1993 年 10 月 15 日 第三種郵便物認可 毎月 1 日発行 Vol. 45 第 2 号 No. 1 Shimbun 2013 年 2 月 1 日発行

February 2013
Volume 45 No. 2¥400

In country
Remembering photojournalist Greg Daviswith a Club exhibition of his work from Vietnam+ Beate’s gift of equality Angry Tohoku mayor Manga’s new directions

Number 1 Shimbun | February 2013

In this issue
The Front Page		 4 		President's message
Georges Baumgartner
Join the movie committee
The empress, the violinist, the librarian
Win cash for coverage
Click on thisSteve McClure
Beate's gift to Japanese women

Todd Crowell6

Purev Erdene Batochir, Mongoliin UnenDavid McNeill

8

Rebuilding with red tape in Rikuzentakata

Julian Ryall

10

Manga gets animatedTyler Rothmar

11

An interview with FCCJ
Executive Chef Tetsuo Kobayashi

Lucy Birmingham

12

Dark skies for the Dreamliner

Geoff Tudor

14

FCCJ EXHIBITION
From A Personal Requiem to Silent Spring
Remembering Greg Davis

Masako Sakata
Philip Jones Griffiths

15
16

Andrew Pothecary

18Book Review: Persona:
A Biography of Yukio Mishima

2012 Autumn Golf Tournament		New members		
New in the library		

19
19
19

Heard at the Club

“There are several reasons why
the reconstruction work is so slow,
but the biggest problem is the				government’s
				way of thinking.”
Futoshi Toba,
Mayor of Rikuzentakata,
page 10

Volume 45, Number 2

February 2013contact the editors

no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Editor Gregory Starr
Publisher John R. Harris
Art Director Andrew Pothecarywww.forbiddencolour.com
Assistant Editor Geoff Tudor
Editorial Assistant Naomichi Iwamura
Photo Coordinator Akiko Miyake
FCCJ BOARD OF DIRECTORS
President Georges Baumgartner,
Swiss Radio and Television
1st Vice President Martin Koelling,
Handelsblatt
2nd Vice President
Masaaki Fukunaga, The Sanmarg
Secretary Suvendrini Kakuchi,Inter Press Service
Treasurer Jonathan Soble, Financial Times
Directors at Large
Lucy Birmingham, freelance
Yoshio Murakami, IHT
Yozo Hasegawa, BS Japan and Radio Nikkei News
Tetsuo Jimbo, Video News Network, Inc
Kanji Charles Pomeroy
FCCJ COMMITTEE CHAIRSAssociate Members Liaison Joan Anderson
DeRoy Memorial Scholarship+ Professional Development Masaaki Fukunaga
Entertainment Sandra Mori
Exhibitions Bruce Osborn
Finance Jonathan Soble
Food & Beverage Michael Penn
Freedom of the Press Khaldon AzhariHouse & Property Martin Koelling
Human Resources Masaaki Fukunaga
Improvement Mary Corbett, Ed MernerInformation, Technology Policy Council
Albert Siegel
Koeki Yoshio Murakami
Library/Workroom Suvendrini Kakuchi,
Koichi Ishiyama
Membership Monzurul Huq
Marketing Advisory Mary Corbett
Movie Edwin Karmiol, Karen Severns
Professional Activities Beryl Tung, Rick Wallace
Photo Archive Lucy Birmingham
Publications John R. Harris
Shadan Hojin Kaz Abiko, Yoshisuke Iinuma
Special Project Haruko WatanabeSports Duke Ishikawa
Kanji Advisory Panel Charles Pomeroy
Foreign Press in Japan Justin McCurry

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan
Yurakucho Denki Building, North Tower
20F, 1-7-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0006.
Tel: (03) 3211-3161 Fax: (03) 3211-3168
www.fccj.or.jp
Published by the FCCJAll opinions contained within Number 1 Shimbun arethose of the authors. As such, these opinions do notconstitute an official position of Number 1 Shimbun, theeditor or the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
Please pitch and send articles and photographs, oraddress comments to no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Cover photograph: Greg Davis

FCCJ

3

THE FRONT PAGE

FINDING NEW WAYS TO ADD
value to membership in the
FCCJ is one of the keys tosecuring the Club’s future.
And we must communicate
the value we offer.
So I am pleased tocommunicate that our relationship with the
Tokyu Group now affords FCCJ Members a
range of discounts and benefits at Tokyu hotels,
golf courses and fitness clubs across Japan.
For example, on weekdays FCCJ Members
can now “stay and play” at the Katsuura Tokyu
Golf Resort for ¥10,000 per person/night. And
just by showing your FCCJ card you can visit
any Oasis fitness club for ¥1,575.
Perhaps more crucial to Members who coverstories across Japan, and to those who live
outside Tokyo, are discounts on hotels like the
new Capitol Tokyu, the Kyoto Tokyu Hotel and
the Pan-Pacific Yokohama. On some rooms at
the 5-star Capitol Tokyu, we can get 60 percent
off – rates that appear to be lower than you
find on the internet. Still, ¥22,000 per night isbeyond the budget of many Members.
So I have asked Rike Wooten (now advisor
to the General Manager) to request a hotel
deal near the Club that fits the budgets of ourmany Members who live outside Tokyo andcome into the city once or twice a week. And
our alumni who return to visit from overseas.
Or for those little occasions when a hotel room
is convenient. Ideally, we want something like
¥7,000/night within walking distance of theClub. We will let you know what we can get.
Some of the discount offers change withthe season, so check with the FCCJ Front Deskfor details. You may also want to sign up as a
“Tokyu Comfort member.” This program offers
hotel discounts from 10-50 percent, latecheckout and frequent stayer points. FCCJ
Members need not pay the ¥500 initiation fee.
Adding new value to membership is good,
but we need to use that value to recruit new
Members. And we need to attract more morebanquet business and “power breakfasts” –because the FCCJ badly needs more revenue.
I have been criticized for painting, withtypically Swiss pessimism, too dark a pictureof the Club’s finances. But if you look at theexpenditures we face just to keep the current
facilities running – to say nothing aboutbadly needed renovations – you will seethat I am not exaggerating. We have madesignificant progress but we are not out of thewoods yet.

— Georges Baumgartner

4

Join the Movie Committee . . .
. . . 7 PM ON MARCH 27 FOR A VERY SPECIAL SNEAK PREVIEW EVENT. Not only will
they be screening Herb & Dorothy: 50 X 50, the hotly anticipated follow-up to our SRO
screening of Herb & Dorothy in 2012, but Dorothy Vogel herself will be present for the
Q&A. Hailed as art world visionaries, the aging, diminutive Vogels stuffed their onebedroom Manhattan apartment full of thousands of works of Conceptual and Minimalist
art over three decades, amassing a collection worth millions of dollars. And then theygave them all away. 50 X 50 documents the final chapter, as the former postal worker andthe librarian oversee an unprecedented program whereby one museum in each of the 50
states receives 50 works from their collection, a total of 2,500 pieces. Not to be missed.
(US/Japan, 2013; 90 min.; in English with Japanese subtitles)

CARLA HERNANDEZ

President's message

Number 1 Shimbun | February 2013

Empress Michiko and FCCJ Librarian Kanako Nakayama were among the dignitaries who
attended a Jan. 17 performance at Kioi Hall by Mexican violin virtuoso
Adrian Justus, whose Japan tour included concerts in Tokyo, Nagoya and Onjuku.

Win cash for coverage!
THE JAPAN SOCIETY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA IN COOPERATION WITH THE U.S.-Asia
Technology Management Center of Stanford University hosts the Japan-U.S. Innovation
Awards Program. One new category which may be of interest to Club members is the“Untold Story in Innovation Award,” in which the winner will receive a prize of $3,000; tworunners-up will receive $1, 000 each.
The program invites professional and part-time writers alike to submit a one- or twopage pitch proposal in English of an unpublished instance of a successful innovation
within a large and already established Japanese company or a foreign company that does
business in Japan. Finalists will be asked to write the article for judging.
Those interested in entering should go to www.usjinnovate.org. Note that the deadline
has been pushed back from Jan. 30 to Feb. 19, U.S. time. (AK)FCCJ

Steve McClure looks for laughs incyberspace JapanYou laugh so hard you crack the walls.
– “Greasy Heart,” Jefferson Airplane

YOU MIGHT THINK THERE’D BE LOTS
of humorous or satirical blogs about
Japan. Certainly there’s ample material
for an online Swift or Wilde.
But you’d be wrong. While there’s
no shortage of English-language blogs
dispensing words of wisdom about
Japanese politics, economics and society,there aren’t many Japan-related blogs
that score high on the laughometer (atleast intentionally).
One of the few is the Our Man in Abikoblog. Ourmani Nabiko (geddit??) says hebegan writing the blog “as an attempt
to be the Matt Drudge or Guido Fawkesof Japan.” That didn’t pan out, becauseof what he describes as his lack ofknowledge of Japan or interest in “thedaily ups and downs of breaking news.”
Our Man then tried his hand atsatirizing Japanese media and politics
in the Private Eye (jugular) vein. But hesays that was like picking low-hanging
fruit – “unpopular, slightly sour fruitat that.”That didn’t stop him from applying hissatirical scalpel to a recently publishedtaidan-style interview between Education
Minister Hakubun Shimomura and realestate entrepreneur Toshio Motoya, who
disseminates his rightist political views
through his Apple Town website. Our Man
eviscerates the pair’s revanchist ravingsby slipping surreal riffs of his own into
the text of the taidan. Sample: “You’vebeen hanging out in think tanks too long.
You should get out more, you know, reada book or watch a movie.”
Sometimes this works, sometimes it’s
just gratuitous: with rotten fruit hanging
this low, doing a reductio ad absurdum canbe overkill.
Some of you may fondly recall theCharisma Man comic strip that used tobe published in The Alien (which laterchanged its name to Japanzine) – easily
the best English-language magazine everto come out of Nagoya. The strip, whichbrilliantly mocked the whole teachingEnglish-in-Japan shtick, seems to be on
permanent sabbatical. But past episodes

FCCJ

chronicling the adventures of theCanadian burger-flipper who becomesa babe magnet in Japan are available
online.
And although its print edition is now
in the same existential category as the
Kano sisters’ virginity, Japanzine is stillgoing strong in cyberia. Here one canread the “Here’s Kazuhide” mock Q&A
forum featuring (presumably fictitious)
salaryman Kazuhide Otani. It’s funny – ifyou like sophomoric, racist humor.
Occasionally inspired, nonetheless.
The unfortunately named Fuckedgaijin
isn’t a humor/satire blog per se. It’s
more of a forum for non-Japanese tovent their frustrations about living in“this blessed land” (to use Shisaku
blogger Michael Cucek’s term forJapan) as well as passing on random
observations about things Japanese. But
there’s an ironic, verging on humorous,
tone to much of the discussions – likeone about the brouhaha concerning
Young Magazine’s publication of a photo of
AKB48 member Tomomi Kasai. It shows
her topless and being fondled frombehind by a young Caucasian boy.
Sometimes the funniest or just plain
weird stuff about Japan is found in thestraightest of news stories. Here’s a
gem from a story by Hiroko Tabuchi,
published in the Jan. 7 edition of The
New York Times about the Fukushimaradiation cleanup:

Discount LexisNexis
Subscriptions
for FCCJ Members
The FCCJ is pleased to offer
members a substantial discount on
subscriptions to LexisNexis’ news
database service, Nexis.com
The Members-only deal
allows for flat-rate access at¥7,900 per month – offering
big savings on a service that
normally costs ¥126,000 per month

The service will be billed by theClub. The FCCJ benefits from all
subscriptions sold under thisarrangement.
Nexis provides access to news andinformation from more than 34,000
sources, including Kyodo News, Jiji,
Yonhap, Xinhua, AP, Reuters, AFP,
all major world newspapers andspecialist news sources. Also
included is a database of U.S. andinternational company information,
biographical databases, country
profiles and a U.S. legal database.

For those already in on the secret,the application form is available
on the FCCJ website or from the
19F Club office.

Japanese officials said adapting overseas
technologies presented a particular challenge. “Evenif a method works overseas, the soil in Japan isdifferent, for example,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama,
deputy director at the environment ministry, who isin charge of the Fukushima cleanup. “And if we haveforeigners roaming around Fukushima, they mightscare the old grandmas and granddads there.”
It’s nice to see the government
supporting satire and parody byemploying comedians like Mr.
Nishiyama. Who needs gaijin court jesters
with homegrown talent like this? ❶Steve McClure has lived in Tokyo since 1985. Formerly
Billboard magazine’s Asia Bureau Chief, he now publishes
the online music-industry newsletter McClureMusic.com.

5

HISTORY

Number 1 Shimbun | February 2013

A

merican women have yet to succeed
in getting their own rights secured in
the U.S. Constitution, but more than 60
years ago, one young American woman
managed to enshrine women’s rights inJapan’s U.S.-imposed postwar constitution. It was Beate Sirota Gordon who
wrote the language of Article 24 thatguarantees equal rights for women.
Gordon died over New Year’s at age 89,
the last surviving member of the small
cadre of military and civilian Occupation
officials who drafted Japan’s post-war
charter that is still in force and has never been amended. Her memory lives onwith Japan’s feminists, who often refer toher handiwork as “Beate’s Gift.”
Although the Constitution is best
known for its war-renouncing Article
9, the consequences of Article 24 have
had an even greater impact, particularlyon the daily lives of millions of Japanesewomen. It reads:

FAREWELL TO THE AMERICAN WOMAN WHOGAVE JAPANESE WOMEN THEIR RIGHTS

Beate’s gift to Japanese womenby Todd Crowell“Marriage shall be based only on the mutual
consent of both sexes, and it shall be maintained
through mutual cooperation with equal rights of
the husband and wife as a basis. With regard to
the choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance,
choice of domicile and other matters pertaining
to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted
from the standpoint of the individual dignity andessential equality of the sexes.”
Gordon was only 22 when she joined
Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s staff in Tokyo
as a translator. Brought up in Japan before
the war as the daughter of Russian-Jewishémigrés, she recounted that she was motivated in part to write the equal rights article from memories of watching women
walking behind their husbands in public. At school in the U.S. when hostilities
began, she quickly returned to Japan after
the surrender to find her parents, who had

a new draft of the Japanese constitution.”
They had nine days in which to do it.
Gordon was assigned the task of writing the portions dealing with women’s
rights. It wasn’t hard to improve on the
Meiji Constitution, which reflected theprevailing Confucian concept of the roleof women as subordinate to men, especially husbands and, before them, fathers.
The 1889 document contained language
such as: “cripples, the disabled and wives
cannot undertake any legal actions.”
Gordon wrote draft after draft, manyof them going beyond strictly women’s
rights to encompass, for example, legal
rights for children born out of wedlock.
Many provisions were thrown out by her
superiors, who argued that they could
be addressed later as amendments to the
Civil Code. She argued that the conservative men who wrote Japan’s laws would
not amend the Civil Code in that manner.
Sixty years later she seems prescient.
Very few liberalizing changes have been
made in the ensuing years. Even today it
is a matter of contention in Japan whether
a married woman can keep and use hermaiden name. The current law stipulates
that any married couple must use thesame name (it can be the wife’s family
name, but it must be the same).
Article 24 was resisted by Japanesepoliticians and bureaucrats, who argued,
accurately enough at the time, that it did
not fit Japanese culture and history. These
objections were overruled by the American occupiers, and the Diet was ordered topass it along with the other measures inthe document, which it did in late 1946,
with the charter going into effect in 1947.
One gets the impression that Article 24
was included in the constitution mainly
because Gordon made a pest of herself,
and the group was under severe time constraints. In her memoir, she notes that Lt.

in modern Japan, everything from theplummeting birthrates to school bullying.
As recently as 2004 an LDP constitutional panel denounced the article as“promoting egotism in postwar Japan”
presumably as opposed to the purity of
purpose and self-sacrifice that they thinkcharacterized Japan in years past.
With the LDP’s landslide victory in the
Dec. 16 general election, conservatives
now have the votes, at least in the Lower House, to propose amendments andchanges in the constitution, and they haveindicated they will do just that, startingwith weakening the constitutional barriers
that make it difficult to amend the charter.
It has often been said that of the manyreforms undertaken by the U.S. Occupationof Japan after the war, the most lasting was
the emancipation of women, exemplified
by Article 24 and another provision thatgave women the vote. Prior to 1947 women
were not only denied the franchise but wereprohibited from joining political parties oreven taking part in politics.
In April 1946, even before Japan’s new
constitution went into effect, womenvoted in the first postwar election to theLower House of the Diet. They returned
an impressive number of women members, about eight percent of the total
membership. Japan seemed on its way.
Yet this figure was not exceeded until
the election of 2005, nearly 60 years later, when a number of “Koizumi’s daughters,” named after then PM Junichiro Koizumi, were elected in the LDP landslidethat year. Japan continues to rank low
among international legislative bodies in
the number of women parliamentarians.
The Dec. 16 polls did not change that.
Over the years little progress has been
made in women’s rights. In 1985 the Diet
passed the Equal Employment Opportunity Act which improved the working

AP PHOTO/CHIAKI TSUKUMO‘CRIPPLES, THE DISABLED AND WIVES CANNOT UNDERTAKE ANY LEGAL ACTIONS..’

6been interned, and to take part in the great
adventure of transforming Japan.
MacArthur at the time was unhappy
with Japanese politicians’ efforts to write
a new constitution, rejecting drafts to
replace the 1889 Meiji Constitution that hefelt did not go far enough in turning therole of the Emperor into a constitutionalmonarch. In frustration, he ordered his
staff to write an entirely new document.
MacArthur’s legal adviser, Courtney
Whitney, corralled a dozen members of thestaff, Gordon included, and said, “Ladies
and gentlemen, you are now a constitutional assembly, and you are now to write

Beate Sirota Gordon at the Club in 1998

FCCJ

FCCJ

Col. Charles A. Kadesaw, who headed thedrafting team, told her, “My God, you’ve
given Japanese women more rights thanthey have in the U.S. Constitution.” To
which she replied, “That’s not very difficult to do because women are not mentioned in the [U.S.] Constitution.”
Many traditionalists, mostly male,blame the “American imposed” Article
24, not to mention other portions of
the document, for all kinds of social ills
Todd Crowell worked as a Senior Writer for Asiaweek
from 1987 to 2001. He is the author of the recent book,
Who’s Afraid of Asian Values?

conditions for the significant numbers of
women entering the workforce.
But Japan declines to ratify the U.N.
Convention on the Elimination of all
Forms of Discrimination against Womenon the grounds that it would interferewith Japanese customs, specifically therequirement that married couples use
only one name. And it wasn’t until 1999
that Japan even legalized oral contraceptives. Before that it shared with North
Korea the dubious distinction of being
the only countries to proscribe their sale.
But at least Beate got things moving in theright direction. ❶7

of in o Ano
Cl ur thproub M seri erfile em ess ber

PROFILE

Number 1 Shimbun | February 2013

Purev Erdene Batochir, Mongoliin Unen
by David McNeillTokyo-based correspondent Purev Batochir’s complaint doesn’t sound so different from that of many of her colleagues
from around the world: The 30-year-old
rarely sells enough stories to newspapers
back home to make a decent living. Her
problem is compounded, however, by beingfrom one of the planet’s poorest countries.
“The average Mongolian has no interestin Japanese politics because they’ve got too
many of their own problems to deal with,”she says of her 2.5 million compatriots dur-

ment at his own television station, proving the old adage that ambitious politicians cannot afford to ignore the media.
Purev came to Tokyo seven years ago,
after studying Japanese at a Mongolian
university. She says she never shared theanti-Japanese sentiments of Mongolia’s
neighbor China. “I always liked the culture and language. I admired the preciseness and neatness of Japanese people andwanted to go and see for myself.
“Of course, there are people in Mongo-

ably the only Mongolian correspondent
in the entire country.
“There was so much erroneous information in Mongolia,” she recalls. “People
thought Japan was actually collapsing,that Tokyo was destroyed. I was angry at
the stupid things being said, so I thought,‘This is an opportunity for me.’ I didn’t
even want payment. I just wanted to doa job I knew I’d like, and give an accurate
picture of what was going on.”She began filing several stories a day

ALBERT SIEGEL‘OF COURSE THERE ARE PEOPLE IN MONGOLIA WHO DISLIKE THE JAPANESE — WE FOUGHT
THEM IN THE WAR. BUT THERE HAVE BEEN HUGE CHANGES IN THE LAST 70 YEARS.’

8

FCCJ

ing a recent interview at the FCCJ.
Even Mongolia’s appetite fornews about its string of successful sumo exports is pretty limited,
she laments.
Like many of the former centrally planned economies, Mongolia is struggling to emerge
from the dead hand of Stalinism
and transform into a market-led,
multiparty democracy. The result
has been breakneck economic
expansion – the economy grew ata record 17 percent-plus last year
– and toxic corruption, fueled by the riseof a new breed of mining oligarchs.
Purev’s publication is hardly immune.
The daily Mongoliin Unen (Mongolian Truth)is the country’s oldest newspaper and theofficial organ of the Mongolian People’s
Party, which changed its name from theMongolian People’s Revolutionary Party after the fall of communism in 1989.
The Ulan Bator-based paper was set up by
exiled Mongolian revolutionaries in 1920.
The boss of her newspaper is a former
advisor to the country’s president, shepoints out. “He’s not a proper journalist. To
tell you the truth, the paper is like a party
mouthpiece,” she admits, using the Japanese word kikanshi – Purev speaks little English but fluent Japanese. “If I got the chance,
I’d like to write for other newspapers too.”
Mongolia’s corruption briefly became
front-page news last year when the country’s ex president, Nyamdorj Enkhbayar,
was thrown in prison. Among his crimes
was illegally privatizing a newspaper andmisusing donated broadcasting equip-

FCCJ

lia who dislike the Japanese – we foughtthem in the war,” she continues. “Butthere have been huge changes in the last
70 years. Japan has stood back on its feetand become strong. I’ve not met a bad
Japanese person in the last seven years.
The fact is, we admire and trust Japan.”
Purev enrolled as a student at Takushoku University. But with no scholarshipor money from home, she had to work
hard, first at a convenience store, then at aTokyo-based events company that brings
Mongolian artists to Japan. She still makes
most of her living translating for the firm
while freelancing for Unen.
By 2011, she was a good Japanese
speaker and a decent writer but without asteady outlet for her work. The March 11
triple disaster gave her a chance to showwhat she could do. She says she was probDavid McNeill writes for The Independent, The Economist,
The Chronicle of Higher Education and other publications.
He is the co-author of Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan’s
Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster.

for Unen, ignoring the pleas from
relatives and compatriots to flee
Tokyo. “It was fine here,” she says.
“I wasn’t worried at all.” Inevitably, that work has tailed off since.
Last year, she got a chance to meetthe newspaper’s president when hecame to the FCCJ but there was nofull-time contract.
These days she continues to filefeature stories every month even as
her quest for a proper correspondent’s job continues. She has written
stories on the exploits of Mongolian
companies in Japan, the problems of Sonyand other electronic giants and, of course,
sumo. Yokozuna Hakuho is a friend. Luckily, she says, he seems to have emergedclean from the match-fixing scandals thattarnished the sport two years ago – a scandal that upset Mongolians.
Her problem is finding time to researchstories while working, and paying her
FCCJ monthly membership. “I can manage ¥4,000 a month but what am I goingto do when I get to 34?” she laughs,
pointing out that her membership fee
will more than double.
Someday, she hopes her country develops a genuinely free press that tackles
corruption on its own doorstep – andpays a livable wage to its correspondents.
“We’re not as bad as China but the powerful are becoming more powerful. Journalists should not be afraid to tell theunvarnished truth – that’s the first principle of our job. We need them to monitor
and dig out what’s happening, whatevercountry we live in.” ❶9THE 3/11 DISASTER

Number 1 Shimbun | February 2013

Number 1 Shimbun | February 2013

GOVERNMENT RECONSTRUCTION PLANS ARE
FOMENTING FRUSTRATION AND ANGER AS THE
VICTIMS OF 3/11 CONTINUE TO STRUGGLETWO INDUSTRY VETERANS SPEARHEAD AN
EFFORT TO PUSH THE BOUNDS OF ONE OF
JAPAN’S BIGGEST CULTURAL EXPORTS

Rebuilding with red tape in Rikuzentakata

Manga gets animatedby Julian Ryallby Tyler RothmarF

utoshi Toba has been through a great
deal in the last two years, but heappears to be holding up. It is, perhaps,
the plight of his community that enables
him to put to the back of his mind thethought that the earthquake of March 11,2011 – and the tsunami that it triggered –killed his wife, Kumi, and 734 other residents of the town of Rikuzentakata.
Toba, now 48, had taken office as
mayor of the Iwate Prefecture town lessthan one month prior to the disaster thatclaimed a total of nearly 20,000 lives andcaused devastation on an almost unimaginable scale along hundreds of kilometersof coastline. As the anniversary of that
fateful day approaches, Toba finds himself
increasingly frustrated and angry.
“I had been elected on February 6 andtook office on February 13. When I saw
the devastation, for the first time in mylife I felt truly helpless,” he said.
Toba was forced to take refuge in thecity hall with his colleagues as the waves
crashed around them. The following
morning, they were able to escape to therelative safety of the mountains that surround the town.
“My wife was still missing at thatpoint, but I was not able to search for her
because, as mayor, I had the responsibilityof taking care of the entire community,”he said. “I did the right thing as the mayor, but as a human being I have a great
sense of regret that I was not able to go
and search for her.”In the days that followed, the scale ofthe disaster that had befallen the town
became appallingly apparent: around3,300 of the 8,000 homes in the heart ofthe city had been destroyed by the waves.
Everywhere Toba looked, the town had
been reduced to piles of twisted steel,overturned cars and the detritus of lives
lost. The stench of decaying debris mixed
with petrol, burned tires and the dead
was nearly unbearable.
“We thought that given time, the situation would get better, and that in a year or
two things would be more or less back tonormal,” Toba says. “Now we are coming
up on the second anniversary and, frankly
speaking, the reconstruction efforts have10

DIGITAL CULTURE

not proceeded very well at all.”Toba says the residents of the town are
still surrounded by mountains of rubble.
Many public buildings that were damagedby the tsunami have yet to be demolished.
“My sense of hopelessness for the
future is shared by many of the victims,”
he said. “There are several reasons why
the reconstruction work is so slow, but
the biggest problem is the government’s
way of thinking.
“On the face of it, politicians are very
supportive of us and talk about this‘unprecedented disaster’ and how wemust all work together to help the peopleof Tohoku recover, how we are all working side by side,” he said. “Those are
beautiful phrases, but they bear very little
relation to the reality.”
The examples of bureaucratic red tapeand mismanagement are numerous andinfuriating, Toba says.
Requests to build new supermarkets tofeed the survivors were turned down on
the grounds that the land is set aside for
agriculture. One ministry that provided
much-needed gasoline would not permit troops from the Self-Defense Forces
to deliver it because they came under
Julian Ryall is Japan correspondent for
The Daily Telegraph.

the authority of a different ministry. And
it took more than one year to fill in all
the paperwork required to cut down trees
and level a hill to construct emergency
housing units for people who had losttheir homes.
“For people who suffered in this tragedy, even 24 hours is a long time,” said
Toba. “But for the politicians in the Diet,
24 hours is nothing.”
He shrugs his disappointment. “Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan visitedthe town several times while he was stillin charge, and I tried to explain to him
the difficulties that we were facing,” Toba
said. “But I really do not think he understood our situation. He had no intention
or desire to do anything to help.”
The Democratic Party of Japan, which
was defeated in December's general election, seemed to lack power, Toba said.
“Representatives of the government
came to brief us, but they were unable totake the hard decisions that were needed,”
he added. “They left us with nothing but atremendous sense of disappointment.”
The people of Rikuzentakata havehigher hopes for the new Liberal Democratic Party government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, although Toba questioned
why two local politicians had been given
portfolios in the cabinet that are not connected to the reconstruction work.
Despite the lack of comprehensive assistance from the authorities, Toba appears
reconciled to the fact that his community
will have to do the heavy lifting required
to rebuild.
The community is aiming to attract
new businesses, although its relatively
remote coastal location is off-putting tomany potential investors. Approximately
70 percent of the town’s fishing industry
is back in business, primarily in shellfish
and seaweed products. Toba says he would
like to make his town a model retirement
community for the elderly and infirm.
“I have two missions to fulfil in my life:
the first is to rebuild Rikuzentakata as aprosperous town. The second is to makesure that I raise my two sons well,” hesaid. “I promise that Rikuzentakata will
be reborn as a beautiful city.” ❶

FCCJ

A

procedure involves drawing the background and the character separately andintegrating them on a PC for final touches.
I thought this so-called layering process
might be the key to creative expression.
“About a year ago, a traditional performance of nozoki karakuri came to the
local shrine . . . it consisted of a wooden
board with semi-three-dimensional fabric structures attached . . . so it was likea paper screen, but more 3D. People lookthrough a small hole in the box to enjoy
this semi-3D mini-theater. I started to see
the tablet as a hole through which theuser can enjoy the shifting of the character and the background, albeit virtually.”
Since the launch of Oshii and Fujiwara’s novel content via the iTunes Storein both English and Japanese on January
20, Tateishi said interest from abroad has
been promising, and predicted healthy
growth at home. Although the app itself
is free, the first episode of Chimamire Mai
Love sells for ¥250, while the first Gin-iro
no Usagi sells for ¥170.
As technological innovation pushes
the bounds of our interactions withs the country’s leviathan electronic the story forward with the touchscreen.
firms struggle to keep their blowholes The main character doesn’t appear thatabove the swell and the miasma from the often. We want the user to feel like the
Fukushima nuclear disaster refuses to dis- main protagonist,” Oshii explained, as
sipate, Japan is a nation longing for the tablets containing the work circulated.
stories of better days.
Soon the room was randomly punctuated
Adjust the focus slightly from the sharp by chimes and other sounds produced byeconomic realities, however, and hopeful journalists’ interaction with the devices.
scenes take shape. One field where Japan
Oshii said although Chimamire Mai Love is
continues to set the global standard is unique in that the user literally animates
manga and anime. Arguably its greatest the story at their own pace, pausing tomodern cultural exports, Japan’s manga linger on and explore scenes they enjoy,
and anime remain the high-water mark, it also relies on some staple manga techa beacon to which the rest of the world niques. “I believe one of the key features
looks for innovation and quality.
of Japanese manga is the use of symbols
Yet no field is immune to the chang- to express emotions. . . . I tried to keep
ing times; the past few
years have been difficult as
the industry battles online
piracy, searches for a way
to cut production costs andstruggles to stay relevant.
At an FCCJ event in January, venture company Comic
Animation Inc., headedby CEO Toshiyuki Tateishi,
unveiled a new format for
artistic expression that harnesses the power of ourseemingly ubiquitous media Comic Animation Inc. CEO, Toshiyuki Tateishi, and manga artists Mamoru Oshii and Kamui Fujiwara at the Club
devices. Through instantaneous distribution of content to tablets and the character more or less static, while devices, Marshall McLuhan’s increassmartphones via a free app available from manipulating the symbols around the ingly relevant maxim that ‘the medium
Apple’s iTunes Store, Comic Animation is character to demonstrate emotions.”is the message’ again comes to the fore.
Fujiwara contributed his own 12-epi- Tateishi said Comic Animation “expects
blurring the lines between reader and protagonist, and indeed, between the forms of sode story inspired by a kind of tradition- many unimaginable new device capabilial Japanese theater. Entitled Gin-iro no Usagi, ties, and we would like to keep pace withmanga and anime themselves.
To illustrate the kind of content Tateishi its main character, a young boy, wakes to such developments to produce content.”
hopes to market, he was joined by two find himself in a fantastic world populat- Despite the possibilities, Oshii lamented
noted creators: Mamoru Oshii, manga art- ed by ghosts and other mythical creatures. a certain tendency in his industry toward
Endowed with extraordinary vision, the status quo.
ist and director of Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor 2, and Kamui Fujiwara, a manga artist the boy uses it to help a silver rabbit“The animation world doesn’t likeof Dragon Quest fame. Both men agreed to who is attacked by the strange and hor- innovation very much. It’s a bunch of
showcase their original work in what was rible creatures. When viewed on a tablet people who like to repeat the same thingessentially the new format’s first test drive. or smartphone, the device senses small over and over. . . . Viewers are also like
Oshii’s 12-episode story, Chimamire Mai shifts in angle, causing characters and that,” he said. “I don’t feel motivated if
Love, is about a boy who enjoys giving blood backgrounds to appear to slide against I don’t engage in new things. But if we
who meets a young female vampire, and each other.
do too many new things, we’ll dry up,
Fujiwara explained the inspiration for both of us. So the idea is to dabble inhis struggle to keep her lust for blood sated.
Although the plotline is fixed, navigating this novel mode of interaction: “Normal new things and then go back to our conthe story feels like a role-playing game or aventional work as manga and anime creChoose Your Own Adventure book.
ators. The shifting back and forth is the
Tyler Rothmar is a Tokyo-based freelance writer“The reader, or rather the user, moves and editor.
important part.” ❶

FCCJ

11

THE CLUB

Number 1 Shimbun | February 2013

own restaurant I made things based on
my own taste, and it catered to people
who liked that taste. At the Club I need toserve what the Members want, even if it
is impossible to keep everyone satisfied all
the time. If 60 to 70 percent of the Members understand this and are happy, thenI’m happy.

ALBERT SIEGEL

What kind of flavoring do you prefer?
That’s a difficult question. I like to bringout the flavor of each ingredient so theMembers can taste every ingredient individually. I’m trying my best to achieve that.

An interview with FCCJ
Executive Chef Tatsuo Kobayashi
by Lucy Birmingham

No. 1 Shimbun last interviewed FCCJ Executive Chef Tatsuo Kobayashi when he hadjust taken over the helm of the Club’s busy kitchen last year. This former Iron Chef
contestant (and winner), talked then of big plans and the challenge ahead. After
six months of catering to the demands of Club members and a heavy scheduleof event catering, we thought we’d check in and see how he was handling thepressure, and whether his goals and his idea of the perfect menu had changed.
Lucy Birmingham: What convinced you tosign on as the club’s chef despite the many challenges
you knew you would be facing?
Tatsuo Kobayashi: I’d never worked at a
private club before so I thought it would
be a good experience. I knew that it
would be difficult, and I wanted to takeon the challenge. I’m the type who’s willing to take on anything.
Do you have a problem-solving strategy?
I try to solve them on the spot.
What kind of issues are you facing?
It’s probably my fault, but sometimes
there are communication gaps. In most
hotels and restaurants, parties and events
are scheduled with time in between forfood preparation. But at the FCCJ, events
are sometimes bunched together, so the
kitchen has to prepare event dishes andhandle regular service for the restaurantat the same time. There are big overlaps
and sometimes accidents happen. I’ll beconcentrating on a banquet, for example,

12

and overlook a small event that’s goingon. I can handle it, but most of the staff
don’t have the professional experienceneeded in these situations. We can get
into a panic situation.
Would more staff and cooks help remedy that?
Restaurant budgets everywhere have been
shrinking so the number of staff and chefs
has been shrinking as well. But it’s not somuch a matter of numbers; it’s more about
training and experience. We don't have a
lot of professional-level staff or cooks, andthe younger cooks lack a sense of professionalism. It’s not just at the Club, it’s thatway in the restaurant business overall.
What do you mean by professionalism?
Young cooks don't seek perfection. They
only look at the surface – how the dishappears – and don't concentrate on thetaste. I always taste the dishes I’m cooking
and consider what needs to be added tomake it perfect. A cut of meat, for example, may need to be grilled longer or less.

I’m trying to make things that appeal to
all the senses. Young people tend to giveup easily on this.
Is it just a matter of training?
It’s very difficult for a chef to train staff on
the job, especially one-on-one. Many cooks
are only capable of reaching a certain level.
I’m trying to do training but I’m very busy
with the many elements of my job, such as
preparing menus, etc. I’m in a tough spot.
Don’t young people train at cooking schools?
They do, so I don't know why their level
isn’t higher. It seems to be a problem withthis young generation in particular.
Before joining the FCCJ you were in Seoul working as
executive chef at a French restaurant. Do Koreans andJapanese have very different preferred tastes in food?
Yes, quite different. Koreans like sweetand spicy food. They don't like salt added
into their dishes since they like to add thesalt themselves. It’s because they have very
individual tastes, which makes it toughfor a chef to create tasty dishes with awide appeal. French food isn’t so popular
there. Italian food is.
Because the FCCJ is a foreign press club there’s a big
mix of foreigners and Japanese. It must be difficult tomake your dishes consistently appealing.
It is quite challenging here because theMembers have such a variety of tastes.
There are some who don't like strong flavors and others who do. When I had my

FCCJ

The salmon dish at a recent Book Break was delicious.
Did you add something special?
In the middle of making the sauce, I tasted it, as usual, and decided to change therecipe. I thought a bit of mustard would
improve it so I added some mustard
seeds. Whenever I’m making something, I
always change the recipe a bit, even rightbefore it’s served. So often what is servedis slightly different from what’s on themenu. Sometimes I tone down the flavors
or increase them. I’m always thinking ofways to make the dish better. I want tomake the dishes as perfect as possible sothe Members will be happy.

How about oysters from abroad?
I’ve never served oysters from abroad,
only those grown in Japan. But I’m thinking of using New Zealand oysters because
I’ve heard they’re good.
What about other ingredients?
All our shrimp comes from abroad, as
well as asparagus and other special ingredients. Like most restaurants, we mainly
buy foods produced in Japan, especiallywhen they’re in season. I avoid Chineseproduced foods as much as possible. They
are not rated highly and there are problems with agricultural chemicals.
What are your goals now?
For now, I just want the situation in the
kitchen to calm down a bit. I want to train
the staff more. And, most importantly, I
want keep the Members happy.
Do you ever get advice from other chefs?
Yes, I do seek advice from friends whoare chefs. If they come to the club kitchen
for a look, they’re always very surprised.
They’ll say to me, “Wow, you’ve got a very
tough job.” I ask them if they’d like to try
it, but they always have a quick response:“No thank you!” (Laughing)

Then I can adjust the taste little by little to
make the food better and better.
The layout is very different from most restaurant
kitchens, yes?
In the Club it’s very easy for Members toenter the kitchen. (Laughing as he points tothe easy access from the main dining room.)
How often do you change the menu?
Restaurants change the menu every one or
two months. We change the PAC press conference lunch menu once a month, and theoverall “grand” menu once every two or
three months. We’ll also change the menu
on the spot depending upon what ingredients are available and what’s in season.
If a member requests a certain dish can you make it?
We’ll try our best to accommodate therequest if we’re not busy with a partyor event.
The portions seem quite large.
The portions are on the large size, which iswhat I was asked to serve from the beginning. This is something I need to give somethought to, since restaurants usually try tocontrol the size of the portions.
And the price is quite low compared to most commercial restaurants.
That’s true, and I’m trying to adapt to that.

Are you concerned about food safety after the Fukushima disaster?
Right now, I’m not too concerned aboutfood safety. But because we have to support the Japanese economy and the local
Tohoku producers, the kitchen buys someproducts from the region.

Do you have a chance to get feedback from Members?
Some Members have wandered into the
kitchen to tell me they have or haven't
liked a dish, and I’m very thankful. When
we’re busy, I can’t really attend to visitors,
but Members are very welcome otherwise. It’s important that I get feedback.

The government says the food in Tohoku is withinsafety limits. Do you believe that?
I want to believe it. Even so, we make surethat all ingredients used in the club havebeen tested for radiation. We don't buy
products from Fukushima.

CHEF KOBAYASHI’S GRILLED CHICKENWITH HERBS AND SOY SAUCE
Four servings

CHEF KOBAYASHI’S CREAM OF
MUSHROOM SOUP
Four servings• 4 chicken thighs• salt and pepper
Marinade• 120cc soy sauce• 30cc white wine
• 1 garlic clove• 3-4 lemon slices• 40-50cc olive oil• thyme, oregano, rosemary and chervil• 400g mix of shiitake, shimeji and maitake
mushrooms• 500cc chicken stock• whipping cream• grated garlic• chives• salt and pepper to taste

How about rice and fish?
Japan is very strict about rice and we canonly use Japanese rice. We don't use a
lot of fish from Tohoku since its safety is
still uncertain. Although we have a lot ofrequests, I don't want to serve oysters or
shellfish from Tohoku, even if the region
is famous for them. We mainly buy fishcoming from Japan’s southern regions,and though there’s still a variety of seafood and fish to choose from, there is lessof a choice than in previous years.

Lucy Birmingham is a Tokyo-based journalist who writes
regularly for Time. She is the co-author of Strong in
the Rain: Surviving Japan’s Earthquake, Tsunami and
Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

FCCJ

Pat the chicken thighs dry with kitchen
paper, then lightly season with salt andpepper.
Mix the marinade ingredients. Place thechicken thigh in the marinade and leave forat least 30 minutes.
Heat the oven to 180c and grill until done.
The chicken can also be cooked in a frying
pan over medium heat.

Sounds like you've been having some tough moments
here. Are you having any fun?
It’s fun to be the FCCJ chef because I love
to cook and prepare food. ❶Clean the mushrooms.
Bring soup stock to a boil and add
mushrooms for 3 to 4 minutes.
Remove any scum that rises to the top andput the soup stock with the mushrooms intoa blender.
Whip the fresh cream until it forms in soft
peaks. Add grated garlic and diced chives.
Add the whipped cream to the soup mixture
according to taste.

13

INDUSTRY

Number 1 Shimbun | February 2013

AP PHOTO/MARIO VEDDER, DAPD

Dark skies for the Dreamliner
by Geoff TudorO

nce is happenstance, twice is coincidence. Three times it’s enemy action. So
said James Bond adversary Auric Goldfinger.
Adopting the Goldfinger approach tocrisis management, Japanese carriers All
Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines took
the unusual but understandable step ofvoluntarily grounding their fleets of Boeing 787 Dreamliners after each experienced lithium-ion battery combustion
incidents within 10 days of each other.
The first was in a JAL 787 parked at
Boston’s Logan Airport on Jan. 7. ANA’s
incident on Jan. 16 was on a domestic
flight, forcing an emergency landing anda dramatic evacuation of the aircraft byemergency slides. It came after a rush ofother 787 incidents, none of which wasparticularly serious, despite intensive
media coverage. ANA’s reaction to take the“safety first” route was a brave but correct decision by president Shinichiro Ito
to make in ultra safety-conscious Japan.
With safety of the Japan-made lithiumion batteries in question, the two airlines,
two of the biggest customers for theDreamliner, announced that the groundings would provide time for safety checksof all their aircraft, without specifying
how long the process would take.
For both Japanese airlines, customer
confidence in the 787’s safety is paramount. ANA, with the biggest global
order of 66 airplanes, already has 17 in its
fleet. JAL ordered 45 and currently owns
seven. Neither plans cuts.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), already reviewing the Boston
incident, seemed initially taken aback by
the two carriers’ action.

14

But within hours, they issued an Airworthiness Directive grounding all six
U.S.-based 787s – all operated by United
Airlines. Around the world other regulators followed suit. A total of 49 airplanes
were grounded, including the 24 basedin Japan. The last time the FAA took thisaction was in 1979, when the DC-10 was
grounded after a fatal accident.
Teams of investigators from the U.S. andJapanese Transport Safety Boards, the FAA
and the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau of the
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), Boeing boffins
and manufacturers of the batteries andassociated electrical systems have beenworking round the clock to investigate
the problem, with no success as of thiswriting. There is speculation that finding
a solution could take months.
Early suspicions of the batteries havebeen put on hold, as investigations to dateshow they were not overcharged. But questions linger – why did they fail? Examination of the electric system continues– a complex undertaking as components
come from many sources. System designers are Thales, a French company. They
chose the Japan-made batteries, while thebattery chargers are designed by a British
company but manufactured in the U.S.
As the grounding goes on, it will affectthe production plans and cashflow of many
makers of parts and systems worldwide.
About 35 percent of the Dreamliner’s
main components are made in Japan,
involving key players in the nation’s aerospace industry. Toray Industries provides
the carbon fiber which is used for muchof the aircraft’s construction. Mitsubishi

Heavy Industries makes the wings, Kawasaki Heavy Industries produces the upper
fuselage and the central wing box is madeby Fuji Heavy Industries. The lithium-ion
batteries come from GS Yuasa. Toilet units
are supplied by Jamco Ltd. If productionof the aircraft is delayed, these stakeholders could be hit badly.
Despite lengthy test flying by the manufacturers, all new aircraft models experience
glitches, euphemistically termed “teethingtroubles,” when introduced to the rigors
of commercial operations. The 747 andthe more recent Airbus 380 also suffered,though none called for grounding.
The Boeing 787 design is a radical
change in the industry, with state-ofthe-art technologies never used before tosuch an extent. By using electrical powerfrom the lithium-ion batteries for functions previously handled by pneumatics
and hydraulics, the 787 makes big weightsavings. The same is true of the light composite materials such as carbon fiber inthe wings and fuselage. The overall result
is a ballpark figure saving in fuel consumption of about 20 percent.
For airlines, such an airplane is theanswer to their dreams, allowing them tooperate to many destinations which other
airplanes cannot profitably reach.
ANA believed that being the 787
launch customer would help raise theirprofile in the global market. Long in JAL’s
shadow, the carrier has always dreamed ofbeing Asia’s number one airline. In April
2004 ANA ordered 50 of the aircraft, later
increased to 66. They built their futurebusiness planning around the aircraft,
and the slogan, “787 – First to Fly,” wasfeatured on promotion materials andbusiness cards.
Though three years of delay, ANA stuckby their choice, and on October 26, 2011,
operated the world’s first 787 commercial
flight, a charter flight from Tokyo’s Narita
airport to Hong Kong.
Now the airline is cancelling up to 60
domestic flights and an average of seveninternational operations a day. JAL, meanwhile, has cancelled a small number ofinternational routes. To date the two airlines have announced flight cancellations
up to mid February.
It’s ironic that the airline that boasted,“First to Fly,” was the first to ground the
new airplane, but ANA strongly believesin the Dreamliner and hopes for a successful outcome as early as possible. For
the time being the airline has no plans toradically its business plans and forecasts. . . but that could change. ❶Geoff Tudor writes for Orient Aviation, Hong Kong

FCCJ

Number 1 Shimbun | February 2013

FCCJ EXHIBITION

See Greg Davis’ photos over the pages

WHY JAL AND ANA TOOK THE UNUSUAL STEP OF
GROUNDING BOEING’S VAUNTED NEW DREAMLINER

IMAGES

A DOCUMENTARIAN FINDS SUFFERING AND
SOLACE IN THE STORIES OF AGENT ORANGE VICTIMS

A mother comforts her
child, Duyen, in thisstill from Sakata’s first
documentary film.

From A Personal Requiem to Silent Springby Masako SakataIn 2003, my husband, photojournalist
Greg Davis, died of liver cancer. He wasstationed in South Vietnam with the U.S.
military from 1967 to 1970, and I wastold that Agent Orange, the defoliant that
American forces used widely during thewar, was suspected to be the cause of his
illness and sudden death.
Until then, I knew very little about
Agent Orange and the affect it has had
on so many people. I felt lost without
Greg. Yet life had to go on, and I needed
to know what killed him; what, exactly,
Agent Orange was. I decided to make arecord of my journey of discovery, andthis resulted in a documentary film called
Agent Orange – a Personal Requiem.
When I visited Vietnam in the summerof 2004, I had no idea what to expect. I
thought I would have to search for victims
in isolated regions. But as I traveled from
Hanoi to the Mekong Delta, I found themeverywhere – in big cities and small hamlets. I was overwhelmed by their numbers
and the problems they faced. Some led livesof great severity; others’ circumstances wereless tragic. But all were coping with the tragedy with whatever means they had. I was
moved by the love and care that families andcommunities extended to the unfortunate
ones. The tenderness between the mothers
and children sometimes seeped into me
through the camera lens, and their struggles
helped me in my own healing process. In
the worst situations, I still saw hope.

FCCJ

When I finished the film, I thought I
would move on to something else, but
I couldn’t let it go. I decided to make asequel, to tell more stories about the victims of Agent Orange.
I moved to Vietnam in 2010 in order tohave a more intimate look at the situation,
to better grasp the larger scope of the issue.
During this time I also came into contact
with a group of widows and children of
American Vietnam veterans. Their husbands or fathers were dead, sick or suffering from PTSD. Some of the children wereborn with severe disabilities.
Heather Bowser was one of them. She
was born missing a leg and many of her
fingers – from what was thought to be
her soldier father’s exposure to Agent
Orange during the war. Heather visited
locations in Vietnam where her father
fought, and discovered the importance ofbuilding links between victims in the U.S.
and Vietnam. Meeting her was a harsh lesson for me in how the defoliant continues to harm people so many decades later,even at such a distance.
In 2011, I completed my second film,
Living the Silent Spring, depicting the struggle
and courage of American and Vietnamese children who bear the scars of Agent
Orange. I took the title from Silent Spring,
Rachel Carson’s famous book that was oneof the first calls awakening the public tothe danger of pesticide.
The warning she delivered in her book

was ignored by the U.S. military 50 years
ago, and many people – and the environment – are paying the price today. In making
Living the Silent Spring, I wanted to express theimportance and the urgency of preventing
further environmental disasters. I wanted
to show that actions that are being taken
now may have devastating results some
50 years down the road, and that we areresponsible for the future. As I was editing
the film, the Fukushima disaster happened.
It may be too late to undo what’s alreadydone, but we should at least look for things
we can do that will lessen the impact.
Carson wrote, “We stand now where
two roads diverge. The road we havelong been traveling is deceptively easy,a smooth superhighway on which we
progress with great speed, but at its end
lies disaster. The other fork of the road –the one ‘less traveled by’ – offers our last,
our only chance to reach a destinationthat assures the preservation of our earth.
The choice, after all, is ours to make”
Through the experience of making thesetwo documentaries over the past 10 years,
I have learned to reach out to people andto truths that are often hidden.
I am so thankful to Greg for having left
in me a little fire and a seed of hope. He
continues to live within me in this way. ❶Masako Sakata is a documentary film maker focusing
on environmental awareness through her films, writing
and talks.

15

IMAGES

Number 1 Shimbun | February 2013

FCCJ EXHIBITION

Remembering Greg Davis(1948–2003)“Photography is a way of seeing the beautiful, desolate
and deadly human spectacle, bringing some clarity to thecomplicated business of life.” — Greg DavisT

he world of photography has gone through phenomenal changes in the past
decade. I often think with nostalgia of those days when my late husband Greg
would pack his (all analog) Nikons, Leicas and Canons, along with numerous yellow
packages of Kodak film, for his assignments, often to Southeast Asia.
I wonder how he would be coping with today’s increasingly digital world – with
Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Wikileaks. While I believe he would have embraced theirpower to network and inform, he would not have welcomed the way information has
become so lightweight, often lacking the weight of experience and expertise.
On the 10th anniversary of his passing, I am pleased to share some of his
photographs along with the following words by the Welsh Magnum photographer
Philip Jones Griffiths, best known for his book, Vietnam Inc. He wrote this for The
Digital Journalist in June 2003. Sadly, Philip himself passed away in 2008; their poignant
and critical points views of the world are very much missed.
– Masako Sakata

THE WORLD OF PHOTOGRAPHY IS A POORER PLACE.
Greg Davis, one of the most important photographers of recent years, has passed away.
He was born in California of Russian descent and, like many American teenagers in the
Sixties, found himself in Vietnam. Later he would explain, “Vietnam at war was akinto an Alice in an evil Wonderland . . . the death of innocence.” The three years he spent“in-country” not only turned him into an anti-war activist but also ensured a lifelong
distrust of all authority.
After Vietnam, Greg briefly went back to the States, quickly got disillusioned andreturned to Asia, settling in Japan. He discovered photography and set about exploringother countries.
I first met him 25 years ago in Seoul where he had “gone local” – preferring to sleepon the floor of a Korean hotel during his assignment. This, I remember thinking, was avery different kind of American. As he put it so eloquently. “I became an exile. A voluntary
one, for sure. I have largely escaped from the constraints and bonds of my birth, language,
culture and religion. This is essential to my photography. It gives me the pleasure offinding things out. A mirror to critically hold up against all my putative ideas.”
Greg was a born anarchist and libertarian. He had a keen moral sense and was quick to
detect injustice and, with his camera, reveal the perpetrators. He was exceptionally kindand generous. As his colleague Peter Charlesworth put it, “He was generous in all sensesof the word; with his praise, with his wallet and with the sharing of his contacts andknowledge. Greg rarely had a bad word to say about anyone, unless of course they werepoliticians, petty officials or bureaucrats and then he would give you an earful.”
Greg was in many ways part of the old school of photojournalism. He believed his art
required form and content. Often, when we traveled together, the talk would be about
the light, the approach, or the best angle, but the major discussion would always comedown to, “What does it mean!” He strove for eloquence in his pictures. He wanted his
photographs to speak out, even shout out a message.
Recently an old friend of ours admitted, “You know, I sometimes thought some of
Greg's theories were a little crazy but now, wow, he was the one who got it right!” Today,
more than ever, the world needs people like Greg Davis; photographers with inquiringminds tinged with scepticism. Now, every time the phone rings, I expect to hear his
voice as I have almost daily for the past 25 years.
The silence deafens my heart . . .  ❶ 			– Philip Jones Griffiths

16Top, a scrapmetal worker in Saigon.
Above, Greg on the road in Cambodia.
Right, this farmer's portrait was
selected for the cover of TIME.
Far right, a shop in Hanoi.

FCCJ

17

READING MATERIAL

Number 1 Shimbun | February 2013

LUCY ALEXANDER arrived in Tokyo in April 2012 after 10 years in London
as a staff writer for The Times. She now works with the Times office in Tokyoin a freelance capacity, writing business and news stories for the paper.
She has also written about Japan for the Wall Street Journal and her new
year's resolution is to write more widely for other publications.
Originally from St Andrews in Scotland, Lucy graduated from Oxford
University, and in 2000, she joined The Times. In 2006, she became thestaff writer at Bricks & Mortar, the Times’ property section, where she had to master basic
economics and advanced jargon. She spent five years reporting on the British property
market, from the ultra-extravagant London bubble to deprived post-industrial estates,
across the news, business and features pages of the paper.
She decided to move to Japan when her husband was offered a position in Tokyo earlier
this year, and is now juggling two expatriate toddlers with life as a freelance foreign
correspondent.

By Naoki Inose and Hiroaki Sato (Stone Bridge Press, 2013)

reviewed by Andrew Pothecary

hat would Yukio Mishima – individual, clown, actor, imposter, gangster,or aristocrat, as theater producer Nobuko
Albery once described him in a BBC arts
program – make of today’s Japan?
It’s an unanswerable question, but one
that rears its head when reading the new
biography, Persona. If the LDP in power,
questions about Article 9 of the Constitution, Shintaro Ishihara’s “emotive
activism” creating a sense of political crisis, and an awkward Japan-U.S. relationship all sound familiar, it’s not far fromthe political landscape of 40 years ago,
when Mishima committed seppuku after
a doomed attempt to incite the SDF torebellion and to reinstate the rule/role ofthe emperor.
Persona’s original Japanese version wasan analysis of Mishima in relation to
the politics and society in which he wasborn, lived, worked and acted, written
by current Tokyo governor Naoki Inosein 1995. This new English edition is not
simply a translation; it has been embellished with a study of Mishima’s “literary,
theoretical and ideological theories andactivities” by Hiroaki Sato.
As to that ideology: Mishima still suffers a nomenclature that includes theterm “fascist,” but Persona – as did Marguerite Yourcenar’s Mishima: a Vision of the Void –reveals why it doesn’t fit, while never shying away from analysis of his rightwingideology.
I started reading Mishima at school andcontinued even after I became involvedin anti-fascist campaigns. So how do I
explain – or justify – my admiration of
the work and the man with such seemingly opposing views?
I am not alone. Persona has a reassuring passage about Mishima’s final interview with a Marxist literary critic whose
questions “were not just probing but
frequently antagonistic.” In the end, thecritic admitted being told once by anoth-18

er author after attacking Mishima, “Ifyou like Mishima so much, come rightout and say it. That would make yourargument more logical.” And the critic
acknowledged that it was true.
If Mishima were merely a purist andright-winger, he would of course be dull
to all but fellow travelers. It’s the constantparadox that makes him interesting. Persona, in its detail and length, does a fairjob of getting behind the multiple contradictions. His bisexuality, in fact, often
more clearly expressed in his fiction thandeclared in his lifetime, is only one more
“double” aspect.
The married Mishima’s adult homosexuality is broached early but hesitantly.
Insose asks, “Was Mishima exaggerating or
in some way faking his homosexual tendencies?” Fortunately, his question seems
rhetorical, and the authors employ more
– and occasionally explicit – examplesof the reality. But if obfuscation remains,
it wasn’t helped by Mishima himself:a month before he died, he is quoted assaying, “Hmm. I wonder if I have somehomosexual elements in me, though I do
not think I’m homosexual…”
Good grief, he wondered!? His sexuality was complex, but this statement was, ofcourse, disingenuous, especially considering that it was the same month he discussed
a limited edition of Confessions of a Mask thatwould have a glass cover – to indicate thatthe supposedly “masked” narrative was, infact, plainly autobiographical.

A THIRD BIOGRAPHY
What does the book bring to Englishlanguage readers that FCCJ member
Henry Scott Stokes or John Nathan didn’t
cover in their biographies? Scott Stokes’
book remains perhaps the introduction
to Mishima, with its journalist’s researchand insights from his friendship withthe author. Persona is a work of greater
research and analysis – with benefit of 20

Number 1 Shimbun | February 2013

NEW MEMBERS

BOOK REVIEWPERSONA: A Biography of Yukio MishimaW

THE CLUB

more years of research and Sato’s further
additions – and is a great find for Mishima readers who want to be taken further
into the work and his context. It also hassome extracts that haven’t been available
in English. (Note to publishers: if there’s
a market for another biography, surely
there is also one for not-yet-translated
works – for a start, his epic Kyoko’s House.)
There are quibbles. Some of the text
could have done with an extra roundunder an editor’s eye. Although this seems
to improve after the early pages, it remains
noticeable in translations of quotes fromthe man or his books. Though Sato hastranslated Mishima (the novel Silk andInsight) in the past, his retranslation of thepoem “Icarus” is an example. The published translation by John Bester includes
the two flowing lines, “Is the blue of thesky like a dream/Was it devised by theearth, to which I belonged…” Persona
clumsily has it: “Was everything what theearth where I belonged schemed/The
blue of the sky a hypothesis…”

BACK TO TODAY
Mishima died – disappointed in a modernizing Japan – after a life infused withinklings of death. But while the politicalsituation noted above remains, it’s impossible to imagine Mishima living now. The
book quotes him in 1970: “I am deepening my sense every day that, if things continue as is, ‘Japan’ may cease to exist. If it
does, there may remain in its place, in one
corner of the Far East, a great economic
power that is inorganic, empty, neutral,intermediate-color, wealthy, and shrewd.”
We may not need the mortal cut that
Mishima prescribed for himself, but even
without sharing his ideology, one might
wonder if his fears were justified. ❶Andrew Pothecary is a freelance designer and art
director of Number 1 Shimbun. His design-work name —Forbidden Colour — is partly inspired by Mishima.

FCCJ

REGULAR MEMBER
Lucy Alexander, The Times
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Kazumasa Suezawa, Fujita Kanko Inc.

TakashiI keda, Landscape Co., Ltd.
Masaichi Nakauchi, International Restaurant
Service Co., Ltd.

2012 Autumn Golf TournamentParticipants in the FCCJ Autumn Golf Tournament held on Nov. 15 at the Lakewood Golf Clubin Kanagawa. The winner of the overall score and best gross score was Yoshihisa Asai. Sports
Committee Chairman Duke Ishikawa wishes to thank Lakewood and PING Japan for their support.

NEW IN THE LIBRARY
The Finish

Bowden, MarkAtlantic Monthly Press

Territorial Issue Between Japanand Korea

Chugoku ga Futsu no Taikoku ni
naru Hi

Key Readings in Journalism

Akiya Kyuzo no Shinjitsu

Hikisakareta Yakusoku

Naito,Seichu
Shinkansha
Gift from Shinkansha

Kurokawa Kisho no Sakuhin

King, Elliot ed.
Routledge
Gift from Fred Varcoe

Censored 2013

James, P. D.
Avenel Books
Gift from Hiroshi Kanashige

Fujimoto, Kenji
Kodansha
Gift from Kenji Fujimoto

Kurokawa, Kisho
Bijyutsu Shuppansha
Gift from Hideaki Tatebayashi
Huff, Mickey
Seven Stories Press
Gift from Brian Covert

FCCJ

Ke, Long
Nihon Jitsugyo Shuppansha
Gift from Ke Long

Yoneyama, Hidetaka
Nihonkeizai Shimbun Shuppansha
Gift from Hidetaka Yoneyama

P. D. James in Murderous Company

19

一九九三年十月十五日 第三種郵便物認可 毎 月 一 日 発 行

第二号
Vol. 45

二〇一三二月一日発行
No. 1 Shimbun

定価四〇〇円 税(込)