( 毎週日曜日発行 ) 昭和 36 年９月８日 第３種郵便物許可 | ISSN 2188-0794 © THE JAPAN TIMES, LTD., 2018VOL. 58 NO. 7
日曜日 FEBRUARY 18, 2018
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Making your weekend complete

Golden age•

Hanyu becomes first maleskater to defend title in 66 years•

Japan celebrates first gold
at Pyeongchang Games•Uno earns silver in repeatof 2017 world championships
PAGE 24 »»TIMEOUT

Nagayanostalgia

The long and theshort of Tokyo’s‘row houses’ PAGE 10
MEDIALabor pains

Workers denigrate
Fukushima nuclear
plant cleanup PAGE 17

Icebreaker: Yuzuru
Hanyu stands on the
podium Friday after
winning the men’s figureskating competition
during the 2014 WinterOlympics in Sochi,
Russia. AP

Majestic moment: Yuzuru
Hanyu celebrates after
winning gold in the men’s
figure skating competitionat the 2018 Pyeongchang
Olympics in South Korea
on Saturday. REUTERSNational: Young blood
Fujii is youngest shoji player
ever to win championship,sixth dan title Page 2

Lifestyle: Why Did
You Leave Japan?
Dancer Yoshihisa Arai floats
on air in Chicago Page 13

Food: Stock takeMedia: Small world

A solid dashi is key
to making a great
chawanmushi Page 14

The face of immigrationin Japan is rapidlychanging Page 16

Also inside today > World page 4 | Opinion page 7 | Books page 18 | Diversions page 19 | Weather/Cartoons page 20 | Sports page 21

2 | the japan times on sunday | February 18, 2018

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Tax bureaus hit byMoritomo protests

Fujii topples shogi master Habu
Teen genius breaks
record for youngest
champ and sixth dan
KYODO

Sota Fujii, Japan’s youngest professional shogi player, blitzed aquick-play tournament on Saturday, defeating a field of much
more experienced players that
included master Yoshiharu Habu,
holder of one of the most prestigious titles in the traditional gameof Japanese-style chess.
At the finals of the Asahi Cup
tournament in Tokyo, Fujii, 15,beat Akihito Hirose, earning him
an instant promotion to sixth danfrom fifth. That made him theyoungest player in shogi history
to win both a championship andelevation to sixth dan.
Fujii toppled 47-year-old Habu
during the semifinals, bringing
down one of the most talented
players in the game’s history.
Before Saturday’s match commenced, Fujii said Habu was aplayer he has admired since hefirst began playing.
“I did my utmost to win the gameand now I’m very happy,” Fujii said
after besting the ninth-dan master.
“It was a difficult game and I couldn’ttell if I could win” until near the endof the match, Fujii told reporters.
Last year Fujii became a shogi
sensation by stringing together arecord of 29 consecutive professional wins.
The Asahi Cup is a quick-playtournament where each player
is given 40 minutes. It is open
to all ranks of players, including
amateurs.
Before Fujii, the youngest person
to ever win a tournament organized

JAXA astronaut Norishige Kanai (left) and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei
conduct a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Friday inthis NASA photo.
ap

Japan-U.S. spacewalk
fixes ISS’s robotic arm
Washington
AFP-JIJI

by the Japan Shogi Association was
Hifumi Kato, who won the Roku Go
Yon Dan tournament, predecessorof the Kio title, in 1955 at the age of
15 years and 10 months.
The teen phenom’s race to claim
the all-time record for consecutive
wins captivated the country lastyear, inspiring brisk sales of children’s books about shogi and enticing more young people to play it.
The feat was achieved on June 26
as he extended his unbeaten record
since his December 2016 debut to 29,
breaking the record of 28 wins set in1987 by Hiroshi Kamiya.
The run sparked a level of interest unseen since 1996, when Habu

made a clean sweep to claim allseven top shogi titles at once.
After Saturday’s game, Habu said
he felt Fujii was “very composed”
and moved his pieces “in a verylevel-headed manner.”
Fujii, who before the tournament
held the second-lowest rank of fifthdan, and Habu, winner of the prestigious Ryuo title and a ninth-dan
master, had only met in two unofficial matches, taking one apiece.
Fujii earned a spot in the semifinals after defeating Amahiko Sato,holder of the prestigious Meijinmaster title, in a quarterfinal
match on Jan. 14. It was his first
official win over any title holder.

Sota Fujii (right) and shogi masterYoshiharu Habu review their match
as Fujii beats Habu for the first timein an official tournament in Tokyo’s
Chiyoda Ward on Friday.
kyodo

Habu reached another high lastDecember, capturing the Ryuo
title for the seventh time overall
and becoming the first champ everto earn eisei lifetime honors in allseven major titles. Eisei is an honorific title bestowed after retirement.
The honor is only given for each
title after one has cleared certain
conditions including number ofconsecutive titles won or overall
times for holding a title.

There are eight major titles inshogi, but the condition for receiving the eisei for the Eio championship, which was elevated to theelite group last year, has yet to beannounced.
The government on Tuesday
bestowed the People’s HonorAward on Habu, making him thefirst recipient of the prize in theworld of shogi.
Commonly described as Japanese chess, shogi can be more
complicated than chess. The
players, given 20 pieces each, canreuse those captured from theiropponent and bring them backinto the game as their own.

Two astronauts from Japan andthe United States have conducteda spacewalk to repair the International Space Station’s robotic arm
and put equipment in storage.
The spacewalk on Friday was
the first by Japanese Aerospace
Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Norishige Kanai and thefourth for his U.S. counterpart
Mark Vande Hei.
The outing began at 7 a.m. when
the duo switched their spacesuits
to battery power before venturing
into the vacuum of space. The
excursion was expected to last
6½ hours but ended up lasting 7
hours and 24 minutes, according
to NASA’s Space Station blog.
Kanai, 41, is a doctor and diver
who goes by the nickname “Neemo.”
The Tokyo-born lieutenant from
the Maritime Self-Defense Forcebecame an astronaut in 2009 and is
the fourth Japanese to walk in space.
He also spent 13 days in the
Aquarius, an underwater lab off

Florida, in 2015 as part of NASA’s
Extreme Environment Mission
Operations (NEEMO) crew.
The goal of the spacewalk is to
move components related to theorbiting outpost’s Canadian-built
robotic arm, known as Canadarm2,
an aging but crucial piece of equipment that has undergone a seriesof repairs in recent months. The
arm is used to move astronauts
and heavy equipment outside theresearch laboratory.
The astronauts must move aspare gadget called the Latching
End Effector from a storage spot
outside the ISS into the Quest air
lock so it can be returned to Earthon a future cargo mission for refurbishment and eventual relaunch.
“This LEE was replaced during an
Expedition 53 spacewalk in October
2017,” NASA said in a statement.
“They also will move an aging, butfunctional, LEE that was detachedfrom the arm during a January 23
spacewalk and move it from its temporary storage outside the airlock toa long-term storage location.”
That LEE will be kept at the station as a spare.

View from Osaka by Eric Johnston

In brief

Kansai executives offer advice on diplomacy

Kono, Lavrov agree Release of new era
to hasten isle plan name faces delay‘Track II diplomacy” isthe official neutralsounding phraseused to refer to diplomatic efforts by“nonstate” actors. In
thriller films and books, it’s usually portrayed as a game of shadows between powerful but
mysterious groups and individuals who may, or may not, beworking to save the world.
Hollywood-style drama aside,
Track II diplomacy, at its mosttransparent, plays a vital role in acountry’s international relations,and involves businesses, NGOs,
academic experts, and others.
Certainly corporations in Japanare not shy about Track II diplomacy and The Kansai Associationof Corporate Executives is particularly vocal, sending missions
abroad to discuss Japan’s diplomacy and security.
In a report released last month,
the association showed it wascapable of outside-the-box thinking. The Kansai region has long
had stronger trade relations with
East and Southeast Asia than the

Opposition parties
accuse Sagawa
Demonstrators took to streets in a of giving false
dozen cities Friday to demand thedismissal of National Tax Agency testimony in theCommissioner Nobuhisa Sagawa, Diet over a heavily
who is accused of giving false Diet
testimony about a shady deal discounted piece
involving a chunk of state land of state land sold tosold on the cheap to a nationalist
Moritomo Gakuen.
school entity.

JIJI

MunichTokyo region. Kansai’s politicaland economic leaders have nevermade their “Asia First” worldview
a secret.
Such views are reflected in thereport when they worry Japanesediplomacy may be too Americacentric. A potentially dangerous
policy, given uncertainties about
the mercurial U.S. President Donald Trump and what Kansai (andmuch of Japan) sees as a moreisolationist U.S. Time to put moreemphasis on Asia, is the advice.
If the report had stopped there,
it would have been dismissed,
rightly, as the usual thinking from
Kansai. This time, however, thecorporate executives offered specific suggestions for more fundamental improvements of thenation’s diplomatic structure as it
faces the reality of a rapidly aging
society, declining birthrate andthe prospect of a shrinking traditional diplomatic corps.
The first proposal is to revamp
the current national examination
system in order to allow more
people in the private sector withoverseas knowledge and language

The Kansai region
has long hadstronger traderelations with Eastand Southeast Asia
than the Tokyo
region. Kansai’s
political andeconomic leaders
have never madetheir ‘Asia First’worldview a secret.
skills to become involved withformal diplomacy. Their second
proposal is to establish a national
graduate school that specializes
in training students to think more
effectively about diplomatic andsecurity issues, with the hope that
graduates go on to a career as diplomatic specialists.
The Kansai business leaders
envision classes attended by Jap-

anese with backgrounds in politics and international relations
and being tutored by Japaneseand international diplomatic andsecurity experts while networking
with foreign scholars from international universities and thinktanks. The new graduate school
would also offer high-level foreign
language training, with anemphasis on the kinds of language and communication skills
needed in modern diplomaticnegotiations.
The proposal is to be welcomed
for offering sincere answers tovery difficult questions about
what, exactly, the structure of
diplomacy in 21st century shouldbe, and not only in Japan. Nobody
would disagree that diplomats
everywhere need all the help they
can get. Or that Japanese diplomats, notoriously reticent atinternational conferences andoften quite poor at dealing with
the international media, would
benefit from increased language
and communication training.
But the private sector is ultimately responsible only to theneeds of a narrow group of shareholders, not the country. Businessis about making a profit this quarter. Diplomacy is, ultimately,
about the art of preventing war. A
corps of professional diplomats
who don’t also have complex
financial ties and personal loyalties to private firms is a goodthing, not a bad thing.
In an age where corporations
exercise more influence over ourlives than ever, it’s easy to assume
business types playing a bigger
role in official diplomacy is desirable, natural and inevitable. The
proposals of the Kansai executives will sound good to many. But
attempts by those heretofore
involved in Track II diplomacy tojump onto Track I diplomacy
without first establishing clear
lines of responsibility, high standards of transparency, and strictlegal accountability risks running
Japan’s diplomatic efforts off therails.
View from Osaka is a monthly
column that examines the latest
news from a Kansai perspective.

kyodo — Foreign Minister Taro
Kono and Russian counterpart
Sergey Lavrov agreed Friday toaccelerate work on starting joint
economic activities on Russianheld islands claimed by Japan
off Hokkaido.
At a meeting in Munich, theyalso decided to meet again inTokyo on March 21 to prepare
for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’svisit to Russia in May and hissummit with President Vladimir
Putin, Japanese officials said.
Kono lodged a protest with
Lavrov over a Russian military
exercise being held on the isles,
as well as over Russian Prime
Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s
approval of military activities
at a civilian airport on the one
called Etorofu, which Russia
calls Iturup, they said.
The dignitaries are in Germany
for the Munich Security Conference, which runs until Sunday.
“I want the two of us to makepreparations between ourselves
so we can move forward various
bilateral projects during Prime
Minister Abe’s visit to Russia in
May,” Kono said.

JIJI — The government might notannounce the name of the new
era to be kicked off by Crown
Prince Naruhito’s accession to
the Chrysanthemum Throne in2019 until the end of the year orlater, sources said.
The government wants torelease the name early enoughto prevent public confusion anddisruption to economic activities, but there are concernsthat an unnecessarily early
announcement could also create confusion and create heateddebate on the choice for thename.
There are also worries that,once the new era name isunveiled, public attention may
shift quickly from Emperor
Akihito — who is to abdicate on
April 30, 2019 — to his successor, who will claim the throne
on May 1.
One idea circulating in thegovernment is to postpone
the announcement until a Feb.
24, 2019, ceremony is held tomark the 30th anniversary on
Jan. 7 of Emperor Akihito’s
enthronement, the sources
said Friday.

The demonstrations outside tax
offices in Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagoya,Fukuoka and other major cities
coincided with the start of the 2017
tax filing period. Opposition lawmakers joined the protests.
Opposition parties accuse
Sagawa of giving false Diet testimony over a heavily discounted
piece of state land sold to Moritomo Gakuen, a school chain
linked to Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe’s wife, Akie.
In Tokyo, nearly a thousandpeople gathered outside the
National Tax Agency building in
Chiyoda Ward.
Anger at Sagawa “made us takethis action,” said Satoshi Daigo, anhonorary professor at the University of Tokyo who was one of theleaders of the demonstrations.

During Diet meetings last year,
Sagawa, then director-generalof the Finance Ministry’s Financial Bureau, repeatedly claimed
the ministry had destroyed therecords of its negotiations with
Moritomo, which planned to open
an elementary school on the plotin question in Toyonaka, Osaka
Prefecture.
But earlier this year, when theministry released internal documents related to contracts with
Moritomo on the land sale, Finance
Minister Taro Aso claimed thatthey did not include records of theactual negotiations for it.
The ministry sold the plot at ahuge discount, citing the presenceof buried waste at the site. Opposition lawmakers suspect the min-istry offered the unfair discountbecause of Moritomo’s ties with
Akie Abe, who gave a speech at
the ultranationalist school at therequest of Yasunori Kagoike, itspresident at the time.
Later, the Board of Audit pointed
out in a special report that it did
not find any factors that would
justify the roughly 90 percent discount, giving more ammo to the
opposition camp in the Diet.
Abe and Aso are responsible forappointing someone who, as chiefof the tax agency, lied to the Diet,said 73-year-old Tokyo demonstrator Tsutomu Watanabe.
In the city of Osaka, where Moritomo is based, about 50 people
gathered outside the regional tax
bureau to vent their frustration.
“Nobody takes responsibility
and the commissioner gave no
explanation for selling out theJapanese people’s assets at a cutrate price,” said Toyonaka Municipal Assemblyman Makoto Kimura,
53. “This can’t be happening!”“I don’t feel like filing a tax
return when I feel that taxes will
be used for friends of the prime
minister,” the manager of design
company said. “I want to know thetruth.”In a changing
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Pub/Issue Date: Japan TImes_Sunday

4 | the japan times on sunday | February 18, 2018

第３種郵便物認可

February 18, 2018 | the japan times on sunday | 5

第３種郵便物認可

News | World

World | News

Failure to avert shooting
adds to pressure on FBI

Mueller’s move could set stage for charges against Americans

U.S. special counsel
indicts Russians

Focus
WashingtonAPanalysis
London/Washington
ReuteRs, AP

An indictment Friday by special
counsel Robert Mueller of 13
Russian individuals and threeorganizations for allegedly interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election sets the stage for theprosecution of Americans who
may have helped the Russianeffort, some legal experts say.
Deputy Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein told reporters there
was no allegation in the indictment that any American knew
about the alleged scheme. It said
Russians did contact “unwitting”
members of the campaign ofDonald Trump in a bid to support him while denigrating his
opponent Hillary Clinton.
The federal indictment represents the most detailed allegations
to date of illegal Russian meddling during the campaign thatsent Trump to the White House.
It also marks the first criminal
charges against Russians who are
believed to have secretly worked
to influence the outcome.
The Russian organization was
funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, theindictment says. He is a wealthy
St. Petersburg businessman with
ties to the Russian government
and President Vladimir Putin.
The indictment does not resolve
the collusion question at the heartof the continuing Mueller probe,
which before Friday had produced
charges against four Trump associates. U.S. intelligence agencies
have previously said the Russian
government interfered to benefit
Trump, including by orchestrating
the hacking of Democratic emails,
and Mueller has been assessing
whether the campaign coordinated with the Kremlin.
The latest indictment does not
focus on the hacking but instead
centers on a social media propaganda effort that began in 2014
and continued past the election,with the goal of producing distrustin the American political process.
Trump himself has been reluctant
to acknowledge the interference
and any role that it might haveplayed in propelling him to theWhite House.
The indictment does not allege
that any American knowingly participated in Russian meddling, orsuggest that Trump campaign
associates had more than “unwitting” contact with some of the
defendants who posed as Americans during election season. It
does lay out a vast and wide-ranging effort to sway political opinion
in the United States.
But the indictment said theRussians conspired “with persons known and unknown,”
which could include Americans.
“While they went to great
pains to say they are not indicting any Americans today, if I wasan American and I did cooperatewith Russians, I would be
extremely frightened today,” said
former federal prosecutor Patrick Cotter.
The White House took a different view, issuing a statementsaying that Trump had beenbriefed on the matter and was“glad to see the Special Counsel’s
investigation further indicates
there was NO COLLUSION
between the Trump campaign
and Russia.”
Mueller has been silent on
where the probe is headed. It has
so far led to guilty pleas from
Trump’s former national security
adviser and a one-time campaign aide to lying to the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, as wellas indictments of former campaign manager Paul Manafort
and Manafort’s business partner
Rick Gates.
Moscow has denied meddlingin the election. Leah Litman, alaw professor at the University ofCalifornia, Irvine, said thatmeans the Russian governmentis extremely unlikely to turn overany of its nationals for U.S. prosecution. There is no formal
extradition agreement between
the United States and Russia.
There is no crime called “collusion” in U.S. law, but former
federal prosecutor Randall Eliason, now a professor at George
Washington University Law
School, said the same conduct isoften covered by the offense ofconspiracy.

“The fact is that collusion ispotentially a crime,” Eliason
said. “This has always been clear,and it is even clearer now.”
The indictment alleges ascheme to impede the functioning of the U.S. Federal Election
Commission and other government agencies. Prosecutors also
accuse the Russians of openingbank accounts under falsenames and unlawfully using stolen identities of Americans topost on social media in supportof Trump.
To charge an American withconspiracy, legal experts said,

Mueller would need to show that
person was aware the Russians
were trying to interfere in theelection and knowingly aided
them.
For example, people who participated in activities to support
the Trump campaign could becharged if they knew Russians
had organized them to help swaythe vote. If an American helped
direct the Russian acts, that
could lead to charges as well,
said Harvard Law School professor Alex Whiting.
“If there were meetings
between the Trump campaign

Ex-student activist takes center stage in Korean detente
Seoul
ReuteRs

In 1989, a 22-year-old South
Korean student caused an uproar
when she sneaked into North
Korea and was filmed advocating
for unification and meeting leader
Kim Il Sung.
The unauthorized visit wasorchestrated by Im Jong-seok, aprominent student democracy
activist who is now chief of staff
of South Korean President Moon
Jae-in.
Nearly 30 years on, the 51-yearold Im is now playing a pivotal
role in an inter-Korean detente
fostered by the Winter Gamesin Pyeongchang, officials andexperts say.
The liberal president is banking
on Im, and a handful of other key
players, to rebuild inter-Koreanties strained by nearly a decade ofconservative rule in the South andthe North’s accelerating nuclear
and missile programs.
But for critics in the South, Im
is at the center of concern that
Seoul may prioritize cross-border
rapprochement over an airtightalliance with the United States.
Already, they fear, the WinterOlympics has become a propaganda tool for the North.

Im Jong-seok, the chief presidential secretary for South Korean President
Moon Jae-in, greets Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim
Jong Un, before a banquet at a hotel in Seoul on Feb. 11.
PresidentiAl Blue House / YonHAP / viA reuters

After North Korean leader Kim
Jong Un made a surprise invitation this month for Moon tovisit Pyongyang, Im is now being
floated as a possible special envoy
to North Korea to discuss the
proposal.
The intelligence service chief,
Suh Hoon, and Unification Minister Cho Myong-gyon are among
the candidates under consideration, according to officials who
spoke on condition of anonymity.

Suh and Cho both served in an
earlier liberal administration thatspearheaded the Sunshine Policyof inter-Korean engagement.
A beaming Im attended a meeting and lunch Moon hosted for
Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong,at the presidential Blue House on
Feb. 10. Im also hosted a farewelldinner for Kim’s delegation.
Back in his student days, Im was
imprisoned for 3½ years for violating national security laws for hisrole in the unauthorized visit toNorth Korea by the student, who
was also arrested on her return.
Im has hit back at accusations
he and his fellow former student
activists are pro-North Korea.
“Most of the people you mentioned (former activists) haverisked their lives to fight for
democracy,” Im told a lawmakerin parliament last November. “Ihave not led a shameful life.”
Many student activists during South Korea’s military rule inthe 1980s studied and even sympathized with the North’s ruling
ideology of juche — a concoctionof Marxism and an extreme formof go-it-alone nationalism championed by Kim Il Sung.
“Now we see things with amuch more skeptical eye, having been to the North and seen it
for ourselves,” said Lee In-young,another former activist and now
lawmaker of Moon’s party. “We’renot North Korea sympathizers, assome would put it, but may havea warmer heart and more patience
than others toward peace.”
Known for his affable characterand coordination skills as Moon’s
chief of staff, Im has deeply
engaged himself in everythingfrom policymaking to personnel
appointments at the Blue House
while shunning the limelight.

Im oversaw Moon’s speeches at
key anniversaries where the president voiced his opposition to war
and said he willing to return todialogue with the North if it stops
nuclear and missile tests.
Officials, however, said they areleaning more toward Suh or Cho,given conservative criticism of Im.
“I know there are many names
being mentioned, but Suh is anexpert and would be the best
choice,” said Chung Se-hyun, aformer unification minister who
advises Moon on inter-Korean
affairs. “In inter-Korean relations, it is critical to understandthe North’s … inner workings.”
Suh led a series of talks in
the run-up to two inter-Korean
summits, first in 2000 and then2007. Suh, as a top spy official,and Moon, then chief of staff to
President Roh Moo-hyun, were
instrumental in setting up the2007 meeting.
The Blue House said Im is playing the “natural role” expected as
chief of staff, without elaborating.
But his ubiquitous presence
during the Olympics-related
detente contrasts with national
security adviser Chung Eui-yong,
who was only invited to the Blue
House lunch, and other top foreign and defense officials who
were nowhere to be seen.

Deputy Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein speaks to reporters at
the Department of Justice inWashington on Friday. BLOOMBERG

and the Russians, and the Trump
campaign officials encouraged
the Russians or guided them toparticular types of work, or provided them assistance so thatthey could focus their interference, that would be collusion,”
said Whiting, a former federal
prosecutor.
Some experts said Friday’s
indictment does not indicate
Mueller’s probe is broadening.

Bill Jeffress, a criminal
defense lawyer at the law firm
Baker Botts, said he thought it
was significant that Mueller
made clear that members of thecampaign only dealt with Russians unwittingly.
“If they had enough evidence
that an American were complicit
they would have included it,”said Jeffress.
But Cotter said the narrative
set forth in the indictment could
easily include many more participants. “The net is tightening,”
he said. “They have moved up awhole other step on the ladder.”In brief
Kelly overhauls
clearance system
New York

AP — Under pressure over hishandling of abuse allegations
against a top aide, White House
chief of staff John Kelly on Friday ordered sweeping changes
in how the White House clears
staffers to gain access to classified information, acknowledging that the administration“must do better” in how it handles security clearances.
Kelly issued a five-page
memo that acknowledged
White House mistakes but also
put the onus on the FBI and theJustice Department to provide
more timely updates on background investigations, askingthat any significant derogatory
information about staff members be quickly flagged to theWhite House Counsel’s office.
The issue has been in the
spotlight for more than a week
after it was revealed that former
staff secretary Rob Porter had
an interim security clearance
that allowed him access to classified material despite allegations of domestic violence byhis two ex-wives.
Dozens of White House
aides have been working underinterim clearances for months.

Romney announces
bid for Senate seat
Salt Lake City

AP — Former presidential hope-

ful Mitt Romney is running fora Utah Senate seat, officiallylaunching his political comeback attempt Friday by praising his adopted home state
as a model for the acrimonious national government inWashington.
Having been one of the Republican Party’s fiercest critics ofPresident Donald Trump, Romney didn’t mention the administration or Trump himself in a
campaign announcement posted
online. The closest allusion to
Trump was Romney noting that
Utah “welcomes legal immigrants from around the world”
while “Washington sends immigrants a message of exclusion.”
In an interview Friday, Romney said he will continue to
speak out when he takes exception to something the president
says or does. “I call them like I
see them. Neither he nor I arelikely to change very much,”Romney said, adding that they
could work together on policy.
Romney, 70, will be the heavy
favorite for the Senate seatbeing opened by Sen. Orrin
Hatch’s retirement.

The revelation that the FBI
botched a tip on the Florida
school shooting suspect is a devastating blow to America’s top
law enforcement agency at atime when it is already under
extraordinary political pressure.
Even before the disclosurethat the FBI had failed to investigate a warning that the suspect,
Nikolas Cruz, could be plotting
an attack, the bureau was facing
unprecedented criticism fromPresident Donald Trump andother Republicans.
The agency and its supporters
had been able to dismiss pastcriticism as just politics, but thistime it had no option but toadmit it had made a mistake.
The FBI’s acknowledgmentthat it mishandled the tip
prompted a sharp rebuke fromits boss, Attorney General Jeff
Sessions, and a call from Florida’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott,a Trump ally, for FBI Director
Christopher Wray to resign.
Wray, on the job for just six
months, had already been in aprecarious position defending
the bureau from attacks by
Trump and other Republicans.
They are still dissatisfied with its
decision not to charge Hillary
Clinton with crimes related toher use of a private email server,
and they see signs of bias in special counsel Robert Mueller’s
probe of possible Trump campaign ties to Russia.
Wray has repeatedly stood up
to Trump, defending thebureau’s independence andpraising its agents. Wray unsuccessfully fought to block therelease of a classified Republican
memo accusing the FBI of abusing its surveillance powers in the
Russia probe — a document
Trump wanted aired. Wray also
publicly contradicted WhiteHouse accounts of how it handled recent domestic abuse allegations involving an aide.
The shooting provides fresh
grounds to criticize the FBI. Firstit was revealed that the FBI failed
to delve into a YouTube comment posted by a “Nikolas Cruz”
that said, “Im going to be a professional school shooter.” The
FBI said it could not determine
who made it.
On Friday, the bureau said it
had failed to act on a tip that
Cruz had a “desire to kill people,”disturbing social media posts
and access to a gun. Cruz ischarged with killing 17 people inthe school he once attended.
Sessions, a Trump loyalist
who has at times seemed to welcome criticism of the FBI, called
the massacre a “tragic consequence” of the FBI’s failure. He
ordered a review of the JusticeDepartment procedures.
The House judiciary and oversight committees, whose Republican leaders have been some ofthe strongest FBI critics,
demanded Wray brief them onwhat went wrong.
Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida

Republican, said it was “inexcusable” the FBI did not follow protocols and urged Congress tolaunch its own investigation.
Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch of
Florida promised to be in “close
communication with the FBI so
we can get to the bottom of this.”
Wray apologized in a rarestatement admitting the FBI’s
missteps.
This isn’t the first time the FBI
has been seen as missing an
opportunity to prevent a major

violent attack. The white
supremacist who killed nine people at a historically black church
in South Carolina in 2015 wasable to purchase his weapon only
because of breakdowns in the
FBI’s background check system.
Congress in 2009 criticized
the FBI for missteps ahead of ashooting that left 13 people deadat Fort Hood, Texas, after findingthat agents had failed to act onemails between the gunman andterrorist Anwar al-Awlaki.

Mourners in Parkland, Florida, on Thursday hold a candlelight vigil for thevictims of Wednesday’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HighSchool, in which 14 students and three staffers were killed.
AFP-JIJI

Suspect’s rifle team
got grant from NRA
Washington/Boston
AP

The troubled teen who authorities say killed 17 people at a Florida high school excelled in an
air rifle marksmanship programsupported by a grant from the
National Rifle Association Foundation, part of a multimilliondollar effort by the gun group to
support youth shooting clubs andother programs.
Nikolas Cruz, 19, was wearing amaroon shirt with the logo fromthe Army Junior Reserve Officer
Training Corps program at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HighSchool when he was arrested
Wednesday shortly after theshooting. Former JROTC cadets
said Cruz was a member of thesmall varsity marksmanship team,which trained together after classand traveled to other area schools
to compete.
It was a close-knit group. Oneof the other cadets started calling
Cruz “Wolf,” and the nickname
stuck.
“He was a very good shot,” said
Aaron Diener, 20, who gave Cruza ride to shooting competitions
when they were part of the fourmember team in 2016. “He had an
AR-15 he talked about, and pistols
he had shot. … He would tell us,‘Oh, it was so fun to shoot this rifle’or ‘It was so fun to shoot that.’ Itseemed almost therapeutic tohim, the way he spoke about it.”
The marksmanship programused air rifles special-made for target shooting, typically on indoor
ranges at targets the size of a coin.
Records show that the Stone-

man Douglas JROTC program
received $10,827 in noncash assistance from the NRA’s fundraisingand charitable arm in 2016, when
Cruz was on the squad.
The more than 1,700 highschool JROTC programs nationally also receive financial support
from the U.S. military and are typically supervised by retired officers
from the army, navy, air force andmarines. The military collaborates
with school systems on the training curriculum, which includes
marching drills, athletic competitions and shooting teams.
Authorities say Cruz, who was
expelled last year for disciplinary
reasons, walked into his former
school with an AR-15 and opened
fire. He is charged with 17 countsof murder.
Kyle Ramos, who was the executive officer of the JROTC battalion, said Cruz spoke about guns
and knives incessantly and liked
to wear military-style clothing
to school. He also bragged about
shooting animals for fun.
“He told me he would attack
little animals with pellet guns andstuff, and I was a little weirded out
by that,” said Ramos, now 20.
Cruz talked of wanting to join
the army after graduation andbecome an elite special forces soldier, a dream potentially derailed
by his expulsion.
Arsu Noorali, a former JROTC
cadet, remembers talking to Cruz’s
mother about his behavioral problems. “She told me, ‘Look, he’s not
the best of kids, I really hope thisprogram can change him,’ ” sherecounted. “Because it does teachyou a lot of discipline. It becomes
fun after a while.”6 | the japan times on sunday | February 18, 2018

第３種郵便物認可

February 18, 2018 | the japan times ON SUNDAY | 7

第３種郵便物認可

OpinionNews | World | Classifieds

tallies
In top China broadcast, blackface U.S.
growing
costs ofcyberwarBeijing
AP

A comedy sketch that featured aChinese woman in blackface has
drawn accusations of racism after
being broadcast on Chinese state
television’s Lunar New Year variety show, although some people in
Beijing were left wondering why
it would be considered offensive.
The skit was shown Thursdaynight on CCTV and depicted theopening of a Chinese-built highspeed railway in Kenya. It featured
actors in monkey and giraffe costumes, while the actress in blackface wore an exaggerated false
bottom and carried a basket offruit on her head.
The segment was meant to celebrate Sino-African relations, butmany viewers blasted it online forcultural insensitivity.
The performance was part of
CCTV’s annual Lunar New Yeargala, which draws an audience ofup to 800 million and is said to be
one of the most watched programsin the world.
The 13-minute segment opened
with a dance sequence set to
Colombian singer Shakira’s “Waka
Waka (This Time for Africa)” featuring Africans dressed in zebra,
lion and gazelle costumes, andactresses playing attendants on
Kenya’s new Chinese-built highspeed rail line.
The skit then began with a black
woman asking the show’s host topose as her husband when meeting her mother in order to avoid
being set up on a blind date.
A Chinese actress playing her
mother then strides in made up
in blackface followed by an actor
in a monkey costume.
The host’s Chinese wife thenappears, ending the deception.
But the African mother says she
can’t be angry because “China has

Washington
AFP-JIJI

An Asian woman in blackface
makeup (left) appears with a black
woman in a dance sequence from askit shown on Chinese state
television Thursday night.
Right: The woman in blackface
performs with a person in amonkey costume.
CCTV / Via aP

done so much for Africa.”“I love Chinese people! I love
China,” the actress in blackface
exclaims.
Although the skit, titled “SameJoy, Same Happiness,” was meant
to celebrate Sino-African relations, many viewers condemned
it online, with some calling it“cringe-worthy” and “completely
racist.”
But the reaction on the streetsof Beijing on Friday was muted,
with some saying the criticism
was overblown.
“It’s normal for Chinese actors
to dress up like foreigners when
performing a foreign play,” said
Zhou Hengshan, 80. “This wasn’t
meant to demean any specific ethnic group.”
Xue Lixia, 20, said she trusted

CCTV’s judgment in assessing
whether the skit was racist.
“After all, this is a sketch thatwas broadcast on the Lunar New
Year gala. If there was any racism,
then it would have already beencut,” Liu said.
Chinese society is overwhelmingly dominated by the Han
ethnic majority and racial sensitivities are generally much lesspronounced than in the West.
Blackface is considered espe-

cially offensive in the UnitedStates because of its strong connections to slavery and bigotry
against blacks.
This isn’t the first time CCTV’s
Lunar New Year gala has comeunder fire. The show is laden withpraise for the ruling Communist
Party. Its portrayals of China’s own
ethnic minorities, particularly
Muslim Uighurs from the northwestern region of Xinjiang, havesometimes been derided as crude.

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Senior Features Reporter

HR Specialist/Assistant Manager

The Japan Times seeks a bilingual senior features reporter who
can write compelling, lively, timely stories on a wide range of
topics for its Life & Culture Division. The successful candidate will
be responsible for identifying trends and generating story ideas,
reporting, writing, and creating lifestyle and culture content.

The Japan Times seeks a full-time HR specialist or AssistantManager for its Corporate Affairs Management Division. We are
seeking an experienced with a sound working knowledge ofhuman resource management.

Qualifications / Requirements:- At least 5 years experience as a writer and/or reporter, including an ability to performaaand multitask under pressure, as well as a proven ability to report and write accurately.
- A strong interest in Japanese culture.
- Fluency in Japanese and able to produce content in native English.
- Successful candidates must be highly motivated, extremely organized, detail-oriented,
aaand possess outstanding communication and coordination skills.
- An established network of contacts over a broad range of fields.
- A strong desire to work in a team environment.
- An aptitude for social media platforms.
Interested applicants are required to submit a cover letter, updated resume, 2 writing
samples and a 500-word letter in Japanese and English outlining your motivation in
applying for the position.
Applications close at 5 p.m. on Friday, March 9.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/about-us/work-with-us/

The Japan Times, Ltd., Attn: CAM Division
4-5-4 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8071 hr@japantimes.co.jp

The HR specialist’s duties include:- Translation of documents- Workforce planning and employment- Employee and labor relations including union environments, visa support etc.
- HR development (plan and execute training sessions, coordinate evaluation process)- Update personnel systems and work regulations (on a project basis)- Coordinate internship programs
Requirement:- Proficiency in English and Japanese (Native or fluent)- PC skills (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)- Experience in administration of benefits, recruitment and/or other HR programs- General knowledge of various employment laws and practices
Please apply online by 5 p.m., Sunday, March 4.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/about-us/work-with-us/

The Japan Times, Ltd., Attn: CAM Division
4-5-4 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8071 hr@japantimes.co.jp

Cyberattacks cost the UnitedStates between $57 billion and$109 billion in 2016, a White House
report said Friday, warning of a“spillover” effect for the broader
economy if the situation worsens.
A report by the White House
Council of Economic Advisers sought to quantify what it
called “malicious cyber activity
directed at private and public
entities,” including denial-of-service attacks, data breaches andtheft of intellectual property, andsensitive financial and strategic
information.
It warned of malicious activity
by “nation-states” and specifically cited Russia, China, Iran andNorth Korea.
The report noted particularconcern over attacks on so-called
critical infrastructure — suchas highways, power grids, communications systems, dams andfood production facilities — that
could lead to important spillover
impacts beyond the target victims.
“If a firm owns a critical infrastructure asset, an attack against
this firm could cause major disruption throughout the economy,”
the report said.
It added that concerns are higharound cyberattacks against thefinancial and energy sectors.
“These sectors are internallyinterconnected and interdependent with other sectors as well as
robustly connected to the internet, and are thus at a highest risk
for a devastating cyberattack thatwould ripple through the entire
economy,” it said.
The report offered little in theway of new recommendations
on improving cybersecurity, but
noted that the situation is hurt
by “insufficient data” as well as“underinvestment” in defensive
systems by the private sector.
The document was issued a day
after U.S. officials blamed Russia
for last year’s devastating “NotPetya” ransomware attack, calling ita Kremlin effort to destabilize
Ukraine that then spun out of control, hitting companies in the U.S.,
Europe and elsewhere.
It said Russia, China, North
Korea and other nation-states“often engage in sophisticated,targeted attacks,” with a specificemphasis on industrial espionage.
“If they have funding needs, they
may conduct ransom attacks andelectronic thefts of funds.”
Threats were also seen frompolitically motivated “hacktivists,”
as well as criminal organizations,
corporate competitors, company
insiders and “opportunists.”
The report said more data
sharing could help thwart some
attacks.
“The field of cybersecurity
is plagued by insufficient data,
largely because firms face a strong
disincentive to report negative
news,” the report said. “Cyber protection could be greatly improved
if data on past data breaches andcyberattacks were more readilyshared across firms.”

letters@japantimes.co.jp

Work-style reform legislation
eDItORIAL

A

package of work-style reforms,
which Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe says is at the top of his
agenda for this legislative session, will soon be on the way to
the Diet for deliberations. It
will feature the introduction of the firstever legal cap on overtime hours, rules
aimed at establishing the “equal work,
equal pay” principle by improving working conditions for people with irregular
job statuses and a new system that allows
some corporate employees to be paid on
the basis of their performance rather thanhours spent in the workplace. The legislation, expected to be approved by the Cabinet and submitted to the Diet by the endof this month, marks an important firststep, but it needs to be backed up by further efforts for the measures to have theintended effects.
The government views work-stylereform as a solution to many of the problems that confront Japan’s economy.
Curbing the chronically long working
hours of company employees throughtightened regulations on overtime, with
provisions for penalties on violators, ishoped to promote a better work-life balance among workers and encourage more

women and the elderly to join the workforce — thus alleviating the manpower
shortage as the nation’s working-age population declines. Narrowing the wide disparity in wages and other conditions
between regular full-time employees andirregular workers such as part-timers andterm-contract workers, who have come toaccount for 40 percent of the labor force,
will hopefully enhance the latter’s moraleand productivity. Increased wages for
those workers will raise their purchasing
power and contribute to consumer spending, whose growth remains weak despite
an extended growth of the economy.
It would be premature, however, toassume that the legislation alone will realize such a scenario. It is the first timesince the Labor Standards Law was introduced seven decades ago that an upper
limit will be placed on workers’ monthly
overtime hours; currently, how muchovertime is allowed for workers during
busy seasons is left to an agreement
between management and labor unions at
each firm. The prime minister emphasizes
his resolve to “never repeat the tragedies”
of karōshi (death from overwork) or suicides of over-stressed workers throughthe reform. But the upper limit under thelegislation was set at a maximum of “lessthan 100 hours” a month — a level atwhich death can be linked to overwork —following negotiations among the government and representatives from businessand labor circles.
Today, people on irregular job contracts
typically earn about 60 percent of thehourly wage of regular full-time employees — compared with 70 to 80 percent inmany European economies. To narrow
the gap, the government in late 2016
unveiled a draft guideline showing examples of “irrational” discrimination inwages and welfare benefits on the basis of
employment status that should be eliminated. But whether such measures will
effectively improve conditions for workers with an irregular status will depend on
efforts by private sector firms.
The government’s work-style reform
package also introduces a new “highly
professional” work system, under which
overtime regulations can be lifted on people engaged in certain jobs requiring specialized skills, such as financial dealers or
people in research and development, whoearn ¥10.75 million or more a year. Also
included in the package will be expanding
the scope of jobs that can be covered by
the so-called discretionary labor scheme,in which people would be paid a pre-fixedamount for the hours they are presumed
to spend on the job — instead of the hours
they have actually spent. Both systems,
the government says, reward workers on

the basis of performance instead of hours.
Proponents of these systems say thismakes sense because productivity ofwhite-collar workers cannot be gauged bytime in the office and that lifting workhour regulations can add to efficiency.
Opponents such as labor unions andopposition parties charge that people
could end up working longer hours without extra pay.
Critics say the legislation is short on
steps to protect workers’ health and longon measures reflecting the interests of
employers. Such criticism has been fueledby the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry’s recent move to seek revisions to theplanned legislation that would delay
implementation of the overtime hour regulations for small and medium-size firms
by a year — to April 2020 — in response toa request from the Liberal Democratic
Party, which was acting on complaints
from such firms that they cannot secure
enough labor to run their business if theovertime regulation is
imposed amid the tightening labor shortage.
What needs to be done
to ensure that theplanned reform will have
Use this QR Codethe desired benefits
to link to an audio
version ofshould be sufficiently
this article
discussed in the Diet.

Democrats hijack the anti-Trump resistanceLeftists want to change the world. They
want peace, equal income, equal wealth,equal rights for everybody.
Democrats are not part of the Left. If
Democrats have their way, the fundamental inequality of American capitalism, asystem in which 1 percent of the people“earn” 82 percent of the income, will
never change. Democrats apply identity
politics as a distraction, in lieu of systematic solutions to class-based discrimination. Democrats demand more women
directors in Hollywood, more AfricanAmericans admitted to Ivy League
schools, transgendered soldiers in the
military so they can join the slaughter ofbrown people in other countries.
Donald Trump represented a rareopportunity for the Left. After eight yearsof fascism with a smile, the American system got a figurehead as visually and tonally repugnant as its foreign policy (drones,
aggressive wars, coups, undermining popular elected leaders) and its domestic reality (widespread poverty, crumbling
infrastructure, no social safety net, forprofit health care and education). “Hey,”
the Left could finally say, “the U.S. is a disgusting monster headed by a disgusting
monster. Let’s get rid of that monster!”
It has become painfully apparent that

Democrats have hijacked the anti-Trump
resistance.
“I feel like the revolution is now,” ademonstrator at the second Women’sMarch on Jan. 20 told a New York Times
reporter. “I want equal pay,” added her
11-year-old daughter, Xenaya, chimed in.
“And equal rights.”
Definition of “revolution”: “a forcible
overthrow of a government or social orderin favor of a new system.”
At those very same marches, however,(establishment Democratic) speakers like
Nancy Pelosi and Kirsten Gillibrand urged
women to run for office (presumably as
Democrats) and to support Democratic
candidates (whether they’re women ormen). Even if you think that is a beautiful
and important idea, it is not revolution.
Running for office and validating thestatus quo by voting for major-party candidates is the exact opposite of revolution.
USA Today’s take was typical: “Women's
March returns, but the real focus now is
the midterm elections.” The paper quotes
Linda Meigs, who is challenging a GOP
incumbent in Alabama: “I just feel that
there’s a blue wave coming, and it’s a wave
of women — women who were energizedby the Women’s March and by what’s goingon in Washington in the White House.”
Meigs is probably right. Even Republicans think so. But so what?
Even if Democrats take back the Houseand the Senate, women Resisters who fall

the Dems’ co-option game hoping for“equal pay” and “equal rights” will besorely disappointed. Not because Trump
will get in the way — because Democrats
won’t fight for anything substantial.
Consider the Democrat most Women’sMarchers probably voted for. Like the restof her fellow Democrats, Hillary Clinton (amultimillionaire) supported raising theminimum wage to a pitiful $12 per hour. (Ifit had merely kept up with inflation, it
would be $23 per hour now. Given increases
in worker productivity, it ought to be atleast $25 per hour.) Clinton gets better-acentury-late-than-never cred for endorsing
the long-stalled Equal Rights Amendment.
But Democrats controlled the White House,
House and Senate as recently as 2010 —and never mentioned it.
Even on the signature identity-politics
issue of abortion rights, Democrats havelong deployed a form of psychological terrorism against women. Unless you votefor us, they’ve been telling women, some
Republican president might appoint a
Supreme Court justice who might cast thedeciding vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Women and their partners shouldn’t
have to rely on a wobbly 45-year-old court
decision. Why don’t Democrats ever propose a bill legalizing abortion nationwide?
Considering that 58 percent of voters,
including many Republicans, support
abortion rights, and that Democrats could
characterize congressional opponents as● Work-style reform legislation
legislative session 国会の会期。legal
cap 法的制限。curbing 〜に歯止めをかける。chronically 慢性的に。workforce 労働人口。alleviating 軽減する。disparity 格差。
account for 〜の割合を占める。morale やる
気。premature 時期尚早。realize 〜を実現する。unveiled 公表した。irrational 不合理な。

discretionary 裁量に任された。charge 〜だと非難する。has been fueled by 〜によって加速されてきた。amid 〜の渦中に。
● Democrats hijack anti-Trump resistance
distraction 気をそらすもの。in lieu of 〜の代わりに。slaughter of 〜の虐殺。ﬁgurehead
名目上の長。tonally 色合い的に。repugnant
矛盾した。undermining 弱体化させる。

for-proﬁt 利潤追求型の。chime in 口を挟む。overthrow 転覆。take 見解。cred 信用性。Roe v. Wade ロー対ウェイド事件（アメリ
カの最高裁が女性の堕胎の権利を初めて認めた事件）。misogynists 女性嫌いの人。lift aﬁnger to 腰を上げて〜する。disenfranchised
権利を剥奪された。squandering 浪費。
ﬁendishly 極悪非道に。

ted rall
New York

misogynists in attack ads, it’s entirely possible that an abortion-rights law could pass
Congress. They certainly could have tried
under Obama. But they didn’t.
There is no reason — zero, none, nada
— to believe that the Democratic Party’s
half-century-old refusal to lift a finger tohelp the disenfranchised will change if
and when they win back Congress. Whichmakes the squandering of the anti-Trump
historical moment so tragic.
It’s time for the actually-existing American Left to do some serious soul-searching,analysis and — most of all — organizing.
Why didn’t militant leftists insist on greater
prominence at the Women’s Marches thanthose Democratic hacks? Where is thegrass-roots organizing? Where are the leftwing think tanks to create an intellectualand theoretical basis for our arguments?
Why aren’t there protests daily, as opposed
to annually? Trump and the Republicans
and the Democrats shouldn’t be able toshow their faces in public without facing a
crowd of loud and angry protesters.
It’s not like the Democrats are a fiendishly clever adversary! Allowing the idiots
who chose Hillary over Bernie to steal
anti-Trumpism points to complete impotence and political incompetence on thepart of what’s left of the Left.
Ted Rall’s latest book is “Meet the
Deplorables: Infiltrating Trump America,”
co-written with Harmon Leon.
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8 | the japan times on sunday | February 18, 2018

第３種郵便物認可

February 18, 2018 | the japan times on sunday | 9

第３種郵便物認可

News | Week in Review

Week in Review | News

North heads for gold
medal in diplomacy•

pyongyang looks
to divide allies•

Moves may resultin eased sanctions•

abe irritates hostwith push on drills
World

Pyeongchang South Korea
REUTERS

North Korea has emerged as theearly favorite to grab one of theWinter Olympics’ most important
medals: the diplomatic gold.
That is the assessment of a former South Korean government
minister and political experts
who say the North has used thegames to drive a wedge between
South Korea and its U.S. ally andto potentially ease pressure on its
sanctions-crippled state.
In barely a month since North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un
surprised the world and said
his nation was ready to join thegames, South Korean President
Moon Jae-in has delayed military
exercises, feted Kim’s sister at the
Pyeongchang Olympics and given
conditional consent to a bilateralsummit in the North.

“North Korea clearly appears
to be winning the gold,” said Kim
Sung-han, who served as Korea’s
vice foreign minister in 2012-13 andwho now teaches at Seoul’s Korea
University. “Its delegation andathletes are getting all the spotlight, and Kim Jong Un’s sister isshowing elegant smiles before theSouth Korean public and the world.
Even for a moment, it appears to bea normal state.”
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence,
who attended Friday’s opening
ceremony along with the North
Koreans, said “no daylight” existed
between the United States, South
Korea and Japan on the need toisolate North Korea.
A U.S. official said more important would be how Pyongyang
behaved after the Olympics. It had
shown no interest so far in negotiating over demands to give up its
nuclear and missile programs.
Pence cast one of the loneliest
figures at the opening event. He
remained seated when the joint
Korean team entered the stadium,in contrast to Moon who stoodalong with Kim Jong Un’s younger
sister, Kim Yo Jong, to applaud.
Douglas Paal, a former senior
U.S. diplomat under previous
Republican administrations, said
North Korea held the propagandaedge for now because, “it’s toughnot to get caught up in the emotions of an Olympics event.”
But he said it would be hard forMoon to keep up the momentum

Kim sister steals spotlight in South
World

Seoul
AFP-JIJI

after conservatives at home andallies abroad remind him of what
is at stake in the North Korean
nuclear threat.
The warm North-South bodylanguage at the games not only
fanned talk of a split between Seoul
and Washington, it contrasted witha cold encounter between South
Korea and Japan, an ally in U.S.led efforts to pressure North Korea.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, wholooked uncomfortable at times
during the opening ceremony, irritated his hosts by telling the South
Korean leader that joint South
Korea-U.S. military drills should be
promptly resumed after the games.
To pave the way for the North’s “North Korea is skillfully driving aparticipation at Pyeongchang, wedge between the U.S., Japan andSouth Korea had delayed the South Korea.”annual exercises with U.S. forces,
A senior Japanese defense offiwhich usually take place between cial said North Korea’s Games
February and March, until after the charm offensive could “simply be
Olympics. “Now is not the time to a way to gain time” until it compostpone U.S.-South Korea mili- pleted its nuclear and ballistic
tary exercises,” Abe said, accord- missile development.
ing to South’s presidential Blue
But in an interview on Sunday,
House. Moon replied that it was Pence said he and Moon had agreed
not appropriate for Abe to have on terms for more diplomaticraised the issue, describing it as engagement with North Korea, firstan internal affair.
with Seoul and then possibly leadJapan does not participate in the ing to direct talks with Washington
military exercises, but it is within without preconditions.
reach of North Korean missiles and“No pressure comes off until theyrelies heavily on U.S. forces and are actually doing something that
their readiness to deal with that the alliance believes represents a
threat. “For Japan it’s a nightmare meaningful step toward denuclearscenario,” said Takashi Kawakami, ization,” Pence was quoted as saya professor of international politics ing. “But if you want to talk, we’llat Takushoku University in Tokyo. talk,” he added.

North Korean supporters cheer on
an athlete during the 2018 WinterOlympics in Gangneung, Southap
Korea, on Feb. 10.

North Korea is under a heavy
U.N. sanctions regime which was
originally targeted at stopping theproliferation of arms and nuclear
and missile technologies, but has
become more all-encompassing
after its accelerated missile testing.
After years of ineffective implementation, those sanctions may
have begun to finally bite, which,according to a Japanese government official and experts, helps
explain why Kim Jong Un agreed
to send a national team and his
sister to the Olympics.
A foreign resident living in the
North Korean capital, Pyongyang,said he had seen fewer people inrestaurants and luxury goods inshops in recent months.
When a ferry carrying North
Koreans to the games docked inSouth Korea last week, the North
asked its hosts for the fuel needed
to get it home, Seoul’s Unification
Ministry said. The North thendropped its request after it asked
for more fuel than Seoul was willingto provide, a Seoul official added.
In Pyeongchang, though, thetwo Koreas avoided talk of sanctions and basked instead in Olympic goodwill, which was nowheremore evident than on Saturdaynight when a joint Korean women’s
ice hockey team took to the ice. It
inspired a U.S. member of the International Olympic Committee to callfor the team, which included 12
North Korean players, to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

A friendly face promising better
times, or a mask to conceal a brutal dictatorship? South Koreans
are divided on Kim Yo Jong, thesister of the North’s leader, andher landmark visit to their country.
The first member of the North’s
ruling dynasty to set foot in theSouth since the end of the war,
Kim has been an instant object offascination for South Korean andglobal media since she rode down
the escalator at Incheon airport
Friday, calmly surveying the scene.
She shook hands several times
with the South’s President Moon
Jae-in, cheered a unified ice hockey South Korean President Moon Jae-in talks with Kim Yo Jong, the sister ofteam with him, and conveyed her North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, after watching a Sunday performancebrother’s invitation to a summit in by the North’s Samjiyon Orchestra in Seoul.
YONHAP / VIA REUTERS
Pyongyang.
Every detail of her visit as the her head down during the visit, accused of widespread humankey member of a diplomatic del- even to our president,” he said. rights abuses and subject to mulegation to the South’s Winter “So maybe Kim Jong Un must be tiple sets of U.N. sanctions over its
Olympics has been scrutinized, applauding at home.”banned nuclear and ballistic misfrom the clothes she wore and her
But reactions among ordinary sile programs — to bring it to thefacial expression to the bag she was South Koreans have been more negotiating table.
His approval ratings have fallen
carrying and even her handwriting. mixed. “They fired missiles until
O n e c a l l i g r a p hy e x p e r t recently and conducted a nuclear since the deal for the North todescribed her as “positive, upbeat test before suddenly launching take part in the Games was struck,and very goal-oriented” based on this peace campaign,” business- with the decision to field a unified
the precisely angular, somewhat man Kim Byoung-gwan said. “I women’s ice hockey team proving
particularly controversial.
girlish script she left in the guest don’t trust it.”book at the South’s presidential
Others questioned the attention
But one of the most widely welBlue House.
devoted to her.
comed moments of Kim Yo Jong’s
Her brother — the third gen“All the media in the South and visit was when both she and theeration of her family to rule the the around the world are going North’s ceremonial head of stateisolated and impoverished North gaga about Kim Yo Jong,” said one Kim Yong Nam stood as the South’s— will be pleased with her interna- commentator online. “Looks like flag was raised and anthem playedtional diplomatic debut, said Yang they would soon join the North’s at the Olympics opening ceremony
Moo-jin, professor at the University propaganda media to worship and in Pyeongchang.
idolize her.”of North Korean Studies at Seoul.
“I hate Moon and I hate the“Kim kept smiling but at theMoon has long pushed engage- North,” read an online comment.
same time was rarely seen having ment with the North — which is “But the scene was undeniably

National

National

NationalWorld

National

World

Monday, Feb. 12

Tuesday, Feb. 13

Wednesday, Feb. 14

Thursday, Feb. 15

Friday, Feb. 16

Friday, Feb. 16

Man grilled over
Coincheck heist

Cabinet’s approval Working asylum
rating hits 51%
seekers detained

Russians killed by
U.S. in Syria: reports

Government eyes
casino visit limits

U.S. teen charged
with 17 murders

Kyodo — A Japanese man has
been questioned in connection
with last month’s massive theftof digital tokens from cryptocurrency exchange CoincheckInc., a source close to the investigation said.
The police learned that theman converted a small amountof the missing NEM coins intoanother form of cryptocurrency called litecoin througha site on the darknet, which
can only be accessed throughspecial anonymity software, thesource said Saturday. The man
was aware the NEM had beenstolen from Coincheck. About¥58 billion ($533 million) worthof NEM was stolen on Jan. 26,
with more than ¥500 million
worth of it likely to have since
been converted into bitcoin andother cryptocurrencies, according to data security experts.
The Metropolitan Police
Department’s cybercrime divi-

Kyodo — The public approval
rating for the Cabinet has inched
up to 50.8 percent in the latest
survey, with more than half of
respondents backing its policyof pressuring North Korea to halt
its nuclear weapons and missile
development programs.
The approval rating is 1.1
points higher than in the previous poll in January.
The Cabinet’s disapproval
rating meanwhile stood at 36.9
percent, inching up slightly
from 36.6 percent in the previous survey in January.
The results of the Kyodo
News poll, released Sunday, also
show that nearly half of the
public opposes Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe’s proposal to amend
the Constitution by insertingan “explicit reference” into warrenouncing Article 9 to legitimize the Self-Defense Forces.
Around 40 percent said they
support the idea.

Washington

Kyodo — The government on
Thursday presented rulinglawmakers with a plan to limit
the number of times people canenter casinos to around 10 visits
per month.
The plan is part of measures
to prevent gambling addiction,
but it has already met with
opposition from lawmakers of
the Liberal Democratic Party,
with some saying the envisioned restriction is too strict.
Amid differences of opinions
between the government andthe ruling coalition of the LDP
and Komeito, both sides willcontinue negotiations. Under
the plan, put forward by thegovernment to the LDP and
Komeito, up to three visits
would be allowed in seven consecutive days and 10 visits in
28 consecutive days. Japanesenationals and foreigners living
in Japan will be subject to therestrictions.

A Coincheck office signboard inTokyo.
kyodo

sion, which questioned the manon a voluntary basis, suspects
several people were involved inconverting the stolen NEM andis monitoring darknet sites andNEM transactions to identify
them, the source said.
Since the breach at Coincheck, the FSA has begun checking their the risk-management
systems of virtual-currency
exchanges, Financial Services
Minister Taro Aso told reporters.
Some 260,000 holders of
NEM have fallen victim to the
Coincheck breach. Since theheist, Coincheck has suspended
most of its services.

● North heads for gold medal in diplomacy
sanctions-crippled 制裁によって不自由になった。feted
祝祭した。bilateral summit 二国間会議。delegation 代
表。applaud 拍手。propaganda 宣伝。momentum 勢い。postpone 延長する。wedge 割れ目。preconditions
必須条件。alliance 同盟。denuclearization 非核化する。
proliferation 拡散。all-encompassing 網羅的。basked 浴しKyodo — As Japan strengthens
security ahead of the 2020
Tokyo Olympics, more people
who are staying in the country
illegally have been put back in
detention centers after being
conditionally released, government data has shown.
Over a recent five-year period,
the number of overstayers
jumped fourfold, partly becausesome released individuals violated a prohibition on working.
But their supporters call thetreatment inhumane, as manyof them are asylum seekers who
cannot live without a job.
The government’s movecould be seen as an attempt totighten control over asylum
seekers. Japan is often criticized internationally for being
closed to refugees. In 2016, thecountry recognized only 28
people as refugees, a mere 0.3
percent of the applicants.
Those who have no status

た。nominated 任命される。
● Kim sister steals spotlight in Southdictatorship 独裁制。dynasty 王朝。fascination 注目。
surveying 見渡した。scrutinized 徹底的に調べられた。
calligraphy 能書。goal-oriented 目標指向的。precisely 正確。isolated 孤立している。impoverished 貧しい。idolize 偶像化する。controversial 議論の余地がある。inherited 受け

AP — A scenario that many fear

Tokyo Immigration Bureau

kyodo

of residence and are subject todeportation are temporarily
detained in principle. They are
not immediately repatriated if
their home countries refuse toaccept them or if they seek refugee status.
Some of those held areprovisionally released fromdetention centers depending on their detention period,
physical condition and otherfactors. Release is allowed on
the condition that they will not
work, according to Justice Ministry officials. They are put backin detention if their asylum
requests are rejected or if they
are found to be working.

継いだ。confidantes 親友(女性)。vital 重要な。existence
存在感。ashen-faced 顔色の悪いこと。demeanor 表情。
skeptical 懐疑的な。disguise 変装。sugarcoat 取り繕う。
atrocities 残虐行為。
● Man grilled over Coincheck heist
heist 強盗。cryptocurrency 暗号通貨。anonymity
software 通信匿名化ソフト。cybercrime ネット犯罪。virtual-in the fog of Syria’s multifront war is a confrontation inwhich U.S. forces, responding
to a provocation, kill Russian
soldiers or mercenaries on a
crowded battlefield.
Russian news reports Tuesday described just such a situation, with an unknown numberof Russian military contractors
killed in a ferocious U.S. counterattack last week.
But Defense Secretary Jim
Mattis and other U.S. officials
said they had no such information on casualties, and the
Kremlin did not confirm any
Russian deaths. U.S. officials
also said the Russian government had lodged no complaint
about its citizens being killed.
What is not disputed is the
fast-changing, often confusing
nature of a battlefield in which
forces of multiple countries

Jim Mattis

AfP-jIjI

are bumping up against one
another, raising the prospectof violent collisions. Whether
by accident or intention, suchclashes risk plunging Washington and Moscow into a situation they studiously avoided
even during the darkest hoursof their relationship: theirforces directly warring witheach other.
Russian forces are supporting the Syrian government in
its war with opposition groups,
some of which are backed by
the United States. Elements ofboth sides are fighting the lastremnants of the Islamic State
group in Syria.

currency 仮想通貨。suspended 中止した。
● Cabinet’s approval rating hits 51%
inched 上昇した。halt 停止。poll 世論調査。amend 改正。
renouncing 放棄。legitimize 合法的にする。
● Working asylum seekers detained
illegally 違法に。detention 引き止め。overstayers 不法滞在者。violated 犯す。prohibition 禁止。inhumane 非人

impressive. I hope the action camefrom sincerity for peace, not a fakegesture.”Educated in Switzerland like herbrother, Kim Yo Jong has risen rapidly up the ranks since Kim Jong
Un inherited power from theirfather Kim Jong Il, and she is now
one of his closest confidantes in acountry where elite politics havealways been a family affair.
Officially she is first vice department director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party,
and has a position in its important
propaganda operations.
But Yang explained her mostvital role: “She is one of a very few
people who can talk freely about
anything with the leader Kim.”
Believed to be aged 30, her existence was barely known to thewider world until Kim Jong Il’s
funeral in 2011, when she was seen
standing right behind her brotheron state television, looking tearful
and ashen-faced.
She demonstrated a very different demeanor on her visit thanthe “deferential” one she does in
the North, said Korean Peninsula
Future Forum analyst Duyeon Kim.
“Here, she projects Royal Family
air, power, nose held high w/slightsmirk saying she’s superior overSouth, & charm w/smiles, sass,”
she tweeted.
Beyond the Olympic imageryof togetherness and unity, many
South Koreans are openly skeptical.
“The Kim family is a grandmaster of disguise,” said one.
Another declared: “Look at thatgirl acting like a well-behaving
princess. No matter how nice sheacts, nothing can sugarcoat all thehuman rights atrocities under her
and her family.”

Parkland Florida

AP — An orphaned 19-year-old

with a troubled past and his
own AR-15 rifle was charged
with 17 counts of premeditatedmurder on Thursday after being
questioned for hours by stateand federal authorities following the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. in five years.
Fourteen wounded survivors
were hospitalized as bodies
were recovered from inside
and around Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High School. Nikolas
Cruz was ordered held withoutbond and booked into jail.
His former classmates
thought they were having
another drill Wednesday afternoon when a fire alarm sounded,
requiring them to leave theirclassrooms. That’s when police
say Cruz, equipped with a gasmask, smoke grenades andmultiple magazines of ammunition, opened fire with a semi-

道的。deportation 国外追放。repatriated 本国へ送り帰す。
provisionally 暫定的に。
● Russians killed by U.S. in Syria: reports
multifront war 多正面での戦争。confrontation 衝突する。provocation 挑発。mercenaries 傭兵。ferocious 獰猛な。
collisions ぶつかり合い。intention 故意に。remnants
残党。

Nikolas CruzAP

automatic weapon, killing 17
people and sending hundreds ofstudents fleeing into the streets.
Cruz purchased the AR-15
legally about a year ago, a law
enforcement official said. Federal law allows people 18 andolder to legally purchase longguns, including this kind of
assault weapon.
President Donald Trump’s
reaction focused on Cruz’s mental health. “So many signs that
the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelledfrom school for bad and erratic
behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem,” Trump tweeted Thursday.

● Government eyes casino visit limits
measures 対応。gambling addiction ギャンブル依存症。envisioned 直面している。coalition 連合。
consecutive 連続する。
● U.S. teen charged with 17 murdersorphaned 孤児。premeditated 計画的な。magazines 弾倉。
semi-automatic weapon 半自動式の小銃。erratic とっぴな。

10 | the japan times on sunday | February 18, 2018

第３種郵便物認可

TimeOut

February 18, 2018 | the japan times on sunday | 11

第３種郵便物認可

Features | Lifestyle & Culture | Food | media | books | Diversions

Facing extinction: It’s possible to find examples of nagaya “row houses” from the postwar era scattered around areas such as Sumida, Taito and Bunkyo wards today.

ManaMi Okazaki

Left to right: A number of nagaya in Tokyo’s Kyojima neighborhood have been slated for demolition.

ManaMi Okazaki

Nagaya: The long and the short of ita new generation ofcreative entrepreneurs
are trying to preserve
Tokyo’s ‘row houses’
manami Okazaki
Contributing writerNagaya have been disappearing
from downtown Tokyo formany decades, with row uponrow of these “long houses” torn
down to make way for more
comfortable — and profitable— residential complexes and office blocks.
However, it’s still possible to findexamples of nagaya from the postwar era
scattered around areas such as Sumida,
Taito and Bunkyo wards today, and a newgeneration of creators are taking steps tocustomize them for their own purposesand give them a new lease on life.

Nagaya first appeared in Tokyo during
the Edo Period (1603-1868) as a type of living quarters for the common class, withresidents living side by side in the long
wooden buildings.
The residents of such complexes shared
a communal well, toilet, waste disposal
area and shrine. Indeed, residents within
the same building lived in close proximity
to each other, creating a sense of community at a time of high-density population
growth in the capital.
The single-story design remainedlargely unchanged until around the
Taisho Era (1912–26), when a second story
was added and the kitchen area, which
had typically faced the alley, was moved
to the back of the premises as gas andwater infrastructure improved. Moreover,toilets were built into individual units.
Yoko Kobari, a historian at the
Fukagawa Edo Museum, says that an Edoera map of the Fukagawa-Saga district
shows that there were 312 houses in thearea. The first nationwide housing census
wasn’t held until 1941, so it’s necessary torefer to maps such as this in order to get

an insight into dwellings in the city.
“Of these, 249 — or around 80 percent —were rented spaces,” Kobari says. “But wecan’t say for sure that all these buildings
were nagaya, as some of them could havebeen shops or storage facilities.
“What we can say, though, is that
Fukagawa housed most nagaya of all the
districts in Edo (modern-day Tokyo).
Many of the large industries supporting
Edo were located nearby, and the artisans
and laborers that worked in these industries gathered here.”
Using Edo-era woodblock prints andillustrations found in novels as reference materials, replicas on display in themuseum show the types of people livingin the shitamachi (downtown) area at thattime. On display are dwellings for single
men (a shellfish seller and a woodworker),a family, and a single woman (an educator of calligraphy and the arts). They were
Below: Kamenya Omote occupies a nagaya
on a shopping street in Kyojima. Below left:
A shop called S sells curiosities in Tsukishima.
It is only open on Saturdays. ManaMi Okazaki

typically around 9 shaku (2.7 meters) wideby 2 ken (3.6 meters) deep and included asection for sleeping and eating, as well as
an entranceway that often doubled as a
cooking space.
In the houses’ communal spaces sitsan Inari shrine, a protective deity thatprovides what architectural scholar Hidenobu Jinnai describes as “a spiritual bondfor the denizens of the alleyway.”
In a book titled “Tokyo: A Spatial
Anthropology,” Jinnai says that theseshrines created a space for sunlightand ventilation, preventing what could
quickly turn into unhygienic conditionsin the alleyways.
Efficiency was key to life in thesecommunities.
“The families would make everythingby hand and use it until they couldn’t
be used any more. It wasn’t a disposable
culture like it is now,” Kobari says. “Theconcept of recycling was incredible —materials like paper and rice straw wereused to create containers, raincoats andfootwear. There is respect for things anda resourcefulness that modern Japanesepeople seem to have forgotten.”
One feature of note in the museum displays is the abundance of wooden buckets
and wells that sit in front of each houseand on street corners. Fires were obviously a constant threat.
“A huge fire broke out every 10 years
or so and the houses went up in flames,”
Kobari says. “However, it’s highly likelythat some of the fires were set deliberately. A lot of timber yards operated in
Fukagawa and a fire typically created a lotof work for the carpenters there.”
Nagaya weren’t built to last, and theirephemeral materials left them exposed tocatastrophic incidents. Indeed, it’s somewhat surprising that any of the buildings
survived the Great Kanto Earthquake of
1923 or the firebombing raids at the end ofWorld War II.
One of the few nagaya from the late
Edo Period to early Meiji Era (1868-1912)
that remains is a mid 19th-century threerow tenement house that was built inHorie, Urayasu. It has since been dismantled and reconstructed at the Urayasu
City Folk Museum.

Creative endeavors

The majority of nagaya that remain scattered throughout downtown Tokyo thesedays are postwar constructions. Despite
their typically decrepit state, a number ofyoung creators have rediscovered theircharm, refashioning them into studios,cafes and event spaces.
The Sumida Ward neighborhood of
Kyojima in particular has seen an influxof this new generation of renovators, whowere initially lured to the area by theaffordable rent.
You can find numerous examples ofnagaya conversions while walking aroundKyojima: architectural studio Cuatro,
shared office space Shokubaya, knitwear atelier Seesaw, guesthouse Sumida
Nagaya, mask shop Kamenya Omote andMuumuu Coffee, a hip cafe and hub forkendama enthusiasts.
Aside from nagaya makeovers, other
Below: Muumuu Coffee occupies a converted
nagaya “row house” in Kyojima. Below right:
The facade of S references a sweets store in
Philadelphia.
ManaMi Okazaki

projects in the area to revive historic,working-class housing include indie
cassette tape gallery Newld and studios
Detroit Corn Club and Sheepstudio,
among others.
Ayumu Haitani is the owner of
Muumuu Coffee and Halahelu, a cafe
made from a converted 1965 kominka(old-style house) that had been in a
dilapidated state. Both Muumuu Coffee
and Halahelu attract a wide variety ofpatrons, from manga artists and designers to architecture students and magic
enthusiasts.
“Muumuu Coffee was the first shop I
started on my own (in 2013),” Haitani
says. “I started it with (herb purveyors)
Satellite Kitchen and we renovated thenagaya together. The nagaya is around 70
years old and was originally a fire dance
performer’s house — they were jugglers.
Before that, it was an electrical parts shop
and, before that, a kimono draper.”Haitani says the paper-thin walls don’t
disguise much.
“You can really hear the sounds nextdoor, so you do have to take some care,”

Haitani says. “When it’s late, I try to bequiet because of an elderly woman next
door. I found it hard to stop myself frommaking noise. It was a hassle in the beginning but once you get used to it you canlive normally, have friends over, drink andtalk.”
Nagaya also lack insulation in the frigid
winters.
“Muumuu is really cold,” Haitani says.
“If you just use (the heater in) an air conditioner, the heat doesn’t reach your feet.
A lot of places in the neighborhood havean unfloored entranceway, and the artists
and artisans use it as a workspace. It reallyis freezing if you don’t put a stove in.
“However, I don’t really feel these factors are that inconvenient, which is why I
stay,” he says.
Hiroshi Sasaki is a web designer who
worked for four years out of Shokubaya, anagaya that has been turned into a sharedoffice space in Sumida Ward’s Yahiro
neighborhood.
Sasaki says nagaya allow creators toexperiment with their environments.
Continued on page 12

12 | the japan times on sunday | February 18, 2018

第３種郵便物認可

February 18, 2018 | the japan times on sunday | 13

第３種郵便物認可

Timeout | Nagaya nostalgia

Lifestyle & Culture | Timeout
Why Did You Leave Japan? by Daniel Morales

Yoshihisa Arai: Floating on air in Chicago
When taking balletclasses has more appeal
than learning karate

A

Continued from page 11“Nagaya offer freedom,” Sasaki says.
“With regular rental apartments, you
can’t do anything. You can’t even make a
new shelf — it’s suffocating. It was reallycookie-cutter up until now but, generationally, there are people who find thisinsufferable, and they want to do as theyplease. That is natural and it reflects on
where they live.
Sasaki lauds the DIY ethic that exists
in the neighborhood. “It encourages residents to make something and, if it doesn’t
exist, make it themselves,” he says. “TakeHalahelu, for example — Ayumu did it
on his own. Once others see this, they getinspired to try it as well.”Indeed, Haitani has uploaded “before”
and “after” images of Halahelu on Instagram in an attempt to motivate others in
his neighborhood. Housing makeovers
in the area often involve a complete overhaul, which includes raising the floor,
fixing uneven roofs, installing bathrooms
and adding interior walls. Projects cantake more than a year to complete, significantly raising the value of the property.
“While it is really hard, you can create
your own space if you persevere,” Haitani
says, admitting that he convinced his
landlord that renovations were required
without even knowing how to draw a
blueprint.
One of the best ways to experience life
in a nagaya is to stay in one. Shokubaya’s
neighbor, Sumida Nagaya, offers exactlythat.
Sumida Nagaya is a small and chic
hostel that can only accommodate eightpeople at a time. Local architectural firm
Na+ Kenji Nagakubo Kenji Design Officecreated a spacious cafe in the downstairs
space. Upstairs, the designers created adormitory layout that reflects the mazelike alleyways of the neighborhood.
“The downstairs space was originally ametalwork studio,” owner Masakazu Iwamoto says. “The landlord’s grandfather
was a carpenter who constructed a few
nagaya along Meiji Street. The plan is thesame for all of them. My landlord wants
to leave them behind as his grandfather’s
legacy, so he was happy to find someone
who was willing to convert the building
and use it.”Iwamoto admits that the age of the
nagaya — it was built in the 1960s —doesn’t generate the sentimental value
required for the building to be seen as
worthy of preservation. Moreover, Japan’s
growth period was characterized by aseemingly gratuitous pursuit of largescale development.
“There’s a tendency in Japan to knock
things down and make something new,
but if it’s something cool we should preserve it,” Iwamoto says. “There’s a newsensibility among people, though, a newsense of values. I think it’s changing andmore people seem to want to renovatehouses these days.”
A particularly good example of arevamped nagaya is S, a Tsukishima shopthat is only open on Saturdays, owing
to owner Namiko Sekine’s principal job
as a salaryman. S sells whimsical items,
including a one-sided dice, glass domes
with seasonal flowers and a Russian
porcelain vodka bottle in the shape of a
doctor.
The nagaya is owned by Sekine’s
mother, which she purchased after she
retired as a space in which to host flea
markets and tea gatherings.
“She didn’t really have a solid plan,
but wanted a house to use as a space inwhich anything can be done,” Sekine says.
“Instead of just buying a regular house,
she decided to buy an old nagaya because
she foresaw that it could attract interest.
She wanted to do new things while being
inspired by history.”
Unlike most revitalized nagaya, whichmore or less retain the original aesthetic of the exterior, S features a groovy
curved-glass facade, a facelift that Sekine
concocted with architectural firm Nikko
Design.
“It was basically an old building, so we
had to work with someone who was used

Above and above left: Sumida Nagaya is asmall hostel that accommodates just eightpeople at a time. Top left and right: The
Fukagawa Edo Museum displays life-size
ManaMi Okazaki
replicas of Edo-era nagaya.

to renovating them,” Sekine says “It can’t
just look cool. It’s old, so they needed toknow where to reinforce things. I think
it would be somewhat problematic forsomeone who has only done contemporary architecture.”
Sekine finds that his nagaya offers him
an escape from the hustle and bustle ofthe city.
“I’m only here for one day each week,
but when I’m here, time passes slowly,” hesays. “Cars don’t pass by and in the alleyways I like to observe cats and mice scurrying around. When I see the local cat ispregnant, I can feel the seasonal changes.
It’s hard to find such places in Tokyo, but
my nagaya offers this. If you head out to(the adjacent) Monja Street, it seems likea return to ordinary life, but being righthere feels like going on a trip.”Collective responsibility

A number of creators in contemporary
nagaya districts such as Yanaka, Nezu andSendagi come from other places in Japan.
They bond together to create tight-knit
communities that are typically describedby the artists as “humanistic.”
In the Edo Period, nagaya communities were largely autonomous and the
Tokugawa shogunate made residents
responsible for their own security, waste
disposal, maintenance and administrative matters. This created a sort of community consciousness and the lack ofprivacy created an inherent awareness ofa neighbor’s well-being.
“The nagaya was the family,” Kobarisays. “If an incident or an accident
occurred within the nagaya, it became
everyone’s responsibility. So in order toavoid these things, everyone helped eachother and kept one another in check.”
This citizen-oriented dynamic contin-

ues to exist in Kyojima today, and Haitani
says the construction of Halahelu was
only possible with the assistance of othersin the area.
Many nagaya don’t have baths, so tenants need to use the local sentō (publicbathhouses), which is a form of community in and of itself.
In the Edo Period, small shops lined
streets selling goods and local produce.
Nagaya lined the alleyways. Lacking private yards, these alleyways also became aspace for leisure and interaction.
Nowadays, nagaya residents continue
to beautify theses spaces by creating gardens of precariously stacked potted plants
outside their homes. Pavements are covered in chalk drawings during events forkids and the paucity of cars enables thealleyways to become virtual playgrounds
in their own right.
In a metropolis where it can be hard to
get to know a neighbor, one of the greatest charms of these downtown districts inTokyo is the ease in which one can meet
people of all generations.
“It’s the opposite of, say, Daikanyama(in Shibuya Ward),” Sasaki says. “Manydifferent age groups live in the area andlife just seems more natural here. The
elderly folk are really knowledgeable.
Typically, you need to go to the countryside to converse at length with the elderly.”
Sasaki was also attracted to the area by
its ties to traditional craftsmen, including
one relative who used to produce gunbai(a fan used by sumo umpires).
“He was living in Ryogoku,” he says.
“When I was young, I would visit his atelier and seeing that left quite an impression on me. I have had this lasting image
in my head that Tokyo’s downtown area isan amazing place.”It’s the interaction between Tokyo’s traditional structures and the contemporarycommunities that have evolved over timethat makes life in a nagaya all the more
attractive. “Living in a nagaya for a longtime is like living with your neighbors,”
Haitani says. “You’re never lonely.”t rehearsal a week before thedebut of the Joffrey Ballet’s latest production in Chicago,
dancer Yoshihisa Arai sat on the
ground in the back of therehearsal space with his legs ina split, stretching and checking his
smartphone.
He had been away from the stage fornearly six months after breaking the fifth
metatarsal in his right foot while landing
during rehearsal last August, but heseemed calm amid the chaos around him.
At the front of the room, members of thecompany moved energetically through oneof the four pieces that make up the “Modern Masters” production, a sampling ofmodern and contemporary works. Understudies mirrored the movements of theleads.
Arai and others on the edge of the action
watched and waited for their moment.
Arai, who goes by Yoshi to most at the
Joffrey Ballet, trained at a young age inJapan, went abroad to study and work in
the U.K. and now has come into his own in
Chicago.
Since arriving at Joffrey in 2012, he has
spent just over five years evolving alongside the dance company and developing
into a widely acclaimed dancer. He is soft
spoken and deeply considerate of art,
which belies a bigger stage presence.
Longtime Chicago dance writer Laura
Molzahn first saw Arai during a rehearsal.
“I noticed Yoshi right away because of his
leaping,” she remembers. “He had incredible ballon, which is a term for seeming tokind of hang in the air.”
She later encountered him in the Joffrey
offices. “He seemed so much smaller in an
everyday situation than he seemed onstage. He’s just kind of a big presence.
Those people naturally stand out. That I
think is his gift.”
When he was 10 and living in Yamaguchi
Prefecture, Arai started ballet lessons,though his father wanted him to takekarate. “We just told him, ‘We’re going to
go to that (ballet) class to stretch because
we karate kids need to stretch as well,’”
Arai says with a grin.
Arai pushed himself, attending class six
days a week after school, sometimes getting home from Hiroshima at one in themorning. He had some success, winning
prizes in Japan, and resolved to dance professionally. “It wasn’t like ‘I want to go,’” hesays. “It was ‘I’m going.’ I decided, I am
going there.”“There” was The Royal Ballet School in
London, which he had researched after
meeting Gailene Stock, the school’s director at the time, at the 2004 Prix de Lausanne competition. Stock told him she
could see his talent.
When he moved to London in 2005, Arairemembers that his English was so bad that
one instructor refused to give him corrections. “It’s a waste of my time and a wasteof other students’ time,” he said. “Cometalk to me when you understand English.”This put him on edge in the beginning. But
because he was totally immersed with hisclassmates and language classes, he picked
up English in around six months. The only
Japanese he used was on the phone talking
with his mom.
His training in Japan helped him masterthe technical aspects of the art, but in England Arai says he also came out of his shell.
“I think ballet needs to have something
beyond technique,” he notes. “You have tohave your personality — your true person-

ProfileName: yoshihisa arai
Profession: ballet dancer
Hometown: yamaguchi prefecture
Age: 28
Key moments in career:2005 — enters the royal ballet schoolin London
2008 — joins northern ballet in
Leeds, u.K.
2011 — joins tulsa ballet in tulsa,
Oklahoma2012 — joins the joffrey ballet in Chicago, illinois
Things or moments you miss about
Japan: “Family for sure. i wouldn’t behere without my family. and food,of course.”
ality — coming out from inside of you.
That’s what I learned in England.”At The Royal Ballet School, he hadamazing opportunities. He performed at
Buckingham Palace in front of PrinceCharles and for Queen Elizabeth II’s 80thbirthday. But at the same time, he knew hewouldn’t feel quite at home in the large,
mostly British company, so he looked forsomething different after graduating.
Arai then spent three years in Leeds at
Northern Ballet, which he says was a trying
period as he improved under the directionof David Nixon in productions such as“Madame Butterfly,” his favorite work he’s
been involved with. “It’s good that there’s
traditional ballet,” he says. “But (David)
understood there is something beyond. We
worked on this beyond area.”He then followed his American Dream,
first to Oklahoma with the Tulsa Ballet andthen to Chicago after impressing Joffrey
Ballet artistic director Ashley Wheater as
Mercutio in Edwaard Liang’s “Romeo andJuliet.”“He’s an amazingly charismatic dancer.
He has a sense of musicality, which has asense of fluidity in it,” says Wheater. “Allthose things kind of hit me at one time
when I saw him in Tulsa. ... He gives himself 100 percent to whatever he’s dancing.
It’s not just showing you the steps, but it’s
showing you every layer that goes intothat work, and I think that’s a rare gift.”
Joffrey Ballet is about half the size of
The Royal Ballet and it’s notable as an
unranked company, meaning its around40 dancers are of equal status. While it still
has a competitive energy, there isn’t asmuch of a push to become a principal
dancer, which seems to suit Arai. “One person can’t be doing the main role all thetime,” he says. “I had opportunities when I
was in England. You need to evenly giveopportunities.”
Wheater also continues to push the Joffrey Ballet and challenge the company. The
Chicago Tribune dance critic Lauren Warnecke notes that “the company is growing
and evolving. It’s a very comfortable place
for a dancer because they don’t getcomplacent.”
This is true for Arai who, after two weeks
of rest last fall, choreographed and taught“The Firebird” suite for the Joffrey Academy of Dance school with his foot still in acast. It was an experience, he says, that
kept him from feeling down about the
injury.
Such opportunities to teach and collaborate have also allowed Arai to exercise hiscreative side. Before his injury last year, heworked with San Francisco Ballet choreographer Yuri Possokhov on the role of the
Mandarin in “The Miraculous Mandarin.”“It was at times humorous that both of us

Clockwise from top: Yoshihisa Arai andVictoria Jaiani perform in “The Miraculous
Mandarin,” one of three works of the Joffrey
Ballet’s “Global Visionaries” program; Arai as
a young dancer in Japan; a portrait photo ofArai.
PERFORMANCE AND PORTRAIT BY CHERYL
MANN; COURTESY OF YOSHIHISA ARAI

often had difficulties expressing ourselves
in English,” says Possokhov, who wasimpressed with Arai’s intensity andimmersion into the role. “But we perfectly
communicated with our eyes.”“We created the role together,” Arai says.
“So it was very special for me. That wassuch a privilege.”
Arai is now developing his own program
to offer younger dancers their own opportunities to create. He plans to make it morethan just a class and to actually create awork from scratch. “I think it’s priceless tohave that experience,” he says.
But first, the “Modern Masters” production. Arai may have been a little nervous atrehearsal, but he gained confidence after
the first show on Feb. 7, when he proved,
yet again, that he stands out. Of the dancers mentioned by name by Chicago Reader
reviewer Irene Hsiao, Arai was praised forhis signature leaping ability: “Yoshihisa
Arai danced the first variation with a billowing loft, wonderfully suspended byunseen forces.”14 | the japan times on sunday | February 18, 2018

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Food | TimeOut

TimeOut | FoodJapanese Kitchen Makiko Itoh

What makes a great chawanmushi?
Using an even better dashi
Savory egg custard
complimented by awashoku fundamentalT

he clear, umami-packed stock
called dashi is the foundationof washoku, traditional Japanese cuisine. While stocks
made by simmering various
umami-rich ingredients areimportant in many cuisines, it’s hard to
think of another where it plays as indispensable a role as it does in washoku.
One reason why dashi has become soubiquitous is that methods for extracting
it from easily stored ingredients were
invented several hundred years ago.
Long before the discovery of convenient
glutamate packed concentrates, cubes
and powders, Japanese cooks came up
with ways of drying certain ingredientsfrom which umami could be quickly andconveniently extracted. These dried
ingredients are still used today, by homecooks and pros alike.
The earliest written record of the word
“dashi” appears in the Kamakura Period(1185–1333), where it meant a kind ofsauce used on white fish. There are even
earlier mentions (dating back as far as thesixth century) of making stock by simmering fish or animal bones and vegetables,
but these were not known as dashi. In the
Muromachi Period (1392–1573), recipe
books belonging to the Okusa-ryu (Okusa
school) of culinary arts, which still exists
today, are believed to contain the firstrecord of using katsuobushi to make abroth, in a recipe for stewed swan. Katsuobushi is made by salting, drying andfermenting bonito fish, each step of the

Chawanmushi with shrimp, shiitake and mitsuba
For the ichiban dashi (makes 1 liter):• 1 liter cold water• 10 grams dried konbu (a piece about
20 cm long), preferably ma-konbu or rishiri
konbu• 10 grams (a large handful) thinly shaved
katsuobushi (bonito flakes)

Wrap the lid of the steamer with a large

kitchen towel so condensation won’t drip
onto the custard. start boiling the water inthe steamer. Line up the custard cups next
to the steamer.
remove any sinew from the chicken
and cut into 1 cm pieces. shell and clean
the shrimp. put the chicken and shrimp ina bowl, and pour some boiling water overthem. Drain immediately and set aside.
slice the shiitake mushrooms in half ifthey are large. beat the eggs gently. mix inthe dashi and soy sauce. strain the mixture
through a fine-mesh sieve.
Distribute the chicken, shiitake mushrooms, shrimp and mitsuba leaves evenly
in the custard cups. Gently pour the egg
liquid into each cup.
When the water in the steamer is boiling,
put the custard cups in the steamer andclose the lid.
turn the heat down to low, slide the lid
to the side so that it’s slightly open, andsteam for 25 to 30 minutes until the custard is set. serve immediately.
try other additions to the custard suchas kamaboko fish cake, cooked vegetables
and boiled ginkgo nuts. avoid using
maitake mushrooms, which contain a substance that prevents the egg from setting.

process designed to maximize the bonito’s umami as well as allowing it to be preserved and stored in thosepre-refrigeration days.
Japanese dashi as we know it today
was developed and refined in the Edo
Period (1603–1868). Two distinct types ofdashi emerged: one based on dried katsuobushi, and the other based on dried

seaweed. The latter is very delicately flavored, and was (and still is) preferred in
the Kansai region centered around Kyoto
and Osaka.
On the other hand, the stronger flavored dashi extracted from katsuobushi
was preferred in the Edo (current Tokyo)
region. The most popular type of dashi
now is made by combining a vegetable

put the konbu and cold water in a pan.
Leave to soak for at least 30 minutes.
place the pan over medium heat. When
the water is bubbling gently but before itcoming to a full rolling boil, put the bonito
flakes in and turn the heat off.
Wait until the bonito flakes have sunk tothe bottom of the pan. strain through a finemesh sieve.
For the chawanmushi (serves one):• 30 grams boneless chicken breast• 1-2 medium shrimp• 1-2 shiitake mushrooms, stems removed• 4-5 mitsuba leaves• 1 medium-sized egg• 75 ml ichiban dashi• 1 teaspoon usukuchi (light colored soy
sauce).

Big in Paris: Japan’s sake noveau has to be proved a hit with restaurateurs in the French
capital.
GeTTy imaGeS

Japan turns the tables on
France with sake nouveau
AFP-JiJi

ingredient, such as konbu, with an animal ingredient, such as katsuobushi, or
niboshi (small dried fish, the most common of which is baby sardines). Vegetable sources such as konbu are rich in
L-glutamate, while animal sources likekatsuobushi or niboshi are rich in disodium inosinate. When both are combined, the dashi has a well roundedflavor that is very pleasant on the palate.
These days, you can buy instant dashi
granules, which can be easily dissolved
in liquid or just added on its own for ashot of umami. There’s also monosodium glutamate (better known as MSG)
if you want a pure shot of the glutamates.
But it’s really not that hard to makedashi from the original dried ingredients,

F

Above: Chawanmushi, a savory egg custard,
is a classic Japanese dish based on dashi
stock, the foundation of traditional Japanesecuisine. Right: Umami-rich ingredients suchas katsuobushi (bonito flakes) (right) andkonbu are used in combination to create
flavorful dashi.
makiko iTohand I really think the end product when
made fresh tastes so much better. Use ichiban (first-extraction) dashi for dishes likethe chawanmushi where the taste of thedashi is the primary flavor of the savory
egg custard, and niban (second-extraction)dashi — made from the same ingredientsused for ichiban dashi but simmered again— for dishes that have lots of other flavors
such as nimono (stews).

Tokyo Food File Robbie Swinnerton

Hakkoku: Striving for the next level of sushi greatness

Tokyo Saryo: The newstylings of sencha green tea

WJ

hat makes outstanding
sushi? Superb seafood,obviously, along with anunderstanding of how tobalance it with the shari(sushi rice). Techniqueand timing are essential, too. But there’s afurther dimension, a “plus alpha” that separates the very finest sushi experience fromthe merely excellent.
Inevitably this is subjective — thedemeanor and focus of the chef; yoursense of anticipation as you arrive; andyour satisfaction as you leave. It all boils
down to one factor: Does it feel special?
Hakkoku certainly does. Chef Hiroyuki
Sato’s new restaurant, which opened inearly February, has been a long time in
the making. Ten months have elapsed
since Sato left Sushi Tokami, the sushiya
where he announced himself to the world
five years ago, winning a Michelin star
and admirers both at home and abroad.
Not that he’s been idle in the interim. A
series of pop-ups and collaborations kept
him in the spotlight and served to drip-feed
anticipation for his next move. With Hakkoku, he more than lives up to those
expectations.
First, it looks spectacular. The interior,by design studio Simplicity, is spacious andserene. It is divided into three separatechambers, each enclosed by shōji screens

Far left: Hiroyuki Sato slices chūtoro tuna at
Hakkoku. Left: The brilliant, rich color of
Robbie SwinneRton
akami (lean, red) tuna.

covered with washi paper, filling them withdiffused light. Compared to his somber,seen-better-days basement digs at Tokami,
the contrast could hardly be greater.
Currently, only two of those spaces arein use. Sato presides at the main counter;the smaller side room is for his sous-chef(and where lunch is served). Each seats just
six people, making Hakkoku one of themost hands-on, exclusive restaurants inTokyo of any genre.
All this begs the question: Does Sato’s
sushi live up to this rarefied setting? Without a shadow of a doubt.

Anyone who ate at Tokami during his
tenure knows Sato has always had access tosome of the finest seafood and the techniques to make optimum use of it. Thoseskills are on display from the outset.
As before, he welcomes you with his signature tossaki nori roll, filled with coarsely
chopped tuna taken from the base of the
fish’s head and paired with his trademark
akazu (red vinegar) shari. Whether it’s thesetting, or the year-long gap since heserved it last, the taste is better than ever.
The rest of the Hakkoku tasting menu,
though, is significantly different. Initially,

Sato is not serving sashimi or otherotsumami (appetizers). Instead, he is putting together a magnum opus of nigiri andmaki sushi — more than 30 pieces, all ofthem great, some sublime.
Among the highlights is the flight ofcontrasting tuna cuts, in which the brilliant akami (lean red meat) is by nomeans overshadowed by the fattier, more
luxurious parts; the humbler blue fish,
sardine and kohada (gizzard shad); andthe sweet-succulent anago (broiled conger) that helps close the meal.
The only low points are the vegetabledishes introduced as palate cleansers. In
such a substantial dinner, dishes subtler
than blanched onion, raw kale and bell
peppers are required.
It’s still very early days at Hakkoku. But
it’s already clear that Sato is not just content to serve superlative sushi; his aim is totake the genre to the next level.
La Paix Bldg. 3F, 6-7-6 Ginza, Chuo-ku,
Tokyo; 03-6280-6555; open 11:30
a.m.–2:30 p.m., 5-11 p.m.; closed Sun.;lunch ¥20,000, dinner ¥30,000; nearest
station Ginza; non-smoking; major cards
accepted; English menu; English spoken

apan’s traditional daily drink, sencha green tea, is making a comeback. For too long it’s beencrowded out of modern consciousness by the buzz and self-promotion of coffee culture. But thanks
to places like Tokyo Saryo, sencha may be
starting to regain its relevance and appeal.
This chic tea specialist on the fringes ofSangenjaya believes that premium, single-origin sencha — the whole, driedleaves of the tea bush, infused with care,and sipped with discernment — is worthyof as much appreciation as, say, coffee
beans from Ethiopia or Brazil.
The look is that of a miniature, minimal, third-wave coffee shop, and so is the
preparation. Choose a couple of varieties
to taste and compare, and then watch as
your brew is prepared — in the pour-overstyle — with the same intensity and precision as you’d expect from any barista.
Give yourself plenty of time. Sencha(unlike coffee) allows for at least two infusions from one batch of leaves. The first,
brewed at 70 degrees celcius, offers subtle
sweetness. The second, at a slightly
higher 80 degrees, is more robust. And forthe third, roasted rice is added to makegenmaicha.
Feel the caffeine kick in, gentle but
powerful, clearing and resetting youror decades, France has exported
millions of bottles of Beaujolais
to Japan every November, withsome people celebrating its
arrival by literally bathing in the
fruity red wine. Now, Japanese
produces of rice wine hope to turn thetide by bringing “sake nouveau” toFrance.
While wine critics are apt to turn up
their noses at overly young bananascented Beaujolais, the sake nouveau
being sent to France is one of Japan's
best-kept secrets, its promoters claim.
A dozen top French chefs are so passionate about the drink that they have incorporated sake nouveau into their menus,
either serving it with French food or
including it in their recipes.
“Sake nouveau is unpasteurized andonly lasts for six weeks or so after it is bottled. But it has much more body, taste andnose than classic sake,” says Youlin Ly,
the Parisian restaurateur behind the drive.
It is almost unknown to most Japanesedrinkers, he admits, where sake has lost
ground in recent decades to beer and wine.
“Sake is very much a local drink inJapan. People traditionally tend only todrink the sake of their region or village,”
Ly says. “There are local events in little
villages for the sake nouveau but nothingnational. Sake is always made in winterbecause you need steady low temperatures to control the fermentation and thefirst sake tends to mature in January andFebruary,” adds Ly, who owns the sakeboutique La Maison du Sake, based in the
French capital.
Michelin-starred chef William Ledeuil,famed for his fusion cuisine, is using sakenouveau in a dish of lacquered beef andfoie gras, adding it to a broth infused withcedrat, yuzu citrus and lemongrass.
“I also use it like peasants did long ago
with wine by adding a bit to the bottom ofa saucepan of soup,” says the owner of the
KGB and Kitchen Ter(re) restaurants in
Paris.
Two-starred chef Alexandre Gauthier
was so taken with sake nouveau that it is
the only non-French beverage allowed
onto the wine list of his acclaimed La Grenouillere restaurant near Le Touquet innorthern France.
It has also been included on the menuof the Mirazur at Menton on the French
Riviera, which came fourth in the Britishbased list of the World's 50 Best
Restaurants.
Unlike some classic sake that areserved warm, sake nouveau is usually
served cold in wine glasses, says Ly.
“Classically the taste of sake was notmeant to get in the way of the food. In
general it wouldn't have much nose, or
any real aroma at all. Nor was it very longin the mouth,” Ly adds.
But that is changing. “Nouveau sakes
and modern sakes are much more aromatic and are very much made to be
drunk like a wine,” he says.
For now, only one brand of sake nouveau, Dassai — made in the small town of
Iwakuni near Hiroshima — is beingbrought to France. But next year Ly says
he hopes to have at least 10 others.
“For the last five years, we have seen areal surge of interest in sake in France.
The volume being sold is still very small(around 50,000 bottles a year), but it isgoing up all the time, with the country's
leading wine retailer now stocking sake.”

Konbini Watch Patrick St. Michel

Pour-over: Tokyo Saryo’s clean aesthetic
matches that of its delicately infused tea.
Robbie SwinneRTon

mind. Be careful, though: this could
become habit-forming.
1-34-15 Kamiuma, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo;
www.tokyosaryo.jp; open 1-8 p.m. Sat.,
Sun. & hols. 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; closed Mon.;tasting set ¥1,300; nearest station
Sangenjaya; non-smoking; major cards
accepted; English menu; little English
spoken. Tokyo Saryo’s parent company,
Green Brewing, has now opened a sencha
boutique in Ginza. For more details, visit
www.senchado.jp.

everyone has Olympic fever thanks to theongoing pyeongchang Winter Games. yet
interest in Korean food — especially the
popular dish dak-galbi — was on the rise injapan well before the athletes got going.
unsurprisingly then, seven-elevenjapan has taken notice and rolled out a
new item this week thatfeels like it is capitalizing
on both.
the chain’s newcheese dak-galbi man
fits a hearty serving of
spicy stir-fried chicken
into a soft bun. the snack (¥130 aftertax) also comes with a decent amount ofcheese stuffed inside. if you are worried
about authenticity, let the seven-elevenonline description offer some relief,
because they claim to use actual gochujang (Korean red chili paste) in the mix.
however, don’t expect anything approaching the quality you can find in Okubo— tokyo’s Korean district.
the stand out elementof seven-eleven’s latest
creation is a spicinessthat compliments thetaste of the chicken
perfectly. the cheeseflavor is a bit more
understated, but that’s
fine, as the meat and pepper sensation is
the real highlight. Consider it a good way
to warm up while tuning into the figureskating finals.

16 | the japan times on sunday | February 18, 2018

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timeout | MediaMedia | TimeOut

Big in Japan by Mark Schreiber

Media Mix by Philip Brasor

Face of immigration
is rapidly changing

Workers denigrate Fukushima plant cleanupOver the past half decade,major changes have takenplace in the demographics offoreign residents in Japan.
Weekly Playboy’s Dec. 18
issue devoted a four-page
article to “Research into Vietnamese.” Why
Vietnamese? And why now?
“Their numbers in Japan have drastically increased,” the magazine rationalizes.
Up fourfold from five years ago, they grew
by a remarkable 36.1 percent between 2015
and 2016. The Vietnamese population of
232,562 (as of end June 2017) has shot past
Brazil to make them the fourth-largest
nationality, and they may soon overtake
the Philippines (251,934) for third place.
Take, for example, the city of Matsudo,
a bed town of about 484,000 in Chiba Prefecture served by the JR Joban commuterline, about 21 minutes from Tokyo’s Ueno
Station. It currently boasts 15,058 foreign
residents, including a growing communityof Vietnamese.
“Matsudo has lots of Japanese-language
schools,” the chef at a local Vietnamese
restaurant tells the reporter. “Spread byword of mouth among Vietnamese, thenumber of foreign students has increased.
Still, they don’t stand out much. It’s probably because only a few of them do business around here.”Weekly Playboy’s reporter then traveled
to Hiroshima Prefecture, which last year
was ranked fourth nationwide in terms ofthe number of technical trainees from
Vietnam. Enough on a proportional basis,
he writes with some exaggeration, to make
Hiroshima a “province of Vietnam.”Duan, a 32-year-old housewife originally from Hanoi, tells the reporter: “TheJapanese I work with are devious. They
scare me and I don’t care for them much.”Duan arrived four years ago as a language student, and wound up marrying a
Japanese 18 years her senior.
The language school where Duan firststudied operated a side-business of farming out its students to part-time jobs, andinitially Duan labored at a demanding job
in a shipping depot for refrigerated items.
“One day I dropped a heavy box on myfoot,” she relates bitterly. “I could barely
walk and had to seek medical attention.
Even the day I went to the hospital thecompany made me work.”
To make matters worse, she said, theschool arranged with the depot to reporther injury as having occurred during her

commute to work, thereby making her
ineligible for worker’s compensation.
Conditions at her second job, at a restaurant, proved no better. Still, she
expressed deep affection for her Japanesehusband, a “sweet old guy” whom she
describes as caring and generous.
While not dwelling on negative aspectsof immigration, Weekly Playboy doesn’tpull any punches, noting that Vietnameseare already the Japan’s top minority in one
unenviable statistic: During 2015, their2,556 violations of the criminal code
exceeded the 2,390 cases by Chinese.
A police interpreter working in the
Chubu region says roughly half of Vietnamese trainees and students are unable
to keep up their school tuition payments
and drop out; many turn to crime.
According to government figures, thenumber of legal foreign residents in Japanlast year reached 2.47 million, or 1.95 percent of the total population. On a proportional basis that might not seem like a lot,compared to, say, Switzerland, where noncitizens make up 29 percent, or Australia(28 percent).
The 34-page cover story in Weekly Toyo
Keizai (Feb. 3) titled “Japan, the major
nation of hidden immigrants” views theissue from a variety of macro- andmicro-perspectives.
The issue starts by noting that the total
number of foreign residents in the country
presently outstrips the 2.31 million population of Nagoya — Japan’s third-largest city
— by more than 100,000.
So if that’s the case, why does Toyo
Keizai use the word kakure (hidden) in its
headline to describe immigration?
“Depending on the perspective, Japan isalready a major nation of immigrants,”
declares chief economist Koichi Fujishiroof the Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co.
It seems that while the government
maintains the position that Japan is notopen to immigration, according to defini-

The total number offoreign residents in the
country outstrips theentire population of
Nagoya — Japan’s thirdlargest city — by morethan 100,000 people.

M

tions in use by some organizations, animmigrant is simply “a person who has
resided in a foreign country for one year or
longer.” If that’s the case, then according
to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,
during 2015 Japan admitted approximately 400,000 immigrants — in substance if not in name — placing it fourth
overall among advanced economies,
behind Germany, the U.S. and the U.K.
The cities with the highest foreign population are listed as Yokohama, with
92,117; Nagoya with 77,668; Kobe (46,831);
Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward (which is treatedas a separate municipality, with 43,354);
and Kawasaki (38,651).
While Weekly Playboy focused on Vietnamese, Toyo Keizai played guide to the
Chinatown that has sprung up in thevicinity of Nishi Kawaguchi Station, situated on the JR Keihin-Tohoku Line in
Saitama Prefecture just across the Arakawa River from Tokyo’s Kita Ward.
Inside the station building one can
indulge in a Chinese-style breakfast of
doujiang (hot soya milk) and youtiao(deep-fried dough crullers). Ethnic groceries sell live turtles and frogs. Roughly half
the businesses patronized mostly by Chinese are food and beverage establishments.

On the rise: The Vietnamese population in
Japan has jumped by 36.1 percent between
2015 and 2016.
Getty ImaGes

Within the Chinese community, people
from different provinces tend to dominate
different types of business areas. Whilefood services are run largely by arrivals
from the northeastern provinces, mizushōbai (bars and related “adult” businesses)
tend to be managed by people from Fujian
province on China’s southeastern coast. A
color-coded map of Nishi Kawaguchi’s Chinatown identifies 28 Chinese-operated
businesses, including three retail stores, 20
restaurants and five service businesses — abilliard parlor, two internet cafes, a karaokeoutlet and a real estate agency.
And where are the accusatory cries
complaining of new arrivals taking jobs
away from Japanese? Forced to confront a
serious and worsening labor shortage,
Japan’s politicians and bureaucrats areclearly much less inclined to quibble overthe downsides to immigration. Thatmakes it practically the diametric opposite of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Which also raises thequestion: Will some of those deported
from the United States possibly wind up
in Japan?

ost of the reliable reporting
about the clean-up of the
Fukushima No. 1 nuclear
power plant since it suffered
three meltdowns in March2011 has been from on-site
workers. Even when articles appear in
major media outlets about the situation at
the crippled reactor, it’s usually presented
through the anonymous or pseudonymous
firsthand experiences of the men on thefront lines.
Some have become famous. The publicwould not know much about the situation
without Kazuto Tatsuta’s manga series,“Ichiefu” (or “1F” — shorthand for “Fukushima No. 1”), the writings of former letter
carrier and cleanup worker Minoru Ikeda,
or the books and tweets of a man known
as “Happy,” who has been working as an
employee at the plant.
Because these individuals directly
address what they and their colleagues
have gone through on a daily basis, thework they do has been de-romanticized.
It’s not as heroic as initial foreign media
reports made it out to be. If anything, it’stedious and uncomplicated.
Workers are concerned about thosematters that all blue-collar laborers worry
about — pay and benefits — which isn’t tosuggest they don’t think about the possible health risks of radiation exposure. In
October 2017, Ikeda talked to the comedy
duo-cum-nuclear power reporters Oshidori Mako & Ken on the web channel Jiyuna Radio about potential false reports onradiation levels around Fukushima,although also touching on health issues
that have not been reported by the mainstream media. His main point was that
serious illnesses may not manifest themselves until years after workers quit thesite and thus no longer qualify for worker’s compensation. In other words, theworkers understand the risk. They justwant to be fairly compensated for it.
In that regard, one of the most common
gripes from on-site reporters is the “hazard
compensation” (kiken teate) workers aresupposed to receive. Recently, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (Tepco),
which is both responsible for the accident
and in charge of the cleanup, announced a
reduction in outlay associated with thecompensation, which is paid as a supplement to wages. This compensation can add
as much as ¥20,000 a day to a worker’s pay,
but now that Tepco says radiation levels
have dropped, they will no longer provide
the compensation, or, at least, not as muchas they have been paying.
A special report in the Jan. 22 Tokyo

Shimbun attempted to explain how thischange will affect workers and the work
itself. In March 2016, Tepco divided thework area into three zones: red, for highradiation levels; yellow, for some radioactivity; and green, for areas that had noappreciable radioactivity. Workers interviewed by Tokyo Shimbun say they’venever liked this system because they feelit “has no meaning.” Rubble from the redzone is routinely transferred to the green
zone, where heavy machinery kicks up a
lot of dust, so there’s no physical delineation between zones when it comes to radiation levels. On the ground, this reality isaddressed by subcontractors who maketheir employees in the green zone —which constitutes 95 percent of the worksite — wear extra protective gear, eventhough Tepco doesn’t require it.
But the workers’ main gripe about thezone system is that most of them ended
up being paid less and, as on-site workers
have often explained, they weren’t getting
paid as much as people thought they
were. Contractors advertise high wages toattract workers, but then subtract things
like room and board, utility fees, clothing
and equipment. And it’s been known foryears that the hazard compensation was
more or less a racket gamed by the contractors standing between Tepco, which
distributes the compensation, and theworkers, who are supposed to be the beneficiaries. There can be up to six layers ofcontractors between Tepco and a worker,
and each layer may take a cut of the compensation. In 2014, four workers sued
Tepco for ¥62 million, saying they worked
at the site but received none of the promised hazard compensation.
That situation still seems to be in play,according to Tokyo Shimbun. Several subcontractors told the newspaper theyreceive the compensation for their workers not from Tepco directly but from thecontractor that hired them, and in mostcases the compensation has been reduced,
sometimes by more than half. One subcontractor said that a company above
them actually apologized for the paucityof the compensation they were handing
down because their “revenues had
decreased.” The man known as Happy
told Tokyo Shimbun that Tepco is ordering less work at the site, which means
existing subcontractors may cut wages inorder to compete for these dwindling jobs.
Some contractors have even invested in
the robots that are used to inspect thereactor because they want the work tocontinue without interruption.
It was common practice to rotate out
workers toiling in the highly radioactive
areas regularly and quickly and then reassign them to low-radiation areas. AfterThis mentality isn’t just harmful for
mothers, it also affects their children,
Twiter user @iroiro_niji says.
“As a kid, the most painful thing to hearfrom your mother is stuff such as ‘I gaveup things in my life because I’m a mom,because I have kids, because I care somuch about you,’” @iroiro_niji says. “Youstart thinking, ‘Well, I should never havebeen born.’”
To dispel the belief that mothers are all
self-sacrificing saints, Twitter users
began using the hashtag “#あたしお母さん
だけど,” or “But I’m a Mom” in order toillustrate how women don’t need to giveup who they are when they become
parents.
“I’m a mom but I sleep in until 9 a.m., I
paint my nails, I wear what I like, I want
to lose weight and I love to eat spicy food,”says @mrc_0826.
Twitter user @moet_csf suggests goinga step further.

“It warms my heart that the ‘But I’m a
Mom’ hashtag happened so quickly as arebuttal to ‘Because I’m a Mom.’ Still, we
shouldn’t even feel the need to include
the ‘But.’ Being a mom and enjoying yourlife are never at odds.”
The “Because I’m a Mom” incident
recalls the recent backlash diaper brandMoony received for their commercial portraying a mother struggling to raise her
child without much support from her
husband.
It’s becoming increasingly clear thatwhat Japanese mothers need isn’t praise
for the pain they go through but removing
the burden placed on them.
While creating more day care centerswould arguably be a better way of achieving this, it helps when the overriding message presented by the media is “Mothers
can take a break as well” instead of“You’re a mother, so it’s your duty toendure.”In need of a helping hand: The lyrics of a children’s song have been criticized for promoting theidea that women are expected to give up their lives to raise their children.
Getty ImaGes

Front-line fight: Workers remove protective
clothing after a shift at the Fukushima No. 1
nuclear plant in November 2011.
Kyodo

some time they may have been rotatedback into the high-radiation area, where
pay is more. The man known as Happysays this sort of system now seems to beon the way out, and that makes sense ifradiation is actually decreasing. However,
he’s afraid that if there is another emergency that requires a sudden influx ofworkers, they won’t be available.
Tepco is obviously thinking of its bottom line, and the man known as Happy
thinks the work should be managed by thegovernment, which is contributing tax
money to the cleanup. However, it seems
only the Japan Communist Party is reading the dispatches from the plant. Last
May, Japanese Communist Party lawmaker
Taku Yamazoe questioned Tepco President
Naomi Hirose about the hazard compensation in the Diet, and why the structure ofpayments to workers wasn’t clear.
Hirose said that while his company
intends that the money goes to workers, hecannot say for sure that is the case becauseof the circumstances surrounding Tepco’s
relationships with contractors. With workon the wane, it seems unlikely that thoseworkers will see any of the money that’s
owed to them, retroactively or otherwise.

Japan Pulse‘Because I’m a Mom’ sends vexed mothers the wrong message
alisa yamasaki
Contributing writerW

hat was meant to be amuch-needed pat on
the back for mothershas done more harmthan good. In Hulu’s
original children’s program “Dai! Dai! Daisuke Onisan!!,”hosted by ex-NHK talent Daisuke
Yokoyama, Daisuke Onisan performed a
new song titled “Atashi Okasan Dakara”(“Because I’m a Mom”). Written by popular children’s book author Nobumi, thelyrics are as follows:

I was living alone before I became amom/ I wore heels, I painted my nails/
I tried to act strong and tried to prove
I could work.
Today I cut my nails to play with mykids/ I wear clothes I can run in so I can go
to my part-time job.
Because I’m a mom.
Because I’m a mom.
I wake up at 5 a.m. feeling sleepy/
Because I’m a mom/ I let you eat my favorite food/ Because I’m a mom/ I memorize
names of trains/ Because I’m a mom.
It’s always about you, not me.
Because I’m a mom.
Because I’m a mom.
I used to be thin before I was a mom/ I

did what I liked and I bought what I liked/
All I thought about was myself. …
If I could go back to before I was a mom, I
would go out at night/ I would go to a concert and buy clothes for myself.
But I’ve quit all of that and now I’m amom/ I’d rather be a mom over all of that.
According to the writer, the song ismeant to support mothers across Japanand the lyrics were based on stories heheard from real mothers.
The song is not about what mothers
have to sacrifice for their children, butwhat they are able to experience becauseof them, Nobumi says.
Despite Nobumi’s best intentions, thesong went viral across the internet — notfor its uplifting message, but instead for
placing a “curse” on mothers.
“About the ‘Because I’m a Mom’ lyrics
that everyone is talking about — if amother sees this after giving birth, they
probably would feel depressed,” Twitteruser @ke315 says. “It reminded me of how
I developed postpartum depression when
I had my firstborn because I tried too hard.
… Everyone is saying the song feels like acurse, but it really is true.”
The repetitive phrase “Because I’m aMom” implies that mothers face a burden,
furthering the idea that women are
expected to give up their lives in order toraise their children.

18 | the japan times on sunday | February 18, 2018

第３種郵便物認可

February 18, 2018 | the japan times on sunday | 19

第３種郵便物認可

diversions | TimeOut

Timeout | Books

Darkness aside, beauty exists in the shadows
Nonfiction
In Praise of Shadows

Junichiro Tanizaki
Translated by Gregory Starr
98 pages

SORA BOOKS

stephen mansfield
CoNTRIBuTINg WRITER

I

n striking contrast to theirancestors, contemporary
Japanese seem to adore
light, their great cities areelectromagnetic centersof brilliance, their livingrooms flood-lit like sports
stadiums.
The rallying call of those
who survived the “dark valley,” as the 1930s and war
years were dubbed, was “akarui seikatsu,”
a “bright life.” Postwar shadows, side
lighting and intermediate tones werebanished, memories of the war subjected
to collective amnesia and the eviscerating rays of new forms of illumination.
The appreciation of muted light, as Tanizaki infers in his long 1933 essay, “InPraise of Shadows,” had already begun tolapse into a cult of quaintness.
Tanizaki, in Gregory Starr’s new andhighly accomplished translation, samples a number of instances where the use
and perception of light differs from theWest, noting that, where Western paper
reflects light, traditional Japanese paper

absorbs it. Here we have a preference forthe soft and pliant over the brittle. Donald Richie (1924-2013) in his book “A
Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics,” posited that the study of aesthetics in the West was“mainly concerned withtheories of art, that ofJapan has always been
concerned with theories oftaste.”The breadth of Tanizaki’s interests include Japanese cuisine, architecture,interior design and thetreasures that are concealed or obscured in the
shadows and dim recessesof temples. The author celebrates the merits of meager light and perishable,organic materials, notingin the case of the zashiki,
the Japanese tatami room, that walls aredeliberately made from soil and sand, inorder to “let the frail, melancholic,ephemeral light saturate the solemn composure of their earthy tones.”
The writer holds that, for a true appreciation of the beauty of lacquerware, it
must be observed in the dimness of halflight. Tanizaki pays keen attention to theshadows that lurk in lintels and inalcoves, sensitive to minute details likethe solemn, trance-like beauty of goldleaf covered doors and screens, caught inmorsels of light entering a room from thegarden.
An early, and rather famous object ofinterest in the essay is the traditional
Japanese toilet. Tanizaki writes a paean
to its aesthetic and experiential virtues,
waxing lyrical on the opportunity its use
provides to soothe mind and soul while
listening to the drone of mosquitoes,
drizzling rain or inhaling the scent ofleaf-mold in the adjacent garden. The
author ultimately reaches the rather
extraordinary conclusion that, “of all the
many aspects of Japanese architecture,
the toilet is the apex of refinement.” Thedisgust felt by most Japanese now for the
traditional squat latrine is a measure of
how much they have changed, or an indicator, perhaps, of how sanitation canerase tradition.
Citing the faces of young women in
ancient times, lips painted in iridescentreds and greens, teeth blackened, Tanizaki draws our attention to how darkness
ignites light, their visages transfixing in
the gloom. He also admits that the transcendent, otherworldly beauty reflectedon the complexion of such women may
be an illusion, a trick of light, time andplace.
When reading the text, one senses that
Tanizaki, in taking Westerners to task fortheir putative shortcomings in aesthetic
sensitivity and his fellow countryman’s
drift away from the shadows, is quite
enjoying himself. I ask Starr if he agrees
and the translator acknowledges that theauthor no doubt experienced a frisson ofpleasure in finding prose to express the“nostalgia, sorrow, humor, shock, resignation and even anger that he feels fromwhat is going on around him,” adding,japan LibraryouTsTANdINg Books
NoW AvAILABLE
IN ENgLIsH

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n Japan, under the auspices of free speech
and press, over 80,000 books are published every year, offering a diverse selection of literature to the nation’s readers.
In this great ocean of books, we believe there
are many works that should be enjoyed by not
only a Japanese audience, but also by a global
audience. However, due to the language barrier
and limited number of translations, many suchbooks, often remain unread overseas.
By publishing selected Japanese works in
English, JAPAN LIBRARY aims to introduce tothe world “the diverse and multilayered aspectsof Japan and Japanese thought” and “the richand colorful world of Japan.” With this, JAPANLIBRARY looks to contribute to the creation of auniversal, global knowledge. The books forJAPAN LIBRARY are selected from a wide
range of areas, including politics, foreign policy,social studies, culture, philosophy, science andtechnology. Furthermore, by offering theseworks in both traditional and electronic format,
JAPAN LIBRARY hopes to present a view of thereal and intrinsic Japan for the world to enjoy.
Japan has troves of timeless knowledge
amassed across the ages — treasures that are
distinctively Japanese that, nonetheless, transcend history and international borders. JAPANLIBRARY is loading these treasures onto ships
we call books and venturing forth into the open
sea. The voyages will cover great distances
over time, and reach a countless number ofreaders across the globe. And once the voyage
is complete, the treasure on board will shine
anew, as these readers polish it with their own,
distinctive intellects and sensibilities. This newshine — this new radiance — will surely light theway to the world’s shared future.
With our faith firmly placed in the boundless
power of books, we aim to fulfill JAPANLIBRARY’s vision.

Politics & Diplomacy
Toward the Abe Statement on the70th Anniversary of the End ofWorld War II

The Advisory Panel on the History of the20th Century and on Japan’s Role and theWorld Order in the 21st Century
Translated by Tara Cannon
332 pages“One thing that amazes me is, I didn’t
find any real bitterness there.”
One would have to go to considerable
lengths today to experience the aesthetic
sensations advocated by Tanizaki. Suchexquisite moments, far removed fromeveryday life, might include readingsutras in the light from a votive candle orlistening to the scratching of small metal
particles placed at the bottom of an ironteapot, an effect said to evoke the souringof wind in pine trees.
Asking Starr what he thought might be
the relevance, if any, of a book like this fortoday’s reader, his view is that little haschanged since Tanizaki’s day and thatwhile “much of society seems to feel not
the slightest unease at tossing out certain
traditions, there are those who find value
in looking back and finding new ways toincorporate the past into their present.”
One such person is the notable architect Kengo Kuma, who contributed a wellconsidered preface to the book. The title
remains relevant, Starr concludes,“because darkness and silence is beautiful,and both are getting harder and harder tofind.”The darker spaces, as Tanizaki seems
to infer, decelerate time; the absence oflight heightens our perception of whatlittle exists. One recalls that in the ghostlier scenes of Edo Period (1603-1868)
kabuki, young children were employed tofollow actors on stage, illuminating theirfaces from below with candles, an effectthat must have magnified the intensity ofthe performance.
The shadows, like us, are sentient.

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Politics & Diplomacy
Japan in Asia
Post-Cold-War Diplomacy

Politics & Diplomacy
Perspectives on Sino-Japanese
Diplomatic Relations

Akihiko Tanaka
Translated by Jean Connell Hoff
464 pages

The Yomiuri Shimbun
Political News Department
Translated by John Rossman
272 pages

In 1995 and 2005,
Japan’s prime ministers released landmark statements tomark the 50th and60th anniversaries ofthe end of World War
II. In 2015, as the 70th
anniversary
approached, manyaround Asia and theworld were focusedon what sort of statement Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would release.
This book compiles the presentations delivered to the panel of experts Abe commissioned,
as well as frank commentary by the panel members and the contributions that Japan shouldmake to the world going forward. The perspectives from some of Japan’s most distinguishedvoices provide insights for those wishing to better understand the background of the Abestatement and Japan’s place within the international community.

Akihiko Tanaka traces
the role of diplomacy
in redefining the roleof Japan in Asia fromthe 1977 Fukuda
Doctrine of “heart-toheart” contact
between Japan and
its Southeast Asianneighbors to Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe’s
administration’s
negotiations to settle
the comfort women issue with Republic ofKorea at the end of 2015. But he also looks at
the transformation that Asia itself underwent
during that period, including the Cold War
and the rise of China as an economic power.
What has been Japan’s role in this increasingly interconnected Asia? What has Japan
achieved — or failed to achieve — in Asia? This
book is a history of post-Cold War international politics, the themes of which are crises,
responses to crises, and institution-building toprevent crises before they happen, aimed atproviding an overview of political trends in
Asia and Japan’s diplomatic response to them.

With Asia’s largest
economy and now astrengthened military
as well, China is trying
to change the established international
order via aggressive
diplomatic and military policies.
Meanwhile, under theadministration ofPrime Minister Shinzo
Abe, Japan has beenstanding up to China’s aggressive stance.
Nevertheless, the coexistence of the two countries is essential to the peace and prosperity of
East Asia, and China and Japan must work
together in pursuit of a mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests.
“Perspectives on Sino-Japanese Diplomatic
Relations” is a compilation of articles written by
The Yomiuri Shimbun Political News
Department. This work examines the diplomatic
strategies taken by the two sides, the Senkaku
Islands, the Japan-U.S. alliance, the dangers ofChina’s territorial aspiration and more.

In 2015, the 70th anniversary of the end ofWorld War II, a panel of Japan’s foremost
experts came together to look back on the history of the 20th century and look ahead to therole Japan should play in the 21st century.

Akihiko Tanaka is president of the National
Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.
In 2012 he received the Medal of Honor with
Purple Ribbon for his academic achievements.

The Yomiuri Shimbun is a Japanese national
newspaper with a 140-year history. Its morning
print run alone exceeds 9,000,000 copies, giving the newspaper the largest circulation in theworld.

Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture (JPIC)
3-12-3 Kanda-Jinbocho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0051, Japan

New titles from the 2018 series will be added soon!
For more details, please visit
www.jpic.or.jp/japanlibrary/en
Email: japanlibrary@jpic.or.jp*Orders are accepted online and at bookstores.

The Living Past by Michael Hoffman

Heroism and the changing state of moralityEvery age breeds its own morality.
One era’s good is another’s evil.
Today’s virtue is tomorrow’s vice,
today’s wisdom tomorrow’s stupidity, today’s sanity tomorrow’s
madness.
For 700 years, from the late 12th to themid-19th centuries, Japan’s highest ideals
were embodied in the samurai. Unflinching courage, unshakeable loyalty, murderous proficiency with the sword, a serenity
in the face of death that to a modern eye
can seem macabre, with its culminating
ideal of agonizing self-disembowelment —such are the distinctive features of whatcame to be known as Bushido, the “way of
the warrior.”
One doesn’t know whether to be awed orappalled by the following story, told by
Nitobe Inazo in his English-language classic “Bushido: The Soul of Japan” (1900):
A certain high-ranking warrior isunjustly exiled from the capital. Not satisfied with his removal, his enemies are bent
on destroying his family. His young son
attends a village school incognito. The
enemies discover his whereabouts andorder the schoolmaster to surrender him.
Surrender the son of his lord? Unthinkable.
Defy the command? Impossible.
Fortunately, another pupil, also a samurai but lower in rank, observing his physical resemblance to the boy marked fordeath, knows his duty — and his motherknows hers. At home that night the boy,with his mother’s approval, sacrifices hislife. Next day his head is ceremonially presented to the authorities. The deception
goes unnoticed. The young lord is saved.
Nitobe comments, “‘What an atrocious
story!’ I hear my readers exclaim. ‘Parents
deliberately sacrificing their own innocent

child to save the life of another man’s!’ But
this child was a conscious and willing victim.” The tale, says Nitobe, is “not more
revolting than the story of Abraham’s
intended sacrifice of Isaac.”
That bland comparison masks threeimportant differences. The sacrifice of
Isaac was for God’s sake, not for a feudal
overlord’s. It dates back 4,000 years, tolong before the taming of mankind’s darkest, most irrational impulses.
And, of course, the sacrifice of Isaac did
not take place.
One more brief story, also courtesy of
Nitobe, who quotes a diary left by a physician present on the occasion of theseppuku (ritual disembowelment) of threebrothers following a failed plot to kill a lord
they believed had wronged their father.
The brothers are Sakon, 24; Naiki, 17; andHachimaro, 8.
“When they were all seated in a row for
final dispatch, Sakon turned to the youngest and said, ‘You go first, for I wish to be
sure that you do it properly.’ Upon the little
one’s replying that, as he had never seen
seppuku performed, he would like to see
his brothers do it and then he could follow
them, the older brothers smiled throughtears: ‘Well said, little fellow!’“Sakon thrust his dagger into the left
side of his abdomen and said, ‘Look,
brother. Do you understand now?’” The
two older brothers die. “The child lookedfrom one to the other, and when both had
expired, he calmly half denuded himself
and followed the example set him.”
The Meiji Restoration of 1868 was thelast nail in the traditional samurai’s coffin.
The past was dead, the future was “Western” — capitalist, industrialist, acquisitive,“rational,” “civilized.” Few nations in his-‘A real man does notthink of victory or
defeat. He plunges
recklessly towards anirrational death.’‘Hagakure’
tory have transfigured themselves more
dramatically. The novelist Natsume Soseki(1867-1916) depicts the agitations of histime in his 1909 novel “Sorekara” (“AndThen”). One either threw oneself headlong
into the new life, with its grubby, unscrupulous vulgarities, or one clung, somewhat
futilely, to the past. Daisuke, Soseki’s protagonist, is unable to do either. He is 30,
rich, idle, scornful of the samurai ideals of
his upbringing, no less so of the soullessmaterialism seething and surging aroundhim.
His father, a samurai of the old school,
tries to fire his son’s spirit – in vain.
“Daisuke felt an unpleasant taste in his
mouth every time he had to listen to suchspeeches. Courage might well have been
an important prerequisite to survival in
the barbaric days of his father’s youth,
when life was taken right and left, but inthis civilized day and age, Daisuke
regarded it as a piece of equipment primitive as the bow and arrow. … Needless to say,
Daisuke was cowardly. He could feel noshame in this. There were even occasions
when he proudly styled himself a coward.”
Cowardice doesn’t seem much to be
proud of. But to Daisuke, evidently, it’ssynonymous with enlightenment. His
father, had Daisuke spoken frankly to him,
would have recoiled in horror. But his view

Universal Sunday Crossword: “Side show” by Timothy E. Parker
Across1
Attachments to backboards
5
Motherboard pt.
8Fourth qtr. month11“I ___ afraid of that!”
14
Motored movers
18
Far from land
19
Word to a dentist
20
Producer of molasses
22
Chipping option
23
Fail to persist
26“___ Zapata!”
27
Thou-shalt-not things
28
Waterway serving Orsk
29
“Carmen” solo
30
On the double, briefly
31
Reads over quickly
32
Film partner of Louise
34
What atheists insist on
being
36
Place to get steamed38
Lah-di-___

39
40
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54
56
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58
60
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67
68
71
72
73
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78
79

Pretentious poseur
Org. of dentists
Branch angle
Alliance since 1949
Some believers
Catch unawares
Chinese cooking vessel
Farming tool
Moistens a turkey
Band box
Small striped fish
Move on all fours
TerserSyrian city
Under siege
Strip of planking on a
ship
Glaziers’ stick’ems
Blood of the Greek gods
Firmly established
Hill big shot, briefly
Turkey part?

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Airport terminal abbr.
Fishy delicacy
Work-stoppage
compensation
Stupefies with drink
Fall into a chair
Adult tadpole
Marina ___ Rey, Calif.
Family-vs.-family beefs
Slangy “used to be”
Beer container
Honored one
Forestless tract
Shop talk, i.e.
Famous ___ of cookies
Determine who is thefastestSome ground-floor
opportunities
Come into prominence
Visored military cap
Be cautious, in a way“Zounds!” kinFree Wi-Fi, e.g.
Work a hand shuttle“I’ll second that”
Test another’s courage
Permit___ favor (“please”)
Air leak soundChange for a 50
Inflatable floaters
Newton of science
Toast variety‘Do place
Caribbean getaways
Bit of butter“Yeah, I hear ya”
Jack Ruby’s victim
Non-PC miner
Take a crack at
Maytag rival
Videos’ counterparts
Applied jam
Composer Antonio
Pop up into view
Some old Chevy models
Loses it
Gov’t. property
overseer
Office VIP
Before, to or fro
Yellow transporter“So there it is!”Solutions on page 20
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Collectible
Be an excellent student
Controversial apple spray
Calamities orcatastrophes
Flemish city in Belgium
Potato variety
Twist in a bar?
With the most coils or curls
Ready to set sailBusy one’s list heading
Equal a poker bet
Telly network
Parts of rivers
Russian alcoholic beverage___ as a peacock
Stadia are filled with them
Manning under center
It represents financial loss
Covered with small dots
Primitive chuckee
Big bang maker
Little strummed
instrument
Slow, to a maestro
Like the Mojave
Like some exams
Unit of sunlight
Little bit of goo
Known to very few
Assistant
Yard tool
Penalty for crossing theline?
Pigskin prop
As if in a dream
Shouts of painSoundly beat“Oh, my!”Light wind
Charades or Monopoly, e.g.
Dried, like mud
Letter furthest fromalpha
Stock without face value“The Spectacles” author
Sibilant sounds that
summonDid some ushering
Tough-to-remove dirt
City near Salt Lake City
Frigid temperature
Ages galore
Little newts
Tiny shot
Some batteriesof life was already dead. Good riddance, isthe modern verdict. We today don’t call our
lifestyle cowardly. We call it “the pursuit ofhappiness,” and tend to agree with Daisuke
that murderous vengeance and seppuku
are more repulsive than admirable.
Nitobe, writing in English and addressing precisely the modern, negative perspective on Bushido, is at pains to showthat its ideals are at bottom little different
from those of the West. Heroism is heroism,
East or West, he seems to say. Think of the
Roman Cato the Younger, he says, rippingout his entrails rather than live under the
dictatorship of Julius Caesar. Think, forthat matter, of Christ, whose martyrdom,
no less than a samurai’s, showed “that thevilest form of death assumes a sublimityand becomes a symbol of new life.”
The Christian injunction against selfslaughter seems to blunt somewhat theforce of that last example, and it would be
hard indeed to find a Western equivalent
to the early 18th-century military treatise
known as the “Hagakure.” Among its aphorisms are encomiums of death that make amodern reader shudder: “A real man does
not think of victory or defeat. He plunges
recklessly towards an irrational death.”“The way of the warrior is death. Thismeans choosing death whenever there is achoice between life and death.”
Two centuries of civil war ended in 1615.
An exhausted nation settled slowly into
peace. But death retained its uncanny hold.
Not warriors now but lovers were its mostfervent devotees — as we shall see in thisspace next month.
Michael Hoffman is the author of “In theLand of the Kami: A Journey into the Heartsof Japan” and “Other Worlds.”

Sudoku http://kjell.haxx.se/sudoku
Complete the grid so that every row, column
and 3x3 box contains a number from 1 to 9.

5

8

9

4
1

5

4

2

3

7
9

6

7
6

6

1

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2
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7 Little Words

74

20 | the japan times on sunday | February 18, 2018

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Pyeongchang olympics | Sports

TimeOut | diversions & Weather
Overheard

Cartoonsby Roger Dahl

Zero Gravity

On Sunday has ears
KitKat heaven

American woman: how many different
flavors of KitKat are there?
— Nakano Station, Nakano-ku, Tokyo.
Overheard by The Japan Times On Sunday
Overheard a conversation you’d like toshare? Simply fill out the online submission
form at jtimes.jp/overheard. Please recountthe conversation in the format above andbe sure to provide a description of the participants (age, male/female, nationality if
relevant, etc.), note where the conversation
took place and include any other context
that might be necessary.

Tweets of the Week
What’s everyone elsesaying on Twitter?
Wooden skyscraper

by Scott Adams

Dilbert@archDaily: japan plans for supertall
Wooden skyscraper in tokyo by 2041
http://bit.ly/wooden-skyscraper

Genderless subculture@js_talksplus: this #harajuku fashion,“genderless kei,” has undertaken the mission to change the ideas and expectations
surrounding men’s clothes in #japan.
http://bit.ly/genderless-subculture

Empress overcomes many trials@nippon_en: as the first commoner
to marry a future japanese emperor,
empress michiko has overcome many trials. http://bit.ly/empress-michiko

Hoefflin soars to slopestyle gold
Freestyle skiing

Pyeongchang South Korea
ap

The Olympics were never part of
Sarah Hoefflin’s plan.
The goal when she entered
university in Cardiff, England,a decade ago was to become adoctor. So she buried her headin books and earned a degree inneuroscience. Skiing back thenwas mostly just a way to blow offsome steam every once in a while.
Medical school was supposed tobe the next step after graduation.
One problem: she didn’t get in.
“It just didn’t work out for me,”
Hoefllin said.
No matter. The skiing thingkind of did. The 27-year-old from
Switzerland capped her improbable rise with a victory in women’sslopestyle on Saturday, edging
teammate Mathilde Gremaud forthe top spot by drilling her final
run down the demanding course
at Phoenix Snow Park. Isabel Atkinof Britain took bronze with a scoreof 84.60 in her final run to give hercountry its first-ever medal in askiing event at the Olympics.
Hoefflin was already in position
to reach the podium the last time
she stepped into the gate.
Rather than settle for something

Switzerland’s Sarah Hoefflin competes in the women’s ski slopestyle final on Saturday.

other than gold, Hoefflin went forit, capping her winning run with adouble-cork 720-degree spin. She
raised her arms after sticking thelanding and her score of 91.20 was
more than three points clear of the
88.00 Gremaud put up in her firstrun of the finals.

by Wulff & Morgenthaler@travelLeisure: how an american
became one of japan’s professional ninja
http://bit.ly/american-ninja

Tohoku road trip

Ski jumping@Visit_japan: there’s never been a better
time to visit tohoku. start planning yourroad trip to northern japan right now
http://bit.ly/go-tohoku

Pyeongchang South Korea
KYODO

Giveaways

Puzzle Solutions

HWeather: Seven-day forecast
Temperatures in Celsius High/LowSun

B Fair | H Some cloud | Y Cloudy | R Rain | W Snow | U Some snow | X Snow/rain
Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

7 Little Words

SudokuSat

3 7 5

1 6 8 4 2 9

6 4 2

3 9

7 8

9 1 8

4

5

2 6 3

4 2

5

7

3 9 6 8

Tokyo

H
9/-1

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9/0

W
7/1

H
10/2

Y
7/1

Y
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9/2

osaka

H
8/1

R
8/1

R
9/3

H
10/3

H
8/1

H
10/1

H
9/3

nagoya

H
7/-1

Y
9/-1

R
11/2

H
10/2

H
9/0

H
11/0

H
10/1

sapporo

W
-3/-8

W
-2/-7

W
-1/-6

W
-4/-8

W
-2/-9

W
1/-7

W
-1/-6

sendai

H
3/-3

H
5/-1

Y
5/-2

H
4/-2

H
4/-3

H
7/-2

H
4/-1

niigata

W
1/-2

W
3/-1

W
5/-1

W
3/-1

Y
4/-2

W
7/-1

W
3/-1

Hiroshima

H
10/-2

R
8/0

R
10/3

H
10/3

H
9/-1

H
11/-1

H
10/2

Takamatsu

H
8/0

R
7/-1

R
9/1

H
10/2

H
7/1

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10/1

H
9/2

Fukuoka

H
10/1

R
8/4

R
11/6

H
10/4

H
10/3

H
11/3

H
11/4

Kagoshima

B
15/2

R
17/6

R
15/9

Y
13/6

Y
13/5

H
14/4

H
15/4

naha

H
22/15

H

Y

R

24/16

23/18

20/16

R
19/15

H
19/13

H
22/15

1

1 5
7

5 3 9

6 8 4

1 7 2

8 6 7

2

5 4

3

2 9 6

7 4

5

3 8

1

7 5 4

8

3

1

2 9 6

1

9

2 6

7 5 4

8 3

1 9

1. LabraDOr
2. brittany
3. bOLOGnese
4. hOunD
5. ChinOOK
6. maLtese
7. husKy

Sunday Universal Crossword

We are giving
away a book injapanese on
the history ofGermany during
World War i.
published in
December, thebook titled “1918
nen saikyo
Doitsugun wa
naze yaburetaka”(“Why the mostpowerful German military“1918 Nen Saikyo
was defeated
Doitsugun wa Nazein 1918”) was
Yaburetaka” iswritten by
published byakira iikura,
Bungeishunju Ltd.
a professor at
josai international university in Chiba
prefecture. iikura, a specialist in international politics, offers broad perspectives
on the systems of the German militaryand government in the early 20th century
and analyzes the factors surrounding thecountry’s defeat in World War i.
How to apply: please send your name,address, postal code, phone number,name of giveaway and a comment on
the publication to the japan times On
sunday Giveaways, Digital enterprise
Division, 4-5-4 shibaura, minato-ku,
tokyo 108-0023, fax the same information to 03-3453-7085 or complete ouronline submission form at jtimes.jp/
onsunday by Feb. 25.

afp-jijimates because the winner received
a new set of skis and she, well, she’dnever had new skis before.
That’s hardly a problem
anymore.
Ho efflin has prac ticallysprinted toward the upper echelons of her sport, winning gold

Kobayashi qualifies third

American ninja

WuMo

Heady territory for a skier who
didn’t get serious until her early
20s. Hoefflin remembers crashinghard the first time she ever tried
to navigate a slopestyle course“because I didn’t know what I wasdoing.” She only entered her firstcompetition at the urging of class-in the Big Air competition at X
Games last month. Still, she didn’t
exactly head to the starting gatewith a ton of confidence. Training
didn’t go well.
“I just wasn’t really landing
anything,” she said. “It happens
sometimes when you’re not reallyfeeling yourself.”
Hoefflin was born in Geneva
before her family moved to Kingsbury, England, about two hours
north of London. She was starting to
get the feel for freestyle when someone approached her and asked if
she wanted to compete for her birthcountry. It changed everything.
“I went to some training campswith some Swiss team members
and it just started from there,” shesaid. “They looked after me so welland they managed to turn me into
the athlete I am today.”Gremaud earned bronze despite
a frightening wipeout during training in which her head slammed
into the packed snow, sending her
to the hospital for a CT scan. She
had no recollection of it when she
watched it on video but managed toblock it out during the competition.
“I was praying everything was
all right,” Gremaud said. “I didsome concussion test with a doctor. They said everything was allright so I could ski. I just enjoyedthe day.”

Ryoyu Kobayashi reacts to a jump during qualification for the men’s large
hill ski jump final at the Pyeongchang Olympics on Friday.
reuters

Ryoyu Kobayashi soared into
contention for the Pyeongchang
Olympics men’s large hill title on
Friday by qualifying an impressive
third for the final.
Kobayashi, who cracked the
top 10 in the normal hill lastweekend by finishing seventh,produced the day’s biggest jumpof 143.5 meters for 127.6 points,
garnering the biggest cheers on
another frosty night at Alpensia
Ski Jumping Centre.
The 21-year-old Kobayashi
trailed a pair of Norwegians,
leader Robert Johansson (131.9
points) and Johann Andre Forfang (128.7), going into Saturdaynight’s final.

“I rode the wind well,” said
Kobayashi, a first-time Olympian.
“I had fun out there. I’m doing thesame things I’ve been doing all
season, making sure not to leanin too much, keeping my hands
relaxed.
“I hope tomorrow I can have thewind I had today. I haven’t jumped
this well even at the World Cup.
So if you think about that, yeah,I think you could say I’m happy.”
He added: “I hope I can do better than the seventh place in thenormal hill.”
All three other Japanese jumpers qualified to join Kobayashi inthe final.
Noriaki Kasai went through22nd after leaping 122.5 metersfor 104.2 points, Taku Takeuchi(120.5 meters, 98.5 points) was
27th, while Kobayashi’s older
brother, Junshiro, placed 37th

(115.0 meters, 89.5 points). The
field was reduced to 56 after one
jumper was disqualified.
In the days since finishing 21stin the normal hill, the 45-year-old
Kasai has been upbeat about his
chances in the large hill, the eventin which he won silver at the 2014
Winter Games in Sochi.
Yet Kasai on Friday was furious
with himself for a performancethat left him way out of medal
territory.
“It was garbage,” Kasai said.
“There was no confidence, andI’m angry at myself. I’m doing
the same things, but I couldn’t
accelerate.
“I couldn’t get any speed
behind me in the trial jump. The
wind wasn’t great and I made an
awkward jump, which was a bit
concerning. I thought too muchand wasn’t aggressive at all.”Toll-free subscription orders: 0120-036-242 (phone between
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22 | the japan times on sunday | February 18, 2018

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February 18, 2018 | the japan times on sunday | 23

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Pyeongchang olympics | Sports

Pyeongchang olympics | Sports

Hanyu etches name into legend

Ledeckaclaims goldin super-G

Continued from Page 24

Vonn misses medal
after late mistake
Alpine skiing

Jeongseon South Korea
AP

Ester Ledecka stepped out ofher snowboard long enough toclick into her skis and become an
Olympic gold medalist.
Even the 22-year-old from theCzech Republic who dabbles inboth realms can’t quite believe it.
Lindsey Vonn (above) reacts during
Ledecka made a stunning run
Saturday’s super-G competition;from back in the pack to take theeventual winner Ester Ledecka ofsuper-G title on Saturday at the
the Czech Republic (right) smiles atPyeongchang Games, with a misthe end of her run.
reuters, ap
take costing Lindsey Vonn a spot
on the podium.
“ ’Til today, I thought I am a at the Olympics. She is trying tobetter snowboarder,” Ledecka talk her coaches into letting her
compete in the Olympic downsaid.
The 26th racer to take the hill on Wednesday, before shecourse, Ledecka shredded her grabs her snowboard for Thursway through it in a time of 1 min- day’s qualifying in the parallelute, 21.11 seconds. Defending giant slalom. The final is Feb.
champion Anna Veith of Austria 24.
“I was probably the only snowearned the silver, finishing 0.01
s econds back , and Tina Wei- boarder on site,” Ledecka said.
rather of Liechtenstein captured “All the other girls didn’t risk a lot.
There must be a lot of pressure
bronze.
Ledecka is far from finished on them.

“I was just trying to do my bestrun.”
Ledecka’s run shocked evenher. Shortly after finishing andseeing her time, she asked, “Howdid that happen?”
Wonderful question.
Even better may be this: Is she
now a snowboarder or an Alpine
skier?
She won the parallel giant
slalom at the world snowboard
championships last March.

“That’s so impressive,” skier
Michelle Gisin of Switzerland
said.
“Better stay with us and don’t
go snowboarding. I know that
she can take a lot of risks.”
Ever think this was possible?
“I thought this will come muchlater on in my career,” Ledecka
said. “But this is great, if it canhappen like that.”
The first racer out of the starting gate, Vonn had a fast run

going before going too wide on
a turn near the bottom. She finished in a tie for sixth.
“I thought it was either going to
be really great or really bad,” Vonn
said. “And it didn’t quite turn out
the way I’d hoped. I didn’t reallyhave a choice in the matter so I did
the best that I could.
“Just made one mistake, andthat cost me a medal.”Vonn will have another shot tomedal in the downhill.

Skating performances light up Tokyo
Figure skating

Kaz nagatsuka
STAFF WRITER

Pyeongchang is 1,000 km awayfrom Tokyo.
But fans in Japan erupted into
wild cheers of joy at the same
moment that Japanese skaters
took the top two spots in the men’s
figure skating competition at the
Pyeongchang Games on Saturday.
Yuzuru Hanyu and Shoma
Uno won gold and silver, respectively, with Hanyu becoming thefirst man to capture consecutive
Olympic figure skating golds in
66 years.
“It just feels incredibly great,”49-year-old figure skating fan
Takashi Kondo said of Hanyu’s
achievement at a public viewingsite at NHK Fureai Hall in Tokyo’s
Shibuya Ward. “I was worried how
he’d do (because of an ankle injury
he sustained last November). But
he masterfully showcased a great
performance.”
NHK is holding public viewing events throughout the ongoing Pyeongchang Olympics. But
figure skating competitions areclearly the biggest attraction. An
NHK official said that the first fansarrived at the hall at around 5:30
a.m.
It looked like 80 to 90 percentof the 271-seat hall was occupied

Figure skating fans watch the Olympic men’s singles competition at a public viewing in Tokyo on Saturday.

with female fans. Many fans could
not get in and had to stand andwatch the competition on smaller
screens outside.
Toshinobu Takahashi, whocame to the public viewing sitewith Kondo, said that he could
not even imagine how much effort
Hanyu had to put in after a threemonth competitive layoff before
the Olympics.
“He got injured, and wound
up doing as well as he did at thisOlympics,” Takahashi, a 48-year-

old company employee, said in
awe. “It probably required tons ofwork to realize that.”
Hanyu had already achieved
superstar status before the Olympics. But with another gold medalaround his neck, the Sendai nativehas moved to a higher level.
“He’s become a god,” Takahashi
said of Hanyu, a two-time world
champion. “I mean, he’s now inthat realm.”
Takahashi said that it used to
be “unimaginable” that Japaneseapskaters could win a medal at the
Olympics.
Two middle-aged government
workers and longtime figureskating fans, who asked not to be
named, said they were both enthusiastic Uno followers.
One of the women, acknowledging that she was biased, believedthat Uno had a better performance
than Hanyu. The 20-year-old Unoscored higher points in the technical elements than Hanyu in thefree skate.

But with Uno having become an
Olympic silver medalist, she said
that she wants to see him performin person even more.
“I would like to see Shoma, who
now is a medalist,” she said.
Meanwhile, Mie Shoda, 27,
watched the post-competition
ceremony with mixed emotions.
She said that she did not want totake anything away from Hanyu,
but she felt sympathy for Uno, herfavorite skater, because the firsttime Olympian was overshadowed
by Hanyu’s feat.
“Uno has such a strong mentality, almost too strong, because
he was the last skater to performand he managed to give a great
performance (despite the pressure),” Shoda said. “He was like,‘I just need to focus on my own
skating, right?’“But poor him. Winning asilver medal at the Olympics isa great feat in itself. But with
Hanyu having repeated as champion, I’m afraid that (Uno) will beovershadowed.”
It was not just Japanese fanspraising Hanyu and Uno. Some
former star skaters reacted totheir phenomenal performanceson Twitter.
Evgeni Plushenko, the men’ssingles gold medalist at the 2006
Turin Olympics tweeted: “I amso proud of Yuzuru!!!! What achampion!!”“There was no special feelingright now,” Uno commented. “I
was just focused on my performance. The goal was to pull off
what I had prepared.”
Uno noted how he retained
his poise after going down on thequad loop.
“I missed the first jump, but therest of the program was fine,” Unoassessed. “I stayed calm after the
mistake and was able to give agood performance. I tried to skate
like in practice.”
Javier Fernandez competed to“Man of La Mancha” and gave it areal go to try and overtake Hanyu.
Fernandez cleanly landed a quad
toe loop and a quad salchow/double
toe loop combo at the start of his
program, then went for a triple axel/
double toe loop combo but steppedout on the landing on the back end.
Fernandez was in with a chance,
however, until he doubled aplanned quad salchow.
“I feel like I had a few little mistakes,” Fernandez stated. “ButI think it was a good program, agood fight.”
Despite the miscues, the27-year-old was pleased with thefinal results.
“I finally got the medal I always
wanted,” Fernandez said. “I amproud I can take it home and shareit with the people.”
Button, tweeting from his home Yuzuru Hanyu performs his free skate on Saturday at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
in North Salem, New York, congratulated Hanyu for joining him
Button had one tweet about 18-year-old reached down andin rare territory.
Uno, who he has always expressed finally realized his potential by“Bravo Hanyu, records are made admiration for.
skating a complete program while“A powerful sparkplug,” Button landing six quads.
to be tied,” the 88-year-old wrote.
During Hanyu’s free skate, But- wrote about the Nagoya native.
Chen won the free skate with
China’s Jin Boyang (297.77) com- a tally of 215.08. Skating in the
ton lavished praise on his young
successor.
peted to “Mars” and music from second group because of his poor
“Quad salchow, beautiful, easy, “Star Wars” and put on a fine display finish in the short program, Chenlight,” Button wrote. “Hanyu — of jumping once again. He hit three temporarily moved him into first
Gorgeous. Beautifully choreo- quads, but fell on another (a quad place by more than 40 points withgraphed with the music. Terrific toe loop) and ended up fourth.
the huge score.
theatre!”“The result is good for me,” Jin
Chen’s rally was reminiscent
Shortly after Hanyu’s vic- said. “I am still young (20) and I of Mao Asada’s comeback in her
tory, Prime Minister Shinzo still have a long way to go. I will free skate in Sochi. Mao was 16th
Abe tweeted his regards to his keep working hard.”
after the short program there,
compatriot.
American Nathan Chen (297.35) and moved all the way up to fin“Huge congratulations to Mr. finally put it together with an out- ish sixth with a great performance.
Yuzuru Hanyu on capturing a standing performance to “Mao’s“I think honestly putting down
second consecutive Olympic gold, Last Dancer” and moved up from a rough short program, and being the ice and enjoying myself, playdespite overcoming an injury,” 17th to place fifth. But it was too so low in the placement, just took ing to the crowd and really soaking
Abe wrote. “Your stunning per- little, too late.
the pressure away from me,” Chen in the Olympic experience.”
formance on the ice was truly
After dealing with consecutive stated. “I no longer felt like I was
Keiji Tanaka (244.83) skated to amoving. Thank you for touching disastrous short programs in the striving for that first-place spot. It medley from Federico Fellini movour hearts!”
team event and on Friday, the mostly was just me being out on ies and was 18th.

afp-jiji

KYODO GRAPHIC

Tanaka landed a nice quad salchow on his first jump, but thenhit the ice when he tried anotherthat was supposed to be part of acombo with a double toe loop. He
also fell on a triple axel.

Olympic roundup
OAR women moveon to semifinals
Ice hockey

Gangneung South Korea

reuterS — The Olympic Athletes

from Russia trounced Switzerland 6-2 in an entertaining clash
at the Kwandong Hockey Centre
on Saturday to book a spot in thewomen’s semifinals.
The Russians will take on
four-time defending champion
Canada on Monday for a placein the final.
Anna Shokhina capitalizedon Lara Stalder’s mistake togive the Russians an unlikely
lead seven minutes into the first
period after the Swiss forward
took a fraction too long to control a routine pass.
The Russians were shorthanded by two when Shokhina

pounced on Stalder to force aturnover before bearing downon the Swiss goal and scooping
a wrist shot high into the net.
The Swiss equalized with lessthan 10 seconds played in the second period after Alina Muller collected a Christine Meier pass andwove her way past three defenders before flicking a backhanded
shot over Russian goaltender
Nadezhda Alexandrova.
Stalder made amends when
she put the Swiss ahead with aclassy shot into the top corner,
but the Russians tied it up minutes later on Viktoria Kulishova’s rebound shot.
Liana Ganeyeva extended thelead with just over a minute left
in the second period. Shokhinascored twice more in the final
period and Olga Sosina added asixth late on to put the finishing
touches on the rout.

Czechs sink Canada Norovirus cases
Nearly 93 percent
after shootout
now at 261: officials of tickets sold: IOC
Ice hockey

Gangneung South Korea

reuterS — The Czech Republicbeat Canada 3-2 in a shootout
on Saturday in a back-and-forthpreliminary game in the men’s
Olympic ice hockey tournament.
Petr Koukal and Jan Kovar
both scored in the shootout,
topping Canada’s lone goal.
Earlier, Canada had pulled
ahead 2-1 on the power play. Rene
Bourque, who played 12 seasonsin the NHL, tapped in a reboundon a shot from the point by
Maxim Noreau with one second
remaining on a holding penalty
to Jakub Nakladal.
Canada continued to outshoot the Czechs but could notfinish.

GeneralPyeongchang South Korea

AP — Pyeongchang Olympics orga-

nizers say the total number ofnorovirus cases has increased to
261 with the detection of 17 more.
Of those, 44 people are still inquarantine and 217 have beenreleased, including two Swiss
athletes who planned on competing at the games.
Organizing committee spokesman Sung Baik-you on Saturday
said the two Swiss athletes who
were confirmed with norovirus
had been staying privately near
Phoenix Snow Park, not in an
Olympic athletes village. Authorities haven’t identified them so it’s
not clear if they have competed orwill compete.

GeneralPyeongchang South Korea

AP — Olympics organizers saythey’ve sold almost 93 percent
of tickets for the games andaren’t entirely sure why there
are so many empty seats visibleon television broadcasts fromsome venues.
Organizing committee
spokesman Sung Baik-you said
around 991,000 tickets havebeen sold, for a total sale rate of
92.8 percent.
Sung says that figure is muchhigher than expected.
Sung said that Pyeongchang
Olympics organizers are investigating media reports thatsome tickets are being sold byscalpers.

24 | the japan times on sunday | February 18, 2018

Sports

第３種郵便物認可

Alpine skiing

Skating«< PAGE 22«< PAGE 22

LEDECKA
TAKES GOLDIN SUPER-G

FANS
ENJOY
MOMENT

Majestic Hanyu defends title
Star becomes first
man to repeat as
champion since
Button in 1952
Figure skating

jack Gallagher
Gangneung South Korea
STAFF WRITER

Yuzuru Hanyu etched his nameinto the pantheon of skating
legends with a second straight
Olympic gold medal in the freeskate at the Pyeongchang Gameson Saturday.
In doing so, the defending
Olympic and world champion
achieved a feat that had not beenaccomplished in 66 years, since
American Dick Button won his
second gold at the 1952 WinterGames in Oslo. Button won his
first gold in 1948 at the St. Moritz
Games in Switzerland.
The 23-year-old superstar
became one of just four men
in Olympic history to win consecutive golds with the triumph.
Hanyu joined Sweden’s Gillis
Grafstrom, Austria’s Karl Schafer
and Button in the history books.
Grafstrom
won threestraight(1920,
1924,
1928)
golds,
while
Schafer
reignedin 1932 and 1936.
Against what seemed almost
insurmountable odds after suffering a serious injury to the lateral tendon in his right ankle justthree months ago that kept him off
the ice for two months, the Sendai native landed four quadruple
jumps to scale the summit of the
sport in spectacular fashion at
Gangneung Ice Arena. What hedid here was nothing short ofphenomenal.
Hanyu skated to “Seimei” andexerted his incredible force ofwill from beginning to end. He
embraced the music and did it all.
His hydroblade and Ina Bauer near
the end capping off the historiceffort that earned him a total scoreof 317.85 points. The victory gave
Japan its first gold of the games.
Shoma Uno skated last andcame through with a clutch performance to capture the silver
medal with 306.90, while Hanyu’s
training partner Javier Fernandez
claimed the bronze on 305.24.
The 1-2 finish by Hanyu andUno brought Japan its first evermultiple skating medals in asingle figure skating discipline at
the Olympics, while Fernandezcollected a historic first Olympic
medal in the sport for Spain.
Hanyu opened with a beautiful
quad salchow, followed that witha superb quad toe loop, then hit a
triple flip. Following a combination spin and his step sequence,
Hanyu landed a fantastic quadsalchow/triple toe loop, thenYuzuru Hanyu (top) performs his free skate routine at the Pyeongchang
Olympics on Saturday at Gangneung Ice Arena; Shoma Uno (left) skates
en route to the silver medal; Hanyu and Uno hold Japanese flags after
finishing the competition first and second, respectively. AP, KYODO, AFP-JIJI

made it four quads with a toe loopthat was supposed to be the firstof a three-combo jump, but wasn’t
executed. That was the lone blip in
the program.
Hanyu then pulled off a triple
axel/single loop/triple salchow
combo, a triple loop and a triplelutz, before closing with a sit
spin, choreographic sequence
and a combination spin. Waiting in a back room for Fernandez and Uno to finish their freeskates, Hanyu was overcome
with emotion when Uno’s score
was posted and he wept openly,
the magnitude of his incredible

accomplishment setting in.
“I have no words, right now,”
Hanyu stated immediately after
winning. “I am overwhelmed. Thisis the best day of my skating life.
My tears were from my heart. I canfind one word and that is ‘happy.’ ”
After some time to cool down,
Hanyu put everything in perspective at the post-event news
conference.
“Since I was injured, I am very
fortunate to skate here at the
Olympics,” Hanyu commented. “I
am indeed very happy to win the
Olympic gold medal.”
Hanyu admitted that hemade the most of a very difficult
situation.
“I am truly proud of this achievement,” Hanyu added. “I had to dowhat I could do at this moment.”
Uno competed to “Turandot”
and battled magnificently to makethe podium. He fell on his opening quad loop, but landed a quad
flip, and two quad toe loops while
impressing the crowd with his
considerable skill and presentation ability.
The 20-year-old Uno’s reaction
to getting the silver medal was
typically understated.
Continued on Page 23

MEDAL STANDINGS
Germany
NorwayNetherlands
United States
CanadaSweden
Japan

G
9
6
6
5
4
4
1

S
2
8
5
1
5
2
5

B T
4 15
5 19
2 13
2 8
4 13
0 6
3 9

More Olympic coverage online:

www.japantimes.co.jp

Results as of press time on Saturday