Imagine

Imagine a country where everyone is good at his or her job. Imagine a country where everyone has respect for elders and teachers. Imagine a country where every shop clerk treats each customer like an honored guest. Imagine a country where everyone wears expensive clothing, the food is slurpy, and there aren't any napkins because apparently nobody needs them. Imagine a country where everyone has good taste.

You've imagined Japan....The climate in Tokyo is similar to that of New York City.

Ahhh...another year ends in the Lake Wobegon* of the universe. On the day after Christmas, the 3rd day of winter of 2010-2011, as I walked around weird but wonderful Meguro trying to avoid being hit by mama-chari-ists with good taste dressed in expensive finery while I hoped that other pedestrians would allow me some sidewalk, I was able to enjoy the autumn leaves of the world’s most clearly distinct winter season which is similar to that of New York.

I must finally admit that I have been wrong for years and years. Japan is uniquely unique in some ways, one being the ability of non-Japanese (and the occasional Japanese trying to polish Japan up for the naive) to suspend all trace of common sense about Japan and the Japanese. To say anything less than complimentary about Japan is evidence that one misunderstands the country and is probably a racist. (Does Japan have a separate race from say, China? What is a race?) On the other hand preaching nothing but out of this world goodness about Japan is acceptable. Remember what CIA agent Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon) said in Syriana: “It’s not racist if it’s positive.”

I have spent too much time looking at Japan-related sites and blogs (especially Tumblr) and found that this imaginary Japan is the Japan that many desperately hope exists, for if they were to actually come here and find that it does not exist, they would lose all faith in nirvana. Folks who spend time on those sites/blogs looking at the best architecture, art, manga, cute girls in Harajuku and Akihabara, believe they are seeing Japan. And many whose fantasy comes true and are able to visit see nothing to dispel them of the fantasy.

Just after 9/11, I put an ad for a private Japanese teacher in the magazine Metropolis Tokyo. Some Japanese fellow answered, not to get information about the job, but to try to instigate a fight saying things like: "I am glad that America was attacked. You people come to Japan and think it is Disneyland. I hope you get attacked again.” (paraphrased). He had sent the e-mail to dozens of people who had placed ads. He wrote in English, but his English had tell-tale signs of a less than fluent Japanese person's English. He was certainly correct about many foreigner's views (not only Americans by far) of Japan being Disneyland.

I guess the imaginary Japan is needed as the extreme "other," not an other in the sense of a bad, sneaky, devious, unscrupulous other (at least not until the next trade/whaling etc dispute), but as the "perfect" other.

*The Lake Wobegon Effect as pertains to Japan is not something that Japanese are guilty of, it is foreigners who tend to be.

Impossible in Japan

Edited 2:10 and 2:29pm

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?

Only in Japan

Tidbits

from conversations this week:

"I'm worried that foreigners will think Japan was wrong (on Senkaku) because we gave in to China."

"I think Ozawa, Hatoyama, and Kan are terrible. They gave in to China. We need to show the world Japan's 'will.'" (Discussing Senkaku).

"If China had done that to the US, I think there would have been a war." (Senkaku dispute.)

"I think there should be mandatory military service in Japan to bring patriotism to the young." (US born, LDP supporter. Very "patriotic" who admires the US. Unfortunately, he has an often simplistic or outright wrong view of the US. Decent guy, not a nut. I would say he is simply politically conservative.)

"All Americans have to go in the military if there is a war."

"America is very important for world peace" A reply to my statement of fact that the US cannot continue funding it's current contribution to "world peace" via the military. Time for the "peace country" to show us how it is done?

"We Japanese promised the world we would have no more wars." Same conversation as above. (Was that the US written article 9 he was referring to?) Bottom line: the US is forever supposed to "protect" Japan.

"We shouldn't have to go in the military because we would lose time for learning job skills and foreign languages." (Perhaps Japanese are just as ignorant about the military as Americans. I suppose the lack of opportunity to learn a foreign language is more accurate for the SDF, but folks who work on F-16s might just have a few skills. They surely as hell have more marketable and practical skills than some goofball who majored in such things as Asian Studies).

Gee, nothing totally insane this week. Just enough to reinforce my opinion that most Japanese whom I know---nah, in general---haven't the slightest clue of what the US is or is not.* And little attention is paid to possible repercussions of Japan showing it's "will" or saying "no." Just the mere act of Japan doing so, will somehow impress the hell out of the rest of the world, and Japan will then...ummmmm...what? Win?

Several years ago there was a CM on TV with a popular comedian---I forget his name, but one of a pair who often appear on TV---who was at a meeting full of non-Japanese. He was in some disagreement with them and stood up and shouted in English "No!" The foreigners were taken aback that this Japanese fellow could say "no." A common fantasy that goes no further, it seems.

The US media does a terrible job covering Japan. The Japanese media is little better as far as the US is concerned. I am often amused by folks who claim that Japanese know much more about the US than Americans (US) do about Japan. Yes, people may be familiar with the names of all of the states, some US history (The One with Whom I Share a Mansion is extremely knowledgeable about US history and was even before she attended a US university. She is a rare case though), but as the unquestioning acceptance of Fujiwara Masahiko's book of pure horsepooky proved, most haven't a clue.

What a slow week. It might improve tomorrow as I go drinking with The Oz Lady.

*after nearly 11 years here, neither do I.

1600: Edited to add a few more that I remembered.

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.

Ex-newsman spills the beans

I have always like Fridays. I usually only have to work at things I enjoy. I can look forward to a either an Yebisu black or an Asahi "The Master" Pilsner* for lunch. Even Precce, the world's most overpriced, never-stock-a-new-item supermarket, has some early weekend food out. And the little old lady who seems to stand out in the street in front of her house every day, all day, very pleasantly bowing to and greeting everyone who walks by makes the run-em-down-and-let-god-sort-em-out, sidewalk-hogging young princesses of the Denenchofu private Junior High for girls tolerable for an hour or so.

I also have a little more time to leisurely check out other blogs. Today, I discovered the answer to the question that I have had for years---no, nearly 2 decades: Why do journalists, authors, even bloggers, write so many stories about an inscrutable, uniquely-unique, fantasyland Japan that few people who know the country (at least the Japan I live in) recognize?

The answer is that there are guidelines for Japan-related writing, a sort of a style-guide for the Japan as Disneyland crowd.

Our Man in Abiko has the until now well kept secret here. That explains it all.

Japan writer's required image of busy
crossing in front of Shibuya station

*As yet unexplained, why does Japan's version of Miller Lite, Asahi Super Dry, sell at the same price as the vastly superior Asahi "The Master" Pilsner?

Another mystery: Why does Adobe Lightroom 3 occasionally refuse to watermark photos. Answer: Who cares, just don't buy version 4 until it has been out for 27 years and the bugs are semi-worked out. Ruined my #*#$% Friday fixing Adobe's buggy crap.

Bring in the clowns

I made a mistake.

No, I didn't make a mistake when I went out for an early lunch by expecting people who were walking down the sidewalk-less street not to try to force me to into traffic because they didn't want to give me any room. I ain't that dumb.

No, it wasn't a mistake I made a few days ago by not responding to the fellow who informed me that "Japanese don't like to make mistakes. It's both a strong point and weak point of Japanese culture." I did not bother to ask which nationalities do like to make mistakes, because asking such a question would have been a waste of time.

No, the mistake has not been because I have rarely bothered with the predictably simplistic responses of my associates about the Senkaku Island dispute. No surprises there.

My first mistake of the day was to turn on my fine Victor flat-screen TV, wait 5-8 plus seconds for it to load garbage (including spam!) before I could change channels, reduce volume or do anything but curse the day I first saw it.

But the real mistake was to watch what is jokingly referred to as "news" in the US. CBS news in particular.

For this morning CBS' Katie Curic, who is being paid millions of dollars for something, explained to the world what the US could learn from the Japanese education system.

"First thing in the morning, Japanese children bow to their teachers. It's a small gesture that says a lot, reports CBS News correspondent Celia Hatton. "

But wait! It gets even more simplistic and irrelevant to education in the US. Many Japanese would likely call it simplistic and irrelevant to education in Japan.

And ineffective teachers aren't fired or sidelined -- they're given extensive retraining, explains the president of Japan's teachers' union.

"It's impossible for someone to get through the system who is incompetent," said Yuzuru Nakamura, president of Japan's Teachers' Union.

I need to check the definition of the word "incompetent." So do many Japanese who would disagree with Mr. Nakamura. Look at English language teaching in many schools. Remember the stories about JET a few months ago, where one Japanese English teacher used his JET assistant only to read from a book in order to teach pronunciation? Isn't there something deeply wrong with that?

Several years ago, a teacher who repeatedly made racist comments about a student of mixed heritage was retrained and reinstated after 6 months. On the other hand, I have heard of the case of a teacher who, in front of his students admitted to smoking marijuana while in university overseas, was put on administrative duty and banned from ever teaching a class again.

How could any of this be applied in the US? No wonder nobody in their right mind watches that garbage anymore.

Wonder if Katie and friends would be interested in looking at TV news in Japan for lessons US TV news could learn?

Well, at least I did not watch ABC and info hunk David Muir pose, mug, and primp for a story mainly about himself.

Edited 3PM

Six years and this is my most popular post?

My Yes Man, Males Escorts, and the English Conversation Club.

I still get 10-15 or more visits to that post every single day, 3 years after I wrote it as more or less a joke. I am sorry.

I am sorry to say that guys hoping to come to Japan and make a million yen being a male escort/English conversation host might just make a million yen should such a job exist. Of course, you will starve on a million yen too.

Those golden years are over. Forget it. The odds of getting women to pay you large globs of money to do nothing other than chat them up in English and then take them to a love hotel for a bit of fun is about a gazillion to one. Were it possible, I would have tried it myself.*

Ain't gonna happen now, if it ever did. And really, look in the mirror and ask yourself why any woman would pay you for that. Would women where you are from pay you just to chat and bed them? If yes, take a shot. If not, gomen ne...

Should I be wrong, please put me in contact with one of those establishments.

Sept 25: I have learned that there are some bars call b*tl*r bars where one might find employment as a host, though I am not so sure that foreign men who don't speak Japanese could work there. And I hear they wouldn't want to even if they could.

*The One With Whom I Share a Mansion probably would not have objected much back in the day had I got "big money" for it. Now she would probably try to sell me to such a place for about ¥300.

日本茶党, birthers, and the Oz Lady.

Yes, 茶党, not 茶道*。

And here I thought the Tea Party and the Birthers were some sort of "Only in America" thing. But on the day of PM Kan's victory over Ozawa, I was chatting with my old friend and ex-tutor whom I shall refer to as the Oz Lady as that fits both her name and her interesting ideas.

Claiming to speak no English--which, of course is not exactly true but very close in her case---she only knows what she reads in Japanese---or hears via the rumor mill. She has some strong political opinions, many of which have to do with the threat of foreigners to Japan. She once asked me about non-citizens' ability to vote in the US (the US is only standard that counts) before going into a mini-rant about the DPJs proposal to let non-citizens vote in local elections. (Her teaching experiences have not reduced her fear of foreigners although she does not dislike non-Japanese people---only the abstract idea of resident foreigners plotting to harm Japan). She has expressed concern about the rightwing's claim that the US would not defend Japan in case of attack, but would somehow instantly pull its troops out and abandon the country in the midst of it all. She also wants a strong Japan that can say no to any country without any repercussions. Naturally, China is a huge threat to Japan, as are those hidden "panda-huggers" in the Japanese government who are handing the country to China.

You would never know or suspect her true beliefs if you did not know her quite well. She seems like a somewhat typical mid-30s gal from the hills of Nagano who is not a member of the college educated white collar workforce. This is what makes her interesting---more interesting in a way than many of the folks I speak with. I like to believe her thoughts represent a different group, although they may only represent her.

In a discussion of the Kan/Ozawa contest, she seemed pleased when I told her that Kan had won. Then she asked me about US politics and if a naturalized US citizen could become president. When I said no, she asked about members of Congress. Naively believing she was actually interested in US politics, I went into an overly detailed answer to a question that she cared not a whit about anyway. It turns out that she was only asking about the US so that she could establish where Japan stood in relation to The Gold Standard of the Universe.

She let me in on a secret. Neither Kan nor Ozawa are Japanese! It seems both are naturalized Japanese citizens with Kan being Korean and Ozawa being Chinese (or visa versa, I was so surprised to hear her say this, I forget which is which). Not only did she say that with a straight face, she was obviously angry about it. Either would sell the country to China, she said, without explaining why a Korean would do so.

We soon moved on in our chat, but I must say that I was disappointed after our conversation. Extreme goofiness is neither an Only in America phenomenon nor something uniquely Japanese.

Anyway, I am still trying to absorb the fact that several years ago she looked at me with her "black eyes" and informed me that I have red hair. All my life, people had lied to me and said it was brown. How could a southern barbarian have anything but red hair?

This is meant not to disparage her. She just gets some interesting ideas from somewhere. I grew up with folks like her...

*Humor, or what must pass for it. 茶道 generally means tea ceremony (the way of tea), but 茶党 would mean Tea Party if it were a real word.

WSJ, Reason, and Nobel Paul dissed

The notion that the U.S. recession will turn us into Japan emerged immediately after the September 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, and has proved to be one stubborn meme. You might think that the actual growth of the U.S. economy over the last four quarters would dampen the Japan talk, but you would be wrong*....

...These days, how you use the Japan argument is really a proxy for what you believe about fiscal stimulus... Slate Moneybox

Oh thank you James Ledbetter. Of course his article will prove futile...

Disappoints me about Reason, though, as I used to read that magazine back in my Ayn Rand days. WSJ too, but their position is knee-jerk predictable.

*The link to Seeking Alpha is from the original article.

Dissed must be passe now that I have used it.

Westerners tend to link Japan's workaholic society today to "typically Japanese" traits such as deference to authority and respect for hierarchy, but Kawahito believes this is not the root cause of the problem.

"Japan's current work system is not part of traditional Japanese culture, but a modern phenomenon which developed in order to catch up with Europe and the U.S.," he said. Dying to work: Japan Inc's foreign trainees. Japan Times

Scratch "Westerners" as many Japanese (and other non-westerners) believe this myth too. Substitute "The ignorant."

Thanks to labor lawyer Hiroshi Kawahito and the Lawyer's Network for Trainees for their work in getting the government to actually start to do something in this area.

"I'd like a chance t' shoot at a educated man once in my life."
Augustus McCrae. Retired Texas Ranger.*

I wouldn't call myself an educated man. Daydreamed through the 8th-11th grades. Finished university after the USAF on one of the versions of the G.I. Bill. Even had to spend the first year or so at a community college. Still, I thought I knew a few things until September of 2008 when I learned that I didn't know squat about the way the world works. I realized that I was an idiot and that I would never be like those who can confidently predict the future and know the way to solve the world's problems. I mean, I ain't no Nobel Prize winner like Paul Krugman. (They don't give those things out for nothing, you know.) Plus, I am an American which as everyone knows is the most poorly-educated group on earth. Why, just a week or so ago, there was more hand-wringing in the US over the fact that fewer US students were graduating from universities despite the absurdly inflated costs of doing so. What the hell, put the poorer of them in the military and send 'em to well-off foreign lands to "preserve freedom."

Fortunately, I now live in a country which is ideal for an idiot because of the ability to learn from the highly educated populace. I learn something new and valuable nearly every day. It could be a trivial thing like I learned Monday: People in Osaka walk faster than people in any other city on earth while folks in NY walk second fastest, and those in Tokyo walk third fastest. And here I had been thinking that most people in Tokyo walked at about the pace of a dead snail that is reading email on a cell phone. Stoopid me.

Or it could be something breathtaking and potentially world changing.

Tuesday started as a normal day. I had been given my usual Tuesday task of gathering information about some sort of puzzling New-Think, this time concerning Red Ocean/Blue Ocean. This had apparently been the subject of a popular 2005 business book which I had not read nor even heard of. These small details would not stop me from finding out as much as I could about the subject in 3-4 hours and then pretend I had a clue of what I was talking about.

Fortunately, I found an interview with the authors in which they clearly explained the concept:

We use the terms red oceans and blue oceans to describe the market universe. Red oceans are all of the industries in existence now... ...Blue oceans, in contrast denote all industries not in existence today...

I cut a little, but the above should be sufficient to prompt most to run out and either buy the book, Blue Ocean Strategy, or jump from a tall building. My understanding is that a good "blue ocean strategy" company will try to find customers and markets by thinking outside the box, throwing out the Old-Think, and establishing a new paradigm---all very unusual for a cutting-edge business book.

Oh, to the point of this post...

Later, I got to chat with a fellow whose major had been economics. He is now a fairly high level executive---shall we say in the top level of his organization which is one of the largest in his industry. We talked economics, as he is wont to do when he is not detailing some unique character traits of the Japanese (which seem incredibly commonplace to an uneducated flunky) and how the current environment is affecting his industry and company. For an international company heavily dependent on imported raw materials, the increasing demand for those raw materials is pushing up prices and eliminating profits.

Then he let me in on what may be a secret. There is sort of a cartel controlling prices on these raw materials. It involves a number of foreign countries, including one in South America in which a minority of folks are of European descent. (1-2%, according to him.)

This was interesting. We had discussed this before, but not in such detail. The way he was talking, I began to suspect the Illuminati, but after beating around the bush a bit, he told me: The Jews!

Oh yes, I should have known! It seems many here take for granted the "theory" that to some degree or another Jews control the US, or tend to believe in a general Jewish conspiracy to control the world, but this was the first that I had heard that they controlled a major raw materials market.

Later, as dim-witted and poorly educated as I---and all other Americans (meaning only the US in this case)---am, I began to get an idea. I don't know why I am the only one to think of this, but I may have solved not only my problems, but Japan's and perhaps the rest of the world's. With so much of the world's power and money in the hands of Jewish people, why not convert to Judaism? It may be immoral if one is not sincere, but it would seem to be a pretty simple way to resolve financial worries. I could certainly use the power and influence that this small percentage of the world's population is rumored to have, too. It may even make me more welcomed by some here.

And the risk of an aimless, goalless, thoughtless, clueless leadership class leading the country to the Fujiwara-ian glory of the past of poverty and hardship for all except the powerful elites? Could not Japan convert to Judaism and take advantage of that power and wealth? Isn't there some evidence that Japanese are actually Jewish anyway?

I feel honored that I may have stumbled into the secret of solving all the world's problems in a discussion with a man who, without a doubt, represents one of the most well-educated classes in the country. Not only that, I got to experience that mysterious Eastern wisdom which has been handed down through the generations, and which, despite the fact that we are in roughly the same age group, makes me feel like I was born yesterday while he has the accumulated knowledge of a zillion years.

Whereas these sorts of Jewish conspiracy theories would not be considered acceptable in many other countries, and might be taken as a sign of ignorance or even antisemitism, we can't use that sort of Old-Think about subscribers to the theories in Japan. Things are different here. It's all harmless and innocent. Sort of a quaint and cute provincialism. By the way, my acquaintance is very polite and seems a nice guy. So how could anything be wrong?

*From the 1989 TV mini-series, Lonesome Dove. I think ol' Gus would have saved a lot on powder, balls, and caps for his Walker Colt had he left the plains of Texas and Montana for my current neck of the woods.

I wanna go Stateside

It has been a tough week. I am not talking about the wonderful experience of riding sardine cans full of people. That might even be fun sometimes if some sweet young thing would snuggle up agin' me, but I always get middle-aged or older salarymen who seem to lose any fear of foreigners when it comes to getting within smooching distance.

I am not talking about trying to walk down a sidewalk without being hit by a self-centered, negligent fool on a bicycle. Nor am I talking about watching someone dawdle in 7-11 closely examining the final item of a 37.5 item purchase + bill paying until they see me start to move to the register with my single item and then rush to get there first. And I don't even consider being a victim of vehicular assault while attempting to use a crosswalk unusual.

No, I am not talking about the folks here. I am talking about the comment I read that some lady from overseas left on a photo on flicker. Seems a fellow had unknowingly committed a faux pas while doing bird photography and was approached by a birder and gently admonished. The comment read something like "I have been to Japan and was treated very politely. It is good to see that the good manners extend to animals too."

I would like to put my head in an oven, but all I have is a microwave. How is it possible that people can lose all common sense when it comes to things Japanese. Really, I do not believe the woman could possibly be as silly as her comment. How do the dolphins of Taiji feel, I wonder?

Been here too long.

Japanese university worries about classes!

In a stunning new development in Japanese higher education, a Japanese university---where most go for a four-year vacation before joining the drudgery of the salaryman life---has suddenly become concerned about its classes!

Tokyo's Meiji U. has pulled the plug on an on-campus screening of "The Cove" that was to have been followed by a Q and A with pic advisor and dolphin activist Ric O'Barry.

University officials said they feared Thursday's screening would interfere with classes. Variety

Perhaps students who might go to the screening and the following discussion would compare that to the content of the lecture they face should they for some reason actually attend a class. Or it might cause them to get too stimulated to sleep in said class.

Wa

Was going to write something about this, but Thomas Dillon at the Japan Times beat me to it. He's a bit too kind in his assessment.

You don't really walk with your feet here. You walk with your ears. For sharp hearing will alert the careful pedestrian as to what lies around the bend...

...Pedestrians do not squeal. Most of them anyway. So ears are of no help. To avoid being bumped or cut off you have to rely on your eyes.

But much of the pedestrian horde appears to be blind. Or only focused on their own destinations. Many march on impervious to the fact that between them and their goals walk other people.

We refer to this behavior as "group harmony" or "good manners" or something like that. And, Good Lord, we haven't even considered the negligent homicide-inclined mama-chari-ist cum (recently) road cyclist.

Unfinished random thoughts

Offenses committed by people from overseas remain vicious and adroit.* They aim at making crime inconspicuous by cooperating with Japanese Boryokudan** and by conspiring with fewer people for their crimes. Crimes in Japan 2007. Police Policy Research Center, National Police Academy.

It wasn't so long ago---under Koizumi and "Beautiful Country" Abe---that foreigners were being hit so hard with accusations of being near DNA-bound to be criminals that you would have thought we were all members of the Yakuza, or at least adroit enough to cooperate with them. I could barely go shopping back then because every time I reached for my wallet to buy something, I'd slap my own hand away for fear that I was picking my pocket.

One of the things that amazes me about a country in which everyone obeys the rules, in which the crime rate is said to be so low that women can safely walk the streets alone at night, that you can go out and leave your apartment unlocked without fear of being burglarized, a country in which guns are illegal for citizens to own, is the fact that folks don't obey the rules, Japanese women are not so dumb as to think they can walk the streets safely at night***, that only soon-to-be-educated victims leave their apartments unlocked, and where firearms ownership is not illegal. (Oops, apologies for that sentence.)

OK, forgetting the just-off-the-boat myths, I am intrigued by the fact that the rule-obeying, law-abiding Japanese that I see aren't so rule-obeying or law-abiding. That and the fact that the koban-sitters---at least where I live and work---don't seem to be motivated to go out of their way to enforce any laws until after an incident. I guess we could call this reactive law enforcement.

I watch people disobey all kinds of traffic laws (especially cycling laws, and many of these violations I understand to be criminal offenses) right in front of "police officers" who routinely ignore it. I live near a koban and can go outside any evening and watch dozens of people ride by with no lights on their bikes---illegal---and I have yet to see any of them stopped for it. I have seen cyclists blow right through crosswalks against the light and ride within a few feet of a cop standing at parade rest and all he could do was eyeball me. I saw a cop jump up out of his box and run 3 feet outside to yell at two kids riding double on a bike causing them to slow for a few meters before taking off while still riding double as our hero went back to sitting in his box. There is a traffic light about 20 meters from my local koban that folks occasionally run with no fear from the cops. Folks park illegally right in front of their noses---no reaction. I could continue for hours, but of course these are minor infractions, not the viscous stuff of foreigners. Just because folks seem to have little respect for these types of rules, laws, and koban sitters, doesn't mean anything beyond that. I'm sure.

You'll have to forgive me for skepticism when I hear how foreigners disobey Japanese laws more than the Japanese do themselves. And you'll have to forgive me when I start doubting simplistic comparisons of crime rates between countries when the laws are so different, when the enforcement of these laws are so different, and when the rate of reporting of crime by victims is likely different, and especially when the rhetoric of the folks who gather the statistics does not match the statistics.

Back when I was in the USAF, my friends in law enforcement at Yokota AB often remarked on the very high burglary rate in Tokyo. They knew 'cause lots of military personnel were victims of these mostly professional burglars. That was back before the "surge" in foreign residents here and nobody thought to claim that the criminals were non-Japanese. I do not recall ever seeing such a thing in the Japanese press though. The burglaries that most recently became notorious were mostly blamed on Chinese and others of foreign origin. Have all the Japanese burglars retired?

*As opposed to the kinder, gentler, more innocent and naive crimes committed by the natives.

**Yakuza. I'd guess that the yakuza is a Japanese problem and maybe if something more effective were done about that problem, the vicious, adroit, foreign criminals would have to find another way to make their crimes inconspicuous. (Hire Japanese thugs?)

***I have been repeatedly surprised at how much attention Japanese women pay to the lighting of an area, how well-traveled it is, and all sorts of things that I, as a man, pay no mind. Last Saturday, I was walking with a friend through Denenchofu, an expensive, upper-middle class/wealthy area that is notorious for burglaries, and she immediately noticed (at 3PM) what areas would be risky to walk at night due to isolation/ lack of adequate lighting. What's she afraid of, I wonder? This is Japan.

2:15PM: Edited

Crime in Japan: An utterly simplistic view

...crime, especially violent crime, is dependent on external factors (the lack of availability of guns) and cultural factors (emphasis on honor and group harmony.) In the U.S., with the incredible ease of obtaining weapons and the emphasis on people "doing their own thing," a much higher level of violent crime should not be a surprise...

...The ease of obtaining guns also automatically causes crimes to be of a much more violent nature in the U.S. then in Japan... Crime in Japan

Huh?

Folks who are stabbed to death with freely available, razor-sharp, 8 inch-long kitchen knives must die less violently and be less dead than those shot to death. Probably die more honorably and in a more harmonious way too.

Speaking of health care and nutjobs

Michele Bachmann, who is running for some office in the US---I haven't bothered to check or care which:

"said she had it on good authority that in Japan the government puts people who criticize the health care system “on a list” and denies them treatment." Gail Collins, NYT

Perhaps that explains some of the problems we've had. No, not in Japan, where I must now assume that I am on a list, but in the US. We allow crazy people to run for office.

While unsuccessfully searching for the exact quote by Ms. Bakamann, I found Frank Rich's column, No One is to Blame for Anything, which is mainly about Greenspan and Rubin et al not accepting responsibility for the financial crisis [edited to add that I should add that it goes beyond that to the Pope, Tiger Woods and more]. Then I did something stupid. Something I almost never do on newspaper articles. I read the comments. I discovered:

#58 It is not in the American character to say I take responsibility because I did something wrong. In Britain, the cabinet ministers take responsibility and resign pretty routinely. In Japan, the senior officials apologize and sometimes commit suicide because they brought so much shame.

Not sure about Britain, but I am wondering in which Japan the latter occurs. Must happen a lot in that Japan for everyone talks about it. In this one, it seems senior officials deny, lie, stall, bluff, duck, and do anything but apologize until there is no other possible alternative and then maybe give some sort of murky, stylized formal apology. (Of course, some folk never get an apology. Ask the former sex slaves of WW2.) Not sure Americans would be satisfied with these apologies once they got used to them. Especially the whiny-teary-insincerey part. Suicide? Quick, name the last three senior officials who did. The last two? OK, one?

#55 As to the Catholic Church, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if the Pope was Japanese rather than German. Reminds me of...[edited for relevancy]...I don't suppose the world could expect a Japanese Pope to commit seppuku (presumably, it would be a sin) but I think we would get a sincere personal apology and a resignation.

A sincere personal apology from someone in that type of position? Oh, I'll just bet. That is about as likely as having a Japanese Pope to begin with. Should it have been a scandal at a well-respected, traditional, and conservative Japanese institution, I wonder how we'd find out about it? What domestic newspaper or or media would report such a thing?

"Weird" US

It's nothing new that many folk in the US, and many in Japan, view one anothers country as exotic, weird, and so different as to be incomprehensible. Perhaps a little less so from the Japanese side, but that's just a personal observation.

Try this: Ask a Japanese friend if he/she thinks that a non-Japanese (or a Westerner) can ever understand Japan. Then ask him/her if a Japanese can understand the US (or any other Western country). Bet the answer to the first is "no" and the second is "yes."

It's been over a decade since I returned to Japan. I have rarely visited the US in that decade and it is becoming harder and harder for me to understand what is going on there. No amount of reading newspapers, watching TV news, reading books, or whatever really gives me the same feeling of grasping the "sense" of the culture and why things are happening and what people really feel and believe. Most Americans I know have been here for years too, so I don't gain much insight from talking to them.

I have not really understood the feelings in the US since Sept 11 occurred. I could read about it, I could get angry, and feel the emotions that most Americans felt that day, but I have never really grasped why we seem to have made the "un-American" choice to trade a little freedom for a little security (and theoretically lose both). I can't figure out the Tea Party; the Texas Board of Education; the extreme partisanship that seems to prevent anything from being attempted, let alone accomplished; the apparent surrender of any privacy; the suicide of the Republican Party which may be followed by their resurrection made possible by the Democrat Party (and citizens themselves who can't seem to compromise on anything).

I am much more comfortable with things Japanese---except for the exclusionist fantasy of nihonjinron---than I am with the US and I feel (right or wrong) that I have a better grasp of what is going on here than I do of the US.

I wonder just how people who have never been to the US; who have never had more than the standard media presentation of America; and have had no more than the K-12 education system view of it can assume that they know diddly-sh*t about it. But I still meet people who think that they do and are willing to debate the point. It is like---to steal former Sen. Phil Graham's words---"dueling with an unarmed man."

I really like Ms. O, my long-time friend and tutor, but like many, she seems to believe some of the Fujiwara Masahiko crap. I do enjoy pointing out the fallacies of Ol' Barcode though.

Unbelievable! Shocking! Flabbergasting!

This has actually been published on a major website:

Analysis of an Apology: A Japanese thing?

The apology from Toyota President Akio Toyoda is being interpreted by the U.S. media as a uniquely Japanese thing...

...The media... ...is often trying to make Japan out to be a mystical place where everyone lives by some ancient samurai--or Buddhist, take your pick--code. In short, a special, inscrutable culture that defies understanding...

...What I learned in my 10 years in Japan is that the Japanese culture is different of course but not nearly as different as unwitting Americans make it out to be...

The author, Brooke Crothers, does have the advantage of actually having lived here and knows something about the country. It sounds like the same Japan I live in and not the fantasyland version I read about so often. The world must be coming to an end.

Thank you CNET and Brooke Crothers. One of the best short articles I have read on Japan in years. A must read even if he is simply stating what anyone who lives here (or who has actual knowledge of Japan) already knows.

(He specifically mentioned the ABC news report in which it was stated that by bowing in apology it was somehow samurai-related---sort of like offering his head. Oh yes, of course. And everything I do is cowboy-related.)

Edited at 11:25 and 11:59pm