Asia Leadership Fellow Program2007 Program Report

Unity in Diversity: From Exclusive State to
Collaborating Communities

International House of Japan
Japan Foundation

Unity in Diversity: From Exclusive State to Collaborating
Communities

Published byInternational House of Japan and Japan Foundation
Copyright © 2008

International House of Japan
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Printed in Japan2

Preface
In 1996, the International House of Japan and the Japan Foundation jointly created theAsia Leadership Fellow Program (ALFP). The ALFP provides selected public
intellectuals in the Asian region with the opportunity to reside for two months inTokyo and to engage in collaborative research and exchange activities on common
subjects pertinent to the region. Through such intellectual dialogue, the program seeks
to create a close, personal, and professional network of public intellectuals in Asia,
deeply rooted and committed to civil society beyond their own cultural, disciplinaryand geopolitical backgrounds.

There are now over 70 fellows, who all come from diverse professional backgrounds,
including academia, journalism, publishing, law, education, the arts, NGOs
(nongovernmental organizations), and nonprofit organizations.

The general theme set for the 2007 program was, for the second time, “Unity inDiversity: Envisioning Community-Building in Asia and Beyond.” From September
10 through to November 9, 2007, the six fellows resided mainly at the International
House of Japan in Roppongi, Tokyo, and took part in workshops, resource seminars,
field trips, and a retreat with scholars, journalists and NGO/NPO leaders based inJapan. At the end of the two-month program, on November 6 and 7, a public
symposium entitled “Unity in Diversity: From Exclusive State to Collaborating
Communities” was held to report on the outcome of the collaborative interaction as
well as on the research interests of each fellow.

This program report includes the reports submitted by the fellows after the program
was completed, as well as summary of resource seminars and other activities in which
the fellows participated.

The Program believes that the fellows’ critical voices, challenging the status quo, as
well as their proposals for alternative solutions, will lead to the development of newnorms and value-orientations, which will have significant benefits for the future of theregion.

The International House of Japan CONTENTS

The Japan Foundation

3

Page Nos
Profiles of ALFP 2007 Fellows

6-8Country Reports by the Fellows

9-17

India by Bina Sarkar Ellias
Malaysia by Hishamuddin Rais
China by Huang Jiansheng
Japan by Kaoru Aoyama
China (Hong Kong) by Petula Sik-Ying Ho
Thailand by Sriprapha Petcharamesree
Papers of the Fellows
18-25
26-32
33-47
48-52
53-69
70-86

Bina Sarkar Ellias
Hishamuddin Rais
Huang Jiansheng
Kaoru Aoyama
Petula Sik-Ying Ho
Sriprapha Petcharamesree

ALFP Activities 2007
Schedule of ALFP Activities 2007

87

Seminars by Resource Persons

88-108

Akira Kawasaki: “The Global Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War”
Akira Tashiro: “The Role of Hiroshima in Peace-Making andNuclear Disarmament from a Journalist’s Perspective”
Yasukazu Amano: “Yasukuni, the Emperor and Anti-war Movement”
Atsushi Makino: “Lake Biwa Development and the Environment”
Ben-Ami Shillony: “The Religious Conflicts in the Middle East”
John Welfield: “National Identity and Foreign Policy in Modern Japan”
Kiichi Fujiwara: “Domestic Politics and Japanese Foreign Policy”
Mako Yoshimura: “Migration and Asia”

4Makoto Yuasa: “Poverty in Contemporary Japan”
Masashi Saito: “The Human Rights Situation in Kyoto
with Special Focus on the Korean Residents in Utoro, Kyoto”
Miyoko Matsubara: “Testimony of an Atomic Bomb Survivor”
Tessa-Morris Suzuki: “In Search of Historical Reconciliation
between Japan and Its Neighbors”
Yoshikazu Sakamoto: “Global Challenges and Transnational
Civil Society”
Yoshitaka Mori: “Cultural Tour Tokyo”

Retreat and day trip

109-110

Field Trip

111-112Public Symposium

112-113

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Profiles of fellows

Dr. Aoyama obtained her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University ofEssex, UK, in November 2005. She has specialized in issues of genderand sexuality, social inclusion/exclusion, trans-border migration, andsex work and trafficking while handling the multiple jobs of a contract
researcher, an associate lecturer, a translator and a single mother.
Striving to create theoretically and methodologically sound social

Kaoru Aoyama (Japan)

research that will be useful for those being researched, she has been
involved in team research projects including one on women returnee

COE Fellow, Gender Law and Policy

migrants in northern Thailand and another on migrant sex workers inCenter, Tohoku University/ Co-Japan, both publicly funded and led by the migrants themselves. Also

president, People’s Plan Study Group

being co-president of a Tokyo based independent organization,
People’s Plan Study Group, her civic activism revolves around the
networking of socially committed academics and activists aiming forparticipatory democracy beyond national and other hierarchicalborders in the Asian region. She has been an ARENA fellow since1998.
Ms. Ellias is the editor of Gallerie, an award-winning global arts andideas publication from India. Since 1997, she has been committed togenerating critical awareness and understanding of cultures asinterpreted through the arts, performing arts, essays, poetry, featureson communities and people, cinema and photography. She is also a

Bina Sarkar Ellias (India)

freelance writer and social observer, having written for national
newspapers such as The Times of India Sunday Review, and had

Editor and Publisher of Galleriecolumns in the Indian Express and The Hindu. She edited Fifty Years

magazineof Contemporary Indian Art, 1997, for the Mohile Parikh Centre for
Visual Arts, Mumbai, and has designed catalogues as well as designed,edited and published books for artists, poets and photographers. Her
chapbook of poems, The Room, was published by AarkArts, UK. She
was recently felicitated in Tehran for her special issue “Contemporary
Culture in Iran,” intended to generate understanding of a nation
misrepresented in the world media. She has given talks and chaired
discussions on art at events in India and overseas.

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Profiles of fellows
Dr. Ho is one of the few recognized experts in the relatively uncharted
territory of gender and sexuality studies in Hong Kong and China andalso one of the very few critical voices for the promotion of an open
discussion of sexuality and intimacy issues in Hong Kong society. She
received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Social Sciences at the
University of Hong Kong before pursuing her Ph.D. in Ideology andPetula Sik-ying Ho(Hong Kong, China)

Discourse Analysis at the University of Essex (UK). Her main
research and teaching interests are in the area of homosexuality,
gender and sexuality issues. She has made contributions to the

Associate Professor, University ofdevelopment of a dynamic theory of gender and sexuality to help

Hong Kongproblematize feminist theories and resist Western hegemonies
through empirical case studies that connect discourse, cultural
practices, political economy, and social change. Currently, she is cohosting a phone-in program on FM MetroBroadcast, on relationshipand intimacy issues. The local media frequently covers her analyses ofcurrent issues.
Dr. Huang is an associate professor at Yunnan Nationalities
University (previously named “Yunnan Institute for Nationalities”),
where he has taught English for 12 years. He studied with Fulbrightscholars at Shanghai International Studies University. Later on, he
received his M.phil and Ph.D. from the Department of Social
Anthropology of the University of Bergen, Norway, after studying
there for eight years. He was team leader of the China-EU cooperative project “Sustainable Users’ Concept for China Engaging

Huang Jiansheng(China)between September 2002 and August 2005. He was a visiting scholar

Associate Professor, Yunnan

at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) in the U.S.A

Nationalities University(2004-2005). His current research mainly focuses on sustainability,

Scientific Scenarios (SUCCESS)” under the China-EU 5th Framework

guanxi and cultural issues, particularly those in rural China.

7

Profiles of fellows
After receiving her first degree in political science from Thammasat
University, Dr. Petcharamesree received her D.E.A. and Ph.D. ininternational politics from the University of Paris-X Nanterre, France.
Her first formal contact with human rights works started when she
served as a social worker for the UNICEF's Emergency Operations for
Cambodian Refugees. She joined the Department of Technical and

SripraphaPetcharamesree(Thailand)

Economic Cooperation, and then Mahidol University where sheremains till present.

Until June 2007 she chaired the first

International Master Program in Human Rights ever established in
Thailand and in Southeast Asia. Active in the human rights field both

Lecturer, Office of Human Rights

in the academic community and among human rights activists, both

Studies and Social Development,at the national and regional level, she works closely with NGOs,

Faculty of Graduate Studies, Mahidol

grassroots people, marginalized groups, ethnic minorities, migrant

University

workers, and asylum seekers. Her recent works focus mainly on issuesof citizenship, economic, social and cultural rights, community rights,
and human rights education at the grassroots level.
Mr. Rais, an artist and activist of many talents, was an influential
student leader in the 1970’s at the University of Malaya. He went into
exile from 1974 until his return in 1994. Educated in filmmaking in
London, he made his first feature film in 1998. He also initiated anagit-prop theater group that conducts guerrilla performances.
Currently teaching film theory at National Arts Culture and Heritage
Academy, he also writes actively in both Malay and English for the

Hishamuddin Rais
(Malaysia)
Lecturer, National Arts Culture andHeritage Academy) (Malaysia)

print media, covering a wide range of topics from politics, lifestyle,culture, and sex to cuisine. His weekly columns have gained wide
public support for his fairness and transparency. Mr. Rais recently
initiated an “unemployed-youth-collective” that runs a politicallycorrect alternative café in a newly opened arts center in Kuala
Lumpur. At the arts center, he delivers weekly free lectures andworkshops for the public on philosophy and critical thinking. He
performs as a stand-up comedian at various venues in Kuala Lumpur
and also has been one of the commentators from Malaysia for
Aljazeera International.

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Country reports

Country reports
India
Bina Sarkar Ellias

To begin, Bina Sarkar Ellias briefly described the demography of India:
India is the seventh largest country in the world, with a population ofover one billion. Three ethnic groups reside in India: Indo-Aryan,
Dravidian, and Mongoloid. It has fourteen official languages, including
Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, and Assamese, as well as many sub-languages.
Hinduism, Islam and Christianity are some of the main religions inIndia. It has a literacy rate of 59.4 percent; however, Ellias noted that theliteracy rate for women is lower than that for men, as some people stillfind it unnecessary to send their daughters to school. Scholarly opinion
agrees that people started inhabiting India about 9000 years ago. After aseries of invasions from European countries into Central Asia, India
became independent in 1947.
After giving an overview of India, Ellias gave a vivid description oflife in Mumbai, formally known as Bombay. She has an interesting
perspective on this issue not only because she comes from Mumbai, butalso because she considers Mumbai one of the most important areas ofIndia: She emphasizes that, although Mumbai has some problems thatneed to be solved, such as poverty, crime, and water shortage, it is afascinating place for those people who are gutsy and work hard.
Mumbai is also known for Bollywood. Ellias says that Bollywood
has become an ambassador of India, its films reach throughout theworld. According to Ellias, Bollywood films attract many people
because they speak in simple languages such as the language of love andromance; languages that anyone can associate with.
Ellias considers that, although India is said to be a country of
democracy, its reality gives a somewhat different impression. Ellias
investigates whether this implies India is a country of hypocrites. She
believes that the main problem within Indian society is religious
fundamentalism. According to Ellias, India has currently seen a surge infundamentalism, Hindu fundamentalism in particular, which seriously
undermines the principle of pluralism, i.e., the embodiment of “Indianness.” The problem with religious fundamentalist movements, sheargues, is that they are tied up with politics. Political parties actively use
religion to gain support from the public. It is worth noting at this stage
that the majority of people in India are Hindu. In describing Hinduism
as pacifist and community-oriented, these political movements provide
people with a sense of belonging, pride, and superiority over other9Country reports
religions. Consequently, conflicts between Hindus and Muslims havecontinued and, recently, have intensified. In addition, government
censorship over the matter of sexuality has become stronger than before,suggesting that the influence of Hindu fundamentalists is increasing in
the political arena. On being asked why India has seen the current
upsurge of fundamentalism now, Ellias proposes that political parties
have been pacifist for too long, and now feel it is necessary to show
their strength. Ellias believes that just as Hindus represents one part ofIndia, other religions, including Islam, Buddhism, Christianity andSikhism, represent India too.
Other problems within India are the caste system and racism. Ellias
argues that the practice of the caste system, although prohibited by the
Indian constitution, still exists in India. In everyday life, discrimination
against those known as “untouchables,” has been preserved in many
forms, including in professions and social customs. Racism is alsoprevalent in Indian society, especially excluding people from regions
such as northeast India or Kolkata (formally Calcutta). Ellias thinks thatthe problems of the caste system and racism make it difficult for India tobuild a sense of “we-ness” across India.

Malaysia Hishamuddin Rais provided a powerful account of how youth culture
Hishamuddin Rais facilitates social resistance in Malaysia. While the Malaysian state
attempts to control youth culture in order to create and maintain aunified Malaysian national identity, Malaysian youth continues to resist
such a mainstream national identity and instigates a number ofalternative ways of being.
After a long colonial history under British rule, Malaysia became an
independent country in 1963. However, as the population is made up ofChinese, Indians, and Malays, Malaysia has struggled with the creationof a “unified” country. As is suggested by the occurrence of conflicts
such as the confrontation between the Chinese and the Malays in 1969,
the creation of a national consciousness has been an important agenda in
Malaysian politics since its independence. Rais argues that the
Bumiputra Policy, advocated by the government since the 1970s, is one
example of the wider attempt to “engineer” the management of racial
diversity within Malaysia, while strengthening economic power. Under
the formal democratic system, various social engineering policies suchas the Bumiputra Policy are implemented in order to achieve a more
equitable social distribution among the various ethnic groups within
Malaysia. Since 1979, when the Iranian revolution took place, the10

Country reports
government has supported pro-Muslim and pro-Bumiputra policies andconstructed a “Malay-Bumiputra-Muslim” identity as the model for theideal Malaysian national identity.
In the meantime, the government has continued to oppress youth
culture. Rais points out that many students and youths have not been
allowed to function independently from, or express opinions different to,
the state. At the same time, religious consciousness is also cultivated bysome religious groups, and some youth groups are also under the heavy
influence of religious organizations.
However, Rais argues that there is a set within youth culture thatcompletely resists state- or religious-sponsored mainstream culture. Rais
illustrates his argument with the music scene of the youth in Malaysia.
In contrast to the mainstream, state-supported, rock music, there aresome independent punk rock bands which express their identity in adifferent way, with different music tunes to the mainstream rock bands.
There is also a number of the youth who are called “the undergroundgeeks,” and who occupy places either illegally or legally to performmusic. These youngsters, Rais argues, articulate their own politicalopinions through music.
In addition, Malaysian youth expresses its opinions by creating
alternative magazines to communicate their ideas with others. Someyoung people create magazines which are then photocopied and widelydistributed among the young. In such magazines, non-mainstream
youngsters share alternative music, culture, fashion, lifestyle and politics
and make clear their difference in stance to that of the mainstream, stateled youth culture.
One worrying tendency is that the Malaysian government
suppresses alternative youth culture in a violent manner. Rais reports
some incidents where youths performing alternative music were arrestedby the police. Rais also laments the apparent lack of understanding thatyouth culture receives from opposition parties and NGOs in Malaysia.
He argues that they fail to understand the youth phenomena and are
afraid that, by associating with alternative youth culture, they will lose
public support.
In conclusion, Rais suggested that, despite some counter-movementsfrom the government, aimed towards embracing the alternative youth
culture, young people have more freedom to express their opinions
overseas. Various social forums and anti-WTO meetings exemplify
these strong connections between young people, on a global scale.

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Country reports
China (Mainland) Huang Jiansheng introduced China by focusing on a small village called
Huang Jiansheng Du Jia in Yunnan province. His spotlighting of Du Jia village was not
only because his current research interest is focused on rural areas but
also because more than 80 percent of the people in China still live inrural areas. By showing pictures of people leading their lives in Du Jia
village, he explained how the recent changes in China affect rural areas,
both positively and negatively.
Rural areas have undergone some major changes, as they have been
affected by the changing situation in China—especially in terms of
production relations and social mobility. Under the guidance of theCommunist Party, the production model was shifted from the individualownership type, where individuals were responsible for their own land,
to the collective ownership type, where the whole village managed land
together. In the 1980s, when Deng Xiaoping came into power, landownership was returned to individuals again; a transformation that
immediately helped people to produce enough food.
The social mobility of people living in rural areas was heavily
influenced by the identity registration system, based around criteria
called Hukou and Minzu. While the former divides individuals intoeither rural dwellers or city inhabitants, the latter divides individuals
into either Han-ethnic identity or other ethnic minority identities. Before
the economic reforms in 1979, individuals whose Hukou identity
designated them urban citizens, received free medical care, freeapartments, and were given food and jobs by the government, while
those whose identities were farmers resided in rural areas, being unable
to receive support from the government. For farmers, the only way tomove from rural areas to cities was either to join the army or to become
university students. As for Minzu identity, Huang says that, nowadays,
many people prefer having an ethnic minority identity which enables
them to access better opportunities in terms of education and jobs, as aresult of the current policy of affirmative action for ethnic minorities.
Huang outlined several positive and negative aspects of theeconomic reforms in rural areas. First, while the economic reforms
improved the production level significantly and ensured that rural
people could produce enough food to consume, it is clear that rural
Chinese communities are, often, still without the means to procure cash.
Consequently, farmers have started producing more and more cash
products such as sugarcane and pigs, which has had resulted in people
cutting more firewood in order to feed the pigs, and cultivating
mountainous areas in order to produce more cash products. This has

12Country reports
caused serious deforestation in rural areas. The changing production
model, to one of individual landownership, has also weakened thestrong social relationships of rural communities; a social relationshipthat had been sustained under the collective landownership system.
In addition, after the economic reforms, the young generation
aspired to live in cities, leaving their lives in rural areas behind. As aresult, the villages have become depopulated. According to Huang, thegovernment is attempting to solve the problem of depopulation in rural
areas by sending young people to developed areas, with the aim thatthey will come back to rural areas once they learn some skills in thecities. In addition, some model villages are selected and promoted, toshow how some villages can improve their living conditions and makevillages more attractive places to reside.
Huang further mentions other problems resulting from the economic
reforms. For instance, the lack of medical care and insurance are urgent
issues that need to be solved. While people in the city receive pensions,the elderly people who live in rural areas do not receive any pension,
which means they depend entirely on their children in old age. While thegovernment did set up a cooperative medical care system in 2006 andencourages people to join private insurance schemes, the situation inmuch of rural China remains serious.

Japan Kaoru Aoyama’s presentation de-mystified a number of outmoded
Kaoru Aoyama assumptions about Japanese identity using some statistics and with her
own observations about Japanese society. First of all, she argues that, inspite of the assumption that Japan is a classless society, the income gap
between the rich and poor is getting wider—both between female andmale workers, as well as between generations. She points out that thedifferent income levels affect people’s family planning: those whose
income level is low tend to avoid having children and getting married.
The (re)emergence of class has also affected images of the ideal woman.
For instance, some women aspire to be upper-class full-time housewives
by marrying rich men so that they can secure enough time and money topursue their hobbies.
Secondly she analyzes that, while Confucian ideas have been
assumed to be the principal philosophy of Japanese society, the young
generation no longer follows such a philosophy. For instance, ideas
about sexuality, gender issues, as well as lifestyle are not limited to ones
based on Confucianism. Instead, the young generation of Japan
understand these issues in various ways.

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Country reports
Thirdly, Aoyama also questioned issues of gender and sexuality.
She argues that the image that Japanese women are submissive andpolite, and that all Japanese are sexually “straight,” does not reflectchanges in Japanese society. For instance, the fact that the 1990s saw
the Gay Pride Parade in Japan exemplifies the increasing popularity of,
and interest in, gay and lesbian issues. In terms of the gender issue, she
admits that, despite more and more women bring treated equally withmen, there still exists a glass ceiling in Japanese society. This isindicated by the United Nations Gender Factor which proved thatJapanese women are generally excluded from top positions in theacademic, political and business fields.
Lastly, she questions the national image that Japan is a homogenous
society, by highlighting other ethnic groups in Japan, such as the Ainu
people and Koreans, as well as the increasing numbers of newcomers(migrant workers). Speaking about how to create a multicultural society,she argues that foreigners are likely to be excluded from Japanesesociety because nationality is defined by blood rather than place of birth.
On the more positive side, however, Aoyama notes the changing
behavior of local governments, especially in the area of education.
Facing the increasing number of children of migrant workers, publicschools have gradually accommodated these children, by employing
special teachers who communicate in the mother tongues of thesestudents, as well as providing services specifically for foreign children.
Aoyama further elaborated on her understanding of “Japaneseness.” She argues that, historically, economically and educationally,
Japan has associated itself with the West, more so than it has with Asia.
She is sceptical about the idea of “Asian-ness” because it is constructedagainst the idea of the West, so it is hard to clarify what, exactly, “Asia”
is.

China (Hong Kong) Sik-Ying Ho presented China by focusing on the sex life of people
Sik-Ying Ho living in Hong Kong. Coming from Hong Kong, and being interested in
gender and sexuality, Ho powerfully described how the sexual
relationships between people from Hong Kong and people frommainland China reflect the identity struggle the Hong Kong people havebeen experiencing since 1997, when Hong Kong was returned tomainland China.
She started her presentation by introducing a series of interviews
with Hong Kong men. Her interviewees are men from Hong Kong,
whose social and economic status are relatively high, and who are

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Country reports
generally considered attractive bachelors in Hong Kong. By showing
her interviews with these men, she revealed the increasing number ofHong Kong men having a sexual relationship with women frommainland China. She argues that these men perceive Hong Kong womenas demanding, pragmatic, vulgar and strong, whereas they fantasize
women from mainland China as romantic, caring and fragile.
By analyzing the different ways of representing women from Hong
Kong and mainland China, Ho argues that part of the core identity ofHong Kong is tied with money. People in Hong Kong are embedded in
the capitalist economy through their involvement in the stock market
and investments; they tend to become materialistic and calculating.
According to Ho, most of the women from mainland China whomHong Kong men are sexually involved with work in the sex industry.
She says that she is not sure if such relationships between Hong Kongmen and mainland Chinese women suggest sexual exploitation or pure“romance.” Yet she argues that this somewhat distorted relationshipcertainly shows that Hong Kong men would like to play the role of“rescuer,” wanting to “help” women, while mainland Chinese women, if
not deliberately, are willing to play such a role of victim, awaiting asavior.
She also noted that Hong Kong men face complex responses by
having an affair with mainland Chinese women. On the one hand, they
face social stigma because only those of lower income who cannot“afford” Hong Kong women usually have relationships with mainland
Chinese women. On the other hand, the Hong Kong men are worshipedby their partners, i.e. mainland Chinese women (these women who“play” the role to worship men from Hong Kong) owing to their strong
economic power and high social status.
Ho further argues that gender relationships changed after 1997,
when Hong Kong was returned to China. Although Hong Kong is quite
different from China economically, politically and culturally, it
nevertheless was “forced to get married to” China since 1997. This“marriage” has caused a serious identity crisis in Hong Kong: people
from Hong Kong want to redefine themselves against China because
they had been so different until 1997, but have yet to find a way toassimilate their identity to China after 1997. She considers that such an
identity struggle is reflected in the complex sexual relationship between
Hong Kong men and mainland Chinese women. By coining the term“geographies of desire,” Ho argues that sexual desire is mapped
geographically. It is imperative to understand how sexual desire reflects

15Country reports
the identity struggle brought about by the change of geography, i.e.,
Hong Kong’s unification with China.

Thailand Sriprapha Petcharamesree gave a talk on Thailand, focusing especially
Sriprapha on the period between 2001 and 2007, which saw the rise and fall of
Petcharamesree Prime Minister Thaksin. As a political scientist with a special focus onhuman rights, Sriprapha succinctly explained the recent politicalsituation, as well as the worrying trends in human rights and democracyin Thailand. Before the presentation, Sriprapha showed a series ofpictures highlighting the key events that occurred during the period
between 2001–2007, such as the inauguration of Prime Minister Thaksin
as well as the military coup d’etat in 2006.
In 2001, Thaksin and his party achieved a landslide victory in theelection, gaining two-thirds of the seats in the parliament. According to
Sriprapha, Thaksin popularity was due to his populist policies. Amongthem was a policy called “war against poverty” that allocated national
budget funds to rural areas where the poor were concentrated. His
popularity continued for some time, exemplified by his second victoryin the election in 2005.
However, Sriprapha pointed out that, during his premiership,Thaksin abused his power for his own ends. He expanded his own
business by using his political position, an abuse which eventually led tohis downfall. In 2006, faced with his increasing unpopularity, Thaksin
dissolved the parliament and called for a new election in April 2006.
Opposition parties opposed Thaksin’s decision, arguing that there was
not sufficient time to prepare for the upcoming election. They further
decided to boycott the election, which brought about an extremely low
voting rate and challenged the legitimacy of the Thaksin government
itself.
In 2006, a military coup took place. It was widely supported by theThai people not only because they had begun to think that Thaksin was adictator, but also because they hoped the military government would be
able to rebuild democracy in Thailand once again.
After the success of the coup, those who initiated the military coup
formed a group called “The Council of Democratic Reform underMonarchy.” They emphasized the importance of the monarchy anddrafted a new constitution. According to a referendum held in August
2006, the draft constitution was supported by about 60 percent of the
population. Sriprapha argues that the fact that the draft constitution
could not attain more support shows that people feel somewhat

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Country reports
ambiguous toward the changing situation. According to her analysis,
people supported the constitution not because they fully understood orread the draft constitution, but rather because they simply supported theleader of the Council of Democratic Reform under Monarchy, and also
because they hoped to end the domestic disorder as soon as possible.
Regarding the domestic situation in Thailand after the coup,
Sriprapha notes three worrying points. First, under the new constitutionwhatever the present government does, it would be considered lawful.
She says that this is quite concerning because it justifies any unlawful
deeds done by the present government. Second, in terms of humanrights, violence in the southern parts of Thailand has worsened since2004. Even after the coup, martial law has still been applied for as manyas 35 provinces in the Southern region. Sriprapha argues that free andfair elections cannot be conducted under martial law. Third, theeconomic situation has not improved, even after the coup: many
workers, especially female workers, are losing their jobs.
Lastly, Sriprapha points out three contradictions in Thai politics.
First, while people want democracy, they also gave flowers to thesoldiers who led the coup and army members are well respected in Thai
society. Since Sriprapha believes that democracy cannot be built by
military power, she finds such phenomena quite contradictory. Second,although people are allowed to participate in politics through elections
and referendum, they do not really read constitutions and engage inpolitics, a fact which she finds quite frustrating. Third, Sriprapha
expresses her worry that, while she protests against the Thaksin regime,
she also protests against the military coup which replaced the Thaksinregime, suggesting that she herself still wonders about what kinds ofalternatives she is really aiming for.

17

Papers of the fellows: Bina Sarkar Ellias

Unity in Diversity: Community Building in Asia andBeyondBina Sarkar Ellias
Often, a topic such as “Unity in Diversity” may evoke a sense of déjà
vu, as well-worn and rehashed subjects for seminars tend to do, yet,without any doubt, it is a discourse that needs complete and repeatedattention. Reiterating the issue is an exercise in reminding ourselves of
how little we have evolved as civilized humans and how much work wehave ahead of us, especially since both globalization and an alarming
swell in fragmentation are running parallel in the current world order.
If we are to go by Samuel Huntington’s theories on the clash of
civilizations, particularly after the attack on the Twin Towers–—which
unfortunately reaffirmed his views––then we need to look again at thestate of the world since then: the US invasion of Afghanistan, the Bali
bombings and Godhra riots in India in 2002, the invasion of Iraq in
2003, the Madrid train bombings in 2004, the cartoon crisis, the London
bombings in 2005, the ongoing Iranian nuclear issue, the ongoing IsraelPalestine issue, and the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. All of this clearly
proves that cultural and religious conflicts are becoming endemic.

ANTI-PLURAL
CONFLICTS

And it is not just a clash of civilizations that are endemic but also
wars between diverse communities within the walls of a nation as well,
as is clear in the case of the 1992–1993 communal riot in Ayodhya after
the demolition of the Babri Masjid, which itself lead to the horrific
Mumbai riot. More than 900 people were killed in these riots which
occurred in two phases: a Muslim backlash in Ayodhya and a Hindu
backlash as a result of the killings of Hindu Mathadi Kamgar (workers)
by Muslims in Dongri (an area of South Mumbai). Arson, killings, andthe destruction of property occurred in distinctively different kinds ofareas. Violence affected not only the slums but also apartment blocks inupper middle-class areas.
As a direct result of the riots, a large number of Hindus migrated
from Muslim majority areas to Hindu majority areas in the city, and viceversa. The demographics of the city changed drastically, on a religious
basis. Reports widely indicate more than 200,000 people (both Hindus
and Muslims) fled the city or their homes during the time of the riots.
While a large number of them returned back due to economic

18

Papers of the fellows: Bina Sarkar Ellias
compulsion, nonetheless separation and mistrust between people, on
religious grounds, was widely believed and reported until more than ayear after the riots.
In February 27, 2002, 58 people—including 25 women and 15
children—were burnt alive in a railway coach in the town of Godhra,
following an altercation between local Muslims and activists (Kar
Sevaks) of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), who were returning by
the Sabarmathi Express train from Ayodhya. Initial media reports
blamed the local Muslims for setting the coach on fire, in what Gujarat
chief minister Narendra Modi and the VHP leader Giriraj Kishore
alleged was a “pre-planned” attack. The bodies of those killed in the
train were brought to Ahmedabad, where a procession was held; a movethat was seen as a major trigger for the ensuing communal violence. The
VHP issued a call for a statewide strike on February 28, 2002; a callwhich was supported by the BJP-led state government.
Thereafter, 151 towns and 993 villages in fifteen to sixteen of thestate’s 25 districts were affected by the post-Godhra violence, which
was particularly severe in about five or six districts. The first incidents
of attacks on the minority Muslim community started at Ahmedabad,where some Hindus burned a Muslim housing complex, and then moved
to destroy other areas. Hundreds of mosques and other Muslim shrines
were damaged or destroyed and makeshift Hindu temples were installedin their place in some cases. In Ahmedabad, the dargah of the Sufi saintpoet Wali Gujarati in Shahibaug and the 16th century Gumte Masjidmosque in Isanpur were destroyed. The Muhafiz Khan Masjid at
Gheekanta was ransacked. Police records list 298 dargahs, 205 mosques,
17 temples, and three churches as damaged in the months of March andApril.
Today as I am writing this note, Raj Thackaray, previously of the
Shiv Sena and now leader of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNC),
is fuelling another fire of hate. He is targeting the non-Maharashtrian
Indians in Mumbai, especially North Indians, who he claims have
infiltrated the mainstream Maharashtrian community of Mumbai, which,in reality, is a cosmopolitan city. The state government is presently in a
predictable confusion as to whether he should be penalized or not, whilesmall time vendors and business people are being attacked andthreatened by his hoodlum party members.
In such a climate, the intention of dialogue becomes all the moreurgent. Therefore, participation in the two-month Asia Leadership
Fellow Program (ALFP), organized by the International House of Japan19

Papers of the fellows: Bina Sarkar Ellias
and the Japan Foundation, was a perfect exercise in exchanging views
and ideas. Shaped around the context of “Unity in Diversity:
Community Building in Asia and Beyond,” the subject of the fellowship
program was intrinsic to the elemental validation of Gallerie, the arts
and ideas journal I edit and publish. In addition, the idea of an intense“lock-in” with five other fellows from Asia, each bringing their specificspheres of learning, was excellent; six individuals engaging with the
public world: overturning, demolishing, and evolving new thoughts andideas, could only be an exercise that would be conducive to areconciliation of civilizations, as opposed to a “clash.”
In fact, the program was, indeed, a test in tolerance and endurance
between the six core participants (all from diverse disciplines) and, byextension, this proved that dialogue is the ideal means to bridge culturaland intellectual divides, while also creating awareness, understanding
and forbearance of differences.
The question of differences, in particular, is large, complex, and at
the crux of our existence—cultural, religious, linguistic and politicaldifferences represent our specific identities, traditions, and histories.
Bridging these divides does not mean one has to subscribe touniformity, or allow a “McDonaldization” of the world. It means that,while we preserve our identities we must also recognize that differencesin cultures are a positive requisite for a plural world of civilized coexistence.

Culture“Culture” is a term that has been misused, misunderstood, or evendismissed by some academics and intellectuals as inconsequential in the“greater” discussion of world issues. However, music, art, and literature
have crossed borders for many, many years, influencing the ideas andsensibilities of individuals and groups as they travel. Considered as “softambassadors,” they do not threaten governments—although there areexamples of conflict, both in Israel, where the proposal that high school
students should have the option of reading Palestinian poems almost
brought down the government, and also in India where the author-inexile Taslima Nasrin is presently facing the wrath of Indian
fundamentalists, and the government is in turmoil trying to appease bothsides. However, these are exceptions as, by and large, there is a an evergrowing osmosis taking place, even through borders that were earlier
non-permeable, for instance in Eastern Europe, China, and Japan, haveopened their doors to the world, allowing for a slow but tangible crossventilation.

20

Papers of the fellows: Bina Sarkar Ellias
Culture is also in constant flux, given to dynamics of change andMigration

evolution; now, more so than ever before, various global cultures are
evolving in a most interesting manner. There is a growing
multiculturalism which, hitherto, was inherent only in nations like India,
Africa the US, and Canada, and is now becoming a growing
phenomenon in parts of Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The magicof the Internet, and the prevalence of air travel, which has jet planes
whizzing around like local buses of the air, have indeed, expedited afast-forward in global connectivity, and in transporting cultures todifferent far-flung corners of the world. Therefore, migration, which is anatural process of human life, is more prevalent today; citizens of the“third world” seek superior economic or professional conditions in the“first world” and the reverse: first world industries and conglomerates
outsource to avail of cheap labor in the “third world.” Also, the newnomads are straddling several worlds today, with their luggage ofcreativity, professional skills, and wandering entrepreneurship.
However, migration has its pitfalls. Governments open doors tomigrant labor and expertise, to feed and fatten their economies.
However, they do not encourage them to settle, partake of the fruits of
their labor, or assimilate within their societies. This is borne out of asense of nationhood and empire that does not allow for “infiltration”
from the other; not to mention the tainting of cultures. Also, the need forpolicy coherence at national and international levels is important inmaking a comprehensive policy for migrants, as often contradictory
pressures shape such policies. For example, as argued in a report by
Kathleen Newland of the Migration Policy Institute, there is a need insomecountries

for

more

immigration

toreinforcenational

competitiveness, while these same countries have placed greater
restrictions on immigrants for security reasons.
A deep concern is that it is not merely a question of transnational
tensions, but a plague at regional levels within the peripheries of acountry as well. Drawing parallels with the Dalits (the untouchables inIndia) and the caste system, I find resonance with the Buraku and the
Ainu, the Okinawans, and the Korean minorities in Japan. Echoes of asimilar issue can be found among the native Americans, or the
Aborigines of Australia, and disparate ethnic groups in Africa. The gay
and homosexual communities are just as marginalized, reaffirming thefact that much of the human race is xenophobic, territorial, and given to
spreading its chauvinistic views through political agendas.

21

Papers of the fellows: Bina Sarkar Ellias
Religion

Religious chauvinism is as widespread; it wreaks more havoc thangood, more harm than the spirituality, wisdom, co-existence, and senseof right and wrong that it is meant to prescribe. The crux of our global
problems lies in the economic, political, and religious ambitions of theworld powers. They are the real axis of evil today. As American
journalist, James Goldsborough astutely remarked, “George W. Bush’s
Iraq war is America’s first religious war, one inspired by groups ofChristian fundamentalists and Jewish neoconservatives, a coalition
whose zeal for war is as great as that of the original crusaders.” As longas the electorate subscribes to these powers, it is expediting thecorrosion effect. We have only ourselves to blame—our apathy towards
issues that do not touch us enough for us to respond.
Religion is one of the main sources of conflict between civilizations,conditioned by the narrow premise of superiority and bigotry that
excludes humanistic values. Religious intolerance has led to terrorism
worldwide, indeed it has bred terrorists when there were none. Bin
Laden understood the vulnerability of young people seeking ideologies
in today’s frenetic and cluttered world of consumerism. In the absenceof idealism or appropriate iconic figures to emulate, he sowed the seedsof a movement, “a moral mission” as it were, to oppose the hegemonic
dictates of the West. He skillfully used the medium of religion to fire theimagination of the youth, enough to relinquish their lives for thepreservation of Islam and decimation of those who are a threat.
Not only do we have clerical figures in Islam, in Judaism, in white
supremacist Christian churches in the United States, but we also see theHindu fascist Mafia, and examples of extremism even within the
Buddhist community in Sri Lanka; all of these examples use liturgy tojustify violence and ensure power positions for themselves. The
religiopolitical nexus has come of age, especially since the 1980s, wherethe void left by the fall of communism and the rise in secular beliefs
resulted in a shift towards mass consumerism.
Religion is essentially a matter of emotion. Emotion has always
proved stronger than reason. Therefore, the ancient nexus between
religion and politics has been a lethal tool for manipulation by thescheming few. Unless the masses recognize this, there will always be
manipulation and conflict. Although Bush has given a feast incelebration of the breaking of the fast during the Ramadan period, andthe United States Postal Service introduced a beautiful stamp with
Arabic calligraphy on it since 9/11, as a recognition of Islam, it is only
tokenism. Bush is still unleashing havoc in Iraq and only when he pulls

22Papers of the fellows: Bina Sarkar Ellias
back his troops and puts a definitive stop to infiltration in other
territories will he have proved that wisdom has prevailed.

Globalization

The emergence of globalization has facilitated the process in someways and proved detrimental in others, for instance whereby the lessprivileged have had to relinquish their rights for an equitable share in
new flourishing economies. The people of the developing world, in thewords of the “Notes from Nowhere” collective, remain “disconnectedfrom what they produce and what they consume, from the earth andfrom one another,” living in an “arid homogenised culture.” For
instance, while a “shining India” of software kingdoms and glass-andsteel office towers, shopping malls, and highways is presented to theworld, the horrific reality is that more than 150,000 farmers havecommitted suicide in the last decade alone, due to economic deprivation.
And dams like the Narmada that serve ambitious industries, havesubmerged whole villages causing thousands to migrate to more dismalpoverty in urban slums. In Bangladesh, the total number of urban andrural poor amount to 55.2 million. In Somalia, poverty has become away of life and in El Salvador, 49 percent of the population lives below
the poverty line.
With globalization, it is clear that there has been a deterioration in
the protection offered to weaker nations by stronger industrialized
power; a power shift that has resulted in the exploitation of the people inthose nations to become cheap labor. Due to the lack of protection,companies from powerful industrialized nations are able to force
workers to endure extremely long hours, unsafe working conditions, andjust enough salary to keep them working. The abundance of cheap laboris giving the countries in power incentive to leave the inequality
betweennations

unrectified.

If

these

nations developed

intoindustrialized nations, the army of cheap labor would slowly disappear
alongside development. With the world in this current state, it is
impossible for the exploited workers to escape poverty. It is true that theworkers are free to leave their jobs, but in many poorer countries, thiswould mean starvation for the worker, and his/her family. And these arejust a few instances of the many injustices nurtured through the impact
of globalization.

Dialogue

It would require immense knowledge, “true” wisdom and a clear
vision for world leaders and the intelligentsia for a blueprint for a23

Papers of the fellows: Bina Sarkar Ellias
globalization that benefits a larger people to be drawn up. Mutual
understanding and just alternatives to the present status quo in world
policy are clearly required, rather than the feeding and fattening of astratum of society that is already economically obese. Unfortunately, we
willfully elect leaders of governments who are short-sighted and thestruggle for equity continues.
Pessimism, however, offers no solution. Therefore, it is left toindividuals and small groups of concerned organizations, to map
directions for a “greater good;” to exchange ideas, solidarity, and mutual
understanding towards a civilized coexistence. A vital approach is theencouragement of a multi-dimensional dialogue that involves economic,
environmental, intellectual, as well as cultural projects that all benefit
people outside the elitist few. It is crucial to recognize the perils of what
the Greeks call hubris, or arrogance, in this case, arrogance of thenation-state, or religious arrogance. Erasing this sense of national or
religious identity in favor of a larger world community, is clearly abeginning towards a more plural world.
According to Baskin Shehu, an Albanian writer, cultural
plurality is the capacity of the individual to have different identities
beyond national ones, which involves the possibility of finding common
ground in terms of communication and belonging between individualsof different cultures. Cultural or national identity is not indivisible
because other collective identities exist that define the individual andcan be useful as a communication point that promotes coexistence on adaily basis.
This is where cultural exchange plays a key role in impacting
the masses seamlessly, developing people-to-people ties, throughbilateral and multilateral activity, filtering through literature, art, music,
theatre, dance, and cinema. These spaces are the meeting places ofideas, offering opportunities for exchange, and a force for international
understanding and intercultural dialogue. Shakespeare’s MidsummerNight’s Dream, for instance, is playing successfully worldwide, in six
Indian languages and Sinhalese, proving resoundingly that unity ispossible in diversity. In another dialogue, where music is the languageof discourse, musicians from Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Egypt cometogether in an inspired artistic collaboration between Argentinean-Israeli
conductor Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said, the eminent PalestinianAmerican literary theorist and music and cultural critic. Said explains in
Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society that in a24

Papers of the fellows: Bina Sarkar Ellias“being among difference” these disparate identities unified and“suddenly [the performers] became cellists and violinists, playing thesame piece, in the same orchestra, under the same conductor.” There aremany such instances in the creative fields that assure a better
understanding of our world and how boundaries can be traversed andblurred.
The new canon, as suggested by Peter Watson in A Terrible
Beauty, is “in the importance of understanding and appreciation of all
the relevant sciences, the significant phases of history, the rise and fallof civilizations, and the reasons for the underlying patterns. Great worksof religion, literature, music, painting and sculpture shape this system ofunderstanding, in the sense that all cultures have been attempts to cometo terms with both the natural and the supernatural world, to create
beauty, produce knowledge, and get at the truth. The significance of
language, the way languages have related and evolved, and yet remains
very different, is part of the understanding.”
Needless to say, it is imperative to begin inculcating the young.
The youth need to be educated with secular ideas as a way of life; thedogmatism of “Nationhood” and religious prejudice must be firmly
removed from societal structures if we are to make a difference to thepresent status quo. The present status quo is a by-product of manic
consumerism—inflicting intellectual atrophy on a massive scale. The
youth are cynical of the legacy we are bequeathing them, as they shouldbe. More and more, they are becoming indifferent to issues that concern
the larger wellbeing, as they do not wish to be tethered to the burden of
repairing the damage we have unleashed. It is crucial, therefore, todevelop critical rethinking of the world order as it is evolving; to be alert
to the increasing fragmentation in our lives, and to arrest its
progression—through relentless dialogue across territorial, cultural andreligious boundaries. The importance is not merely in being “tolerant”(tolerance suggesting an acceptance under duress) but going beyond thatto acknowledge and recognize diversity as intrinsic, and an enrichmentof our societies. It is most appropriate at this point to evoke Edward
Said’s view on this issue, “The critical spirit is to avoid the pitfalls ofnational pride and narcissism, which then enables us to see different
cultures not as competitors for the title of greatest or most developed but
rather as movements of a majestic, symphonic whole, the history ofhumankind in all its variations and divergences.”25

Papers of the fellows: Hishamuddin Rais

MALAYSIAN AND JAPANESE YOUTH—looking andlurking
Hishamuddin Rais
My interest has always been in social change. Social change has been
the core and the hope of my existence. This is not an academic desire,neither an academic exercise, nor an academic question. To me the needfor social change is real—as real as the sun rises on the Izu Peninsula,and as real as the snow capped Fuji San in November.
Data collecting to back up a thesis is a great idea but leaving the data as
unchangeable figures is a futile exercise. I come from the tradition of
accumulating knowledge for the sake of changing the very knowledge
itself, to break new boundaries, and to push knowledge towards the
cutting edge.
The journey towards social change is tedious but the possibilities ofchanging are always there. I am not a sociologist but I believe the social
laws are there for all of us to probe, to experiment, to dwell upon, and to
explore, in order to explode the existing conceptual norms into
something new: something fresh and something exciting.
As an experimental artist I am bored with the ancient, the passé and the“has been.” I am always excited by something new, something fresh,and something I have never seen before. The human narrative is thenarrative for change. They day we fail to change is the day that we havelost the desire to participate in the dynamic forces in our society.
The social experiment of the “workers” has been seen through theBolshevik Revolution. The peasant has revolted in China. The holy andthe pious have overthrown the Shah of Iran. We have witnessed thesesocial forces moving mountains then degenerating and losing theirburning idealism.
In Malaysia, I am observing and exploring the new potential force ofchange. To me the new possibilities are there--not with the workers, notwith the peasants--but with the youth. Romantic it might sound but I am
putting my case forward to be probed and to be dissected
I am proposing that we could look deeper into the sign and meaning of
popular culture. What I mean by popular culture is not a Korean soap
opera, top of the pops of the day, or the newest Hollywood film. To me,
all these formats have been promoted, packed, and sold by the media.
What is accepted, what is en vogue, is never exciting and never26

Papers of the fellows: Hishamuddin Rais
challenging. It would never be part of the social force for change. As amatter of fact these are cultural products enhanced and sweetened by thecurrent social order. They are promoted, given the right sound bite, andthe correct tag line so that they can be consumed, hook, line and sinker,
by the consumers.
I am more interested in the culture that acts in opposition to themainstream. This is the counter–culture: the culture and the art form that
goes against the accepted norms and the rules of the day.
I am looking at three areas that are connected to one another—fashion,art, and life style. At one level one could be mistaken to consider thesecounter-cultures as low art as compared to high art. It might be useful torecall how the snobbish Times of London took almost five years toreport anything about the Beatles. I hope we will not trap of acting likethe toff, or a member of the Lords. Indeed, today some universities in
the UK are turning Beatles songs into a discipline of knowledge.
Fashion is associated with desire: the desire to define one’s identity.
When one clothes oneself, one gives meaning to one’s existence. Eachmorning when we look at the mirror, what we are doing is actuallyfacing our identity. We reshape, we design and we paint the way wewant to be seen.
Our “look” is our definition of our self. We gave sign and meaning
through the dress we wear, through the hairstyle we coiffure or the shoes
on our feet. We are communicating not through body language or verbal
sound but through the signs and grammar of our body. These signs andmeanings are as ancient as human existence itself.
Walk into the streets in Kuala Lumpur one will not failed to see themultiply sign of fashion that gives various meaning for our eyes todecipher. The youth’s fashion sense, which I observed both in Kuala
Lumpur and in Tokyo, looks similar yet it might not convey the same
meaning.
The desire to be different in Malaysia is a political decision. Piercing
and tattooing the body, wearing torn jeans, having a Rastafarian-stylehairstyle, all of these decisions are about making a political statement.
This is to create a clear demarcation line between You and Me—
between the ruler and the ruled, a boundary or personal space, and a signthat is loaded with meaning.
In Malaysia, where the state is oppressive, the counter culture fashion—
breaking away from the mainstream—is a bold political statement. The
Malaysian state is obsessive in her desire to mould her citizens toconform. Here, conformity/uniformity has been the object of desire of27

Papers of the fellows: Hishamuddin Raisthe state. Uniformity has been construed as equality. Therefore, in an
oppressive political ambience like Malaysia, anti-fashion fashion issubversive.
Anti-fashion fashion is not part of the mainstream consumer culture.
Yes, it does represent the capitalist relationship of buying and selling,but it is subversive. In almost every town, big or small, in Malaysia one
will find Kedai Bundle, a second hand shop that specializes in used andrecycled products. These shops are mostly run by young people.
These shops, the counter culture fashion houses, run parallel with themainstream. The desire to wear, to utilize recycled products has become
so fashionable that it has affected some trade within the mainstream
fashion houses. It has forced the fashion houses to churn out, forinstance, new torn jeans, broken t-shirt or shirts that look aged. It is notkilling capitalism but it has caring attitude: an attitude of not willing towaste whatever is usable. This attitude is admirable and also subversive
because they are not willing to be fashion victims or be easily
manipulated by the fashion industry.
The moment the fashion industry produced the same look, the demand
for that product is abandoned.
The arts products of the counter culture are exciting. Galleries and art
salons are considered to be anti-art. The new venue for the counterculture galleries are the street and open public spaces. Writing on thewall has moved to a higher level. Public spaces have been liberated to be
painted with graffiti. The new art form is not collectable, is not to be
kept as an investment, is not to be displayed in private houses but
instead is meant to be seen freely by Mr. and Mrs. Joe Public. There areno curators and no gallery owners involved in the counterculture art
form.
Yes, the state defines graffiti as vandalism, but to the youth this is anexpression. Challenging the bill board, the commercial neon-lightedsign advertisement that displays consumer products, is an on goingbattle: a battle to liberate public space. It is very tough and dangerous
battle. The counter-culture artists work individually in secret or in ateam. Graffiti artists are unknown, unseen, and always incognito—in
contrast to the publicity seeking salon or gallery artists who ever willingto sell their soul to the highest bidder.
The arrival of new technologies brought along new possibilities.
Technology democratized the most expensive art form—the creation ofmoving images. With the presence of cheaper and lighter video camera,a new kind of image-maker emerged, making new types of narrative and28

Papers of the fellows: Hishamuddin Rais
opening subject matters that had no mainstream film maker had yet had
the courage or audacity to touch. Recently, when Malaysia wascelebrating her 50th anniversary a new documentary appeared tochallenge the narrative of the state. This has never happened in thehistory of the state. The state has not had experiences of facing such achallenge.
The new economy brought along a new lifestyle. The extended family
is breaking up. In response to the new economic reality, a new mode ofliving has developed—based around neither the nuclear family nor theextended family. The idea of collective living and space sharing has
emerged, partly as the result of economic necessity.
The Malaysian state is not happy with these developments. On religious
and moral grounds these new lifestyles are seen as an outrage. Moralpolice with authority from the state religious department, and in thename of God, from time to time raided homes and places of collective
living. The inability of the state and her unwillingness to understand that
moral values can change is outmoded in this world of new economic
forces and new modes of production.
This situation is tense and at times explosive. These are very fertile anddynamic situations that give birth to new creativities. Tension anddanger are part of the creative process.
At the personal level, the new life style is also rearranging notions ofsexual desire. The hegemony of the man/woman relationship has beenchallenged by the counter culture. A new sexual arrangement is slowly
coming out, into the open social space. Homosexuality, which isforbidden by the Malaysian state and that has existed since the days of
Sodom, has now been adopted as part of the counter culture.
Unlike dressing up and unlike graffiti, sexual desire has a more
explosive potential for social change. If one allows the state to control
one’s sexual desire than one is giving away one’s existence. In
Malaysia, like in most Islamic nations, the obsession of the state tocontrol sexual desire has become part of the national agenda. Here, theIslamic religion has been used to justify punishing so called sexualdeviants.
Five years ago, a national program was introduced by the state. All the“feminine or soft looking” male university students were rounded up.
They were then sent to various “summer camps” to be reoriented into
the macho-male culture.

29

Papers of the fellows: Hishamuddin Rais
Today, in Malaysia, feminine male students are no longer allowed andthey are discouraged from becoming school effeminate males, is analmost mind boggling exercise.
Homosexuality and cross dressing has always been accepted within theancient Malay culture. Old Malay sensibilities allow for the diverse
expression of all its members. Unity and diversity has always been thecultural strength of the Malay civilization. Being able to be individual,
yet also to be part of the community, has never been a major problem.
Homosexuality has always existed within the Malay culture, runningparallel to heterosexual culture, without disturbing the tranquillity of thecommunity. The assault by the state and the religious moral authorities
has opened a new debate on gender equality, sexuality, and sexualdesire.
For more than a month I have been observing the street culture of theJapanese youth. Clichéd it might sound but I must admit that, despite thesuperficial similarities between the Malaysian youth and the Japaneseyouth, internally I think there are vast differences.
The absence of the police force looking and lurking on the street—areminder of the presence of the state’s authority in Malaysia—makes it
clear that the Japanese state need not necessary publicize the presence ofthe state authority. The authoritarian nature of the Japanese culture itself
is sufficient for state policing. The Japanese are policing themselves
without a heavy state apparatus. This also means that the state has theconfidence and the strength that will ensure that no counter forces could
ever challenge and displace them.
Time and again I keep hearing that there is no possibility of replacing
the current political structure in Japan. The LDP seems to be here tostay, for ever and ever. It seems to me that the Japanese, at least thosewhom I met, have accepted the assumption that the state and the rulingclass is here to stay.
The obsession with kawaii is not solely part of the youth culture. The
Hello Kitty range, for example, is not just a young, girlish desire to be
seen as kawaii and pretty, but is a national pastime for young and oldJapanese.
It was very strange for me to read that kawaii is also for adults. The little
dangling thingy on every school girl’s mobile phone is also there on her
mum and dad’s mobile phone. How unexciting it must be to share thesame taste with one’s parents.

30

Papers of the fellows: Hishamuddin Rais
The kawaii Super Dollfie costs so much that surely only adults are able
enjoy it. But the essence of this toy is the same, it is an example thatyoung and old need to be part of the same sphere of the kawaii culture.
The youth that gather around the streets of Shinjuku or Harajuku could
be seen as examples of a counter-culture in their form, but I am not very
sure in terms of their content. The form could be superficially similar to
the Malaysian counter-culture, but the sign and meaning could be totallydifferent.
Here and there I saw poor attempts at graffiti expression. It is so hiddenthat its presence is not felt, especially when compared with the huge
billboards that dominate the landscape and assaulted our eyes. Those billboards that represent conformist consumer culture, have not beenchallenged.
I am beginning to understand why—the nail that sticks out will behammered down. I also understood why Jonathan Livingstone Seagull,
the book by Richard Bach, has the highest sales in Japan. There is a
desire to fly away from the flock. However, there is also fear of being
seen as the nail that stands alone. The danger of being unique must be
real for the Japanese.
Looking and lurking for a period of more than a month in Japan only
allowed me to see some of the manifestations of the authoritarian natureof Japanese society. Language has been a major problem in trying tounderstand the nuances of sign and meaning that I saw in the street.
Cruising in the book shops, glancing at the anime magazines, andwatching Japanese TV without the ability to read the language isdifficult.
The notion of “Japanese-ness” has bizarre connotations for many
foreigners. The sense of humor is especially unique—owarai— for
instance the idea that farting and burning one’s arse is a laughing matterin Japan, would seem alien to many. Carrying heavy items by using only
one’s testicles is not seen as funny, unless you are Japanese. The Hard
Gay Man—Masaki Sumitami—with his “wah wah wah” tag line andeccentric body language, would be seen as very strange from the pointof view of another culture. These art forms could be seen as the
manifestation of a counter-culture; a culture is not safe, is risk taking,and has an attitude daring enough to challenge the values of today.
I am also curious about the meaning of compensation dating, or the
knickers from the vending machine, and the cafes and teas houses withkawaii young girls all dressed up like Dutch ladies?

31

Papers of the fellows: Hishamuddin Rais
Here we all are, looking and lurking, united as a human race, but sodiverse in our cultural forms. Is there a common thread? There must be,like oxygen in the air, there is something that binds us all together. Thisis for us to find out.
I think this poem by T.S. Elliot could sum up my experiences here in
Japan:
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place –( Ash Wednesday 1930 )And now the collection of images

END

32

Papers of the fellows: Huang Jiansheng

Tu Zheng Ce (local policy): a game between Di Fang(the local government) and Zhong Yang (the Central
Government) in Chinese administrative system
Jiansheng Huang
The policies of the Chinese Government are basically formulated by

Chinese bureaucracy
in social life

the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which
controls the “direction” in the way China is going, and which makes the
final decisions on policies. The CPC is a heavily centralized andpowerful body. My concern here is the extent to which lower levelinterest groups can influence implementation of central policies,
particularly on regional levels.
As a starting point for the discussion I shall draw on Weber’sclassical perspective on bureaucracy as an “ideal type.” All concepts insociology are “ideal types.” Their construction entails a peculiartranslation of ordinary typifications into the scientific frame ofreference. Therefore they are not “real”– not“really out there”–but are
artificially constructed for specific cognitive purposes.1 Weber’s
purpose was how to understand a phenomenon specific to the modern
world, namely the rationalization of social organization, particularly inthe administrative field where it leads to bureaucratization. Through his“ideal type” construct, Weber intends to establish a conceptual
framework for interpreting the extent of bureaucratization as expressedin different forms of organization. The conceptual dimensions in his
framework can be summarized as follows: The extent to which rights and obligations between legally instituted

authorities and subordinate officials are clearly defined (as expressed in
written regulations).
 The extent to which rights and obligations between legally instituted

authorities and subordinate officials are clearly defined (as expressed in
written regulations).
 The extent to which authority relations are systematically ordered.

1 Weber, Max. (1981). General Economic History. New Brunswick, N.J.; Transaction Books,
41.

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Papers of the fellows: Huang Jiansheng The extent to which appointment and promotion are based oncontractual agreement and regulated accordingly.
 The extent to which bureaucratic employment is based on technicaltraining.
 The extent to which incumbents of bureaucratic positions have fixedmonetary salaries
 The extent to which administrative work is a full-time occupation

These dimensions are best understood as continua on scales from
0% to 100%. An empirical form of administration that manifested a
100% score on these dimensions (probably impossible) would be an
example of a “perfect” bureaucracy. It would be possible toconceptually construct an ideal type absolutely opposite to bureaucracy
where are dimensions had the score 0%.2
The advantage of “ideal type” constructs is that they allow us toconceptualize the extent to which specific empirical forms ofadministration are characterized by these dimensions and to explore theprocesses affecting the way they “score” on them.
Formally the Chinese administrative framework seems to scorequite high on these dimensions. In the first item of the “Organizing
Principles” in the Dang Zhang (the Party Constitution), it is clearly
declared that each individual party member should obey the party, theminority should submit to the majority, the lower levels of offices
should obey the higher levels of the organization, all levels of the offices
and individual party members submit to the National People’s Congress
and the Central Committee (The Party Constitution, Nov. 14, 2002, Item
One in Chapter Two). Although the Party Constitution has been
amended several times since the foundation of the Party, thefundamental principles of organization remain largely the same. In thisstructure, it is clearly stated that the lower should submit absolutely tothe higher and the personal interests should be subordinated to theinterests of the party and the collective.
Looking at how administration in “real life” is actually performed,
the score would be rather different. It is the processes that affects this“real life” performance of administration I am concerned with here.
Before I go into discussion of case material, I would like to draw
attention to the fact that in China (like in other communist countries) it

2 I am using the percentage to illustrate the point that the dimensions of the “ideal type”
constitute continua. I certainly do not think that one should try to measure how actual cases ofadministrative behavior “score” on these continua.

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Papers of the fellows: Huang Jiansheng
is not only the system of administration that is bureaucratized, but also
the system of political mobilization: the Communist Party itself. On alllevels of organization from the village to the Central Government there
are two hierarchical organizations–the Communist Party organizationand the Government Administration under State Council. On all levelsof the administration, the Communist Party exercises political controls.
While the Communist party is the most powerful and autonomous
political actor when it comes to formulation of state policies, this does
not mean that state administration is able to implement these policies in
the intended ways. Performance of incumbents in offices on different
regional levels in the administrative hierarchy is constantly affected bytheir relations to incumbents of offices in the party hierarchy. This is
only part of the picture; incumbents of offices in both Party and
Administrative hierarchies are also affected by their non-bureaucratic
relations to a range of actors, both inside and outside their regions ofoperation. To husband their career interests, occupants of administrative
offices have to play a very complicated “game” in their implementationof government policies. It is this “game” I shall try to explore in mypresentation of case material. As formulated by Jean C. Oi: “…the state,
as represented at the local level by its agents–the local level cadres who
are also responsible for representing their collective’s, and their, owninterests–is a distinct entity whose interests cannot be assumed to be thesame as or even compatible with those of the government.”3
By looking at how actors on different levels of organization (thevillagers, the Forest Bureau, the township government, the county
government and the higher government) interpret and implement theCentral Government's policy of tian ran lin bao hu (the preservation ofnatural forest), I shall argue that, within the Chinese state system, theinterests of different actors on different levels may lead to a weakeningof state power, in the sense that the commands being issued from thegovernment center in its bureaucratic execution are transformed into
effects very different from the interests of the state. The actors in thebureaucratic system, in general, cannot openly challenge the state
power. All the policies from the central government are claimed to be
carried out precisely, and the slogans are exactly what they are supposed
to be. Yet those who implement the policies have their own careerinterests to manage.

3 Oi, Jean C. (1989). State and Peasant in Contemporary China: The Political Economy of
Village Government. UC Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, 3.

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Papers of the fellows: Huang Jiansheng
My task is to look at how incumbents of administrative positions incertain parts of China perform in relation to Weber’s dimensions and,from there, to explore processes that affect the way they “score” onthese dimensions.

The administrative
framework

Before I go into details about how bureaucrats actually perform intheir positions, I shall briefly outline the main structures of theadministrative framework.
This can be sketched as follows:
The hierarchical order in this diagram is quite clear. The Central
Government is at the top of the administrative system. The townshipgovernment is at the lowest and has direct interaction with villagers. The
Forest Bureau is under the leadership of the county, and townshipgovernment has no power over this bureau. Yet, so far as the policy offorest preservation is concerned, both the Forest Bureau and townshipgovernment have the obligation to implement the policy—because they
are all under the direct leadership of the county government. Usufruct ofthe mountains is also clearly defined. Villages can use village-owned
mountains and the Forest Bureau is limited to protection or reforestationof state-owned mountains.
The problem is that there are no systematic rules about how stateowned mountains and village-owned mountains are distributed. In otherwords, the state-owned and the village-owned mountains are inintersections. The villagers know roughly that the mountains from one
valley to another (or from one range of mountain to another range ofmountain) belong to the state or to the village. But a person outside of
the village (except experts with maps) can hardly know which parts ofthe mountains are state-owned and which are village-owned. What ismore confusing is that, for example, in village A, the mountains on theeast side of the valley are state-owned while in village B the mountains
on the west side of the valley may belong to the state. Thus the stateowned mountains and village-owned mountains are often intersected. In
other words, there are both state-owned and village-owned mountains
nearby each individual village.

The villagers in
Jiangbian Xiang(Jinangbian township)

As an empirical case I shall first deal with material from a small
township in Yunnan. I shall begin by giving a brief introduction to theeconomic concerns of the villages in that township and some of the rules
governing their use of natural resources.
Jiangbian Xiang (Jiangbian township), like thousands of the othertownships, is at the bottom level of the Chinese administrative system.
Under its administration are 58 small villages which are scattered in36

Papers of the fellows: Huang Jianshengchains of mountains with a total area of 585,406 mu (about 39027
hectares4). Among them, the cultivated land takes 17,102 mu (1140 ha.)(Mile Gazetteer, 1987). The altitude varies from 995 meters to 1731
meters above sea level and the population is a little bit more than
12,000, consisting of different ethnic groups, such as, Yi, Zhuang, Dai,
Miao, Han, and Bai.
Jiangbian Xiang (in the red circle) is located in the Nan Pan Jiang,
which is one of the most important branches of the Zhu Jiang, the thirdlargest river in China. On the east side of Nan Pan Jiang river is a
township called Chongtou, which is attached to another county: Qiubei.
The Nan Pan Jiang flows from southwest to northeast and soon enters
the territory of Guizhou province and Guangdong province. Thus, fromthe national perspective, Jiangbian is one of the most important places; aplace where forest protection is crucial, because it is located at the upper
part of the Zhu Jiang. The deforestation in this part may cause serious
floods in the rainy season and lack of enough water in the dry season. In
fact, it is reported that in the last few years, seawater flows into the Zhu
Jiang during the dry season due to the lack of enough water in the river.
Such “back-flow” of seawater leads to a shortage of drinking water in
Guangzhou City.
From the perspective of the provincial government, however, thispart of the province is not very significant because the production ofgrain is low and there are not many valuable resources that can help toincrease the provincial revenue. What is more, the river is flowing out ofthe province. The damage caused by the deforestation in this part does
not have much influence on Yunnan Province.
It seems that, from the perspective of the county government,
Jiangbian Xiang is a marginal place which is far from the center of thecounty. On the other side of the river is another county (Qiubei). The
county government can hardly get any benefit (in an economic sense)from this locality. Instead, it has to give some subsidies to the farmers or
governmental offices, from time to time. When the economy becomesthe main target of governmental effort, the protection of the forest
becomes less significant because “more trees do not bring any benefit to
the local people and the local government.”
The mountains in Jiangbian township, like those in most parts ofChina, are divided into two parts: the state-owned (guo you shan) andthe village-owned (cun you shan). The village-owned mountains havebeen subdivided and contracted to each household since the early 1980s.

4 Henceforth the abbreviation of hectares, “ha.” is used in this essay.

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Papers of the fellows: Huang Jiansheng
In general, the contracted, village-owned mountains are all wellpreserved. Various trees, bushes and grass fully cover the mountainslopes, which is in sharp contrast to the state-owned mountains. No
cultivation (except some fruit trees) is seen on the contracted, villageowned mountains. If the villagers want to cut any pine trees from theircontracted mountains, they have to get permission from the Xiang(township) government. They can cut any other trees at will. Even so,
people do not cut firewood and make charcoal from their contracted
mountains, nor do they cultivate the slopes of contracted mountains.
Most of the mountain slope cultivation is done on the state-owned
mountains.
The cultivation on state-owned mountain slopes (mainly forsugarcane and maize) is a common practice in the villages. Everyhousehold has a certain size of such cultivation.5 It is also the main
source of cash income. In 1997, under the policy of the Chinese Central
Government, the local government set some limits on the mountainslope cultivation. The rule was that the villagers could continue
cultivating on the land they had been cultivating, but they could not
expand it or shift to a new piece of land. Such measures prevented
people from cultivating more on mountain slopes, and this served toprotect the natural environment from further deforestation. However, therepeated cultivation on the same piece of land they were allowed tocultivate, deteriorated the soil and lead to an increase in the use ofchemical fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide.
Economically, the main problem for the villagers is lack of cash
income. More than two thirds of their production activities are centeredon their endeavors to increase cash income through all possible means.
For the villagers, the quickest and most direct way of earning cash is
growing maize and sugarcane. In general, in the last 3 to 4 years, theprice of maize has been 0.8–1.30 yuan/kg, and sugarcane is sold to sugarprocessing plants at a price of 0.13–0.15 yuan/kg. If one takes all thechemical fertilizer and labor costs into calculation, such a price is notvery profitable, particularly for sugarcane. People say that they are fully
aware of this, but they have to continue because these two products
bring them the largest amount of cash income.
Since the level of rice production is just a little bit more than enoughfor self-consumption, only a small part of the paddy fields can be saved
for sugarcane or maize growing. This ensures that the villagers havesomething to eat in the coming year. To increase cash income, the

5 On average, each person may have up to 3-4 mu (0.2-0.27 ha.).

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Papers of the fellows: Huang Jianshengplantation of maize and sugarcane has been moved to the state-owned
mountain slopes. The more cultivation on the mountain slopes, the more
erosion may result. In the mid 1990s, a big flood destroyed some of the
paddy fields in the bottom of the valley in the summer, and a serious
drought brought irrigation problems in the paddy fields in spring andearly summer, in the midst of rice planting.
After 1997, under pressure from the central government, thetownship government took some tough measures to prevent any further
cutting and cultivation on mountain slopes. These measures include no
cutting of pine trees without permission, no charcoal making, and no
expansion of present cultivation. Things got better after these measures.
No serious flood or drought occurred within the next eight years.
However, when one looks at the mountains, one still feels pessimistic
about the natural environment. Most of the mountains are barren, with
only patches of green growth. The growing number of goats and cattle
in the village greatly threatens the sustainability of the mountainvegetation, because the grass is eaten, trampled, and some smaller trees
are cut down in order to let the goats eat the leaves.
In spite of these direct and visible consequences of over-use, people
seem to pay little attention to the declining natural environment. The
priority is always placed on the increase of cash income. According to
the villagers’ way of thinking, the gain is always private and the loss
belongs to the public—when the flood comes.
When interviewed, most of the villagers interpret the state policy offorest preservation in the following terms: (1) not cutting pine trees, (2)not making charcoal, (3) the business of the Forest Bureau,; (4) wecannot live in green, beautiful mountains without food and cash.
In other words, the villagers understand the state policy of forest
preservation in the following three ways. First, the villagers cannot cut
down pine trees. This implies that they can cut down all the other trees.
Second, they cannot make charcoal, but this does not say that theycannot cultivate crops on mountain slopes. Third, both the task and theconsequence of forest preservation have nothing to do with them. They
cannot benefit from such a policy.
In this sense, any agency that comes to implement the state policy offorest preservation may become the opponent or adversary of thevillagers. At the very least, this agency will be seen as having noprogram relevant to the villagers’ lives.

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Papers of the fellows: Huang Jiansheng
In the last few years, particularly after 1998, the Chinese Central

Jiangbian Lin Ye
Ju (Jinangbian
Forest Bureau) as
one of the stateagencies

Government has initiated a national policy to prevent the deteriorationof the environment, and to improve the living conditions of the people.
From the national perspective, “keeping the mountains green” inthousands of the villages in Yunnan is particularly important, owing to
the fact that they are mostly located at the upper parts of several big
rivers in China, such as the Yangtze River, the Zhujiang River, theLancangjiang River (Mekong), and the Honghe River. Deforestation andpollution in these areas may bring damage not only to these places but
also to the lower parts of the rivers. Considering the negative impact on
the natural environment, the production in these small villages is notvery significant, from a national perspective. Rather, the ecologicalbalance is crucial in these areas. So cultivation on mountain slopes
whose grade is over 25 degrees should be stopped, so they can beconverted into forest.
Greater efforts have been made in the last ten years to reduce
emissions and deforestation. For example, in Jiangbian, anyone who isfound making charcoal will be fined 500 yuan, plus the person must
plant as many trees as he has cut down. Anyone who cuts down pinetrees (even on the mountain he is contracted to) without permission, will
be fined or even sent to jail. Large subsidies have been allocated to those
who have given the land back to grass and forest. If a villager plants“economic trees” (such as fruit trees or other fast-growing trees) on
cultivated land, they receive 75 kg of grain each year for five years. If avillager plants non-economic trees, they will get the subsidies for eight
years.
Such a policy is implemented through different levels of thegovernment. The government level that directly interacts with thevillagers is the xiang zhengfu (township government). In theory, theconflict between the villagers and the Forest Bureau has to be reconciledby the township government. Tui geng huan lin (land conversion) andtian ran lin bao hu (the protection of the natural forest), etc. should be an
important part of their regular work. But, in practice, the townshipgovernment has its own problems with which to deal.
The state-owned mountains legally belong to the state. The
Jiangbian Forest Bureau (Jiangbian Lin Ye Ju) is supposed to be thestate agency that takes care of these mountains. But from the late 1950s,
to the middle of the 1980s, the Jiangbian Lin Ye Ju cut down almost all
the big pine trees on the state-owned mountains for logs, without
planting any new trees. What is worse, between 1985 and 1990, somevillage people complained it is not right to let these “outsiders” cut40

Papers of the fellows: Huang Jiansheng
down and sell the trees when they, who had been living there forgenerations, stay poor. From such reasoning, they began to cut down therest of the pine trees for logs as well as other trees for charcoal on thestate-owned mountains. This cutting frenzy plus large-scale maize andsugar cane cultivation on mountain slopes brought disaster both to thevillagers and the Forest Bureau. The Forest Bureau, with no more pinetrees to cut, was put in a difficult situation. Many workers had no pay
and those who were retired had no pension.
Since 1999, the state has allocated over 100 million yuan to theForest Bureau for forest preservation. The purpose of this effort is clear:
to restore the destroyed ecological balance in the whole region; a region
which is particularly significant for the Zhu Jiang river. Basically two
measures are employed to reach the goal: (1) replanting trees; (2)protecting the wild trees (tian ran lin bao hu gong cheng) through tui
geng huan lin (converting cultivated land to forest). This policy of forest
preservation is supposed to be not only good for the environment, butalso beneficial to the Forest Bureau. The workers can be re-employed.
The Forest Bureau tried to plant some fruit trees and bamboo on
mountain slopes, intending to cover the mountains with trees, andthereby achieving two objectives: (1) increasing cash income and (2)preventing erosion. The fruit and bamboo shoots can be sold or canned.
Yet this proved to be very difficult. After a worker from the Forest
Bureau planted fruit trees during the daytime, some villagers simply
pulled the fruit trees and bamboo out during the night. The Forest
Bureau was put in a helpless situation.
The phrase for protecting the natural trees (tian ran lin bao hu gong
cheng) is often shortened by the villagers as tian bao gong cheng(literally “heaven protection”). This shortened phrase, from theperspective of the villagers, twists the original meaning into one that has
heaven (state) giving protection to the “dying” Forest Bureau. Thus thestate allocation of money for environmental protection is interpreted by
the villagers as given to help the Forest Bureau survive rather than topreserve the forest.
Some villagers feel the situation is unfair. Why does the state givethem so much care, but not the villagers themselves? They feel that if
the money is given to them, they can grow many more trees. With suchan interpretation, the original conflict between the villagers and theForest Bureau continues.
What is more, the traditional way of understanding the forest in thelocal place, still has some impact on people’s (even administrators’)
minds. When they say “to protect the forest,” they seem to understand it

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Papers of the fellows: Huang Jiansheng
as “to protect pine trees.” In other words, one does not violate the law
unless he/she cuts down pine trees. Such an understanding leads to the
reduction of bio-diversity and failure to maintain “green mountains.”
The Forest Bureau is financed by the Central Government. The sizeof the mountains protected is often the crucial evidence for the bureau
staff to show the effort they have put in. In order to increase the size ofprotected mountains, the first step is to reverse as much mountain slope
cultivation as possible. The Central Government has ruled that any
cultivation on a mountain slope whose grade is over 25 degrees should
be returned to forest (called tui geng huan lin [land conversion]). Thus,
the Forest Bureau insists that any cultivation on mountain slopes,
particularly those on state-owned mountains, should be stopped.
From the farmers' perspective, however, over 85 percent ofmountain slope cultivation is done on slopes whose grade is over 25
degrees. Converting these cultivated lands to forest means that thevillagers most important source of cash income is gone. Consequently,
despite the effort of the Forest Bureau, most of the mountain slopes
remain cultivated. The Forest Bureau has no means to get them back.

Xiang (the township):the local bureaucrat’s
dilemmaFirst of all, while the higher governmental offices look at the
problem from a larger perspective, the local government offices have todeal with very immediate, practical problems. As mentioned above, each
person in Jiangbian can have only 0.6 mu (0.04 ha.) of paddy fields. Allother cultivation is on mountain slopes, which are mostly on 25-degreeslopes. If all mountain slope cultivation is forbidden, life there canhardly be maintained at subsistence level (in many other similar villagesin Yunnan, the situation is even worse). So the township government
often has to balance between satisfying the local farmers’ needs andimplementing state policy. This makes it difficult to reconcile the Forest
Bureau’s demands with the farmers’ antagonistic feelings toward thestate policy of protection and conversion.
Secondly, it is the township government’s task to help farmers get abetter life. It is almost the only way to demonstrate the townshipgovernment’s work. In such mountain areas, however, these local
leaders cannot think of any other ways to improve living conditions,
except growing maize, sugar cane, or tobacco. These crops have to beplanted on mountain slopes and they are often in conflict with forest
protection.
Thirdly, an important concern for government leaders’ promotion ortransfer to positions in cities is zheng ji (political achievement). Being

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Papers of the fellows: Huang Jianshengpromoted or moving into larger cities has always been the dream of
most people who are working in township government. At the moment,
economic growth is still the main criterion for demonstrating zheng ji.
Asked why they do not stop the villagers from expanding cultivation onmountain slopes, one of the local leaders said: “I do not care, so far as
they can increase their income.” On another occasion, this leader evendeclared as follows: “Anyone who has a production of 10 tons of maizea year, I will give him a bonus of 300 yuan.” The increase of farmers’
cash income, and of the governmental revenue, are often taken as the
only indication of a township government’s zheng ji. Certainly it is agood thing to increase production. But in this specific context, an
increase of maize production means more deforestation, land erosion,and more application of chemical fertilizer, as well as pesticides.
Repeated cultivation on the same spot makes the land barren and leads
to increased use of chemical fertilizer. In addition, more insects moveinto the cultivated land in search of food.
In ironic scene, not far from the township government, there is aconcrete stele on which several big Chinese characters are written: feng
shan yu lin qu (area of natural forest preservation). Looking at themountain slope behind this stele, however, one can hardly see any trees
or bushes. People told me that for several years, the forest in the area
was preserved. But this spring, after a forest fire, the villagers simply
cultivated on the mountain slopes because the price for maize was quite
good last year (1.3-1.5 yuan/kg). The township government leadersneither said “yes” nor “no.”This case indicates that, although both forest preservation andeconomic growth in rural areas are state policy objectives, their effect in
implementation may be quite different. When there is no way toreconcile both, one leader may focus on the one, and a new leader may
shift to the other. Obviously the previous leader may have paid more
attention to forest preservation so that the concrete stele was built, andpeople admit that the forest was protected. But the present leader seems
to be shifting the focus to economic growth. Once cut down, the trees orbushes take many years to recover. This is not just a personal choice ofthe local leader. It is also closely related to the higher levels of thegovernment. When the higher government offices put more pressure on
forest preservation, the township government will put more effort on
forest protection. In other words, when the pressure is reduced (eventemporarily), the township government may “neglect” it.

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The higher levels of the government, including sheng (province),zhou(prefecture), and xian(county), all take the state policy of forest

Sheng province, Zhou
prefecture, and Xian
county:the government at
higher levels

preservation seriously, and the popular slogan is zai zao yige xiumei
shanchuan (to re-make a beautiful landscape). In practice, however, theunderstanding and explanation of such national policy can differ fromplace to place and from different levels of government office, dependingon the practical situation.
From the Chinese Central Government’s perspective, improvementof the living environment is a long-term policy. Forest preservation isnaturally one of the key parts in this policy. Yet this does not mean thatall places are equally attended to. The mountains by the main highways,
at the upper part of big reservoirs, nearby to tourist sites, etc., often get
the attention of the local government because these places may beinspected by officials from the higher levels of the government, or easily
seen by journalists or tourists. Most of the mountains, like those around
Jiangbian, are said to be important. But few inspections are reallycarried out. In other words, if the township government reports that
5,000 mu of the mountain slopes have been converted to forest land in
this area or that the forests are well protected, few persons from thehigher levels of the government would bother to go and confirm it, letalone to monitor what happened in the following years.
This leaves some space for flexibility in the implementing of statepolicy. It is often the case that the lower levels of the government makedecisions according to practical situations (gen ju shi ji qing kuang),
which take into consideration local interests and conditions. These
decisions may be good for the local people or local government, butthey may bring damage to the ecological balance as a whole. From theperspective of the national interest, the benefit from such decisions may
be much less than the cost of later investment to restore it. On theeconomic level, these decisions seem irrational. From the perspective ofthe local government, however, it is rational because, in most cases, thebenefit is gained by the local government or local communities, while
the latter investment is paid for by higher levels of the government. For
instance, when farmers cultivate maize on mountain slopes, farmers get
cash income, and township leaders get zheng ji. Once the damage to theforest is done, the state needs to allocate an enormous amount of money
to restore the ecological balance. The Forest Bureau receives subsidies.
The province, prefecture, or county may have to pay part of the bill forrecovery, but it is the central government that pays most of it.
In this sense, the general policy from the central government is often
twisted, more or less, to fit the local situation and local interests.

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Sometimes, it may be twisted to fit personal choices of the local
administrators in the name of the local situation. Though most of thepeople know the importance of protecting the environment, it is hard to
insist on it consistently. Such distortion is often done in the name of tuzheng ce (the local policy).

Conclusion

The bureaucrats at different levels of government office will always
claim that they “yu dang zhongyang baochi yi zhi” (are consistent withthe central government). Any policy or order from the central
government is passed on from higher to lower levels through meetingsand documents. Any new slogan from the central government
immediately becomes the pet phrase of the bureaucrats at different
levels. At meetings, all of them openly express their determination to
implement policy or orders from the central government. In most cases
they do take action to respond to the calls of the central government.
This sounds quite close to Weber’s “ideal type” of bureaucracy (at least
70–80 percent). The empirical process of implementation, however,shows a great variety in terms of different context, agency, interest andpurpose.
While the bureaucrats at different levels of government office claimthat they are following closely the central government, some highofficials in central government sigh with the feeling that “one of thebiggest problems in Chinese bureaucracy is zhengling bu tong
(government decree impeded).” Zhang Baoqing, former vice minister ofeducation, exclaimed at the moment of his retirement in 2005 that “if
20–30 percent of the policies (orders) from the central government had
been implemented completely, the situation would not be as it is now.”
Zhang’s personal estimation may not be accurate. But it indicates theintricate relationship between policy making and policy implementation.
“Forest preservation “is a state policy from the perspective of thecentral government. Yet, as my essay has shown, it is rather like a game,in the local context. In this game, the villagers, the Forest Bureau andtownship government are primary participants (because they are fully
involved in the game) while the province, prefecture and county
government are secondary players (because Jiangbian is only one of theplaces they have to deal with). Each of them has their own interpretationof a policy based on their own knowledge, interests, strategy, andability.
The villagers see the state-owned mountains as an importantresource for cash income. But the villagers’ exploitation of the mountain
is often impeded by the Forest Bureau, which claims that it is protecting

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the forest on behalf of the state. The Forest Bureau has to convert moreland to forest because they get allocations from the central government.
The bureaucrats in the Forest Bureau also want to show their zhengji so
as to get promoted. Yet the more effort they make, the more conflicts
they have with the villagers. Consequently, the Forest Bureau has to relyon the cooperation of the township government to implement the statepolicy of forest preservation.
Taking into consideration the local situation, township governmentis often caught in the dilemma between either protecting forests orincreasing economic growth. From the perspective of the central
government, both of them are very important. From the townshipgovernment’s perspective, it is difficult to deal with both at the sametime. The bureaucrats have to make choices which are mostly affectedby regional or individual interests.
The other, higher, levels of the government also have similar
problems. The government may shift its focus from time to time, forinstance this year on forest preservation and next year on economic
growth. The main consideration is which one can bring the most benefit
to the region (or to the bureaucrats who are in administrative positions).
This uncertainty (or flexibility) in implementing policy and orders
makes it possible for personal or regional interests to be integrated into
bureaucratic operations. Formalism becomes prevalent. Everything isdone in the name of implementing policies and orders from the central
government. The bureaucrat who focuses on economic growth may
justify his choice by emphasizing that “getting rid of poverty is apriority of the Chinese government’s work.” One who pays more
attention to forest preservation may stress the importance of “better
living conditions for younger generations.” It is true that both economic
growth and natural environment protection are part of state policy.
Instead of making efforts to reconcile the two, most of the bureaucratschoose to make a choice depending on the empirical context: which of
the two may benefit them most at the moment.
If bureaucrats can, to some extent, distort state policy for the sake of
personal or regional interests, there is the possibility of influencing thedecision-making in policy implementation. Some individual persons orinterest groups may try to get in contact with bureaucrats (good guanxi),
so that some policies may be twisted for personal or regional interests.
Such personal choice alienates bureaucratic operations from the “idealtype” of bureaucracy, which is supposed to be quite impersonal.
In conclusion, my essay has demonstrated the following: (1)bureaucracy is not a machine-like mechanism which can function46

Papers of the fellows: Huang Jianshengwithout any personal (regional) consideration, (2) in bureaucratic
principles, personal (regional) interests should be excluded frombureaucratic operation, and (3) the efficiency of bureaucratic operation
depends on the degree to which the central government is able to containthe exploration of personal (regional) interests. When the central
government exerts more pressure and monitoring, the lower bureaucrats
may implement the policies more faithfully. When the control of thecentral government is somewhat loosened, the lower bureaucrats may
seek the opportunity to distort policy for their own interests. On the one
hand, this may reduce the efficiency of bureaucratic operation. On theother hand, it may lead to some serious problems which the central
government has to either find a way to solve or to spend more money
on. Such low efficiency significantly weakens state power in domestic
administration. The interesting point is that the forces that cause thisweakening of state power are neither anti-governmental groups nor
international nor transnational non-governmental organizations. Rather
it is the bureaucrats, who claim to always maintain consistency with thecentral government.

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Papers of the fellows: Kaoru Aoyama

Migrant Women in Japan: Beyond the Dichotomy ofTrafficking Victims and Voluntary Sex Workers
Kaoru Aoyama
Introduction

During the course of ALFP 2007, I have been pursuing my researchon migrant women in Japan’s sex industry, who have dealt withJapanese customers. I have been involved in this area of work since myvolunteer experience at the Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Center, aTokyo based NGO. I did my MA in Gender and International
Development between 1993 and 1995; in my PhD research, I
particularly focused on Thai women’s cases. Since I completed my PhD,
I have further conducted some more research into the issue not onlywith academics but also with civil activists who commit themselves tosupport women in the sex industry. As the gap between the haves andhave-nots is said to have widened, the issue of migrant women working
in the sex industry becomes a more and more influential global topic. In
this sense, I think, my research topic is an apt subject for the discussionof this fellowship bridging between Asian societies, citizens and social
movements beyond academic interest.

Background

For these three decades or so, there has been a trend of migration to
Japan from other countries and regions. The trend was at first induced
by an official liberalization, though slight, of the tight immigration
policy of Japan at the end of 1970s. What followed was, however, adrastic increase in the undocumented migrants staying without visas
once they had entered Japan. The originating country of the trend haschanged for these decades as national level diplomatic agreements, aswell as the agents of formal and informal trade, change their focusesfrom one country to another. The undocumented migrants in Japan havechanged their profile of origin from Korea to the Philippines, toThailand, to Colombia, to the former Soviet Union states, to China andmost recently to Indonesia. But the immigration flow on the whole has
not yet decreased.
The first group of undocumented migrants who gathered acutepublic attention were the Filipinas in the 1980s and then Thai women
until the mid 1990s. Thai women’s migration to Japan, to work in its
rampant sex industry, was considered to be particularly phenomenal.

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Papers of the fellows: Kaoru Aoyama
There were several reasons why Thai migrant women in the sex industry
received a lot of public attention in Japan. In the peak years of theirmigration around 1993, there were tragic homicide cases revealed within
the sex industry involving Thai nationals, as both victims andperpetrators. The Japanese mass media covered them scandalously.
Their number was large; a Thai feminist estimated numbers to be around
40,000 to 50,000 in a year. Their move coincided with interrelated hyper
growth of both the Thai and the Japanese economies. Finally, feministsocial movements and research into both Thailand and Japan matured
their discourses to describe and analyse the phenomena, and appealed tothe public.1

The Rescue Work
Against “Sexual
Slavery”

What the media and social movement focused on was the fact thatneither victims nor perpetrators in these homicide cases should simply
be categorized as “victims” or “perpetrators” under the Japanesecriminal justice system. The “victims” who were killed had often been
“perpetrators” with regard to their acts of exploitation of and violenceagainst, those who committed homicides. By the same token, the“perpetrators” who killed had mostly been enslaved “victims” of these
exploitation and violence, and been made to believe that they had to“make the exploiter disappear” for their own survival. Behind thesecases, there was huge economic disparity as well as a gender gap. Bothof these factors drove these people to come to Japan and outstay theirlegal allowance, with scarce protection from the Japanese jurisdiction in
the first place. Therefore the social climate was to blame for the creationof this unequal mechanism. Then, concrete actions and civil networks
were formed to support those who were involved in the crimes, as wellas to rescue those who were enslaved.
Because these cases happened in the sex industry, the mechanism
was deconstructed as structural sexual slavery. This then linked the
problem of undocumented migration to a long standing feminist aim ofeliminating prostitution as a materialization of women’s sexual andeconomic subordination to men in patriarchy and capitalism. In otherwords, the structural sexual slavery was now seen in the light ofglobalization, and those who migrated to become involved in sellingsexual services were considered to be “victims” of the structural slavery.
As citizens responsible for the social structure, Japanese supporters and1 Aoyama, Kaoru. (forthcoming) Migrant Sexworkers from Modernisation to Globalisation(working title). Hampshire: Palgrave/Macmillan, Introduction.

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Papers of the fellows: Kaoru Aoyama
rescue workers, took a firm stance against the buyer (presumed male)and those who were accumulating profit out of the deprived migrants. 2
Ironically, it was in the name of justice and equality that the feminist

A Perspective to See
Migrant Women as
Agentsdiscourse had a serious drawback. By focusing almost solely on
structural force and treating the migrants in the sex industry all as
victims, it unwittingly minimized their agency. Following Anthony
Giddens, a British social theorist, I defined “agency” as “ability to act
against or in compliance with the situation.” Of course, there had beenclear cases, as above, in which undocumented migrant women weretrapped in situations with near total deprivation of their agency, thus
akin to slavery. But, even those who became trapped in a slavery
situation could well have had intention and/or awareness of getting into
the sex trade on purpose, with the aim of gaining economic as well associal upward mobility. In Thai women’s cases, particularly after thelate 1990s, it became empirically rare to find an “innocent victim” in the
global sex trade who came to Japan without any knowledge of what she
would be required to do as work. They came to Japan as one of theirstrategies to utilize their inevitably disadvantaged position in theunequal global mechanism of economy and gender relations.
The researchers in this area are required to investigate more of the
motivations of migrant women in the sex industry, who are involved,
trapped and rescued or survived and succeeded in making money.
Without such investigation, we would fail to understand the mechanism
and to prevent the migrants to be deprived of their civil rights. In otherwords, the necessity of an acknowledgement of the migrants’ agency, as
such, came to our attention, as the focus on the trade shifted fromstructural causes to the details (particularly of agents’ actions and their
immediate conditions). Otherwise, the feminist criticism against thestructure would paradoxically work for fixing or even reproducing thestructure as overpowering migrant women’s ability to act.3

The Discourse against
Trafficking in Persons

Those who identified undocumented migrant women in the sex
industry as vulnerable and as being trapped in structural slavery
developed this analysis into a discourse against trafficking in persons.

2 Aoyama, op. cit., chapter 1.
3 Aoyama, Kaoru. (forthcoming) Migrant Women in Japan’s Sex Industry: Deconstructing
Out-casting through Their Agency, in Fujimura, F. K. ed. Japanese Women: New Feminist
Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future, Second Edition. New York: The Feminist Press
at The City University of New York.

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Papers of the fellows: Kaoru Aoyama
Coincided in the international arena was the route to enactment of the
UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, especially its
protocol to prevent, suppress, and punish trafficking in persons.
Although some have pointed out that there are problems with thisconvention in terms of the possibility of breaching civic liberty, themajor feminist movement against exploitation and violence towards
migrant women, evaluated this to be a progression not only towards theprotection of the victims but also towards the elimination of prostitution
as a whole.
This convention, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000, hasbeen approved, but not yet concluded, by the Japanese government. But,
particularly after the US Department of State released the annual
Trafficking in Person’s Report of 2004, which criticized Japan as amajor receiving nation of the trafficked with poor preventative andprotective measures, the Japanese government amended its Penal Code,Immigration Control Law and Prostitution Prevention Law in 2005, in
preparation for concluding the protocol.

The Discourse for “SexWork”

There is another group of people who are concerned about migrant
women’s status in the sex industry in Japan from a different stance.
They are those who have emphasized agency of women, men and transgender persons, in the sex industry. They have, quite logically, argued
for treating undocumented migrants, not as mere victims, but as agentswith their own purpose to work. Scholars and activists who take thisstance require the public to recognize the right to work in the sex
industry, to recognize migrant workers in the sex industry as sex
workers. This group, including myself, has not denied the fact that somepeople, mostly women and children, fell into victimization during thecourse of trafficking in the global sex trade.
Nonetheless, they have, on the whole, opposed the above feminist
movement against prostitution in the name of protecting the victims.
Having intercourse in exchange for compensation is prohibited under
the Prostitution Prevention Law in Japan. Furthermore, as stated above,as the law surrounding sex work has recently been amended to give amore severe punishment against those who profit from the sex trade, thepolicing has became more acute. As the sex workers have been
experiencing at the moment, the more policing develops, the more thesex industry goes underground. Consequently, the sex trade becomeseven more abusive; it became more difficult for migrant sex workers,
especially those who are already in need of help, to survive. Looking at
such a situation, some argue that, to secure the rights of migrant as well51

Papers of the fellows: Kaoru Aoyama
as Japanese people who work in the sex industry, sex work should be
decriminalized. Therefore migrant women are to be considered as being
able to act for the betterment of their own situation as they have been
given a lawful status in Japan. This discourse also enables the Japanesecounterparts to empower themselves and cooperate with the migrant
workers.

The Migration Ground

I do not support the “traditional” dichotomous argument: thediscourse for sex work based on “free choice” of the women in focus
verses the one against the whole sex industry as structural sexual andeconomic subordination of women to men. Rather, I consider that the
new wave of sex workers--who aim to bridge the gap between
themselves and the migrant workers in the sex industry, with or without
their own will--to be creating a middle-ground between the dichotomies.
Any one in either group could well be trapped in a slavery situation. By
recognising the social pressure, severe working conditions, and illegal
status surrounding them, people from both sides could find a way to seeeach other as not so different. I also see this as a cue to form alliances
here against exploitation and violence. These alliances are lead by thesex workers, as actors on the central stage, escaping also from theidentification of “victim” awaiting others’ rescue.4
In conclusion, I am, and will be continuously, working with various
actors in the social movement in this area, hopefully contributing to thecreation of the middle ground. It is high time that “public intellectuals,”
if there is any particular role they play, to include migrants in the socalled“underground”

or“illegal”

economy.

Migrant

workers“underground” share a large part of the sex industry. In this regard, intheir consideration of multi-cultural society, “public intellectuals”
should include these migrants, so that the situations of those who havebeen deprived of citizenship rights as well as personal safety might be
improved, instead of pulling up another abstract discourse which
discounts their existence in our everyday life.

4 Aoyama, Kaoru. (2007) Beyond the Fixed Identification of “Victim” or “Criminal”: A New
Look at the Debate and the Policies surrounding Trafficked Women, in Tsujimura, M. andYano, E. eds. Gender and Law in Japan. Sendai: Tohoku University Press, 99-118.

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Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Ho

Possibilities of a “Second Spring”: the interplay ofdesire and social realities for Japanese shufu
Petula, Sik-Ying Ho
Introduction

This study is an attempt to understand how middle-aged married womenin Tokyo deal with their identities as shufu (housewives) and how they
cope with personal, relational and social changes in Japan. In the present
study of Japanese shufu, I have attempted to uncover the diverse
interplay of social mores and the personal, unspoken pleasures anddesires in women’s lives, through inviting women to talk about their
dreams, hobbies, romances, relationships and everyday life. This is toprovide a wide and inclusive perspective of life situations of women indifferent kinds of relationships, with differing marital status, sexual
inclinations and practices, as they confront challenges such as
pregnancy, forced reduction of responsibilities after marriage, illness,extra marital affairs, separation from husbands, and children leaving
home. I then attempt to document and analyze the imaginative agencies
they employ to cope with the new social meanings that have been given
to womanhood, and the forms of relationship taken in the meanderingcourse of their desires, in the light of the limited economic and cultural
resources that they possess as women in a patriarchal, capitalist society.

Methodology

My analysis is based on the interviews I conducted in Tokyo in 2007.
The interviews were all conducted by me, but in three cases where theinterviewees did not speak English, I had the help of 3 Japanesevolunteer interpreters who are my friends. Interview questions included
the following: How do you describe yourself and your life? How do you
understand the meaning of the Chinese term “second spring”? Is there
an equivalent in Japanese? If so, how do you associate your life withthat term? How does your imagining of a good life change and develop
as you age? If you have a lot of money, what do you want to do with it?
What are your expectations and imaginings of “the last sex ever”? Whatis the importance of sex in your life? In-depth interviews wereconducted with 13 Japanese women, in 3 months of fieldwork in Tokyo.
The profile of the interviewees can be summarized as follows (name,age,

occupation,

academic

qualification):

Miwa,

43,

formeractress/restaurant owner, overseas BA; Keiko, 48, photographer/artist,overseas BA; Misa 44, freelance translator/former NGO worker,

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Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Hooverseas BA; Tomomi, 39, language teacher/6 months pregnant with her
second child, overseas Master’s; Ryoko, 45, part-time secretary for a
public institution, high school; Takami, 46, free-lance video editor, highschool; Hidemi, 57, former maid who had held different kinds of manual
jobs, junior high school; Miki, 57, housewife/freelance translator/active
participant in the peace movement, high school; Yumiko 44,
academic/former NGO worker, overseas PhD; Yayoi, 46, academic/parttime teacher, overseas PhD; Risa, 46, academic/former news anchor,
PhD; Mayu, 52, musician/artist, BA; and Mia, 63, housewife/formerly
ran family business with husband/now retired.

Findings
What happens to
women after
marriage?

Of the 13 women, three were divorcees. Two women had divorced theirhusbands, 1 had been divorced by her husband; two had married again,
while one had divorced twice. One had become a lesbian or bisexual
after divorce. Of those who were married, 2 felt that their marriages
were in crisis. We will see how the happy marriage, middle-class home,and family that women desire so much, especially as young adults, are
not as rosy as they appear to be. Against all the stereotypes about
Japanese women as wives and mothers, we see how some feel they have
“had too much” and “cannot take it anymore,” and decide to leave theirhusbands and homes or come up with new living arrangements with
their husbands.

Marriage in crisis

Miwa, aged 42, is the wife of a Thai restaurant owner. When I met her,she openly said she was not really happy with her life because herhusband, who was Thai, had just entered a monastery. In Thai Buddhist
practice, it is uncertain whether this will be permanent, as it is not
unusual in Thailand, for a man to do this for a variable period of timeupon the death of his father. The wife apparently did not understandwhat this was about.
“On the 10th of July, my husband left Tokyo and went back to Thailand.
His father was dying and so he had to hurry back home. My husband is
Thai Chinese. One week later, his friend called me and told me that myhusband had gone to the monastery to become a monk. I called his
family. His mother just said he was in the monastery, that was it. They
did not tell me anything. When I first heard that he had become a monk,
I panicked, because I thought that means forever. In Japan, to be a monk
is forever. Many Thai people have told me that in Thailand, you can be a54

Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Homonk for 3 months. I hope this is the case. We argued often and so I am
not sure if he had left me.”
Two weeks after the interview, Miwa told me that her husband had goneback to his parents’ home. He refused to come home because he felt that
Miwa had paid too much attention to the theatre, rather than to thefamily. Before her husband’s apparent desertion, Miwa had been a stage
actress with a theatre group. She had to give up her theatre work to takecare of the restaurant in a joint project with her husband. He evenrefused to talk about this with Miwa. Her husband’s refusal to talk led
her to think about divorce. She did not want to do this, but felt her
husband’s actions gave her no choice but to consider this as an option.
Similarly, Keiko was in the middle of a marriage crisis. Keiko is aphotographer. Keiko was not happy about her marriage, not because her
British academic husband was not nice to her but because she could not
bear the stability and stagnancy of her life. She wanted to review her lifeand find a new direction in her art. Recently, she had acquired aboyfriend, also British, and she hoped that her husband would agree to a
divorce.
"I am 48. My life was in decline, not a big decline, but just a stable life.
My new boyfriend is 10 years younger than me. He is feminine and hehas long hair. He said he wanted to be a housewife. I feel like we arelesbians. My ex-husband is very straight, a nice man but very straight.
My boyfriend now is almost like a “transgendered lesbian” to me interms of his personality. I can understand my husband’s anger but I hopethat sooner or later he will accept the reality.”Those who seemed happily married might also have had moments ofdoubt about their marriages and wanted to leave home. Tomomi is acase in point. She was 40 and had then been pregnant for 6 months withher second child.
“I had a miscarriage last year but this time I really hope that I will beokay. There are times when I really want to run away from home. Once,
I packed everything and wanted to leave home. I had to leave the house.
It was too much. My daughter saw me crying and she wanted to comewith me. I asked, ’Why are you coming?’ She said, ’Because I am yourson’ [she mixed up the word daughter and son. In Japanese, son ismusuko and daughter is musume].”55

Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Ho
Tomomi eventually went back to her husband’s place and did not talkabout the event again with her husband. Her hope is now the second
child, and she does not want to think too much about her marriage
problems.
“I got home and life goes on. Now I am pregnant. You never know how
long you will live. Life is something you cannot have control over. A
baby is given as a gift. I am happy. My husband too, we were so happy
to have the opportunity again to be mother and father and for a second
child.”

Settled into postdivorce life

There are others, like Yumiko and Yayoi below, who seem to havealready passed their marriage crisis and have settled into post-divorce
lives. Their reflections on marriage speak to the changing expectationsof middle-aged married women towards “the good life.”
Yumiko, 43, an academic, had just gone through her second divorce.
She was completely disillusioned about marriage and wanted to focus
on her career.
“My first husband. He was 21 and I was 24 when we got married. We
worked together. He does not speak any word of English. In working
with NGOs, you need this. He envied me. He tried to dictate to me, notin the office but at home. His family had a huge debt and they expected
us to pay it back for them. After 3 years, I decided to leave him.”
Yumiko’s second marriage, to an architect, lasted for 7 years.
Unfortunately, when the economy declined, his office got much lessbusiness and he became unemployed. For 7 years, Yumiko had to takecare of him and her two sons.
“One day I discovered that he had become involved with pachinko. In
English, this is pin-ball games. I really blamed him for not taking care of
our sons. The first son was not his, I could not blame him, but thesecond son is his own son, he should take care of him instead of playing
pachinko. He thought he could earn some money.”
Yumiko left her second husband and decided that she would devote hertime to her career, especially as she could now leave the second son to
the care of his father.

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Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Ho
Yayoi divorced her husband. She left her children to the care of her
husband, and left for the United States to pursue a doctoral degree.
There, she met the woman of her life and became lesbian.
“Looking back, there is something good about marriage. You don’t haveto decide, other people decide for you. ‘Family responsibilities’ are a big
word. It is easy, in a way. They have a decision mechanism. There isstability, no hassle with colleagues. You can have a middle-class way oflife. But I just could not go on like that. I left my children to myhusband and go to study in America and then I met the woman of mylife. She was 26. I loved her very much.”
Yayoi was deeply hurt when her girlfriend, who felt that she could notcope with a long-distance relationship, left her for a man. Yayoi wasdevastated but she hung on to the hope that she would find another
woman. “Men are okay but women are much better. Relationship withwomen can be much, much deeper,” she said.

Unconventional
marriages

There are women who describe their marriages as happy. This issomehow related to the way they manage their marriage lives. Mayu is acase in point.
“I am 52. Many men have proposed to me but I said no. I have neverwanted to get married, but my husband is different. He called me andasked me to help him with his visa. Otherwise, he had to leave thecountry. He is British. I said, okay, let me help you. “Mayu did not believe in marriage, but she treasured friendship. She feltthat she and her husband were able to survive 18 years of marriage
because they had not always lived together. Mayu seemed to be proud of
her life and her unique marriage but she was also very much aware that
this is not something to brag about. It appears that at least someJapanese women are searching for alternative ways to lead their lives,
either within marriage or after divorce. So what do Japanese women
want? How can we understand their desires, both those that can bearticulated and those that cannot? I hoped to find a way to understandtheir dreams, through the way they define the term “second spring,”
which was used as a sensitizing concept in this study, to allow the
women the opportunity to articulate their ideals, dreams and wishes as
they entered mid-life.

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Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Ho
For many shufu, the first spring never was. Many of their

The two springs

dissatisfactions with their marriages are perhaps best captured by what

No first spring

Tomomi, aged 39, said about her second spring really being her firstspring. This is because it was only when she began her “second spring,”that she felt able to live life’s many different dimensions.
“The term itself is ‘second’ but actually, for me, it is the first time or justat the beginning of the time that you really [are] enjoying your life.”
When asked about her second spring, she mentioned her pregnancy withher second child and her life after returning home to stay with her
husband after an argument. Tomomi wanted to enjoy her second spring,
not because it was simply a recurrence of the first spring, which was
innocent, ignorant and escapist. In her second spring, she wanted to beable to live life more fully, embracing its hardships as well as its
goodness.
For Tomomi, the notion of second spring is a positive way of looking at
her problems. Instead of running away from problems, she now takes
them head on. Is she really enjoying her life? Was it just wishful
thinking? Nobody knows. But what is obvious is that she knew that sheneeded to be positive and strong in order to be able to turn difficulties
into some form of “spring.”
Some older women also feel that they cannot afford to have a second
spring. The oldest woman in the group, Mia, was 63 years old. She told
me she had not even started a second spring because, after the children
had left home, she still had to take care of her parents, who were in their80s. When asked whether she felt this was a heavy burden, she said,“It is my responsibility. I don’t think too much about it. That’s life. I
would have more time to travel and enjoy life later on, but now I justhave to be there for them.”
In any case, she still teaches flower arranging to keep her interest alive
and to have social contacts. Other older women mentioned they had not
had any first spring. They felt the need to catch up.
Miki was 58. She had become a volunteer in a peace movement in theprevious few years, after her mother-in-law had gone. She had found it58

Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Ho
difficult to enjoy any “spring” because of her mother-in-law, who waschronically ill.
“She broke her bones four times and had been in and out of hospitalmany, many times before she passed away two years ago. I was
exhausted. My husband did not want me to do any volunteer work forthe peace movement, but I insisted. Otherwise, I would go crazy.”
Recent studies of aging and the family in Japan involve intensive
discussions of care for the frail and dependent elderly, tossing the
responsibility and burden between the public and the private spheres.1
Many women had not had any “spring” because of their roles as caregivers, but some had tried to balance their lives with some form ofcommunity involvement, hobby or dream on the side, as their so-called“second spring.” In fact it was their first.

Second spring as
falling in love again

Some women were more fortunate. They claimed to have had a fairshare of a good first spring. But like all smooth sailing, sooner or later
one arrives at the destination, and they had to get off and embark on
entirely different journeys for their second springs. For many women,
this meant falling in love without threatening their marriages andfamilies.
Risa’s first spring was her career as the administrator of, and worker for,an NGO, but she had had to give up her career for her family andherself. However, she had not given up hope for a second spring as a
happy working mother, with some “stimulating” relationships outside
marriage.
“I am 43. I have worked for 18 years for an NGO before I quit. It was apainful decision. Second spring is second life. In my second life, I wanta lifestyle that can satisfy me as a mother and as a working person. I
want to, if possible, to have a challenging job. I know it is greedy.”
Her need of more “stimulating” relationships was largely platonic. Fromthese relationships, she derived a satisfaction that could not be found in
marriage.

1 Tanaka, K. and Jonson, N.E. (2008). “The Shifting Roles of Women in Intergenerational
Mutual Caregiving in Japan: The Importance of Peace, Population Growth, and Economic
Expansion.” Journal of Family History, 33: 114.

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Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Ho“Maybe my body is not as good as before and so I am not interested inshowing it to different men. But I am really interested in establishingdifferent "simulating" working relationships with interesting guys. My
husband is not so good at lovemaking. He is a life partner. It is not so
bad to have a life partner and to have different men who can work withme in different projects.”
Some shufu were highly aware of the bodily changes that accompanied
them into their second spring. However, instead of focusing on bodily
attributes and trying to compete with younger women, they learned toseek sexual stimulation in different ways, which were both legitimate
and pleasurable.
Takami had a happy marriage too, but she felt it was unreal. She foundmore passion in Korean dramas than in her married life. Together withsome other housewives, she started to look for cute partners, and founda new love in a musical. It was second spring for her, as her life changed
from gemstone collecting and watching Japanese soap operas to fallingin love again. Lamenting the late arrival of her second spring that gave
substance to what had only been a dream, Takami spoke about datingcute young male actors along with some other housewives, andembarking with them on a journey of romantic or sexual adventure.
“I am 46. Second spring is second dream for me. It is a dream. It has noroots and that is why it can be big. My second spring is Korean drama. It
makes me feel sad. I could almost imagine myself a part of it. I want to
be in love forever and stay young. I have a kid and a husband. I feel like
I am chasing something in my memory. The drama is much morepassionate. Many things happen one after the other, you are so hooked
and there is no room to think about other things. Lee Byung Hon, theKorean actor is so precious to me.”From the above, we can see that very few women have boyfriends. Mostof the women claimed that their lovers were all imaginary. Intimacy
could only happen in fantasy. Whatever these women do with theirsecond spring, they are embarking on a journey of no return—not only
because they are aging and their bodies are losing their original,
youthful form—but also because they are finding new values andlifestyles. One is never sure if the adventures and the hard pushing is a60

Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Hodesperate attempt to make full use of their bodies and their abilities
before they lose them, or whether there is in them some form of
awakening or enlightenment that allows them to see youthful bodies andaspirations as vain illusions which have proven to be disappointing. The
shufu were all aware of this.
Keiko was the only woman who had admitted to having a new

Second spring as newlove relationships

boyfriend. Keiko celebrated her new relationship with a man with apersonality of a transgendered lesbian, which made her life “blue” andsexual. She was quite straightforward about what she meant by second
spring.
“Second spring? Maybe it is called second youth. It is about falling inlove again. Spring… We call it blue spring, the period of youth. In
English it is green. In Japanese it is blue, and blue and green areinterchangeable….We Japanese think in terms of four different
seasons…. Spring is young. As you grow older, it is summer andautumn is declining years. Spring for Japanese has some sexual
connotation. It is about coming to realize your sexuality.”
Some say second spring is second youth—people want their youth back.
But how can middle-aged women do this? Obviously, second youth
means falling in love again. Yayoi became a lesbian after her divorce
and postgraduate studies. She wanted to have the acceptance of herchildren.
Yayoi was glad that her sexual choice had not affected her relationshipwith her children but she was deeply hurt by her girlfriend when she left
her for a man. Yayoi was devastated and could only resume normal
functioning after 2 years of depression. She had discovered that a
relationship with a woman could be deeper than that with a man, andshe hung on to the hope that she could find another woman of her life.

Second spring as
careerMany middle-aged women find a good job more important than a newromance. Risa is a case in point.
“I was the news announcer on the TV. I was dreaming of marriage andhe proposed to me. Wow….I was happy that I could get married! But
the reality was not the same. I had to cook and I had to clean. I had nosocial position. Just a wife. I watched TV and saw other women61

Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Ho
appearing on TV. Yesterday, I was there. Oh, no! While I was ahousewife, I had a hard time. I lost my identity. I cannot forget the pain.
Career is important to me. I don’t want to go back to the life of ahousewife.”
For women who are fed up with men, their second spring can only be
about their careers unless they can accept lesbian relationships, as in thecase of Yayoi. Yumiko said she could not imagine intimacy with men
again:“I am too sick of males especially those who are born and grow up in
Japanese society because our society is quite macho. They expect you toserve them. Now I only want to develop my career.”

The last sex everSince I could not ask these women directly about the last time they had
had sex—my two interpreter friends refused to translate such explicit
questions for me—I resorted to asking them about their “last sex ever”:
if this were the last time you could have sex in this life, what would you
expect from it?

Soccer and opera

In response, some women emphasized that it would not be sexualintercourse. For instance, Ryoko emphasized tenderness, and looked forbeauty.
“Before I die? I want to have Pavarotti sing for me. Do you know the
Italian opera singer who has just died? I want to see him sing for me at
the Milan Theatre and I want Manchester United to play a match forme.”

Pillow talkSome of these women had learnt, in their second spring, why sex isquite often impossible in marriages and homes, institutions and places
where sex is supposed to take place – which can very often be obstacles
to sex. The 58-year-old Miki thinks pillow talk is what she wants.
“The word sex has much deeper and broader meaning for me now. Just
touching and talking, side by side, yes, pillow talk is sex. When I wasyoung, I used to think sex is intercourse. Now I think it is pillow talk.”

A young lover who
will never appear

Only Misa was able to be specific about her dream sex partner.
“Last sex? In my imagination only. Because I am working, I bring my62

Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Hodaughter to child care centre. One of her friends’ father was there. WhenI was pregnant, he came to talk to me. He said, my wife is also pregnant.
He has 2 sons and he wants a daughter. He would not admit it. I asked
him if he would want a daughter. He said no. He was very shy when hetalked. He is very cute.… If I were to choose someone other than myhusband with whom i would have a one-night adventure, it would behim.”

Handsome actors as
fantasy lovers

Some of the women could not imagine their last sex partner but they
could visualize the environment.
“Last sex. Do you mean with Lee Byung Hun? (Laugh) I would like it ina room overlooking the ocean. Maybe a very gentle breeze. Very slow. I
mean time is going slowly, it is a relaxed atmosphere. What I am
imagining is after sex. In fact, I cannot see what is there. I cannot see mypartner there. I cannot see who the partner is. Yes, it is empty.”

Hugs and reassurance

In second spring, sex takes on a new dimension; sex does notnecessarily mean intercourse. These shufu have come to realize thatanxieties, expectations, and drama are part of the package that wenormally understand as sex. However, they have deconstructed sexualintercourse as the epitome of the myth of sex. This insight is well
captured by what Misa said about the last sex ever for her. It was not themultiple orgasms that throw couples into convulsions that we witness on
TV. It was much calmer, less dramatic but more deliberate. It was
Misa’s sex:
“My last sex–just hugs, to be hugged. Heterosexual sex is like abattlefield, a big theatre production. For me, sex is a safe place to be.
My final sex, just hugs maybe. Just need some reassurance.”
In their second spring, some of these women started to think and value
sex in its own right, rather than as sex with someone with whom they
were associated by social conventions—a boyfriend, or a husband. If
there was anything about the nature of sex in the shufu’s second spring,
it was this: a partner for sex is different from sex for a partner. Sexuallyrelating had a legitimacy of its own, one that transcended the social
mores and expectations of those who were associated with it. It was nota fling, a selfish act of the flesh, but a right, or even a morality in itself,
which necessarily breached the laws of mutual ownership andpossession. It might be so meticulously carried out that it would not63

Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Houpset the existing social order, which was unnecessary, for they knewthat what we mean by honesty is not a universal virtue, at least not inthis case. It might only create a catch-22 situation that would guarantee
pain on both sides and not promise a better life. What good was that?
Many interviewees reported that, if they were to have their last sex ever,they would imagine it in a very romantic seaside setting. But they could
not see anyone there at the point when they were asked to visualise thescene. Of course the meanings of dreams are open to different readings.
A viable reading may be that they were so tired of the men they had
been with that they rather wanted to imagine having sex without a man
being there. Another viable reading might be that they had realized sex
is possible without attachment to any man in particular. Either way, theirnarratives highlight sex without having recourse to anyone in particular.
Not even pillow talk was needed. In this sense, sex of the second springtakes an entirely new meaning, without being tied down to conventions
and the media’s definition of sex.

Discussion
Big dreams and small
comforts

Almost all the Japanese shufu seemed to suggest that they were plaguedby multitudinous demands from the social world around them simply
because they were shufu– despite the fact that many were very welleducated and cultured, and most had high hopes and aspirations. Yayoi
got a doctoral degree, and Hidemi also went back to study for a
postgraduate degree, which eventually led to an academic career. The
multitudinous, and sometimes mutually exclusive, demands on them arebest reflected by Takami:“While I was a housewife, I had a hard time.... Washing the toilet is theJapanese life. Washing their body. Avoiding virus is the key point inpeople’s life. We want our family to be healthy.”
What was Takami’s life before she had cute guys as imaginary lovers,
whom she sees on TV and in musicals? Other people may find thiseither trivial or depressing, but these guys are her source of energy.
“Before these guys appeared in my life, I had Japanese TV dramas andother things.”

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Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Ho
The social demands on Japanese housewives can only spiral up in time,with increases in societal expectations and the strong adherence to social
mores associated with Japanese womanhood. To be a shufu often means
one is a manager, waitress, maid, cleaner, and perfect wife and mother at
the same time. Managing a home and family includes the ability to clean
the scum in the drain of the family bathtub. Shufus must do so perfectly,with grace, looking nice, and smiling too. Who would not want to get
out?
Many Japanese women only get relief from such demands in flights offantasy and dreams. Ryoko meticulously articulated her desire for social
recognition this way: when asked about her last sex ever, she wanted asmall hug—but she also wanted Pavarotti to sing for her, andManchester United to play a game just for her, too! It may not be far
from the truth to say that what some women really want is the social
recognition due them for their contributions as shufu, including
accomplishments both in the outside world and at home. Misa, for her
second spring, wanted a small hug for the housewife and pomp andceremony for her career as an NGO. Two trends may be seen in theinterviewees’ conceptions of second spring. One may properly be called“pushing”—to go all the way to attain previous life goals that they had
not been able to attain as housewives, or as career persons, or both.
These life goals range from new relationship patterns, to careers andlifestyles, but they are approached with full fervor, in a “now or never”
manner, sometimes even at the expense of upsetting the micro social
order of their families and friends.

Dreams and springs:
romantic Japaneseshufu

The shufu we interviewed described a rich repertoire of strategies forliving their lives in and after marriage. Some continued to have dreamsof “spring,” although the ways they defined the term second spring
varied. Very few upheld the illusions associated with love and marriage
as they first understood them. Those whose first marriages had lasted
had come to a different understanding of them. This suggests that thedesire of normal married heterosexuals to explore alternative lifestyles
has to be recognized. Some shufu fantasies of love were revealed
through fascination with Korean dramas, operas and other cultural
productions. They had grand dreams about love and fantasies about
love, and were articulate and expressive in connecting whatever theysaw in the dramas to their own lives, making one wonder if their lives
were unfinished tapestries awaiting re-designing and continued

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Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Howeaving. However, most, it seems, did not put their dreams and desires
into practice, in consideration of their families. Many of the womenchose to use metaphors rather than concrete events to express theirwishes. They described beautiful things in detail –especially, how they
related a “good life” with nature. In their imagining of their “last sex
ever” there was always nature, slow breezes, the ocean, etc., but the
specifically sexual part seemed a little empty – as one said, she could
not see who she would be with. One cannot help but ask: Is it because
they have no romance in their lives that they are so alive in theirfantasies? Are they nostalgic for things they had never had, things that
had never existed in their lives, as some scholars have described?

Theatre, nature, andtravel:culturally sophisticatedJapanese women

In talking to these women, one cannot avoid getting the impression thatJapanese women are exposed to “sophisticated” cultural activities. They
describe “the good life” in terms of more cosmopolitan and globallyappreciated middle-class images, and enjoy what most people consider
cultural luxuries in their everyday lives—hot springs, for example. They
also tended to refer to nature in their discourses about love. Some
explained that this might be because they had grown up with four
seasons, and so had a lot of images about nature and the flowers of eachseason, as the society is so season-oriented. The highly-developed
Japanese cultural sensitivity and refinement concerning “nature” andnatural images are always evident. They had a strong passion for travel,and often said they wanted to see “nature” overseas as well as in theirown country. The countries and regions they knew of and had traveled
to included Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, Sicily and Greece. One cannot
help but think that a strong element of curiosity, exploration, andadventure is always present in these women of an island country.
This “cultural” orientation allows them to multiply the definitions andforms of their second springs, giving them the cultural tools and thecontent, so to speak, to make their transition to a second springsmoother and more justifiable in conventional terms. Instead of viewing“second spring” as only a transition from one relationship to another, it
can be seen as a form of exploring, of taking on a new life orientation.
Six interviewees had overseas educations, and most seemed to have had
considerable exposure to Western art, literature and movies—a situationthat reminds me of Kelsky’s book, Women on the Verge. This isperhaps the “eroticization of national power relations,” in which asociety transforms: a phase in which women participate in cross-cultural

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Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Hoor transnational activities in interactions with “the other,” breaking withformerly conventional modes of work and family and discovering newselves in “the atmosphere of ‘freedom’ of the foreign/West.”2 At any
rate, this seems a significant factor in shaping the definition and formsof their second springs. There is clear statistical evidence that increasing
numbers of young Japanese women are spending time abroad.3
Considering Japan’s integration into the global economy, characterized
by economic development and the unprecedented ease of travel, it is not
surprising that the number of Japanese women working, studying andtraveling abroad is on the rise.

From living room tokitchen:the perfect
mistress/handmaiden

I was impressed by the high-heeled shoes my interviewees wore to meet
me. What these women wear for casual occasions, for me anyway, issymbolic of the balance and the elegance of these Japanese women.
Japanese women are always presentable, polite, hospitable, and－organized it seems they want to be beautiful and proper for themselves
and for “you.” But is this a matter of social pressure? This may be at acore part of the identity of Japanese shufu. This need for perfection, forproper presentation, makes them stand out as women or wives par－

excellence yet they pay a heavy price for it. It comes hand in hand with
their willingness to work very hard, physically and mentally, to attain alevel of “presentability” both in personal appearance and manners and in
the places that they care for, such as their offices and homes. They
spend a lot of effort and time finding out about and studying products
and beautification techniques. This applies to the strict dress codes, thehigh heels, and various home products and kitchenware. For every small
problem in life, the Japanese always have a well developed solution.
The banana hanger, for example, is not just useful and practical, but
beautiful. The list is almost endless and so is the amount of time andeffort devoted to acquiring this huge body of know-how. The
maintenance of the well-known Japanese aesthetic refinement takes
work, and much of it is female work. Most middle-class Japanesewomen go without the privilege of hiring housemaids in their homes.

2 Kelsky, K. (2001). Women on the Verge: Japanese Women, Western Dreams. Durham,
North Carolina: Duke University Press, 121.
3 Ono, H. & Piper, N. (2004). “Out of Asia: Skilling, re-skilling and deskilling of femalemigrants. Japanese women studying abroad, the case of the United States.” Women’s Studies
InternationalForum,27(2),101-118.

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Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Ho
Almost every interviewee had to cook and clean with her own two
hands. But what a great job they do! In this respect, they are likehousemaids. That Japanese women can be perfect mistresses andhousemaids at the same time is a contradiction I really want to explore
further. It is best represented by one of the interviewees, the 46-year-old
video editor Takami, who put it bluntly: Japanese women are living animpossibility.
“I would say I am typical because I have 4 or 5 friends who are verymuch like me. If you look at me from outside, I am free willing. I am
doing what I want to do. But when I go home, I am doing householdchores very late at night. The gap between what I am doing and what I
appear to be doing is huge and this is the life of most Japanese womenare like. The gap is almost a given to Japanese women. It is part of life
for Japanese women. What we have to deal with at home is so hard to
the extent that we have to relieve from it through dreams.”
Something very strong is needed to hold this blatant contradiction
together. To be beautiful, kawaii (cute) and appropriately feminine andto be a manager, waitress, maid, cleaner all at the same time requires
one to be very tough. Tough means resilient, being in control, with innerstrength. Tough also means being willing to have a façade or wear amask, if necessary. It is almost combativeness, hidden, like the popular
image of the samurai. But these apparently contradictory qualities also
have a degree of complementarity, and at certain times actually fuel andenergize each other. Behind the beautiful mistress are hard-studied,practiced

makeupskills.

Behindthebeautiful

home

is

the

knowledgeable and hard-working cleaner. The harder you work, themore you know, the more perfect you are. However, one day theseelements seem to lead to unstoppable, vicious cycles, and subvert eachother. Rosenberger argues that women perform a self, on both a front
stage and a back stage, and that the two do not necessarily fit neatly
together. Thus, “front-stage personas and backstage personalities may
differ—contending, complementing, subverting, and overlapping witheach other.”4 Among Japanese women, these contradictory andcomplementary qualities are held within the individual.

4 Rosenberger, N. (2001). Gambling with Virtue: Japanese Women and the Search for Self ina Changing Nation. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 60.

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Papers of the fellows: Petula, Sik-Ying Ho
The Japanese shufu identity thus is a matter of beauty and pride, but alsoof suffocation and enslavement. This psychological makeup isinherently unstable, constantly a target for subversive dreams of “second
spring.” Whether such dreams can be realized or not, their prevalence
may reflect the magnitude of the problems of the shufu.

Conclusion

This study contributes to a growing body of work which gives
recognition to the desire of women to move out of the charmed circle ofmarried heterosexuals and explore alternative forms of relationships
outside the frontiers of boring “normality,” even though many women
seem to stay within it.5 The nature of this desire is ambivalent and seeks
its own realization in ways that can never be adequately captured by thelimited conceptual categories available to us, be they categories ofgender, sexuality or identity.6 The most “normal” and docile of Japanese
shufu have their strategies of pleasure, even though the label shufu
carries more positive connotations. These so-called “normal” marriedheterosexuals may also want to gain new experiences of self andrelationships as they approach mid-life. Their discontent and deviations
from “normality” are generally ignored, in an effort to maintain theillusion that there really is a core of good married women with no sexualor life desires to achieve, who are content to reproduce the acceptedsocial order.7 The idea of a second spring helps us see more clearly how
the erotic satisfaction of these married women is obtained in a multitudeof ways, including love and care, sexual intimacy and gratification,
erotic pursuits, and other desire-fulfilment that may be carried out
supplementary to, or within, their roles as wives and mothers. This canbe seen for instance, in soap operas, musicals, and extra marital
relationships, all of which are “passports” to other options, includingthat of no longer being a mother and wife, or at least making being awife and mother more tolerable.8－

5 Ho, 2006; (2007a) “Desperate Housewives The Case of ‘Si-nai’ in Hong Kong.” Affilia:
Journal of Women and Social Work, 22 (3), 255-270.
6 Tsang, A.K.T. and Ho. P.S.Y. (2007). “Lost in Translation: Sex and Sexuality in Elite
Discourse and Everyday Language.” Sexualities, 10 (5), 623-644.

－

7 Ho, 2007 a; (2007b). “Money in the Private Chamber Hong Kong Chinese Women’s Way
of Planning for Their Retirement.” Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work, 22, 84-98.
8 Ibid.

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Papers of the fellows: Sriprapha Petcharamesree

Stories from Borders and Stories of Borders
Sriprapha Petcharamesree*
Introduction“Borders define geographical boundaries of political entities or legal
jurisdictions, such as governments, states or sub-national administrative
divisions.” A nation-state, therefore, “defines its geographical limits byterritory and its demographic limits by nationality.”1 A national of agiven state is considered as a member of that particular politicalcommunity. Those who are not nationals are “aliens” or “foreigners”
who are not usually entitled to the same membership goods or the same
treatment. Division between nationals and non-nationals is, oftentimes,
so clear that it creates the sense of “us” and “others” and it perpetuates
the sense of “exclusive state” through borders which no one can passwithout control and restrictions.
As admitted by Coleman and Harding, political (and economic)
borders are arbitrary and imperfect.2 Still, political authorities of themodern nation-state system use borders both conceptually and inpractice, to regulate membership in terms of national citizenship, inspite of the fact that the boundaries of political community are not only
no longer adequate3 but are also being challenged by the global
economy, communication technology, internationalization, and thetransnationalization of networks and cultures, etc. Seyla Benhabib
points out that “citizenship and practices of political membership are therituals through which the nation is reproduced spatially. The control ofterritorial boundaries, which is coeval with the sovereignty of the* This paper is based on the presentation made at the Symposium organized as part of Asia
Leadership Fellow Program supported by I-House of Japan and the Japan Foundation, 6-7
November, 2007. This paper is the result of research done both in Thailand and Japan. Sincere
gratitude is extended to those who, in one way or another, assisted in and contributed to theresearch process.
1 Wetherall, William. (2006). Nationality in Japan, in Soo Im Lee, et al, (eds), Japan’s
Diversity Dilemmas : Ethnicity, Citizenship, and Education. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 11.
2 Coleman, Jules L. and Harding, Sarah K. (1995). Citizenship, the demands of justce, and themoral relevance of political borders, Warren, F. Schewartz, ed., Justice in Immigration.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 35: 38.
3 Benhabib, Seyla. (2004). The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1.

70Papers of the fellows: Sriprapha Petcharamesree
modern nation-state, seeks to ensure the purity of the nation in timethrough the policing of its contacts and interaction in space.”4 She
further argues that “the history of citizenship reveals that nationalist
aspirations are ideologies; they attempt to mould a complex, unruly, andunwieldy reality according to some simple governing principle ofreduction, such as national membership. Every nation has its others,
within and without.”5 This argument reinforces what Benedict Anderson
calls “imagined community.” “A Nation-state is an imagined politicalcommunity. It is imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.
Because of this imagination, a nation (-state) is inherently exclusive.”6This means that certain categories of people are included within its self
construction, based on particular and narrowly defined criteria, andmany other are excluded. This is true for all nations.
However, the notion of borders could not be understood only fromterritorial and geographical perspectives. Borders have been createdwithin cultural and social spheres. Also borders can easily be createdfrom within oneself and one’s own society. The discrimination, such as
against women everywhere, against the Ainu, Okinawans, the Koreans,
and the Buraku in Japan, or discrimination against ethnic minorities inThailand, has nothing to do with nationality or being foreigners. They
are only considered “different from us.” We cannot understand thenotion of discrimination against particular groups of people(s), without
understanding the self-constructed psychological borders that we create
within ourselves.
This paper attempts to examine the politics of borders andcitizenship7 as well as the politics of difference in Thailand and Japan,
through different stories that either the author encounters by herself or
by referring to some empirical studies conducted by other researchers. It
argues that when a given state decides who will become members, orwhen any particular person or group of people treat others perceived tobe substantially different- and more than likely, by virtue of thatdifference, inferior –this represents a betrayal of the principles of human

4 Ibid 18
5 Ibid.
6 Anderson, Benedict. (2000) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism, London: Verso, 6.
7 The terms “citizenship and nationality” in this paper are used interchangeably to mean acitizen or a national of a particular country.

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Papers of the fellows: Sriprapha Petcharamesreerights. Explicitly, that it violates “the ideal that all human beings areequal and that all human beings have the same basic bundle offundamental rights.”8The papers begin with different empirical stories that all are real andhave emerged from the real people who live in Japan and Thailand. The
section which follows will discuss the concept of political community,
political membership and access to membership goods. In thesubsequent section, I will argue that the issues of discrimination havenothing to do with being a national member or an alien, but have to do,
instead, with the politics of difference. In this sense, the concept ofborders is interpreted in a broader sense than just political andgeographical or territorial boundaries. They cover social, cultural andpsychological boundaries. The last part will focus on looking criticallyat policies and practices of a so called “liberal democratic polity” and its
behavior towards people living in their territory. Universal human rights
principles and widely accepted human rights standards are used as abasis for analysis.
The first story is from the Northern part of Thailand along the Thai-

Stories from Borders

Myanmar borders where many small villages are hidden in the valley ofthe Mae Hong Son province. Mae Dee, one of those hidden villages, hasbeen inhabited by Karen ethnic minorities. Among 90 villagers, Zomu isthe only young man in the village who can speak a bit of Thai. His
father was the first to have resettled in this village almost twenty years
ago. None of 90 inhabitants in the village has any ID card. Zomu has
been volunteering to teach Thai to the children in the village. He wasarrested many times without much understanding for what charges hewas put in jail. In the prison, he was taught to sing the Thai national
anthem. He thinks this could be the only way to escape from the arrest
and to one day become Thai; so he has been teaching children how tosing the Thai national anthem.
Zomu’s father told the team of Law students from Thammasat Law
School (working on the legal status of hill tribes and ethnic minorities)
during one of their visits to the village that:“I recall that my descendants came here back and forth. In the past,
we did not think which country we were in as this village was/has
always been inhabited by the Karens. Some officials used to come and8

Hampton, Jean. (1995) Immigration, Justice and Identity, in Warren, F. Schewartz,ed.,Justice in Immigration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 77.

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Papers of the fellows: Sriprapha Petcharamesree
asked if we have any identity card, we said “NO.” We don’t want to go
back to another side of Salween,9 too much fighting.” “But today is not
the same as in the past. Borders and citizenship become more and more
important. We want to become Thai citizens, one day.”10
Zomu and many others entered into Thailand illegally and theirlegal status is still irregular in the eyes of the Thai authorities. The statusof people remains illegal until they are granted proper documents. Thisis the case of Ayu Namthep, a stateless mother. Ayu was born in Burmain 1955 of Karen parents with Burmese nationality. Her parents who
were recognized by the Thai government as political refugees wereallowed to live in Mae Hong Son since 1956. Although Ayu was born in
Burma, she was never registered anywhere. She has been stateless since
the day she opened her eyes.
Ayu was brought up in Mae Hong Son and got her degree from
Payap University in Chiang Mai where she has been teaching at theMusical Department since she graduated in 1978. She was legallymarried to a Thai in the same year and had two sons; both are Thainationals. Her husband died in 1985. He left her with two sons but notThai nationality. She remains stateless. She was not recognized by theThai state.
All went well with Ayu and her children, until her two sons wereselected to join the competition of student’s chorus in the Philippines.
As they were still minors, signature of their mother was required. The
matter became complicated since Ayu has never had any legal
documents. Another time her elder son was invited to participate in theYouth music festival in the United States. He faced the same problem;
his mother could not provide him with documents. Ayu was trying tonegotiate with the Immigration Office. The only suggestion (or rather“threat”) she received was to stay silent otherwise her two children
could have their nationality withdrawn.
Her two sons have now passed the age of maturity. But Ayu remains
stateless. She applied for Thai citizenship and the process has been

9 Salween is another international river running from China and some part of it separates
Thailand and Myanmar. A number of large dams are being constructed and/or developed forhydro-electric power.
10 Chamlongraj, Paskorn and Zomu-Pamiew. (2007). in Oonkaew, Pinkaew. (ed.), Statelessand Nationalityless Persons in Thai State. Bangkok: Winyuchon, 143-148.

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going on for years. Until today, Ayu whose husband was a Thai andwhose two children are Thai, is still not granted Thai nationality.11
Access to citizenship and nationality, or any other proper legal
documents, has proved difficult for many people but collective
withdrawal of nationality by the authority seems (too) easy. On
February 5, 2002, the Thai Ministry of the Interior, on therecommendation of the governor of Chiang Rai province, has withdrawn
the Thai nationality of 1,243 indigenous people living in Mae Aie
village. The population in the whole village became suddenly“nationalityless.” The case was brought to the Administrative Court who
ruled clearly that the withdrawal of nationality from those people was
unlawful, and therefore, the court instructed the agencies concerned toreturn the citizenship to the 1243 villagers. However, in order to regain
their citizenship, each of them was required to prove that they were“Thai.” By mid-June 2008, only a handful of over 100 people were able
to reacquire their nationality.
The story moves away from the borders to Bangkok and this is thestory of Sorbi. Sorbi was born in Bangkok of Rohingya parents in 1982.
His parents illegally entered into Thailand. His father did not havechance to make his way to the Thai capital but died from malaria whileat the border between Myanmar and Thailand. His mother was luckier,for she was able to reach Bangkok where she gave birth to a child,
Sorbi. Sorbi did not have a birth registration because his mother did not
dare to report to the authorities, for fear of being arrested as she enteredThailand without any proper documents. She died when Sorbi was only
about ten years old. He has been, since then, on his own and assisted
only by neighbors. Sorbi has no personal legal status. He has beenarrested and deported back to Myanmar three times but has always
managed to come back to Thailand.
“Where do you want me to go? I was born and grew up here. I don’t
speak any word of Burmese. My family is here. Although I was notrecognized by law, I am a human being. I exist.”
In 2005, Sorbi registered himself as a Burmese migrant worker. The
work permit is the first official document he has had in his life.

11 Kanchanachitra-Saisoonthorn, Punthip. (2007) Stateless and Nationalityless Mothers, inOonkaew, Pinkaew. (ed.), Stateless and Nationalityless Persons in Thai State. Bangkok:
Winyuchon,138-141.

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Although he holds a work permit, Sorbi, who has been earning his livingby selling roti, has been still arrested from time to time. Preparing andselling roti has been his only way of living but it is not a profession thata migrant worker is allowed to perform. Moreover, having a work
permit does not mean that he lives legally in the country. 12 Sorbi is a defacto and de jury stateless person.
The issues of legal status and citizenship in Thailand are rather
complex. There are four different groups of people living in Thailand
without legal status. The first group is made up of the Thais without
legal status and documents. The reasons for not having legal documents
vary: some have not reported to the authorities, some are not registered,others are abandoned. The second group is hill tribes and ethnic
minorities. Most of them live in the remote areas in the North, along theThai-Myanmar or Thai-Laotian borders. For security reason, the Thaigovernment has been reluctant to grant them Thai citizenship. The thirdgroup is migrant workers who can be divided into two categories:
regular migrant workers and irregular/undocumented migrant workers.
Some in the latter category are registered under the registration scheme
launched by the Thai government in the late 1990s, and the others are
un-registered. The fourth group is people fleeing from fighting, asylum
seekers, and refugees. Some of them have been living in temporary
shelters along the Thai-Myanmar borders for more than a decade.
In 2007, Kritya Achavanijkul and her team compiled statistics ofdifferent groups. The statistics reveal that there are still about 514,420
Thais, ethnic minorities and hill tribes without proper documents, out of
which 69,229 are children. By October 2006, there were about 1.52
million migrant workers. These two groups already account for
2,021,643 people. Out of the total number, the children of 5-18 years ofage amounted to 249,129 or 12.3 %13 of people living in Thailand
without proper legal status.
It is important to note that the statistics compiled may not give theactual picture of a large number of people. Although they were born andlive in Thailand, many decide to apply for work permit as Burmese,

12

Paisarnpanichkul, Darunee. (2007) Sorbi: Person without State nor Nationality, in

Oonkaew, Pinkaew. (ed.), Stateless and Nationalityless Persons in Thai State. Bangkok:
Winyuchon,157-163.
13 Achavanijkul, Kritya. Migrants and the Issue of Management of Education in Thailand,
IPSR, Mahidol University.

75Papers of the fellows: Sriprapha Petcharamesree
Laotian or Cambodian migrant workers14 for the lack of proper
documents. That is the only way for them to have a job and earn theirliving.
Access to citizenship or having legal status has been difficult forsome groups of people, not only in Thailand but also in Japan. The
conditions may differ, though. During my fellowship in Japan, I comeacross a number of Koreans living in Japanese society.
“I was born in Japan as Korean (3rd generation). Now I am Japanesenational. My first attempt to get Japanese nationality was dated back to1975 when I was 18. I applied 3 times before I was granted Japanesenationality in 2001. When I was young I was using Japanese name until
I was 18 because I was afraid of discrimination. I could not speak much
Korean. Even if I spoke Korean well, I would not have been seen as
Korean by my Korean fellows in Korea.”15
While a number of Koreans living in Japan opt to apply for Japanesenationality, some decide to remain Koreans with permanent residency
status. A Korean professor told me in our conversation that:“I am third generation Korean born, grown up and educated inJapan. I am Korean by nationality. I don’t want to be Japanese because
the Japanese state discriminated against us. The naturalization process is
so humiliating for us. Our Korean identity and cultures are notrecognized. I make distinction, though, between Japanese people andJapan as a nation-state. My son, he was born in Japan too but I don’t
want him to be Japanese.”16
Atsuko Abe explained in her article as follows: “the government’s
restrictionist policy discourages those who may consider naturalization.
‘Zainichi’ or permanent residents, especially in the younger generation,
do not necessarily turn away from naturalization because of historicalresentment, but often because of the sheer bureaucratic nightmare and

14 Only migrant workers from three countries namely Burma, Cambodia and Lao PDR are
allowed to register under the registration scheme.
15

Dr. Soo im Lee, a prominent scholar from Ryukoku University, Japan, in her self-

introduction before her talk which was given during the visit of ALFP fellows in Kyoto on
October 10th, 2007.
16 A private conversation made on October 23rd, 2007.

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Papers of the fellows: Sriprapha Petcharamesree
the prohibitive attitude by the government officials that they face. The
fact that dual citizenship/nationality is not an option for Korean
permanent residents also discourages naturalization.”17What about new comers in Japan? During my trip to Himeiji, I met
a few Vietnamese refugees who were resettled to Japan in the mid
1980s. At a learning center run by a group of volunteer teachers, I had
chance to talk to one Vietnamese refugee. She came to Himeiji 14 years
ago. She married a Vietnamese refugee who is still traumatized by thelong years of war in Vietnam. She is, therefore, the only bread-winner ofthe family with three children. Her three children have Japanesenationality to which she still does not get access. She could hardly speak
Japanese. Her work in the line-industry does not require her to speak.
Recently she has started learning Japanese in order to communicate withher children, who do not speak much Vietnamese any more.

It is worth noting that, as of December 2006, there are about
2,084,919 foreigners (with legal entry) in Japan. The biggest group is
Koreans whose number is 598,219 followed by Chinese (560,741) andBrazilians (312,979) and the Filipinos (193,488). Smaller numbers arefrom Peru (58,721), the USA (51,321), Thailand (39,618), Vietnam(32,485), Indonesia (24,858), India (18,906), and others numbering
193,583 persons.18 Out of this number, about 800,000 of them areconsidered as trainees.
The number shown above is not unimportant as it is widely
recognized that Japan has been applying a very strict immigration
policy. Abe suggested that the reform of the Immigration Act in 1990
did not change the policy, because “its aim is solely controlling theentrance and exits of the people into the country, nothing to do with theimmigrants as persons.”19 It is interesting to note that the Immigration
Act, according to Abe, “specifically allowed second and third generation
Japanese from abroad (mostly from Brazil, Peru, and the Philippines) tostay unconditionally. The decision making process within the Ministryof Justice coincided with the process to provide clear legal status to third

17 Abe, Atsuko. (2006) Citizenship, Colonial Past and Immigration Policy – A comparative
Study between Japan and the United Kingdom. Obirin Review of International Studies, 18,117.
18 Statistics compiled by Kimura, Yuji, RINK, Osaka, on October 25th, 2007.
19 Abe, op cit, 119.

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generation Koreans in Japan.”20 She referred to the work of Kajini who
suggested that “within the Ministry, the two issues (ethnic Japanese
overseas on the one hand and Koreans in Japan on the other) werecombined, and the government contemplated the question of whichgroup was closer to Japanese, thus eligible for the right to permanent
stay without work limits.”21 For Abe, there is a direct correlation
between citizenship policy and immigration policy. The Japanese
government committed to grant more rights to both groups (one“Koreans as foreigners” and the other “third generation Japanese
overseas-as immigrants), “only for the sake of balance.”22 In this case,other foreigners or migrants such as the Thais are to be treateddifferently. They are not considered as member of Japanese politicalcommunity thus are not entitled to “membership goods.”

Political Community,
Political Members andAccess to Membership
Goods

What is political community? Who are political members? What are
the goods usually given to membership of a particular politicalcommunity? Why have those people, whose stories are told in theprevious section, not been able to get access to the goods nor considered
as political membership? This section will attempt to elucidate thosequestions from the perspective of citizenship.
A political entity is defined by geographical borders within the legal
jurisdictions of governments and other sub national administrations. The
usual practice of any given nation-state is that it defines its geographicallimits by territory and its demographic limits by nationality. Althoughsome political theorists, such as Benedict Anderson, argue that apolitical community is imagined, it seems that the Westphalian model
which “presupposes that there is a dominant and unified politicalauthority whose jurisdiction over a clearly marked piece of territory issupreme,”23 although being challenged, remains widely accepted. One
cannot deny that in current international relations and international
national order, the sovereign and exclusive political community known
as a nation-state is more and more strengthened.
Historically, one could say that it was the nation that had
accommodated a large number of individuals in their territories, madethem feel that they shared some things in common, building the trust

20 Ibid,120.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Benhabib, Seyla. op cit, 4.

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Papers of the fellows: Sriprapha Petcharamesree
and loyalty necessary for the functioning of a nation-state. Each politicalcommunity has constructed a so called collective identity, a robust senseof belonging and social cohesion within its borders. Post-nationalists“agree that reference to a common nationality allowed the politicalmobilization of its inhabitants, calling on their shared descent, history or
language…”24 The sovereign territorial state, therefore, became thenecessary framework for citizenship and vice versa. “Citizenship both aslegal status and as an activity, is thought to presuppose the existence ofa territorially bounded political community, which extends overtime andis the focus of a common identity.”25 This premise is being contested
because globalisation has rendered the borders so porous. However, alarge number of states are still tied to the formal expression ofmembership. This model has a formal institutionalized politicalcommunity and assumes that it has both legal and moral rights to choose
its members and to close or open its borders and where the “monopoly
over its territory is exercised through immigration and citizenshippolicies.”26
Seyla Benhabib pointed out that “political boundaries define someas members, other as aliens. Membership, in turn, is meaningful only
when accompanied by rituals of entry, access, belonging, and privilege.
The modern nation-state system has regulated membership in terms of
one principle category: national citizenship.”27 She further commented
that “citizenship in the modern world has meant membership in abounded political community which was a nation-state, a multinational
state, or a commonwealth structure. The political regime of territoriallybounded sovereignty...could only function by defining, circumscribing,and controlling citizenship. The citizen is the individual who has
membership rights to reside within a territory, who is subject to thestate’s administrative jurisdiction…”28 This model which begun in the
countries of Western Europe was later copied by other modernizing
states in all regions including Asia. In this model, the national citizen isconsidered as a full political member of a particular politicalcommunity.

24 Habermas, Jergens. (1998) The Inclusion of Other, in Cronin, C. and Greif, P.de (eds.),
Studies in Political Theory. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 132.
25 Citizenship, First published on October 13th, 2006.
26 Benhabib, Seyla., op cit., 5.
27 Ibid. 1.
28 Ibid, 144.

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Papers of the fellows: Sriprapha Petcharamesree
Who are eligible or who can access membership of a given politicalcommunity? Citizenship is always attributed by birth. Regardless ofwhat forms of attribution they follow, either jus soli or jus sanguinis,
states grant citizenship to persons born in the country who would
otherwise be stateless. Jus soli “confers citizenship based on birth onstate territory,” and jus sanguinis “confers citizenship based ondescents.”29 Citizenship has never been attributed to someone born
outside of the country, non-citizens, but can be acquired bynaturalization or registration procedures.
In Japan and Thailand, it is quite interesting to note that, not somany decades ago, the (legal) statuses of people in the two nation-states
were “subject” to the empire and kingdom respectively. Like many othercountries in the world, Japan and Thailand adopt a jus sanguinis
principle to grant nationality to the selected individual. Both countries
do not accept dual nationality/citizenship. In Japan this citizenshippolicy has serious effect on the Koreans and Taiwanese who have been
residing in Japan for generations. In Thailand it affects the lives of morethan a million people who are ethnic minorities, hill tribes, andindigenous peoples who have been in the country even before the Thais
came. It also affects the newcomers whose legal statuses are in limbo.
From the stories presented in the previous section, we realize thatJapan and Thailand are among many other countries that exhibit aconceptionofsocialmembershipconnected

withethnicity.

Japan/Thailand grants citizenship on the basis of parentage rather thanplace of birth: one is automatically granted citizenship if one is a childof Japanese/Thai parents, no matter where one is born, whereas a childof non-Japanese/non-Thai parents born in Japan/Thailand is not
automatically a citizen and can become one only through naturalization
procedures. The person who speaks no Thai/Japanese, has never lived
there, and whose only connection with Thailand/Japan is that his/herparental grandparents left the country for a century ago or so, has abetter legal claim on citizenship than the child of a migrant/refugee (andindigenous in the case of Thailand) in these countries, born andeducated here, and culturally Thai/Japanese, and speaking no otherlanguage than Thai or Japanese.30 The children of the latter group can

29

Aleinikoff, T. Alexander. and Klusmeyer, Douglas (codirectors) (2002). Citizenship

Policies for an Age of Migration. Washington, D.C.: MPI, 2.
30 Hampton, op.cit., 71-77.

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Papers of the fellows: Sriprapha Petcharamesreeneither enjoy the privileges of citizenship, nor access the membershipgoods. But what are these membership goods?
Jules L. Coleman and Sarah K. Harding have identified goods in
different forms.31 Goods include:
1. Employment. Permanent residents can usually pursue any type ofwork with one major exception: noncitizens are usually prohibited fromworking in the civil service or the public sector. Temporary residents
are, in general, subject to further job restrictions. Visitors, students, andforeign government officials and their families are, for most part,prohibited from obtaining employment. Illegal aliens, in principle, haveno right to employment. But, in reality, in spite of the penalization oreven criminalization, illegal aliens (or undocumented aliens) still enter－and obtain employment in the so-called 3Ds jobs dirty, dangerous anddifficult ones.
2. Emergency services and socio-economic resources. The right tosocio-economic resources is determined more by the permanence ofresidence and the legality of status than by citizenship. Some emergency
services such as access to medical care are available to everyone whileother services, including education, child allowance, may not. However,it varies greatly depending on the status of the recipient and eachcountry’s policies.
3. Political participation. This type remains for the most part a
privilege exclusive to citizens. The right to vote, and to run for public
office are not, in general, available to foreign nationals. However, insome countries, these rights are extended to non-citizens to certain
extent. Other forms of political participation such as joining trade unions
are allowed in most liberal and democratic countries.
4. Right to permanent residence/access. Access to permanent
resident is, in general, conditioned by some restrictions in mostcountries. One can say that Japan and Thailand are rather reluctant togrant permanent resident status to foreign nationals.
5. Immunity from expulsion. Immunity from expulsion is one of themost important privileges of citizenship. For non-citizens, immunity
may depend on many factors, one of which is duration of residence. In
general, non-citizens, whether they reside temporarily, permanently, or
illegally, can be deported.
6. Citizenship. The concept of citizenship is connected to states, insome countries it is garnered through birth in the territory (jus soli) and

31 Coleman, Jules L. and Harding, Sarah K., op.cit., 26-34.

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Papers of the fellows: Sriprapha Petcharamesree
in others it is achieved through parentage (jus sanguinis). Citizenship isnever attributed to someone born outside of the country to non-citizens;
it can be acquired through naturalization or registration procedures; andit depends on different conditions in different countries.
The most difficult goods to obtain are, in many respects, permanent
residence and citizenship. These might be the privileges most sought byimmigrants, stateless and “nationalityless” people. It does not mean, in
any case, that other goods are easy to obtain. The access to themembership goods heavily depends on laws, state policies, politicalwill, and the level of openness and democracy.
The stories of Zomu, Ayu, and Sorbi in Thailand, all of whom
remain legally nonexistent within Thai borders, and the Koreans who
cannot or might not want to become Japanese citizens, reveal someanomalies in membership policies and access to membership goods. It
is, in fact, indicative of unfair and unjust societies in which lines
betweenterritoriality,

sovereignty,

andcitizenshiparetotally

disconnected to human beings and the moral responsibilities of a state.
For Zomu, Ayu, Sorbi and over half a million people born and residingon Thai soil, not having proper documents and proper legal statuses, is,to borrow the expression used by Seyla Benhabib, “a form of civil
death.” They are sentenced to civil death not because they chose to doso, but because they are inside political borders that deny their rights as
human being. In Thailand, in many ways more strict than Japan,
political boundaries are problematic even for those who could have been
become members.

Stories of Constructed
Borders from within

If political borders render human beings legally invisible anddeprive them of the necessary membership goods, we also witness
another kind of constructed borders which is hard to understand letalone to accept. During my trip to Osaka, I had chance to visit the
Human Rights Museum. I was struck by some pictures and artefacts
exhibited in the museum. Many of them reminded me what I heard aweek before when I visited Sapporo in Hokkaido where I was allowed
to attend the very first seminar of the most marginalized groups inJapan. These groups are all Japanese; they are Japanese with Korean
origins: they are the Okinawans, the Ainu, and the Buraku.

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The Story of Stone

If this stone is a border, it is one that bars women from entering into
religious shrines. This stone reads “women are prohibited fromentering.” It was carved and put in front of the shrine a few centuries
ago. I am not certain of whether this practice still exists in Japan, but, insome Buddhist temples in Thailand, it remains.
In the same museum in Osaka I saw a picture which depicts
traditional social strata and social status of different groups of citizens inJapan. The picture shows how subjects of the Emperor were classified
into different categories. Those who are outside the social circle foundthemselves “outcaste”: they are the Buraku who, a few centuries ago,
were doing menial work. In this century, many of them are stillengaging in more or less the same activities. What seems to beunchanged is the Japanese people’s attitude toward this group of people
who are also Japanese nationals. This is confirmed by a life story told by
a Buraku women whom I met during the seminar in Sapporo.

The Story of“Outcaste”“I am Buraku. My family and I, we have been discriminated since I
was child. When I went to school, my teacher put me at the back of theclass and told my classmates not to play with me because I am Buraku.
In Japanese education system, the teacher will have to visit home of thestudent; my teacher has never visited our place.”
Mario Jorge Yutzis argues as follows: “Imagine a group of people
who are regularly subject to arbitrary differentiation from the rest,
obliged to suffer the worst working conditions, verbal abuse, sexualmolestation, who are excluded from all forms of social benefits andsocial distribution for the simple reason of being born within a particulargroup and with no particular distinction from the rest of the
population….Victims of discrimination based on descent are single out,
not because of the difference in physical appearance or race, but rather
by their membership in an endogamous group that has been isolated83Papers of the fellows: Sriprapha Petcharamesreesocially and occupationally from other groups in the societies.”32 Yutzis
further analyzed that “discrimination based on caste is always a social
and ideological construction, with a global character, created by the
supposed superior caste, so as to create and maintain their hegemony byways of cultural goods(knowledge and education), social goods(patriarchic domination), politics(power), and material goods(wealth).”33
The socially (self) constructed borders which result in discrimination
against some groups of people within the same society is expanded todifferent areas including discrimination based on race. While ethnic
minorities are clearly discriminated against in Thailand, the Ainu inJapan follow, more or less, the same fate.
“Until 1986, a mere six years ago, the Japanese government denied
even our existence. In its proud claim that Japan, alone in the world, is a“monoethnic” nation.Here today, however, our existence is being clearlyrecognized by the UN itself. In the eyes of the government, we were apeople whose existence must not be admitted.”34
At the seminar in Sapporo, I witnessed the perseverance of the Ainu
people to maintain their distinctive cultures and traditions. What they
have been fighting against for centuries has been the assimilation policyof the Japanese state. To deny them their very identity as Ainu is to deny
their very existence and thus right to self determination and right toperform their traditional culture.
As Jean Hampton has rightly commented, the practice of theConclusions: Borders
and Borderless Human
RightsJapanese government indicates that “to be one of us” in Japan is not
only to have a certain kind of cultural identity. But it is also to have acertain kind of genetic connection to others in the group–to have acertain blood line. As in Germany, the cultural requirements are not asimportant as the genetic background, because, no matter where a person
is born and subsequently raised, the Japanese government will grant aright to citizenship to a child of Japanese parents. Japan is another

32 Yutzis, Mario Jorge. (2004). Racial Discrimination Based on Descent: A Challenge for All

Human Beings, IMADR: Peoples for Human Rights, 9, 10-11.
33 Ibid, 12.
34 Statement delivered at UN General Assembly1992, by Giichi Nomura, an Ainu, in Ainu

Spirit of a Northern People, 2005.

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country with a nationalist conception of citizenship.35 The Thaigovernment has been upholding the same concept.
According to Hampton, the exclusion from membership is not only
based on racial and genetic backgrounds, but also on values. There is an
assumption that the values constituting a polity are fixed. But thisassumption is unfounded. Values always change, resulting from thegenerational changes. Children may have different values from theirparents. The predetermined Japanese-ness or Thai-ness exclude so many
people considered “not like us or not enough like us.”36 In fact, thevalue-based exclusion serves to hide a race-based, caste-based andgender-based exclusion which many countries, including Japan and
Thailand, do not admit. This type of exclusion is, in many ways, a byproduct of a much deeper form of injustice and inequality within oursociety.
Hampton further stresses that “if a country continues to deny therights to membership goods to a non-national who has been living along and productive life within its borders on an equal basis with othernationals, it already allows a system of different classes of people in thatsociety.”37 It is equally serious that even among the same nationals,
citizens are treated differently. This politics of differences creates
resentment and dissent which may lead to possible conflicts and would
do damage to all groups in the society.
Japan and Thailand, so far, have been representing themselves as“liberal democratic societies.” Meanwhile, each country does its best torefuse citizenship to those people whose ethnic and cultural backgroundis distant from its “citizens.” In the case of Thailand, we also see that theThai authorities have made some groups of people relinquish theirnationality. By rendering people stateless and/or “nationalityless,” theThai state has no doubt violated its obligations prescribed both by the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as well as otherinternational human rights treaties, including especially the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 15 of UDHR
stipulates that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor
denied the right to change his nationality.” Article 24 of ICCPR echoes
the same message.

35 Hampton, op cit, 72.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.

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By reading the international human rights norms carefully, one may
realize that “everyone has rights” regardless of his/her legal or social
status. Everyone can enjoy rights only “in a political community inwhich one is judged not through characteristics which define us at birth,
but through our actions and opinions—by what we do, and say, andthink.”38
It is absolutely unacceptable that a person is barred frommembership and availing of the membership goods within their own“borders” because of legal status and the type of “being” they are. We
believe that no one is illegal and we are all equal; we have rights only
because we are human beings; human rights are, therefore, borderless.
Human rights are inherent, universal, and indivisible. Human rights are
the key to peaceful co-existence, not separation and exclusivity. The
notion of borders that exclude people is no longer justifiable in any way.

38 Benhabib, op cit, 99.

86

ALFP Activities 2007

ALFP Activities 2007
Schedule of ALFP Activities 2007

Each fellow gave a country report in order to share the basic background of his or her country with the others.

The fellows spent three days in Gotemba, attending a retreat. The purpose of this trip was to provide the fellows with
an opportunity to learn about other fellows in a casual setting.

On Day Trip 1, the fellows visited Shimokitazawa and Koenji. On Day Trip 2, the fellows visited Yasukuni Shrine andYushukan Museum.

The fellows took a five-day field trip to Hiroshima, Kyoto and Shiga.

During this period, the fellows engaged in their own activities. Some fellows, traveled outside Tokyo, to areas such as
Hokkaido and Shizuoka, for their field research.

Throughout the program, the fellows attended the seminars that had been organized by people in the resource
department persons. Each seminar consisted of presentations and discussions. The topics of the seminars and themembers of the resource department were selected by both the fellows and the ALFP secretariats.

At the end of the program, a two-day public symposium was held. The theme of the symposium and the structure of
the symposium were decided by the fellows.

87Seminars by Resource persons

Seminars by Resource persons
Global Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War
Akira Kawasaki
Representative, Peace Boat

Akira Kawasaki gave a talk on a campaign called the “Global Article 9
Campaign to Abolish War,” which is led by a non-government organization
named Peace Boat. After his brief account on the aim and activities of Peace
Boat, Kawasaki explained how Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution remains
important in the current context, and how the dual use of a grass-roots approachand a policy/intellectual approach can be useful in advocating the significanceof Article 9. He convincingly argues that Article 9 can send a message to theworld that war should be abolished.
Since 2005, Peace Boat has been focused on a land-based campaign called the
Global Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War. It aims to disseminate the idea ofbuilding a peaceful world, by using Article 9 as the embodiment of such an
idea. Its activities range from attending the United Nation (UN) conferences on
disarmament and human rights, to organizing rallies and lobbying. According to
Kawasaki, North East Asia is a unique region in the world because it is the only
region which does not have any regional mechanism for peace. Therefore, hestates that Article 9 can form the principal for the regional peace, and prevent
armed conflicts in the northeast Asian region.
Kawasaki believes that Article 9 has significant influence in three respects.
First, in relation to the Japanese Self-Defence Forces, having Article 9 in theJapanese Constitution itself heavily restricts the activities and roles allowed to
the Japanese Self-Defence Forces overseas. In this way, it affects the current
military policies of Japan. Second, Article 9 can be a guideline for the JapanUnited States (US) Security Treaty. Kawasaki admits that Japan is in acontradictory position: while the constitution supports the idea of peace, its
peace is assured by the US military presence in Japan. Facing this contradiction,
Kawasaki argues that, by using Article 9, the Japanese can make concrete policy
suggestions concerning the code of conduct of the Japanese Self-Defence
Forces, the activities of joint operations between the Japanese Self-Defence
Forces and US forces, as well as the realignment of US military forces in
Okinawa. Third, in relation to international peace, the spirit of Article 9 can beshared with other countries. Kawasaki points out that one essence that can beextracted from Article 9 is the peaceful solution of conflict. This essence can bea tool to persuade other countries to disarm themselves, a call that includes

88Seminars by Resource persons

nuclear arms. Since disarmament is mutual agreements of both sides, it can senda strong message of peace. Kawasaki suggests that Article 9 highlights the rootcause of violence as well as the tools of violence (i.e. weapons) and thus
provides a useful entry point to advocate the idea of international peace.
As an activist, Kawasaki emphasizes the necessity of actively utilizing Article
9 to change policies. He indicates that many peace movement activists in Japantend to only support Article 9, and they fail to connect their stance to realpolicies. According to Kawasaki, it is imperative to develop dual strategies, on
the government level and on the public level. In terms of the government level,
lobbying activities are a major way to develop direct appeals to policy makers.
Japanese bureaucrats, who take on more significant roles than politicians inshaping policies, tend to consult with government-affiliated think tanks andscholars. Therefore, Kawasaki argues that advocacy and lobbying by Peace
Boat should target these thinks tanks and scholars in order to change policies.
On a public level, Kawasaki states that Peace Boat attempts to build andstrengthen discourse that advocates the abolishment of war and the promotionof peace. He points out that many Japanese people are uncertain about theirnational identity. Under such situation, commitment to peace by advocating
Article 9 can appeal to the public; a public who, at present, are at a loss in termsof their search for national identity. The promotion of peace can form the baseof the national identity.
As a concluding remark, Kawasaki shared his belief that civil societies playindispensable roles in the facilitation social change and organization of the
public. (Nov.1)

The Role of Hiroshima in Peace-Making and Nuclear
Disarmament from a Journalist’s Perspective
Akira Tashiro
Journalist, Chugoku Shimbun

Since 1972, Akira Tashiro has been working at Chugoku Shimbun, focusing on
people who have been affected by nuclear-related issues, ranging from theatomic bomb in Hiroshima and nuclear technology to depleted uranium andnuclear power. Throughout his career, he has given voice to the cries and angerof those people who have been affected by nuclear development.
Tashiro points out that Hiroshima continues to be significant in the nuclear
age. During the cold war, the world witnessed the expansion of nuclear
weapons, the development of nuclear weapon technology, and the increasing

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Seminars by Resource persons

power of nuclear weapons, especially between the West and East, a competition
led by two superpowers: the US and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(USSR). Seeing the escalation of the nuclear weapon regime, Tashiro lamented
that human beings have still not learned from the experience of Hiroshima.
Therefore, it is imperative that people in Hiroshima share their experience
worldwide, proclaiming “no more Hiroshimas” and “no more war.”
Tashiro further touched on the subject of people who have been exposed toradiation, not only in Hiroshima but in other parts of the world. From the 1960s,
Chugoku Shimbun began to cover the story of A-bomb survivors who left
Hiroshima, for Korea and other Asian countries. Tashiro extended this line ofenquiry to radioactive victims worldwide, in the US, Russia, India, Pakistan,
China and other nations.
According to Tashiro, the development of nuclear weapons is carried out inthe name of national security. Some countries think that possession of nuclear
weapons will enable them to defend their countries. However, such an idea is amyth, as Tashiro points out by presenting a number of cases and examples ofpeople who have been exposed to radiation at various stages: workers who
manufacture weapons, people who test nuclear weapons, those who carry such
weapons, and residents living in the vicinity of the manufacturing factories andnuclear waste dumps. Tashiro highlights how the security of the public isundermined in a trade-off for the promotion of national security. While Tashiro
admits the difficulty of changing national security policy, he emphasizes theimportance of concerned citizens who voice their opposition and exert pressure
on their governments.
In conclusion, Tashiro emphasizes that, in order to cut the vicious cycle ofhatred and violence in the age of nuclear terrorism, it is important to stop not
only war itself, but also the creation of nuclear weapons. This can be achievedby exerting pressure on the Japanese government and governments of othercountries. Hiroshima’s A-bomb experience provides an important lesson andmessage to the world. Although some may feel a sense of helplessness that thevoice of Hiroshima has yet to reach widely across the world, Tashiro expresses
his belief that one should not give up hope, but must continue to spread theprinciple message resulting from the Hiroshima experience, a message of peace.
(Oct.8)90

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Yasukuni, the Emperor and the Anti-war Movement
Amano Yasukazu
Journalist, People’s Plan Study Group

Amano points out that the Yasukuni Shrine exists both to commemorate
the modern state of Japan, as well as to celebrate the emperor system.
Throughout the war, Shinto was combined with the military system. This
combination became the foundation for the celebration of the militaryhierarchical system. Since the Meiji restoration, Shinto was definedaccording to its role as both the state religion, and the religion of theemperor families. It was against this religious background that thecommemoration of the dead occurred alongside the war, which was anintegral development in the creation of the nation state.
The combination of Shinto as the state religion and the religion of thepeople, created a structure in which ordinary people were pleased to die forthe emperor. The dead were cherished as heroes, who had sacrificed theirlives for the emperor and the state. In this way, the sorrow experienced bythose who had lost loved ones, was transformed into an experience of
happiness and joyfulness. Aside from this psychological mechanism, thefamilies of the dead were also compensated with money: the families could
live thanks to the death of their children. Thus, cherishing the dead involves
both psychological and material aspects.
After the war, having been recognized as a public religious institution,
Yasukuni Shrine survived. However, because Yasukuni Shrine was thelocation for those who were responsible for making records of the deadsoldiers, Yasukuni Shrine continued to be heavily supported by the Ministryof Health, Labor, and Welfare. Therefore, Amano argues that Yasukuni
Shrine is deeply related to the state under the current system. Furthermore,
the emperor has continued in his role of formally recognizing those whodied for their country in the wars. In this way, the relationship between
Yasukuni Shrine and the emperor has been preserved.
Facing the dispatch of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces overseas, theYasukuni Shrine system carries is involved in a modern dispute. The big
debate at the moment is how to deal with the members of the Japanese SelfDefense Forces who die under the UN peace operation and whether theJapanese should commemorate these soldiers at Yasukuni Shrine or not.
Amano proposes that the mass media is responsible for the perpetuationof ideas about the Yasukuni Shrine and the emperor system relationship.
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members of the imperial family are always referred to by the respected formof address: “Sama,” implying that the emperor is very special. The media
also publicizes Yasukuni Shrine as a tourist spot, which ensures that visiting
Yasukuni Shrine is an accepted and normal experience.
Lastly, Amano argues that Japanese national identity is embedded in theboth the Yasukuni system and the emperor system. Although many
Japanese people identify themselves as peace-loving, affluent andconsumer-oriented, Amano warns that the backbone of the self-image ofJapanese-ness, is deeply rooted in the Yasukuni spirit and the emperor
system.
Amano is concerned about the current tendency for Japanese society toallow more open to participation in wars. For Amano, the movements
against Yasukuni are inevitably correlated to anti-war movements. To
question the system in which Yasukuni celebrates dead soldiers is toquestion the system which perpetuates Japan’s continuous involvement inwars by dispatching the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. (Nov.5)

Lake Biwa Development
Atsushi Makino
Researcher, Lake Biwa Museum

Atsushi Makino, a member of the research staff at Lake Biwa Canal Museum,
explained how the environmental problems faced at Lake Biwa have beensolved. After providing background information about Lake Biwa and its
environmental problems, Makino went into more detail about how Lake Biwa’s
problems had been resolved. He stressed that natural science is not sufficient toexamine environmental issues and that it is local residents who tend to identify
the real problem. Therefore, it is imperative to employ a sociologicalperspective and examine the ways in which local communities around the area
have developed.
The problem of water utilization has become widespread since the 1970s.
With urbanization and the surge of population in Kyoto, Kobe and Osaka, water
shortages became a serious issue. In response, the government started the Lake
Biwa Development Project, which revealed the fact that Lake Biwa wassuffering from red tide despite the general belief that such a problem would nottake place at the lake. Makino said that it was difficult to determine why Lake
Biwa, which is located on the upper part of the river, was polluted then. By
employing an “insect’s-eye” approach examining the local community, as
opposed to a “bird’s-eye” approach with a global scope, the researchers found92

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that the discharge of waste water contributed to the red tide problem.
Consequently, two measures were taken to solve the red tide at Lake Biwa.
First, the infrastructure of the sewage system was improved. Second, instead ofsynthetic detergent, the usage of soap was encouraged.
Since the 1990s, Lake Biwa has faced another problem: the issue of
biological diversity. Due to the development of the area, fewer people havebeen engaged in farming since the 1990s, which has contributed to a dramatic
decrease in rice paddies in the Lake Biwa area. The lack of rice paddies resulted
in a lack of fish because they can no longer deposit eggs in the rice paddies as
they used to do. In this way, Makino points out, biological diversity has
decreased at Lake Biwa.
In conclusion, Makino drew three lessons from the experience at Lake Biwa.
First, he emphasizes the importance of “insect’s-eye” research. It is not enoughto focus on the overall scope: it is imperative to examine environmental issues
from the community level as well. Second, Makino suggested that paying
attention to the culture of local villages is important in determining the cause ofenvironmental problems, as well as finding solutions which correspond to thelife of the local area. Lastly, the revitalization of small-scale communities is
integral to preserving the cycles of the natural environment. (Oct.10)

The Religious Conflicts in the Middle East: Past
Roots, Present Situation, and Future Prospects
Ben-Ami Shillony
Professor Emeritus, The Hebrew University ofJerusalem

Ben-Ami Shillony argues that monotheistic religion is a “mixed blessing”
because of its positive and negative elements. On the one hand,monotheistic religion upholds the idea of “unity in diversity,” an idea that
Shillony finds important in shaping a peaceful world. On the other hand, theconviction that the “truth” is held only by their gods can result inmonotheistic religions’ denial of all other religions.
Shillony pointed out two current tendencies of religions in the Middle
East. One tendency is that, since the 1970s, the Middle East has becomemuch more religious as the activity of religious fundamentalists increases.
In this trend, Christianity and Judaism are described as embodiments of the“West,” while Islam is the embodiment of the Middle East. Therefore, antiwest and anti-modern become equivalent to anti-Christianity/Judaism andpro-Islam. The other trend is that religion, not the nation, has become the93Seminars by Resource persons

driving force uniting people in the Middle East. Especially since the act ofterrorism of September 11, 2001, Islam has become much more radical andde-nationalized than before. Shillony thinks that such disbelief in the nation
reveals that “nation” is an artificial creation and accelerates the creation of
supra-national organizations like Al-Qaeda. Because Islam is not nationbased, it is difficult to grasp who is fighting against whom. At the sametime, although it is becoming difficult to identify who is leading the wars,
the influence of Islam is growing and the impacts of these wars cannot beignored.
Lastly, Shillony makes several suggestions as to how to solve the wars in
the Middle East: using force to combat Islam, looking at the roots of thewars (poverty), letting the fundamental Islam movements crumble by itself,
and finding the common enemy (environmental disaster, for example)
between Islam and the West. Pointing out the shortcomings of each option,
Shillony advocates the creation of a new religion and a new spiritual
message as a preferable way to solve the current situations. Although it isdifficult to create a new and universally-shared spiritual message, Shillony
suggests that people are tired of radicalism and consumerism. Therefore,
new messages such as human love, respect for others, and morals could
replace other fundamental religious movements.
In conclusion, Shillony argues that it is our responsibility to decide whatis wrong and what is right. The idea of human rights and democracy can
exemplify the values that need to be promoted. (Oct.1)

National identity and Foreign Policy in Modern Japan
John Barnett Welfield
Professor, International University of Japan

John B. Welfield’s talk examined the roots of the Japanese national identity.
Having lived in Japan for almost 35 years, Welfield has established an in-depth
understanding of Japanese society. Mixed with various personal experiences he
has had in Japan, Welfield presented a broad view of Japanese national identity
from a historical perspective: he focused on the pre-war period, from the latenineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. According to Welfield, Japan
identified itself as part of Asia until the middle of the nineteenth century, when
it encountered the mighty economic and military power of Europe. Thisencounter with Europe became the moment when Japan re-examined its
national identity.

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Welfield categorized the roots of Japanese identity into three streams: (1)Westernism, (2) Pan-Asianism, and (3) Japan as the bridge between East andWest. The first stream, Westernism, was primarily conceptualized by Yukichi
Fukuzawa. Fukuzawa advocated the idea that Japan cut its ties with Asia and remodel itself as a Western power. In this view, other Asian countries including
China and Korea were perceived as underdeveloped and backward, whereas the
US and Europe were regarded as the highest form of development. Following
this view, a Japanese identity desiring a close association with the West wasestablished.
The second stream, Pan-Asianism, identified Japan as part of Asia. For thefollowers of this position, Asian civilization was not inferior to Western
civilization, but instead the latter had been imposed upon Japan. Welfield
introduced different streams within Pan-Asianism. Some groups viewed Japanas the center of Asia with the monarchy and centuries-old paternalistic systems.
Another believed that Asian countries should unite with each other: While somethinkers like Chomin Nakae believed that Japan should integrate itself into
Chinese culture to compete against the Western powers, some including
Fumimaro Konoe believed that Japan and China were competing rivals.
In the third stream, moral and cultural neutralism was embraced. Kanzo
Uchimura, for example, argued that the conflict between East and West would
eventually fade away, and thus, Japan should take a role to unite both sides andcreate a new world order.
In some Asian countries, Western practices are favored because people
consider it as somewhat better than their own practices. Consequently, thecurrent tendency is that Asian countries attempt to re-model themselves as partof the West. Welfield argues that, under such circumstances, the future role ofJapan may be that it re-introduces Asian values and identities into other Asian
countries. (Sep.11)

Domestic Politics and Japanese Foreign Policy:
Koizumi, Abe, and Beyond
Kiichi Fujiwara
Professor, University of Tokyo

In his presentation, Kiichi Fujiwara first gave a brief summary of two
characteristics of Japanese politics: the “dominant party system” and “doublestandard democracy.” By explaining these two major traits of Japanese politics,
Fujiwara argues that liberal democracy not only opens up and guarantees

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political participation, but it can also limit political participation and sustain theelite (or dominant regime), as the Japanese case shows. Based on thisunderstanding, Fujiwara focused on the Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abeadministrations and showed what has changed and what has not changed inJapanese politics under these two prime ministers. He further discussed the roleof civil society and the youth in bringing about changes in politics.
Fujiwara argues that the Japanese political system can be called a “dominantparty system” where one dominant party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in
Japan, has dominated the political scene over a long period. Furthermore,
Japanese politics can be characterized as “double-standard democracy,” which
results in the erosion of the significance of opposition parties.
Fujiwara argues that the public supports the LDP not because they actively
sympathize with the LDP; they passively support it because the public considers
that any non-LDP party would be unlikely to become the ruling party, thus themost the public can hope for is a “better” LDP party.
This passive support for the LDP dramatically changed when Koizumi
became the prime minister in 2001. While the way Yoshiro Mori, who was
Koizumi’s predecessor and was chosen Prime Minister, embodied the old natureof LDP faction-led politics, Koizumi ran for the candidacy by repeating the one
sentence: “I will destroy the LDP.”
Fujiwara argues that several changes were brought under the Koizumi
administration. First is the disappearance of the old politicians. Koizumi
appointed many Members of Parliament (MP) to important ministry positions
who were relatively young, as typified by his appointment of Makiko Tanaka as
the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Second, while many ministers used to comefrom a civil service background and maintained close connections with thegovernment, Koizumi asserted political power over bureaucrats. Third, Koizumi
was the first prime minister who asserted the prime minister’s power in
appointing candidates.
The big paradox was that when Koizumi resigned, he nominated Abe, who
promised to continue with Koizumi-line policies, yet who also was supportedby the leaders of the factions. Fujiwara argues that this paradox shows that nomatter how much Koizumi attempted to destroy the LDP, his popularity is
directly connected with the high levels of support the LDP garner in elections.
In this way, the support for LDP which characterizes Japanese politics did notchange under Koizumi.
Unlike his predecessor, Abe could not bring about changes at the policy level96Seminars by Resource persons
and quickly lost popularity with the public, a fact which is epitomized in the
LDP loss in the Upper House election of 2007. Abe’s stance was different fromthat of Koizumi, especially in terms of foreign policy. Being “right-wing,”1 Abe
took a much harder line in foreign policies than Koizumi and was known as a
“China hater.” Unlike Koizumi who started a dialogue with North Korea, Abeconsidered that Japan should take a tough position toward North Korea andstopped negotiations with it. However, such a different political stance never
became a coherent policy because he was easily influenced by bureaucrats aswell as other political leaders within the LDP. Consequently, his policies
became almost schizophrenic and inconsistent. Although Abe persisted in thereform of the Law of Educational Principles and preparing the ground forconstitutional change, these two policies were neither taken seriously nor had
any actual concrete outcome. Thus, Fujiwara concludes that not many changes
were brought about under the Abe administration.
Fujiwara further mentions the roles of civil society. Civil society groups inJapan dislike working with established political parties, including the opposition
parties, and in this way alienate themselves from politics to such a degree thatthey do not exert any influence over politics anymore. He argues that, although
he understands their disbelief in the parties, it is nonetheless imperative to fightagainst the ruling party within the democratic system. One way to fight against
the ruling party, Fujiwara suggests, is not to divide one’s stance either as “right”
or “left,” but to formulate concrete positions on each political issue. (Sep.25)

Migration and Asia
Mako Yoshimura
Professor, Hosei University

Mako Yoshimura gave an overview picture of the migration which ishappening within and beyond Asia. After explaining the current situation of
migrant workers in Asia and the historical background of migrant workers,
Yoshimura especially focused on migrant workers in Japan and the problems
Japan faces in accepting them. She concluded with some suggestions forcreating a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society in Japan.

1

In Japanese politics, “right-wing” means those who 1) get votes from the Izoku-Kai(members of Japan veterans families, one of the largest pressure groups in the LDP), 2) visit
Yasukuni Shrine, and 3) are members of Nihon Kaigi (the most extreme-right organization
within the LDP). Abe fulfilled all the three criteria.

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The history of migration in Asia goes back to as far as the 6th century. The
17th century saw an increase of Chinese migrants as a result of European
colonization. In the early 1970s, owing to the oil shock, many Asian migrant
workers went to the Middle East to work as construction workers. Since the late1980s, there has been the tendency that various destinations are earmarked for
migrant workers, and migration within Asia has intensified.
Prior to the 1980s, little attention was paid to minorities in Japan, such as the
Koreans, the Chinese and the Ainu. Yoshimura argues that ethnic minorities
were forced to adopt Japanese ways of living. The minority groups were
stigmatized as “uncivilized” and “backwards” and their cultures were depicted
as “inferior” to Japanese culture. The government policies toward migrant
workers were in step with this treatment of minorities, and showed a reluctanceto promote the idea of a multi-cultural society.
According to Yoshimura, some changes took place when the labor shortage
became a serious problem in Japan in the 1980s. The number of irregularmigrant workers dramatically increased, and the existence of migrant workers,
such as those from Iran and Bangladesh, suddenly became visible in the daily
lives of the Japanese people. Faced with this change, discussion emerged in an
attempt to promote a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic Japanese society.
However, still being reluctant to embrace the idea of a multi-cultural society,the government decided to tightly control which migrants they accepted, inorder to maintain the “Japanese-ness” of the society. Yoshimura argues that the1990 Amendment of the Immigration Law exemplified such a government
reaction. Following this law, the employment of Nikkei-jin, that is, people from
Brazil and Peru with Japanese origins, was encouraged. Meanwhile, thegovernment established a series of programs including Industrial Training
Programs from Development Countries, Technical Internship Programs, and theIndustrial Training and Technical Internship Programs in the 1990s. Yoshimura
criticizes these programs which create a loophole for corporations to use
foreigners as trainees without giving them proper training, although they are
actually required to work in the same way as the other workers. Currently, these
programs are condemned because many companies abuse the system to exploit
foreign trainees.
Not only at the policy level, but also at the social and cultural level, migrant
workers are excluded from Japanese society. Yoshimura suggests some reasons
why migrant workers suffer discrimination from Japanese society. First, sheargues that, especially toward ethnic minorities from Latin America, theJapanese people tend to regard them as those who “live like” Japanese because
they “look like” Japanese. When this expectation is denied, however, the98Seminars by Resource persons

Japanese people perceive them as “aliens” to Japanese society. Another reason
Yoshimura raised is the stigmatization of the 3D jobs (Difficult, Dirty andDangerous, which is the equivalent of 3K in Japanese—Kitsui, Kitanai andKiken) that most migrant workers do. She suggested that a hierarchy among
work exists in Japanese society. In this hierarchy, migrant workers who take 3Djobs are likely to be perceived as “lower” than Japanese people, and in this way,
are discriminated against by Japanese society. Lastly, she also points out thedifferent levels of integration in accordance with the generation. While theyoung generation of foreigners can speak Japanese, in general, the older
generation find it difficult to speak Japanese. The lack of language skills
deepens the isolation of migrant workers.
In conclusion, Yoshimura made some suggestions for the facilitation of theintegration of migrant workers into Japanese society. First, the Japanese
government needs to recognize the human rights and labor rights of migrants.
Simultaneously, not only a rights-based approach but also the promotion ofcultural exchange among Asian countries must be encouraged. Yoshimura also
describes the recent positive movements happening at the local government
level to promote multi-cultural society: some local government agencies
provide information to foreigners not only in Japanese but also in otherlanguages. Lastly, Yoshimura emphasizes that trade unions must address theissue of migrant workers and monitor and establish working conditions for
migrant workers equal to those of Japanese workers. (Sep.20)

Poverty in Contemporary Japan: The Homeless, “Net
Café Refugees” and Freeters in Need
Makoto Yuasa
Chief of Secretariat, NPO Moyai
Makoto Yuasa, Chief of Secretariat of the NPO MOYAI, ironically calls Japana “great manufacturer of poverty.” Working with homeless people, Yuasa
explained the current homeless situation in Japan, and how the activities of
MOYAI help to alleviate the difficult situation homeless people face.
As of January 2007, the number of homeless people in Japan is about 18,500.
This number is based on the definition of the homeless employed by thegovernment: the homeless are those who cannot use shelters, have no access tojobs and have no access to social welfare. Yuasa suspects that because of thisinsufficient definition, the actual number would be much higher. According to
Yuasa, the homeless include not only people who sleep on the street, but also
those who stay in public shelters, cheap hotels, and who do not have official

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residence registration. In addition, a current worrying trend is the emergence ofpeople called “Net Café Refugees”: people who stay in 24-hour Internet cafés.
They also can be categorized as homeless, Yuasa says.
Yuasa criticizes the government policy regarding the homeless. He argues thatthe current government strategy is to crack down and remove visible homelesspeople from the streets and parks in order to “prove” that the homeless issue issolved in Japan. In fact, according to the government, the number of homelesspeople decreased to 6,700 in 2007. Yuasa points out that such a strategy misses
the fundamental nature of the problem: why people become homeless in the firstplace. He argues that, in order to tackle the issue, it is necessary to know thesocial structure which produces homeless people, as well as the life of homelesspeople: that is how they survive and what their lives are like.
In Japan, poverty lies at the heart of homelessness. Yuasa argues that the
reproduction of poverty is the reason why the homeless are produced inJapanese society. He illustrates his argument by showing how people who comefrom poor families or families with problems, tend to become homeless.
Yuasa further explains how the homeless survive. In Japan, there are few
public shelters where the homeless can be accommodated. Even when they canhave access to public housing, there are a number of strict rules such as age andmarital status (a single person under the age of 60 is disqualified).
Consequently, Yuasa suggests that many homeless people do not wish to/cannot
access public shelters. In addition, Yuasa points out that because of the highfixed cost of living in private housing and the high cost of utilities, people whohave temporary work status cannot afford to live there. Consequently,
increasing numbers of people are forced to live in Internet cafés or, in the worst
case, are thrown out to the streets and parks.
Yuasa expresses his concern over the dramatic increase in the temporary
worker population in Japan. It is said that the working poor population is twice
the size it was 10 years ago. Since the 1990s, from a total labor force populationof 50 million, the number of non-regular employees (part-time temporary
workers) has increased by 5.5 million, while the number of regular employees
decreased by 5.5 million. This trend accelerated under globalization, where eachcorporation cut down on labor costs as much as possible by increasing thenumber of non-regular employees.
Lastly, Yuasa explained the activities of MOYAI, which aims to improve thesituation of homeless people in two ways: to provide guarantors for thehomeless and to provide a space where the homeless can connect with others.
MOYAI also works for the empowerment of the homeless. In order to prevent100Seminars by Resource persons

the homeless from being isolated from the society, MOYAI provides anopportunity for homeless people to get together.
Yuasa concluded by emphasizing that it is imperative to provide a space
where the homeless can relate to each other as well as create jobs by
themselves. (Sep.27)

The Human Rights Situation in Kyoto with Special
Focus on the Korean Residents in Utoro, Kyoto
Masashi Saito
Secretary General, Utoro wo Mamoru Kai

The Utoro district was established in 1941 in Uji City, Kyoto. It was originallyan area of temporary shelters for laborers working on the construction of Kyoto
airfield. The size of Utoro is 2.1 hectares, with about 200 people (65households) currently living there. When Utoro was founded, most of themwere from the Korean peninsula. After the war, some of the residents in Utoro
remained in the area while some left for Korea. Some of those who left for
Korea eventually returned to Utoro, as Utoro was the communication base forall Korean residents in Japan. Currently 80 percent of the residents in Utoro arefrom South Korea, 10 percent are from North Korea and the remaining 10
percent is made up of Japanese nationals, their Korean spouses and theirchildren. The land was owned by the Japanese government during the war, soldto companies affiliated with Nissan after the war and later sold to the real estatecompany which currently holds the land ownership. In 1989, the company
started a lawsuit against the people living in Utoro, claiming that they were
squatters and demanding their eviction. As of October 9, 2007, the Korean
government has helped the Utoro community purchase half of the land of Utorowith 5 million yen, leaving the remaining half in the hands of the real estatecompany.
Saito points out that the living conditions in the Utoro district are not muchchanged from the end of the war. Rather, he argues that the most tragic situation
has taken place since the end of the war, because the residents of Utoro weredeprived of jobs and foods and left alone without any support from thegovernment. By taking the fellows to the various parts of Utoro, Saito showed
how the residents of Utoro have to live under harsh living conditions. For
instance, there is no sewage system in Utoro. Having no ditches, the roads
become muddy and the floor of each house is flooded with water when it rains.
Currently, most of the residents in Utoro district are elderly: the majority ofyoung people leave Utoro and live elsewhere. This current situation reflects

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their changing attitude toward nationality. After the Second World War, many
people in Utoro were reluctant to take Japanese nationality, due to their
attachment to their Korean identity. However, according to Saito, this sense of
attachment has become weak. Young people are likely to select Japanesenationality, which results in their leaving the Utoro district. Therefore, Saito
argues that the main aim of the movement against the eviction order for the
Utoro residents is to preserve the community and protect the right to residethere, especially for elder citizens who cannot live outside of Utoro. By
preserving the Utoro district, the Utoro residents and their supporters are also
attempting to secure a safety net where the Korean residents who once left
Utoro can return.
Lastly, Saito argues about the future of the Utoro district. Rather thanperceiving the land in Utoro as an individual property to make money, the landis considered as communal property for preserving the life of the Utoro
residents. Therefore, the purchase of the land of Utoro, even if it is only half ofit, allows the residents of Utoro a collective site for survival. Saito suggests that,from now on, the movement against the eviction order for the Utoro residents
should pressure the Japanese government and the Uji municipal government toimprove the infrastructure and build public housing on the land which the Utoro
residents purchased. (Oct.9)

Testimony of an Atomic Bomb Survivor
Miyoko Matsubara
A-Bomb Survivor

Sixty-two years after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Miyoko
Matsubara gave vivid and powerful testimony about her experience as an Abomb survivor, or Hibakusha. Matsubara, sometimes in a monotone, sometimes
in great agitation, described what she saw on August 6th, 1945, on the day an
A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Based on her experience, she explained theenduring effects of the A-bomb on the Hibakusha and the so-called secondary
Hibakusha.
Matsubara explained the enduring effects on the Hibakusha. Soon after thebomb was dropped, she started suffering from diarrhoea, high fever, vomiting,
and was on the verge of death for a time. Despite her recovery, Matsubara said
that the “hell” continued. She was discriminated against by others on manyoccasions because she was a Hibakusha: despite successfully graduating highschool, she could not get a job because of the keloids on her face, and was
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Matsubara was 20 years old, she had 12 operations over a 7-month period.
According to Matsubara, these operations made her life somewhat bearable andhelped her regain some of her lost dignity. Yet, Matsubara says the past kept
haunting her; she has suffered from various illnesses including breast cancer.
Her experience after the bomb powerfully suggests that the effect of the atomic
bombs was far-reaching and everlasting. There are still 80,000 people who are
suffering from the effects of radiation. Matsubara said that although the war
ended 62 years ago, for the Hibakusha “every day is August the 6th,” and thus
the Hibakusha have not escaped from the war and the A-bomb, nor will theyever.
The issue of the secondary Hibakusha was also raised during the talk.
Secondary Hibakusha are those who were not in Hiroshima when the atomic
bomb was dropped, yet were exposed to the massive radiation remaining in thecity upon their return to Hiroshima. Matsubara herself lost her brothers who
were both secondary Hibakusha.
Matsubara concluded her testimony with three messages. First, she argues that
if Japan would have had the atomic bomb at that time, Japan, too, would have
dropped it on other countries. Thus, instead of hating the Americans who
actually developed and dropped the atomic bombs, the real enemy is war andnuclear weapons. Second, considering that Japan was both a victim (as having
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only cities which have been attacked with atomic
bombs) and perpetrator during the Second World War, Hiroshima could becomea model of peace by sharing the Hiroshima experience. She urged other cities
and countries to learn from it and stop the endless conflicts happening in theworld. Lastly, Matsubara highlighted the worrying tendency of new weapons
being continuously developed and spreading all over the world. She argued thatthe most important task for us is not to create more weapons and accelerate
hatred among people, but to overcome differences and to cultivate friendships
with others through religion, the arts, culture, education and economic
assistance. Matsubara’s only wish is to help create a world where people canlive happily and die peacefully. (Oct.7)

In Search of Historical Reconciliation between Japanand Its Neighbors
Tessa-Morris Suzuki
Professor, Australian National University

Tessa-Morris Suzuki examined the issue of historical conflict andreconciliation in northeast Asia. In her presentation, Suzuki talked about the103Seminars by Resource persons

background that affected how the problems of historical reconciliation emergedin the northeast Asian region, what the concept of reconciliation means, andpossible future steps for reconciliation.
The background of northeast Asia’s history of wars is affected by the Cold
War. While in Europe there was a single dividing line which divided the east
from the west, in Asia, there were multiple and tightly guarded dividing lines,
such as the division within the east (China and Russia), the division between
Taiwan and China, and that between North and South Korea. In this context,
Suzuki points out that Japan was isolated from other neighbouring countries; anisolation that helps explain Japan’s different understanding of past history fromother Asian countries. Although, on the public level, the people made great
efforts to reconcile with the past, as exemplified in popular culture in the 1960s
and 1970s, Suzuki states that such sentiments of reconciliation were notexpressed at the Japanese government level. The fact that Japanese politics was
dominated by the single party, the LDP, where many members hold nationalist
views, as well as the fact that the LDP was influenced by lobbying groups
which took nationalist views on Japan’s past history, all contributed to thegovernment’s failure to reconcile the wrongdoings of the imperial army during
the wars.
Suzuki argues that because it was difficult to cross borders until the mid
1980s, the Chinese, Japanese, and the Koreans had few opportunities to share acommon memory of the past. Instead, by being dominated by Cold War politics,
northeast Asia experienced what is called “thin-reconciliation”: although thepolitical normalization between Japan and China and the Korea was achieved in1965 and 1972 respectively, the underlying past history between these countries
remained unresolved. Consequently, once the borders in northeast Asia became
more open in the middle of the 1980s, it became inevitable for the Japanese toconfront past history with China and Korea. Using an example of Japanese
historical textbooks, Suzuki highlights how the past history of wars has yet toreach a reconciliation both between Japan and other Asian countries, and within
Japan.
Suzuki further examines the concept of the reconciliation, or “wakai” inJapanese. Suzuki points out that the concept of reconciliation began to be
widely used in historical research and historical teachings in the 1990s in
northeast Asian context. According to her, there are two approaches to historicalreconciliation: the government-led reconciliation approach and the nongovernment-led approach. As to the former approach, examples include theresearch committee set up by the Japanese and Korean governments in March
2002 and a similar committee set up between Japan and China in 2002. These104

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committees attempted to promote a historical reconciliation on the government
levels. As to the latter, Suzuki points out that a broad range of nongovernmental reconciliation projects took place over the past decade: the East
Asian Historical Forum of Critic and Solidarity, the China-Japan Intellectual
Community Dialogue, and the summer camps for the young in Hokkaido.
Suzuki states that the concept of reconciliation is understood in a different
way in these two approaches. The official projects for reconciliation tend to be
based on the understanding that each country has its own unified understandingof history. In this approach, the meaning of reconciliation is to overcome thisdifference in understanding of history held by each country. On the other hand,the un-official non-government level projects show a somewhat different
understanding of reconciliation. These groups take the view that there arevarious kinds of understanding of history within the nation. They attempt tocreate a forum for on-going dialogue in the process of reconciliation. Suzuki
considers that the projects led by non-government actors are important because
they not only aim to reconcile, but also to provide an opportunity to bringpeople from each country face to face in a tangible way, to remember pasthistory, and disseminate past history to a wider audience.
Lastly, Suzuki raised the issue of mass-media in relation to reconciliation.
Suzuki points out that visual media, popular mass media and the Internet havegreat power to convey the stories of the past to a broader audience, and canfacilitate audience reconsideration of the past in new ways. Suzuki suggests thatthe process of reconciliation can be more effectively advanced through oureffective usage of media. Suzuki concluded by saying that the usage of new
medias in creative ways, such as the creation of on-line reconciliation web-sites,
can help the long-silenced to speak and to be listened to, can help us convey
information across borders, to reach a more wider audience. (Nov.5)

Global Challenges and Transnational Civil Society
Yoshikazu Sakamoto
Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo

Yoshikazu Sakamoto argues that it is important to achieve unity in reality
because of the following three global challenges: (1) international andinternal militarization, (2) anti-democratic, inequitable globalization, and(3) eco-political crisis and victimization.

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Seminars by Resource persons(1) International and internal militarization
In the international arena, the decline of US power has facilitated theemergence of a multi-polar global system led by the European Union,
Brazil and Russia, etc. Under this multi-polar global system, the world isunbalanced because of the different level of power each state obtains. This
is what Sakamoto calls the “inequality of states.” Each state attempts toacquire military power in order to protect itself and sustain the balance ofpower. This rationale justifies weaker states to ensure their security by
maximizing their military power, while stronger states aim to maintain theirmilitary superiority over others. In this way, international militarization has
accelerated.
In the internal sphere, social disparity within states has widened.
Sakamoto argues that discrimination against those who are economically,
culturally, and socially marginalized in society has created a hotbed ofterrorists “in reserve.” The increasing resentment toward society among themarginalized and their sense of isolation from society are inclined to be
expressing themselves according to military means. In this way, those whoare domestically marginalized try to acquire military power. Meanwhile,states have dealt with these marginalized people by strengthening the police
and surveillance system, labeling them as “enemies within (states).” This
militarization is further hastened by the privatization of military weapons.
Sakamoto argues that one must face these serious challenges to peace andunity happening both in the internal and the international arena.
(2) Anti-democratic and inequitable globalization
Sakamoto points out two worrying phenomena, which display the antidemocratic aspect of globalization. First, because of the rapidly risingcompetitiveness of the former South, many regular workers in the North
have lost economic power and become the working poor. In the meantime,
economic disparities within states of the former South have worsened as aresult of ruthless and keen competition on the global scale. Consequently,
an increasing number of people have become marginalized, which makes
the world more undemocratic.
Second, because the global media sends out enormous amounts ofcapitalized information, the world becomes a consumer society. Under suchcircumstances, even war is presented as a commodity. In this way, people
become unconcerned about human suffering, which makes them
undemocratic and passive citizens.

106Seminars by Resource persons(3) Eco-political crisis and victimization
According to Sakamoto, there are two categories of conflict with respect
to the environment. First is the conflict over natural resources such as oil,natural gas, marine resources, and clean water—both on the international
and the domestic level. Sakamoto argues that depletion of resources is apolitical and social question of how to distribute resources equally and of
how to consume them in a humane manner. Second is the conflict overglobal warming. Climate change affects world food production, the price offarm products and livestock, and sea levels, all of which aggravate global
hunger, widen the gap between rich and poor, cause social and politicalconflict and produce ecological refugees.
In conclusion, Sakamoto suggests that the role of a transnational civilsociety is crucial in order to tackle these three problems that constitute theinhumane and inequitable global structure. For Sakamoto, civil society is “acreative public space founded on the idea of “humanity” and “the dynamic,
open-ended process of renovating social relations on the basis of thereciprocal recognition of the dignity and equality of all human beings
regardless of race, religion, creed, or sex.” Sakamoto argues that civilsociety must pursue both the universality of human rights and the diversityof cultural values. (Sep.21)

Cultural Tour Tokyo: Visits to Shimokitazawa andKoenji
Yoshitaka Mori (Facilitator of Day Trip1)
Associate Professor, Tokyo National University of theFine Arts and MusicIn Shimokitazawa, the fellows visited a place called Qvirivsha, a small café
which provides a space where people living in Shimokitazawa and elsewhere
can gather. There, Kimura Kazuho, a graduate student at the University ofTokyo, provided a talk on the anti-redevelopment movement in Shimokitazawa,
called “Save Shimokitazawa,” as one example of alternative social movements
in Japan.
In 2003, Setagaya Ward made a proposition to redevelop Shimokitazawa by
setting up a high-rise building in front of Shimokitazawa station, as well as
constructing bus terminals and 26-meter wide highways. The proposal for thereconstruction was approved by the Metropolis of Tokyo in 2006. This
redevelopment

policyhascausedconcern

among

the

residentsinShimokitazawa. For instance, some residents are concerned that the107Seminars by Resource persons“modernization” of Shimokitazawa will change the original and uniquecharacter of the town. These concerned citizens have created the “Save
Shimokitazawa” movement in order to stop the government-led reconstruction
plan of Shimokitazawa and they have proposed their own plan for theredevelopment of Shimokitazawa.
According to Kimura, around 100 people have joined the movement. It isorganized through mailing lists, and includes a wide variety of people ranging
from high-school students to elderly people. Its activities include the publishingof mail magazines on a weekly basis, as well as a community paper, organizing
demonstrations on the street and holding symposiums. In 2007, the “Save
Shimokitazawa” movement brought a lawsuit against Tokyo Metropolis and theJapanese government to stop the redevelopment project.
Kimura points out that people in Shimokitazawa have various interests, andtherefore, it is difficult to organize the movement. For instance, about seventy
percent of land owners have already agreed to sell their lands, considering thatthe redevelopment project was an effective way to revitalize the economy in
Shimokitazawa. Due to different agendas, cooperation between the “Save
Shimokitazawa” movement and other movements against the redevelopment islimited. Despite these difficulties, Kimura states that people are organizing the
movement to seek an alternative ways to revitalize the atmosphere of
Shimokitazawa.
In Koenji, the fellows visited a recycling shop and a café, both operated by the
movement called “Amateur Riot.” This social movement is unconventional in
the sense that it organizes demonstrations for entertainment. For instance, thedemonstrators occupy public places and start partying at the protest site. The“Amateur Riot” movement is organized by young people who have unstable
and irregular jobs. Although some are residents of Koenji and others live
outside the area, this movement is based in Koenji, which has historically beena place attracting radical political activities. Mori suggests that the “Amateur
Riot” movement is organized through the Internets and flyers and does not haveany connection with other social movements. He also points out that the“Amateur Riot” movement greatly contributes to the revitalization of Koenji
because it brings more and more young people there. (Oct.5)

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Retreat and day trip
During the 3-day retreat trip, the fellows gave
presentations on their research topics.
1

Migrants in Sex Work as Reality: How Not to Divide Us
into Criminals, Victims and Rescuers
Kaoru Aoyama

Aoyama’s argument powerfully showed the necessity of filling in the
gap between the two different discourses, i.e., migrant sex workers as
trafficking “victims” and as sex “workers.” While Aoyama admits thedifficulty of going beyond the boundary that separates discourse about
sex workers into two, she attempts to provide the threshold by making
the taboo agenda—trafficking in persons—public.

New Social Movements through a Politics of Iconogenesis
Petula, Sik-Ying Ho

Ho’s presentation showed how political activities can be embodied byusing one’s own body as an “icon.” By introducing the life of one
woman called Choi Fung, and her various activities, Ho suggests a“new” way of being “political,”2 which is called “iconogenesis”: young
women who use their bodies as a political tool in order to gather
attention from others and create a social movement.

The Village Systems Supporting Sustainability: A SuccessStory from Du Jia, Yunnan
Huang Jiansheng The SUCCESS (Sustainable Users’ Concept for China Engaging
Scientific Scenarios) project attempted to seek how sustainable
development can be practiced in rural villages. As a member of the
SUCCESS project, Huang explained the purpose of this project, how the
research was conducted, and what the findings from the project were.

Migrants and the Access to Membership Goods
Sriprapha By presenting the situation of migrants in Thailand, Petcharamesree
Petcharamesree showed how migrants are given limited access to “membership goods.”
Membership goods are a set of goods that only members of a political1
Since Hishamuddin Rais joined the ALFP 2007 from 20th of September onward, he could notattend the retreat trip
2

Other ways of being political, Ho argues, are through interpersonal engagement (to engage in

different forms of intimacy with others) and through creating communities (i.e., to create
alliances).

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community (i.e., citizens) are allowed to enjoy. She argues that being
perceived as not part of “Us” (i.e., members/citizens) but as “Others”(i.e., non-members/non-citizens), migrants are excluded from politicalcommunities and not allowed to enjoy the same goods as citizens do.

Freedom and Censorship/Blurring Boundaries
Bina Sarkar Ellias

In the first half of her presentation, Ellias presented each cover of“Gallerie,” the magazine she has edited since 1997. By introducing thekinds of topics her journal has covered since its inception, Ellias
powerfully argues that it is important to address social and politicalissues through the lens of art, so that these topics become accessible tothe public. In the latter half of her presentation, Ellias shared herconcern over freedom and censorship in India. In a critique of thecurrent movement toward censorship and self-censorship, Elliasemphasizes the importance of freedom of expressions. At the end of thepresentation, she presented one of her Haikus she composed while inJapan and some music which represent the cross-border nature of art.

Day trips
On the first day trip,3 held in October, the fellows visited
Shimokitazawa and Koenji to learn about alternative social movements
in Japan. The trip was facilitated by Yoshitaka Mori. The second day
trip was organized in November. They visited Yasukuni Shrine andYushukan Museum. After the visit, Amano Yasukazu gave apresentation on Yasukuni Shrine, its relationship with Shinto religion,and the emperor system.4

3

See pages 107 and 108 to learn about the details of the Day Trip 1.

4 The summary of Amano’s presentation is shown on the pages 91 and 92.

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Field trip
Hiroshima
7–8 Oct. 2008

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum → Miyoko Matsubara(seminar) → Peace Memorial Park → Akira Tashiro (seminar) →Miyajima
In Hiroshima, the fellows attended seminars by Miyoko Matsubara,
an atomic bomb survivor and Akira Tashiro, a journalist specializing inatomic bombs and nuclear weapons.5

Kyoto
8–9 and 11 Oct. 2008

Kiyomizu Temple → the Yanagihara Bank Commemorative Museum(Suijin District) → Utoro District → Saito Masashi (seminar)→Ryukoku University
In Utoro District, Masashi Saito, the Secretary General of Utoro wo
Mamoru Kai (The Society for Protecting the Survival of Utoro),
explained the historical background and current situations of Utoro
district.6
In the evening, the fellows attended a seminar held at Ryukoku
Unviersity. The seminar was organized by Hiroshi Tanaka, Lee Soo im,
and Hisashi Nakamura, all of whom are professors at Ryukoku
University. First, a brief presentation on the experiences of the Korean
minority living in Japan was given by Dr. Lee Soo im. Following thepresentation, a candid discussion was held among the fellows and thestudents of Ryukoku University. What nationality means for Koreans,
why ethnicity is so important for the Japanese, and the issue of
discrimination against the Koreans were main topics of the discussion.

Shiga
10 Oct.2008

The Lake Biwa Museum → Atsushi Makino (seminar) → the Harie
District.
In the Lake Biwa Museum, Atsushi Makino, a researcher at themuseum, gave a seminar on the environmental situation of Lake Biwa.7
After visiting Lake Biwa, the fellows had lunch at the community center
hall in the Harie district, which is known for its own sewage systemcalled Kabata. Kabata is a unique eco-friendly sewage system whichuses the water coming out from the ground for domestic usage,
depending on its natural power of self-cleaning. After lunch, the5 See pages 102 and 103 for Matsubara’s seminar and pages 89 and 90 for Tashiro’s.
6 See pages 101 and 102 for Saito’s presentation summary.
7 See pages 92 and 93 for Makino’s presentation summary.

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residents in the Harie district showed the fellows various types of
Kabata used in their community.

Public Symposium
Unity in Diversity: From Exclusive State to
Collaborating Communities
Day 1
6 Nov. 2008

People, State, Whose Security?
Stories from Borders and Stories of Borders
by Sriprapha PetcharamesreeMigration: Diverse Experiencesby Kaoru Aoyama

Sustainability and Community System
by Huang Jiansheng

The idea of borders was the focal point of the first day of thesymposium: how we understand the concept of borders, how people areaffected by crossing borders, how people live within borders, and how
people blur the boundaries of borders. The presentation of Sriprapha
Petcharamesree critically examined the concept of borders8 from both
legal and political perspectives. With a focus on the experience of
migrant women who work in the sex industry in Japan, Kaoru Aoyama
examined their situations based on her interviews with them. By
presenting his observations on village lives in China and those in Japan,
Huang Jiansheng investigated the ideal community systems for therealization of ecological and social sustainability.
The theme of borders was further illustrated by the personal accountof a migrant worker in Japan, which was given before the fellows’presentations. Amano Andera from Thailand, a member of staff at theHouse in Emergency of Love and Peace, presented her working
experience with migrant women who accessed the House in Emergency
of Love and Peace.

8 By the term “borders,” Petcharamesree indicates not only the lines which cut throughgeographical territory, but also social, cultural and psychological territory.

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Day 2
7 Nov. 2008

Looks, Looking, and Lurking: Sex-Youth-Art: An
Experience with Hong Kong, Malaysia, and India
The possibilities of a Second Spring: Japanese ‘Shufu’ and HK
Chinese ‘Sinai’
by Sik-Ying HoEnergy 4 Change
by Hishamuddin Rais

Gallerie: Another Way of Looking
by Bina Sarkar Ellias

The theme of the second day of the symposium revolved aroundsex, youth, and art. Each presentation provided a unique perspective onsex, youth, and art, with examples from Hong Kong, Malaysia, India,
and Japan. Sik-Ying Ho examined what it means to be a “shufu” or ahousewife in Japan. She reproduced her interviews with Japanesewomen. Fellows of the ALFP 2007 and others affiliated to the program
took on “surrogate” roles as the interviewees and presented accounts of
their lives in a theatrical and documentary way.
By showing a series of visual images collected during his stay inJapan, Rais compared the youth culture in Malaysia and that in Japan.
Observing and exploring the potential force of change in the youth
counter-culture, Rais argues that youth cultures in the two countries aredifferent: the former works as a force to question the regime while thelatter to confirm the regime.
Bina Sarkar Ellias’s presentation was composed of various seminar
themes discussed throughout the ALFP 2007: poverty, discrimination,
religion, and Hiroshima/peace. Ellias presented her views on each topic
with the hope of creating a more equitable and just world.

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