentions show actual results, but it is encouraging to see this. No word from the rightwing yet, as far as I know. Blinky, where are you?

Off for Golden Week?

If you have an hour or so, you might want to listen to Arubito Debito's speech at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan. He discusses his new book Handbook for newcomers, migrants, and immigrants to Japan, as well as other issues which should be of interest to anyone of any nationality---including Japanese---in Japan. He even mentions ol' Blinky Ishihara, without whom no discussion of discrimination would be complete but he also discusses much more and talks about why immigration is vital for Japan.

Interestingly Amazon Japan search brings no results for the title, or either author. I have e-mailed them to find out why. Amazon US will receive the next if the answer is not believable.

**2:17pm: Amazon sent me a link. Note that it is in Japanese (I had searched in English for an for a book primarily targeted at non-Japanese---how silly of me).**

Pure Hypocrisy?

Nooooooooo......of course not.

Japan is rejecting a proposal from Britain's The Children's Investment Fund to raise its stake in a major electricity company, citing risks to public order, government officials said Wednesday.

Nothing new or unexpected here, and I am sure that it can be explained away as being rejected because it is a critical industry. Just like Bulldog sauces.

It was a nice day until

I went to debito.org. There I found an entry on a story that I had read in the Japan Times last week.

It seems that a wealthy U.S. citizen lost his life to homicide in a bar in Tokyo. His killer is reportedly expected to get a light sentence because after a thorough, professional investigation by the Tokyo police, it was discovered that the foreigner was being troublesome.

Now I don't know the true details of the homicide, so I can't really say whether or not the killer deserves a harsh or lenient sentence. Friends of the deceased---both American and Japanese---seemed to be shocked by the whole thing.

But the thing I do wonder about is: Why has this not been all over the TV and in newspapers since it happened? Why was there not endless, sensational, emotional coverage? A cynic might claim that there are double standards here. Perhaps even pure hypocrisy. Perhaps open discrimination. Or it could be because so many non-Japanese are killed by Japanese that it isn't news while a Japanese citizen being killed by a non-Japanese is rare and therefore is news.

Me, I don't know. I am confused. I know non-Japanese are generally the ones at fault in any confrontation. Just watch TV programs or even ads. Or ask someone here. But still....

Oh, the debito.org article is here with the Japan Times reports as well as the victim's (Scott Tucker) hometown newspaper report. Ask around. See how many people are aware of this and then ask why they think that coverage has been so sparse compared to what one could expect had a wealthy Japanese been killed by a non-Japanese. Or by a member of the U.S. military.