“Tokyo has two faces. One is the one everyone knows: the economic power, the bright, shining place where all the political power gathers and all the people of strength come together,”....
....“But there’s another face, the place where ordinary people live. They can’t take part in the beautiful Tokyo – it’s kind of scary to them– but this is the Tokyo I write about.” Novelist Miyuke Miyabe: thestar.com

I almost never read fiction, but this actual sounds interesting. A view of Tokyo/Japan that is not the normal Western fantasy land or neo-bushidoist delusion.

Her new novel, The Devil’s Whisper, will be her fifth translated into English. I suspect it will be more interesting and certainly more valuable than wasting one's time and money on Fujiwara Masahiko's nonsensical rant.

What can you do?

Some things are difficult to adjust to when you move to a new place---especially to another country. After years there are still things I cannot adjust to.

I am making every effort not to be offended by the offensive word gaijin. It's a waste of time. A lot of non-Japanese of non-Asian origins use it for themselves anyway. Either they don't know or don't care. Even a large number of Japanese consider it offensive. I saw on wikipedia in the discussion area on the gaijin page where some non-Japanese had even said that hen na* gaijin(!!!)was more or less a compliment. (They removed most of the references to the term gaijin as being offensive. Now it just gets a brief mention with some quotes by foreigners using gaijin to refer to themselves.)

I'll get over that to a large degree. I haven't gotten used to the way many will break out in a trot to get ahead of someone in line. I notice this in convenience stores and grocery stores. In convenience stores, someone will hang around staring at a package of instant noodles trying to make the difficult decision or whether or not to buy it, but as soon as they see someone else moving toward the cash register, they suddenly decide not to buy it and rush to be first in line. If they have a full basket and the other person has a pack of gum, there ain't gonna be no polite move to let that other person go first. OK, so I have to remember that the point is to get ahead of everyone else whether or not I actually need to.

The sniffling. This drives a lot of westerners nuts. Got try to get over that too. People aren't gonna start using handkerchiefs. Sneezing and coughing openly on others, especially in trains? Well it's rude and disgusting to Japanese too, most especially if they are the one who gets the slobber shower. But then again, nobody will ever say anything to the offending swine. Just pretend nothing happened.

But what about the snot-sniffers who wipe their nose on their hand and then handle your food and your money with said snot-covered hand? What is the proper etiquette in this case? It has happened to me 3-4 times in the last year. All but one was in Denenchofu/Okusawa. Tonight I got an urge for a McDonald's 80 yen hamburger. Hell, one or two pieces of processed, freeze dried, and microwaved beef byproducts should be OK. I had quit going to the Denenchofu McDonalds because I felt that it was too dirty to eat in, but I figured it would be ok to get something to go.

Well, the old girl at the register had the sniffles. She did not have a tissue. Or gloves. Gloves would have made no difference anyway, because as she was taking my order, she wiped her runny nose twice on the palm of her hand. She did not play with the mucus as I have seen many do after a sneeze, cough, or good healthy nose wipe (on trains and other places) nor did she wash it off. She handed me back my change with her virus-covered snotty hand and then went over and grabbed my burgers and put them in the bag. What should I have done? What's the wonderfully polite Japanese way? What would ol' Barcode head Fujiwara Masahiko have recommended as a neo-bushidoist? I know what I would have said in the US or England or other English-speaking countries. Perhaps "Please wash your hands before touching my food." I could have said a similar thing in Japanese. But I didn't. I would have become a troublesome, complaining henna gaijin. And the same thing would happen again and again. Nothing would really change.

It's not that this sort of thing doesn't happen elsewhere, it's that I am not used to people doing it right in front of my face. Since they do, I suspect that it isn't really something so unacceptable here. Like the constant sniffling. Which is better to have someone handle your food with snotty hands in front of you, or use snotty hands to handle it without your knowing it? I do know that you can get fired in the US for it---I knew a girl who was fired because she kept picking or touching her nose around the salad bar at the place she worked. Would she have been fired here? Never mind, just enjoy your sushi.

*In case you don't know, hen (na) means weird. And "weird outsider" ain't no compliment.

Japan to hunt humpbacks

for "science" of course. These are not the minke which they usually hunt and which can arguable withstand some hunting. I haven't heard anyone claim humpbacks are numerous enough to hunt. Regardless, they will be hunted soon. One gets the very strong feeling that it is being done for spite, not science.

Japan said on Tuesday it was pushing ahead with a controversial plan to hunt humpback whales after other nations at the International Whaling Commission refused a compromise offer.

Australia and New Zealand have warned it would be a "provocative act." Article HERE.

Quick Japan news

SOS stickers going up in every car: ("JR East took the move after an incident last summer on the JR Hokuriku Line in which a man managed to rape a woman in a train because none of her fellow passengers alerted railway personnel.") From the Japan Times. Bushido?

Have today's Japanese lost their empathy? (Call to a suicide counciling hotline: "What do you think you are accomplishing by sitting there?" some have shouted. "Why don't you stop wasting your time on this useless counseling!" and ...."the percentage of Japanese who said it was important to help one another was the second lowest among the 18 countries surveyed."Is this new? Has Japan moved up a notch?) A hand-wringing editorial about them thar' ornery youngsters and others by the Yomiuru Shimbun.

University student arrested for abandoning newborn baby. Mainichi Daily News.

Woman stabbed to death in front of her Tokyo Home. Mainichi Daily

Japan promises it won't export toxic waste to the Philippines. Mainichi Daily (How thoughtful! "Environmental groups such as Greenpeace have urged the senators to reject the pact because of a provision allowing the trade of articles "which are fit only for disposal," as well as scrap and waste from manufacturing or processing operations.")

Foreign students can't start ekiden. Asahi News. Discrimination, racism in Japan?? NOOOOO!!!!
They have a real good reason for keeping non-Japanese out of the All Japan High School Ekiden Champonships. It's to make the race interesting for Japanese. If ya can't beat 'em, cheat!! Keep 'em out. Ware ware Nihonjin!! Damned baka gaijin anyway.

Baby found in garbage collection site. Asahi News

UN criticizes Japan on sex slaves. Foreigners are such a nuisance. Forbes.

I am confused. Wasn't long ago when we were hearing how dangerous non-Japanese in Japan are, but it seems nearly all the crime and nasty things done are done by Japanese!!!Perhaps foreigners should be afraid of Japanese.

Girl power

Not long ago, I was in downtown Tokyo going down a flight of stairs to the subway. The stairs were probably a 20 foot climb. A mother and a little girl of maybe 2-3 years old approached the bottom of the stairs. The little girl gave the stairs a very quick once over and said (in Japanese) "Bothersome" and immediately turned around and walked away. Her mother followed after her and they apparently found another route to street level.

Quick Japan news update

Japan "buys whaling support" It can buy US elected representatives, so Laos is a piece of cake.

Mental illness growing in Japan. Would it be unfair to say that this explains Masahiko Fujiwara and his popular book refuting logic?

Couple in Japan arresting on baby dumping. Abe's beautiful country falling a little short? Thank god he and his ilk are fighting that by denying WW2 actions. However, this will give the nutjobs more ammo to return to a more authoritarian government.

Gunman allegedly kills policeman in Japan One of the officers has died. This will not cause much of a long term crack down on the yakuza and its rightist allies.

Cop sent up for post office robberies. Other countries have crooked cops too, so it's ok.

Father's retrial may never come: Nepalese family standing a lonely vigil. Guilty or not, it seems that Japanese courts will accept circumstantial evidence to convict a suspect. Just not in the Lucie Blackman murder. I am sure there is a logical explanation---or maybe not. After all, Masahiko Fujiwara the mathematician, more or less claims logic doesn't really fit Japan.

Thirty years ago

I saw a young girl and her sister with their parents the other day in Isetan, the department store of choice for young, hip families in the Tokyo area, probably shopping for Children's Day (Kodomo no Hi), which was last Saturday.

They were looking at clothes in the kids section where designer T-shirts and jeans are sold with price tags to the tune of 25,000 yen or more.... Japan Times Online

Kaori Shoji writes about some of the differences in children's lifestyles between now and 30 years ago.

I wasn't living in Japan 30 years ago, but I certainly remember my first visit at about that time. And I know what my wife's childhood was like through her stories and old photos. It has been a huge change in the Tokyo area. People tend to believe that the Japanese are rich or at least fairly well off. This isn't completely true today, but 30 years ago, it was even less true.

I grew up in a pretty rural, isolated part of the U.S. but all-in-all, my family was much better off than my wife's lower-middle class family. They were relatively lucky in that they had a house and did not have to live in a flimsy apartment (I mean apartment, not the so-called "mansion" of Japan. Mansions are better built and more expensive.) They could not afford a camera, so the photos she has are from her schools or the occasionally photo taken by a friend whose family was wealthy enough to afford a camera. Naturally, her family owned no car, and hardly ever traveled outside Kanto. Japan in the 70s and earlier was not rich. One could argue that most folks were poor, especially compared to Americans.

Given that, it is amazing how far the country has come in that time. It's easy to criticize trade policy, education, "Japan Inc." or other things, but it has worked out pretty well so far for Japan.

Kyoto Protocol and Japan

I have to admit, once agin' I'm all confused. Sort of like when I repeatedly hear how polite folks are in Japan and then notice that it ain't exactly true.

Anyway, as everyone knows, people in Japan have a deep mysterious (and genetic) respect for, and love of nature that no other people have. It's the only country with four clearly distinct seasons so this is natural.

But I wonder if this is true, then why don't we get homes with effective insulation? Hot water pipes are bare, so we waste energy by losing the water's heat much more quickly than we would if they were insulated. Walls and ceilings have a bare minimum of insulation too. Windows are often single-pane. Our apartment costs as much as an apartment in Manhattan cost me in the fall of 1999, but 2 of our windows are not even designed to close tightly---air always leaks through. Not loving nature as much as the natives do, I had to put plastic sheeting over them to keep heated or air conditioned air inside.

I wonder why things are wrapped individually at the grocery store checkout in smaller plastic bags. Why do I get a plastic straw with every small 500ml juice or milk carton? Can't we just open it and drink from the carton? Why do the clerks at Precce wrap each glass bottle in a sheet of plastic foam? Do the bottles often break when carrying them in Japan? If so, does that small thin piece of foam help? Naturally these things originate in ancient Japanese tradition and culture, but one would assume that with such a great love of the natural environment that perhaps nature's health would take precedence over customs. But then again, I am not a pure Japanese, so I probably misunderstand the purity of heart that allows this seeming contradiction.

I also wonder, when I walk through Akihabara---Akiba---or other such areas in the middle of the summer, why are many shops operating their air conditioning full blast with the front doors open? Yes, the cool air is very attractive and can make one want to enter the shop, but wouldn't a nature-loving, Fujiwara-reading, neo-bushidoist be more concerned about the waste and environmental damage?

These are just a few things which seem to contradict the love of nature and the stance against global warming attributed to Japan. It seems that the only motivation for energy conservation is the extraordinary expense to consumers. Wow, that seems so human. I am sure that there is an explanation for all this. I am also pretty sure it is all just cultural thing and even though this stuff seems like waste, it really isn't and my perception is all due to the fact that I don't understand Japan. It's different here. Up is down. Black is white. Coercion is not coercion.

Child porn not so bad either

Several years ago the Japanese government was embarrassed into taking action against the huge child pornography industry in Japan. (The troublesome US was going to put Japan on a watch list.) It was one of the largest sources of child porn in the world. (I remember going to a so-called "love hotel" in the late 80s and turning on the TV to a video of naked 10-12 year old girls swimming. How erotic.)

However, as with everything else, child porn in Japan can be explained and excused by referring to culture and tradition. Especially among some men---don't say "perverts," it shows a lack of cultural sensitivity. That would be using western values. I don't see or hear of many adult Japanese women clamoring for child porn. But let's remember Fujiwara's bushido. Women didn't really have an equal position under the wonderful pure ethics of bushido. So who cares what they think? Shut up and serve the tea woman, then maybe you'll find a good man to serve as a wife.

Magazines focusing on preteen girls in thongs may not be pornography since it is hard to define legally. I wouldn't doubt that you could find similar images in other countries too, so therefore it must be ok.

Anyway, The Japan Times Online has an article about the latest trend in cutting edge Akihabara Japan. One of the mothers of a child model in this article has no problem with he daughter posing in a magazine which sexually arouses men. She thinks her daughter has a "neutral sexless beauty" (Is she an idiot?) and:

"The industry doesn't want me to talk about the details of what's going on behind closed doors," she said. But she hinted that she has seen some mothers forcing their crying children to put on sexy swimsuits for the camera.

The really bad, disgusting thing to many folks here is not this, but women touching up their makeup on a train. Oh, horrors!

From the Japan Times Online by Jun Hongo HERE

US pretends to believe Abe

He has never, ever, retracted his comments that the Japanese military forced women into sex slavery in WW2. However, he claims to support the 1993 quasi-official apology that says Japan did do so. Many in the US government accept this. America's friends are nationalists who believe that Japan was essentially a victim of WW2 and are determined to revise history no matter what the rest of the world thinks---including the US. So therefor, we will just pretend he is not lying. In the near term, it seems to be best.

Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said that Abe "expressed regret that his comments were not as he intended for them to be and expressed great sympathy with people who had been placed in that kind of situation."

...U.S. officials now say that Abe's recent public statements supporting the 1993 apology have been convincing and that Bush is unlikely to bring up the matter during meetings Thursday and Friday with Abe. From ABC News.

His comments were "not as he intended them to be." Of course not. He didn't intend them to raise such a stink. He did say what he personally has said he believed for years. Japan's Imperial Army did not force women to become sex slaves. It was contractors. This if true, makes a huge difference. To the right-wingers and most likely more and more Japanese. That is what they want. That is Abe's "Beautiful Country."

Is the US making a mistake jumping into bed with Japanese nationalists? They are conservatives, but Japanese conservatives are not in any way American-style conservatives. Well, traditionally. American conservatives are now big government, intrusive government folks too. But there are still huge differences.

Japanese nationalists also go a lot farther than denying the sex slave issue. They have simlar views of the Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, WW2, the Tokyo Tribunal, (which is easy to criticize due to its sloppiness) and the San Francisco Treaty, as well as all other issues related to the outside world as well as Japanese society, past and present. The criticism of "too many" human rights, and all these "gaffes" that the nationalist make are made because they believe what they say. They are not really gaffes. .

Murderer still at large.

Lindsay Hawker's murderer (Tatsuya Ichihashi), has still not been captured after he ran away barefoot from 9 Japanese "police officers" as they surrounded his apartment while investigating her disappearance. They soon found her body in a sand-filled bathtub on his balcony. She had been beaten and strangled.

Was this unusual in "safe" Japan? Well, murder is unusual in most places. But the stalking, assaults, rapes and so on do happen. The Japan Times has another article about this:

Reported stalking cases likely just the tip of the iceberg.

"A whiny male voice asked me in Japanese if I was Laura," Fitch recalls of the morning two years ago. "I was tired, I wasn't thinking about who he could be, and I answered yes. "Then he said, 'Is this the Laura that lives at such and such an address?' and I said yes again. Then he said, 'You just got out of the shower, right? ' " Fitch explains, adding that she had a small window in her bathroom that looked out to the front of her building. "At that point I clued in and freaked out. I hung up immediately, checked my locks and called my friend who lived next door...

...After receiving her first freaky phone call, Fitch went straight to the police, who she says were "not too concerned"..."I was told that he was just a boy having fun, that I should change my number and forget about it....

...."I could hear him jacking off on the phone and he asked me if I had ever seen a Japanese penis and then he would proceed to blow his load"...."However, that still wasn't enough for the police and they said that he had to want to date me"...

How, you wonder, can The Japan Times be so open about stories that other Japanese newspapers gloss over or ignore? One, it is made for foreign residents, and secondly it is not a member of the kisha, the "press club" used by the government to control and manipulate the press by eliminating access to official sources to those who piss it off.

The Victim Support Center in Tokyo is at (03) 5287-3338 should one need to contact an organization who will help with a similar problem when the Japanese "police" are too busy playing mahjong to help.

Little Black Sambo is back in Japan.

(Note: This post has been self-censored.)
It had been pulled years ago because of foreign protests about its racist connotations--especially "Sambo" which is a racist epithet for black people. The Japanese, who are said to have no racist feelings towards anyone, were truly shocked to hear that the book was considered racist.

Here is an interesting post with more details and analysis: http://www.pliink.com/mt/marxy/archives/000579.html

The Real Japan is

at my station, Kajigaya! I thought this place was pretty boring and not much to see or do. Then I read this article http://www.hackwriters.com/slowtrain.htm and discovered that it is the real Japan as opposed to Tokyo which I guess is the fake Japan. The writer compared Disneyland in the US to Shibuya and Shinjuku in Tokyo and implied that believing that Disneyland was the real USA was the same as believing Shibuya or Shinjuku is the real Japan. I don't know, but I sorta think Disneyland is an amusement park and Shinjuku and Shibuya are real parts of Tokyo where average people work and live. Both are in real Japan. You needn't come to Kajigaya to see housewives shop in Tokyu store, you can see that in Shibuya. You can see people chatting and women with children. So I wonder why Kajigaya is real and the other two aren't? It seems to be an endless search for a myth. Anyway, here's a pic of a mysterious real Japanese photo shop.

Oh, by the way, contrary to the author, Kawasaki motorcycles are neither made in Kawasaki City nor named for it. Actually he has written some interesting stuff, but I was a bit surprised by this article.