The magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

June 2016, Volume 48 No. 6, ¥400

SERIOUSLY,
ARE
JOURNALISTSIN ASIA
BEING
SILENCED?

The UN verdict
on Japan
The global fightfor press freedom
South Korea’s
internet crackdown
Fearless Japanesepublications+ Said Karlsson
profiled
Foreign con men
in Taisho Japan

Vol. 48, Number 6June 2016

contact the editors

no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Publisher FCCJ

In this issue
The Front Page
From the President by Suvendrini Kakuchi
Collections: Climate change and Japan
From the archives by Charles Pomeroy

445Fighting backby William Horsley

6South Korea’s internet crackdownby Julian Ryall

8

Standing tallby Gavin Blair

9

The state vs the Japanese pressby Justin McCurry

10

ProfileSaid Karlsson
by Tyler Rothmar

A tale of too many cities
by Dan Sloan

16

FCCJ

JUNE 2016

FCCJ COMMITTEE CHAIRSAssociate Members Liaison Milton Isa
Compliance Kunio Hamada
DeRoy Memorial Scholarship Masaaki Fukunaga
Entertainment Sandra Mori, Suvendrini Kakuchi
Exhibition Bruce Osborn
Film Karen Severns
Finance Robert Whiting
Food & Beverage Robert Whiting
Freedom of Press Pio d’Emilia, Khaldon AzhariHouse & Property Peter Langan
Human Resources Imad Ajami
Information Technology Roger Williams
Library, Archives & Workroom Koichi Ishiyama,
Suvendrini Kakuchi
Membership Peter O’Connor, Monzurul Huq
Membership Marketing Bill Shin, Rie Sakamoto
Professional Activities David McNeill,
Tetsuo Jimbo
Publications Gavin Blair
Special Projects Haruko Watanabe
Web Committee Gavin Blair

12
14

Join the Film Committee/In Memoriam
New Members/New in the Library

FCCJ BOARD OF DIRECTORS
President Suvendrini Kakuchi,
University World News, UK
1st Vice President Peter Langan, Freelance
2nd Vice President Imad Ajami, IRIS Media
Secretary Mary Corbett, Cresner MediaTreasurer Robert Whiting, Freelance
Directors at Large
Masaaki Fukunaga, the Sanmarg
Milton Isa, Associate Member
Yuichi Otsuka, Associate Member
James Simms, Forbes Contributor, Freelance
Ex-officio Lucy Birmingham
Kanji William Sposato, Freelance

Foreign Press in Japan Justin McCurry

Flotsam, jetsam and Uncle Sam
by Peter O'Connor

Club News
Exhibition: 森 (Forest): photographs
by Hisashi Mochizuki

ANDREW POTHECARY

p12 Said
Karlsson

Editor Gregory Starr
Art Director Andrew Pothecarywww.forbiddencolour.com
Editorial Assistants Naomichi Iwamura,Tyler Rothmar
Photo Coordinator Akiko Miyake
Publications committee members
Gavin Blair, Freelance (Chair); Geoffrey Tudor,
Orient Aviation; Monzurul Huq, Prothom Alo;
Julian Ryall, Daily Telegraph; Patrick Zoll, Neue
Zürcher Zeitung; Sonja Blaschke, Freelance;
John R. Harris, Freelance

17

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan
Yurakucho Denki Building, North Tower 20F,
1-7-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0006.
Tel: (03) 3211-3161 Fax: (03) 3211-3168 fccj.or.jp
Published by the FCCJ All opinions contained within
Number 1 Shimbun are those of the authors. As such,these opinions do not constitute an official positionof Number 1 Shimbun, the editor or the Foreign
Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
Please pitch and send articles and photographs, oraddress comments to no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Read the Number 1 Shimbun online:
fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun//
Cover photo by Ljupco | Dreamstime.com

3

FRONT PAGE

2.1-4.0°C

COLLECTIONSCLIMATE CHANGE
AND JAPAN

From thePresident
I PEN THIS LAST column as president with a few importantlessons for the new Board. The bottom line is that the FCCJ
is an exceptional organization, my honest opinion is that thechallenges can be handled with the talent we have onboard.
The Club’s year has been full of exceptional achievements.
Function facilities remain fully booked, usage is high in thedining room and bar and big-name newsmakers continue tofill the Professional Activities calendar. We have successfully
settled both the Union and ex-Presidents’ cases, which ended
an enormous bleed on our resources and has helped make theClub feel more like one family again.
Financially, however, we continue to face huge challenges
and the multiple hefty decisions the Club is tasked to makewill define its future.
The Club is in financial trouble, a picture that contradicts
the last BOD financial report that declared a ¥30 million
plus “profit” for 2014. This “profit” was actually due to a
one-time ¥20 million paper adjustment regarding long-term
depreciation required by koeki rules combined with theinclusion of a ¥10 million capital gain on employee retirement
fund investments as Club income. In practical terms, however,we were up to ¥7 million in the red, according to an analysis by
the finance committee.
Our budget for FY2016 projects a loss of ¥8 million. This
year’s finance committee reports that with the Special Levy of¥23 million reserved for our move to the Club’s new locationin October 2018, we are already over ¥30 million in the hole.
Certain steps have been taken to cope: Currently we are in
the process of negotiating a new contract with IRS and areconsidering other ideas that will help to put the Club back inthe black for the next two-and-a-half years.
This year’s Board has reserved the Special Levy solely forpaying the costs of moving to the new building, which may be
as high as ¥100 million. We calculate there will be ¥83 million
in this fund by the end of FY2018. This board has also spenta considerable amount of time debating the huge increase
in rent the FCCJ will be required to pay for the new larger
premises. Another major target for this year has been toincrease membership, which is now at 1,920. New members
are important to cope with the increase in spending when wemove into the new Club.
The possibility of raising tax-free donations – one of
the benefits of FCCJ becoming a koeki – has also becomea reality. This is a formidable task that is currently been
discussed by some of our dedicated members – and aforemost concern is protecting the journalistic character of
the FCCJ. Donations are tax deductible in part.
Summing up, these problems I’ve outlined require extreme
vigilance now and over the coming years to restore andbolster our financial stability. Any Member who has helpful
suggestions or wishes to help, should not hesitate to contact
Club management. We welcome all as proactive stakeholders
in our future.
I end now with a big thank you extended to all the Members
and officers who have worked so hard this year. And I wish the
new Board the best of luck in their endeavors to move forward.
– Suvendrini Kakuchi
4

Projected temperature increaseover next 100 years in Japan(global projection 1.8-3.4)

403.2814
16
287.0

THE DIGITAL DUO

2-3°C

Parts per million of global CO2,
highest in 650,000 years

Temperature rise in large Japanesecities over the 20th century

1.4°C

warmest years on the planet
have occurred since 2000

Increase in global temperaturesince 1880

1°C

Temperature rise in Japan overthe 20th century

Gigatonnes of land ice lost per year

5.5

10
861
4.1 million

Number of days earlier that cherry
blossoms bloom over last 25 years

Number of meters glaciers havethinned since 1980

12-13%

Projected decrease in Japan’s total
production of paddy rice by 2050

Square kilometers of Japan’s coastal
lowlands below the mean high-water level-17.6%

Deviation from the national average in
top quality rice in 2010’s record heat year

Number of people at risk if sea levels
rise by 1 meter¥17,000,
000,
000

FROM THE ARCHIVES

70%

Cost of climatechange to
Japan in yen
per year by2100 if nothingchangesNature Publishing Group, NASA, United Nations University,
Meteorological Agency, Ministry of the Environment

JUNE 2016

FCCJ

FCCJ

Projected decline in catches ofcoastal fish off Japan by 2100

JUNE 2016

Noted conductor Herbert von Karajan (left) and Sony Chairman
Akio Morita (right) appeared at the FCCJ on Nov. 9, 1981, to extol
the virtues of a new digital format for music, the compact disc(CD). Seated between them, and no doubt raising a question, isClub Treasurer Karel van Wolferen (NRC Handelsblad), standingin as moderator for FCCJ President Edwin Reingold (Time) who
was on a trip to China. Karel was selected to wield the gavel due
to his knowledge of classical music.
Herbert von Karajan made a huge number of recordings,
estimated at some 200,000. An Austrian, he led the Berlin
Philharmonic for 35 years from the mid-1950s and became
the pre-eminent figure in European classical music until his
death in 1989. He was recruited by Philips as an “ambassador”
for CD records in 1979 and the first test pressing of the newformat was made from his music.
Akio Morita, who co-founded Sony with Masaru Ibuka, aformer Imperial Navy colleague, had overseen the developmentof tape recorders, transistor radios, transistor TVs and the
Walkman as well as collaborating in the development of thecompact disc. His follow-up to that was the Discman. Akio
Morita gave up his position in Sony in 1994 following a cerebral
hemorrhage while playing tennis. He died in 1999.
Coincidentally, Karel’s fellow Dutchmen at Philips inAmsterdam had supplied the basic technology, developed
from their earlier LaserDisc, as part of a collaborative teamformed in 1979 to develop this new digital audio technology.
The other members of the team came from Sony, known
for its innovative audio products, who contributed error
correction and stability technology. Both had independently
worked on CD technology in the last half of the 1970s, butwisely decided to combine their efforts.
Sales of audio compact discs overtook those of vinyl records
in 1988 and cassettes in 1991. CD sales dominated until 2015,
when they lost out to an even more compact digital musicformat in the form of the MP3 that had begun to spread on theinternet in the late 1990s. File-sharing, followed by the launchof the portable iPod in 2001, began the slow death CDs. By
2012, CDs and DVDs comprised only one-third of music sales in
the U.S., although strong sales in Japan continued until 2015.

— Charles Pomeroy
5

Fighting back
IMPORTANT LINKSInternational Declaration on theProtection of Journalists
www.freemedia.at/internationaldeclaration-on-the-protection-ofjournalists/
UNESCO website:www.unesco.org/new/en/
communication-and-information/
freedom-of-expression/pressfreedom/
UNESCO background documents
including UN Plan of Action on
the Safety of Journalists and theIssue of Impunity
http://en.unesco.org/world-pressfreedom-day-2016

Journalists need new skills to be effective
watchdogs for the public and ward off shackles
on press freedom
by WILLIAM HORSLEY

J

ournalists everywhere need to wake up to the new normal:
states all around the world are using anti-terrorism, state
security and other laws to constrain, harass or lock up questioning journalists. They need to up their game in response.
That message has been voiced by, among others, Peter
Greste, the Al Jazeera journalist imprisoned for a year in Egypt
on spurious terrorism charges. Greste and his two jailed colleagues were freed thanks to international pressures and a
massive social media campaign under the hashtag #FreeAJStaff. But he argues that U.S. President George W. Bush’s
Manichean doctrine – that “you are with us or with the terrorists” – removed at a stroke the neutral ground which journalists need to do their work.
JUNE 2016

FCCJ

The extent and violence of the intrusion into the media’s
freedom to report varies from state to state, but the same
pattern can be seen almost everywhere. The chilling effect onopen debate and civil society has been dramatic.
Egypt’s harsh repression of inquiring journalism makes it
impossible, for example, to get to the truth behind the abduction and murder in Cairo this year of the Italian civil rights
researcher Giulio Regeni, who the authorities claim was killed
by a criminal gang but whose torture and death seem to bear
the brutal hallmarks of the work of Egypt’s security forces.
In Turkey, President Erdogan has openly trashed his country’s commitments to press freedom by exerting personalpressure on media owners to sack critical journalists, while
presiding over the widespread misuse of anti-terrorism laws
to criminalize their work and prosecute them. The recent jailsentences given to two top editors of Cumhuriyet newspaper,
Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, over their exposure of a suspected arms shipment to Islamists in Syria, is one example ofTurkey’s open defiance of its obligations under the European
Convention on Human Rights.
IN COMPARISON, RECENT COMPLAINTS in Japan about
threats to press freedom, including the abrupt sacking of
three inquisitorial TV presenters, may appear trivial. But thesweeping language and arbitrary powers contained in the
recent special secrets law, and the public acknowledgement
FCCJ

JUNE 2016

by the NHK chairman, Katsuto Momii, of governmental
influence on editorial decisions at the national broadcaster, have worrying parallels with moves that have led
towards the stifling of press
freedom in Turkey, Russia
and other places.
Journalists in regions of
the highest risk have shown
resourcefulness in fighting
back. Colombian journalists,
working with state authorities, have developed an
emergency protection mechanism that has saved hundreds of lives. In Pakistan,where 120 journalists were
killed in the past 15 years,
editors recently agreed to
put aside their old divisions,and are now cooperating todenounce and investigate allserious threats and attacks
against media workers. The
level of attacks appears to
Speaking out
have subsequently eased.
Turkish journalists
In the UK, meanwhile,
cover theirnational newspaper editors
mouths withjointly confronted the governgags to protest
ment to demand stronger legal
the trial ofprotections for confidential
Can Dundar
journalistic sources afterand Erdem Gulrevelations of widespreadoutside thepolice snooping on journalcourthouse inists’ telephone records.
Istanbul on
Until now, many media
April 1, 2016.
houses have been strangely
reluctant to speak out about
the worsening environment for their own profession. But
this year the World Association of Newspapers (WAN-IFRA)
declared that in the face of the rise in violent attacks andstates’ efforts to demean or demonize journalists’ work,
the time has come to “get out and engage with others” andactively defend journalists who face danger because they
expose repression, corruption and crime.
UN agencies, led by UNESCO and backed by enlightened
governments and non-governmental organizations, haveelevated the protection of free expression and journalists’safety to matters of high priority, acknowledging the wider
damage done to societies from judicial harassment, targetedsurveillance, jailings, physical attacks and killings of journalists. Media houses and journalists are being encouraged
to enact sustained strategies of their own to help turn the
tide. But often the media are seen as behind the curve, slow
to accept that they are no longer above the fray but a key part– and often a target – in a global battle for free speech andaccountable government.
UNESCO’s monitoring shows that in the past 10 years morethan 800 journalists have been killed, and in nine out of 10
cases the perpetrators have escaped justice. After years of
tough diplomacy, the UN Action Plan on the Safety of Journalists and Issue of Impunity, launched in 2012, has spawned
a host of helpful projects in regions where journalists’ safety
is most at threat, like Latin America, the Arab world and Paki7

AP PHOTO

ON PRESS FREEDOM
6

A look at
the state ofjournalism at
a time when
independent
media arecaught up inskirmishes withauthorities
across Asia –and the world.

FEATURE
ON PRESS FREEDOM
stan. Landmark rulings in the human rights courts of Europe,
the Americas and Africa have also held up the repressive
actions of states to international censure.
THE INTERNATIONAL CONSORTIUM OF Investigative Journalists’ exposé of the Panama Papers and the StopFake website’s
exposure of fake information about events in Ukraine areexamples of smart journalistic cooperation.
Editors, media owners and journalists should pay attention to all this. They are in the frontline of challenging all
forms of censorship and the attempt by states to control theinformation space.
To work effectively in the new hostile environment journalists
need to develop new skills – to protect their online and physical security, expose disinformation, and secure real benefits
from the enhanced protections that are now enshrined in international law but often ignored. Last December’s International
Declaration on the Protection of Journalists by representativesof international media – convened by the International Press
Institute and others – also pointed to the need for journalists to understand international human rights standards andmechanisms, to equip them to investigate and report effectively on injustices in the name of the public’s right to know.
This is no time for journalists to look the other way or be
cynical about what they do. Media silence only helps those
who would perpetuate systematic abuses. Solidarity and there-tooling of journalistic skills are needed for the press toreport the stories the public most needs to know about. And
that means saying “No” to the patronage of governments thatwould prefer a house-trained, docile media. ❶thumb.” When the regime got its first internet connection in
2010, he had a chance to combine his tech knowledge withcoverage of events there.
The site attracts around 30,000 visits a month, but it’s a highquality readership. The majority are researchers, academics,
reporters and government officials who also follow Williams
on Twitter. There are even a couple of followers in Pyongyang,although he suspects they may be foreign residents.
Marcus Noland, a senior fellow at the Washington-basedPeterson Institute for International Economics and a close
follower of developments in North Korea, said South Korea’s
decision to block the site is a “disconcerting nadir.”“In a world in which many pass off blather for analysis, Martyn’s blog is fact-based and highly informative,”
he wrote on his own blog. “The Commission which implemented the ban didn’t even bother to inform Williams of theblock and has provided no specific reason for the action.
The implications for other information sources, including
this one, are chilling.”

William Horsley is a former BBC Tokyo bureau chief and now
international director of CFOM, the Centre for Freedom of the Media
at the University of Sheffield (www.cfom.org.uk). CFOM is a partner of
UNESCO, the lead UN agency for the UN Action Plan on the Safety of
Journalists and the Issue of Impunity.

AFTER LEARNING THAT THE website was being blocked inSouth Korea, Williams contacted Jiwon Sohn, a lawyer basedin Seoul who is active in internet censorship. Sohn was able
to confirm that the block had been instituted at the requestof the National Intelligence Service. “It’s completely ridiculous,” Williams said. “Do they really feel this is a threat to thenational security of South Korea?”
He adds, however, that he was not surprised when his
appeal, filed by the civil organization Open Net, was turned
down. His lawyer confirmed that most of the handful of
appeals that the committee hears each year end in failure.
In upholding the ban, the commission singled out threearticles: a story about a space-watcher’s inability to locate thesatellite the North Koreans claimed to have put into orbit, askeptical piece on the North’s claim that its cell-phone operator had reached 3 million subscribers, and one on the completion of a satellite command center. The commission claimed

All thatremains

The blocking
message when
the North Korea
Tech site isaccessed fromSouth Korea

Three representatives from Tokyo’s most fearless publications
pointed to self-censorship and lack of interest as reasons for thesad state of hard-hitting journalism in Japan

A journalist’s website focused on North Korean technology is dubbed
a security risk – and blocked – by South Korean internet censors

by GAVIN BLAIR

by JULIAN RYALL

8

Williams says he was stunned when, in April, he began to
get tweets from regular visitors to the site in South Korea
saying they were unable to access it. “South Korea is pretty
authoritarian when it comes to internet censorship, but I was
surprised that they had suddenly decided my site offended
them,” he said. “It’s been up for six years, is solely in English and clearly isn’t glorifying North Korea. I had always
assumed the censors were a little more discerning and could
tell the difference between propaganda and analysis. But
maybe not.”Williams started the site after a reporting trip to North
Korea that sparked his fascination with the country and “theway the regime manages to keep 23 million people under its
JUNE 2016

FCCJTNORTHKOREATECH.ORG

U

Julian Ryall is Japan correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.

Standing tallSouth Korea’s internet crackdown

K journalist Martyn Williams is planning to take on
South Korea’s notorious National Security Law incourt after the government dismissed an appeal
against the blocking of his website, “North Korea Tech.”
The blocked site has earned a dedicated following for its
wide-ranging news from the country, ranging from internet
activity through Pyongyang’s use of technology, the statecontrolled media, the military and economic issues. Williams, senior correspondent with IDG News Service basedin California and a former president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, learned on May 3 that his appeal
to have the block lifted had been turned down by the Korea
Communications Standards Commission.

they were “praising, inciting, or glamorizing the North Korean activities” and were in violation of article 7 of the National
Security Law. It also accused the site of being a threat byintroducing North Korean websites along with links.
South Korea’s Media Today reported that the three out of fivemembers of the commission who voted against lifting the banwere named to the panel by the ruling party, while the two who
voted to repeal the ban were recommended by the opposition.
Cho Young-ki, one of the commissioners who voted to
uphold the ban hinted after the hearing that the North
Korean government might be behind the site. “Citing North
Korea’s propaganda activity makes the decision reasonable,”he said. Cho, a professor at Korea University's Department ofNorth Korean Studies, also said, “We should ponder why a UK
citizen has a deep interest in North Korea.”
Williams says he’s not even going to bother replying tothat one. And the next step, he says, is a legal challenge.
“At this stage, the fight becomes more interesting,” he said.
“Unblocking North Korea Tech is of course the goal, but alawsuit could help to define what is and isn’t allowed under
the National Security Law.
“Ever since the internet, things have gotten a little confused. For example, can it really be illegal to link to North
Korean material rather than republish it?” he said. “I hope
this lawsuit will fulfill a bigger role of pushing back against
heavy-handed censorship in general.”
Ironically, technology has made the South Korean government’s ban effectively useless, with anyone with a VPN connection able to get around Seoul’s censors. And to heap irony
on that irony, North Korea Tech is freely available in North
Korea, the world’s least free society. In its latest Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders placed North Korea
in 179th place. Only Eritrea was lower in the rankings – andWilliams is pretty sure that North Korea Tech is freely available there as well. ❶he Japanese media has been accused of pusillanimity inthe face of recent pressure from the Abe government,
and for traditionally having less inclination to tell truth
to power than its counterparts elsewhere. On May 18, a trio ofjournalists for whom such timidity is not an issue came to theClub for a roundtable talk about their own experiences andthe current Japanese media landscape.
Shigeo Abe is the founder and publisher of FACTA, the subscription-only investigative business monthly that came to thenotice of many by breaking the story that would lead to the
Olympus scandal. Abe continues to do the kind of in-depth
reporting sorely lacking these days – not only in the Japanese
media, but also in much of the world. Before the session, atranslation of an April FACTA article on the Nikkei newspaper
group’s recent takeover of the Financial Times was handed
FCCJ

JUNE 2016

out. The article details how the deal was partly funded by thegovernment-owned Japan Bank for International Cooperation,suggests the Abe regime was a force behind the acquisitionand claims the Nikkei has no realistic prospect of making a
return on the investment or paying off the debt it has accrued.
Shukan Bunshun has become the Japanese weekly to watch
this year, scooping the competition and breaking big stories
on betting by baseball players and pop institution SMAP’s
near break-up, as well as bringing about the resignation of
economic minister and Abe ally Akira Amari over a bribery
scandal. Much of the credit for the series of circulationboosting scoops has gone to Editor-in-Chief Manabu Shintani, who pointed out that the more mainstream media deliberately avoided such stories.
“The newspapers and TV stations aren’t in good shape9

FEATURE
ON PRESS FREEDOM“The mentality ofyoung journalists is lessaggressive and rebellious
than ours used to be”

financially, so it’s a business decision not to have reporters chaserisky stories, which are expensive
and can lead to legal action,” said
Shintani. The biggest celebrities
managed by the major jimusho (talent agencies) are usually “untouchable” for the TV stations in terms ofnegative coverage due to fear of reprisals, he said, including
having stars from the roster of the same agency pulled fromthe offending network.
The three journalists stated they had never caved to pressure by the government, and two of them recounted instances when they were targeted.
Shintani said a member of the prime minister’s office telephoned him over the Amari articles. “I got a call from someone
saying that the person who gave Amari the money was also a
bad guy, so we should take it easy in what we write about theminister. I replied that taking money from a bad guy is worse
and they kind of acknowledged that was true,” said Shintani.
“We went ahead and ran the articles as planned.”
FACTA’s Abe said he was approached directly by a wellknown former minister and pressured to stop writing articles about the alleged organized crime links of a public figure, though he refused to do so. (Abe named the individual
involved, but requested it be kept off record.)
The three journalists expressed varying degrees of skepticism about reports from international organizations, such
as Reporters Without Borders, that have downgraded Japan’spress freedom rankings, and all cited self-censorship as the
major issue.
Maki Tahara, who writes for the Tokuhobu section of Tokyo
Shimbun, which is known for its outspokenly critical features on government and big business, pointed to shifts inthe character of both reporters and readers as other factors.
“The mentality of young journalists is less aggressive andrebellious than ours used to be. It’s part of a societal trend. . . reporters are not a special breed apart from everyoneelse. It’s a headache for me,” said Tahara, who suggested theirreadership was also less interested
in scoops and articles bashing thegovernment than in the past.
Abe also expressed dismay at thelack of temerity among much of thedomestic media. “I was at the Mitsubishi Motors press conference atthe transport ministry and noneof the reporters asked the questions they should have been
asking,” he said. “The most important question was about
whether or not the head of R&D actually knew about the falsification of the fuel efficiency tests, whether he was lying.
None of the 200 journalists there asked that question.” Abe
was not allowed to ask questions, as he is not a member ofthe ministry’s kisha club and was attending as an “observer.”
Moderator Tetsuo Jimbo pointed out that the kisha club system has become more restrictive again under the Abe regime,
after being relaxed under the previous Democratic Party ofJapan government, when non-club members were allowed toask questions.
Regarding the comments in February by communications
minister Sanae Takaichi that TV networks could have theirlicenses revoked for broadcasting “biased political reports,”
Shintani chided the media for its tame response. Shintani
said he told colleagues in the TV industry that they shouldlook into Takaichi’s background and run reports on her, or
start programs titled “Testing the Broadcast Suspension
Limits.” Shukan Bunshun’s own response was to run an article
titled “Why we Hate Takaichi.”Asked about whether there were any taboo subjects evenfor the seemingly fearless Shukan Bunshun, Shintani conceded that negative articles about the imperial family werepretty much off-limits. “It’s because it would provoke a loss oftrust from our readers and the wider population rather than
the threat from nationalists . . . we are a Japanese magazine
and we love Japan.” ❶Gavin Blair covers Japanese business, society and culture forpublications in America, Asia, and Europe.

The state vs. the Japanese press
Monitors from the UN and Reporters Without Borders find Japan’spress facing increasing threats to independence
by JUSTIN McCURRY

M

edia independence in Japan is under “serious threat”
from the government, according to a senior UN official, who called for legislative changes and the abolition of the press club system to enable journalists to fulfill
their watchdog role.
Speaking at the FCCJ on April 19, David Kaye, the UN’s special rapporteur on freedom of expression, said senior staff
at media organizations were steering clear of certain issues
that could cause discomfort to the prime minister, Shinzo
Abe, and other senior politicians. “The independence of thepress is facing serious threats: a weak system of legal protection, persistent government exploitation of a media lacking
in professional solidarity,” Kaye said.
Newspapers and broadcast journalists told Kaye – on con10

dition of anonymity – that they sometimes felt they had nochoice but to exercise self-restraint in reporting sensitive
issues such as the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Kaye, who spent a week in Japan meeting journalists, government officials and pressure groups, cited therecent controversy surrounding the internal affairs minister, Sanae Takaichi, who warned that broadcasters that
repeatedly failed to show “fairness” in their political coverage, despite official warnings, could be taken off the air.
A clause in the broadcast law allows the internal affairs
minister to suspend broadcasting that does not maintain
political neutrality.
“This is a big problem . . . that the broadcasting act allows
the government to regulate the media,” Kaye said. “And
JUNE 2016

FCCJ

Increasing
concern

David Kaye,the UN’s special
rapporteur on
freedom of
expression,
speaking at
the Clubso is the suggestion that it could
be used, like a sword of Damocles
hanging over broadcasters, to suspend their licenses.”“I think the kisha clubs
should be abolished . . .
they’re a hindrance tomedia freedom in Japan”

KAYE SAID THE PRINT media felt similarly embattled, with management“encouraging” journalists not tocover sensitive stories or those that could stoke anger among
government officials.
He said the kisha club system fostered an unhealthy relationship between journalists and the government and corporate bodies they cover, adding that it could be used as aconduit for applying pressure on journalists “that is difficult
to resist.” “It is normal for there to be tension between the
media and the government, but the way the Japanese media
is structured doesn’t give journalists the opportunity to pushback,” said Kaye, who will present a full report to the UN’s
Human Rights Council next year.
“I think the kisha clubs should be abolished. They foster akind of access journalism and undermine investigative journalism. I think they’re a hindrance to media freedom in Japan.”
Kisha clubs, however, are only part of the problem, Kaye
added, pointing to reports of semi-clandestine meetings
between Abe and senior media executives, and the lack ofsolidarity among journalists working for rival organizations.
“The media bears some responsibility for the situation andhas a role in putting it right,” he said. “The law and the media
together can protect freedom of the press.”
Kaye’s appearance at the FCCJ came a day before publication of this year’s Reporters Without Borders’ world press
freedom index, in which Japan came 72nd out of 180 countries, 11 places down from last year.
RWB said that the “latest disturbing sign of governmentpressure on the media” was NHK’s dismissal of presenter
Hiroko Kuniya, “which has caused widespread dismay among
journalists.” Her unscripted questioning of chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, in July 2014 was cited as one of the reasons for the termination of her contract in March, RWB noted.
KUNIYA’S DEPARTURE CAME AROUND the same time as thoseof Shigetada Kishii, anchor of the “News 23” program on TBS,
who had criticized the proposed security legislation, and Ichiro Furutachi, presenter of TV Asahi’s “Hodo Station,” known
for giving government officials a rough ride.
FCCJ

JUNE 2016

RWB said Japanese media had
become overly cautious since thestate secrets act went into force
in December 2014. The “rather
vague” category of state secrets “isprotected by a very harsh law that
deters journalists from embarking on investigations,” it said. “The
Fukushima nuclear disaster, the imperial family’s personal
lives and the defense of Japan are all ‘state secrets.’”
The entry into force of the state secrets act, under which
whistleblowers and journalists who cooperate with them
face prison terms, was another example of the pressure
Japanese journalists have faced since Abe took office in late2012, Kaye said.
While no one has been prosecuted under the law, the suggestion that divulging any part of a large, eclectic – and so
far ill-defined – body of information deemed secret would
automatically discourage journalists from digging around.
“Government officials assured me that journalists would not
be prosecuted,” Kaye said. “But they need legal protection,
not political promises.”
Weaker protection for whistleblowers meant journalists
would lose access to sources for important stories, he added.
“In the long term, it is the people of Japan who suffer fromlack of access to information.”
Kaye had been due to visit Japan last December, but officials in Tokyo abruptly canceled his trip, citing schedulingproblems. He had requested a meeting with Takaichi during his visit in April, but was told that she was busy with her
duties in the Diet.
Despite allegations on social media that Kaye had comewith preconceptions fed to him by disgruntled foreign
reporters, he said his encounters with Japanese journalists
had given him genuine cause for concern. “I came here with
an open mind . . . not a blank slate, but a willingness to beopen to all perspectives,” he said. “Having spoken to journalists who feel under more pressure by the day, my concerns
have grown stronger.
“Now is the moment for Japan to take steps to secure its
independent media.” ❶Justin McCurry is Tokyo correspondent for the Guardian and Observer
newspapers in London and principal Japan and Korea correspondent for
Global Post.
11

SERIESPROFILE

Said Karlsson
by TYLER ROTHMARTo call Said Karlsson a photographer and writer is notinaccurate, but it is entirely insufficient. Karlsson is
curious in both senses, a juggler of disparate hobbies
and skills with strong artistic leanings for whom independence is paramount.
He was born in Malmö, Sweden, in 1982 and raised in Norrköping, southwest of Stockholm, by a hard-working single
mother. “When I wanted my first computer, my mother said,‘I can’t afford a computer. If you want one, you have to work.’
So I managed to get a job in a video game store in my hometown. That’s how I learned how tohustle,” he says. Finding ways tomonetize personal interests has
been a hallmark of his modus operandi ever since.
Karlsson got into photographyduring his last year of high school
and was shooting for the youth
section of the local newspaper by
the time he was 18. He moved to Stockholm the day after
high school graduation and began working for Metro, thefirst free newspaper in Europe. Sensing how competitive
the media business was becoming, he armed himself with a
one-year course in reportage writing at Tollare, a vocational
school outside the capital known for journalism.
Like Norrköping, Stockholm proved “too small” for Said,
prompting a move to Berlin in 2007, where he exhausted hissavings looking for work amid the city’s
many artists. He returned to Sweden to
photograph musicians before landing his
first “real job” writing about tech and video
games for a now-defunct agency called PM.
“It was pretty free, and I could do it fromanywhere as long as I delivered what they
expected every day, so I came to Japan,
because I’ve always felt drawn to it,” hesays, citing early Japanese video games asa particular draw.

respondence at Mid Sweden University. “Basically computerscience,” he says. “I spent a year in Sweden learning how tocode. Actually, I have been running a small software company besides doing all this journalism. I’ve made a couple ofgames.” The plot thickens.
As it turns out, from his teenage years Karlsson has beenan adept at, perhaps even a devotee of, the Japanese video
game “Dance Dance Revolution,” a large arcade game where
players advance by stepping on colored floor sensors to thetiming of increasingly complex tunes. “I got really obsessedwith this game, and I even imported
a big arcade machine from Japan to
Sweden” at no small cost, he says.

ANDREW POTHECARY“I don’t like writing. I see
it as a way to be able to do
everything else that I love
about being a journalist”

12

JUNE 2016

FCCJ

HE MET AMERICAN PROGRAMMER
Matt Scott in Tokyo, and the two
decided to make a similar game forthe iPhone where the fingers take theplace of the feet. In January of 2011,
with the gift of free music from friends and no budget whatsoever, they produced Rhythm Control, which shot to the No. 1
slot for music games on Apple’s App Store in Japan. They used
the profits to start a small Sweden-based firm called Daikonsoft, which Karlsson now owns entirely, and eventually produced a sequel. Rhythm Control 2 can still be enjoyed for freeand passed half a million downloads last year.
Now back in Japan once again, Karlsson shoots and writes
reportage pieces for TT, Scandinavia’alargest news agency, covering a variety ofhuman-interest topics, most recently the
progress of LGBT rights in Japan. “I really
don’t like writing,” he says. “I see it as away to be able to do everything else that
I love about being a journalist,” such as
meeting people, traveling, taking photographs and doing research. “The writing
is a necessary evil.”He draws photography inspiration from“the old classic street photographers,”
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, and the
KARLSSON BOUNCED BETWEEN KOREA,
Swedish photographer Christer StrömChina and Japan on tourist visas, eventualholm. He has an eye for natural, spontaly finding himself back in Sweden searchneous moments, and often uses a smaller,
ing for ways to move to Japan long-term.
more discreet camera: “I shoot from the
He settled on Japanese language school
hip sometimes.” His street fashion blog
in Tokyo in 2010, while also stringing for
tokyofaces.com, although semi-dormant,
Sweden’s Sydsvenskan newspaper.
still gets regular traffic and remains a
The day after the 3/11 disaster, he quit
source of new clients, he says.
school and began freelancing for various Swedish news outKarlsson’s photos have appeared in a variety of places, fromlets and doing internet video interviews. He later stayed with
Bloomberg to Pecha Kucha to the cover of a recent Swedisha family in temporary housing in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Preedition of the Haruki Murakami novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazafecture, on the first anniversary of the disaster. “It’s always
ki and His Years of Pilgrimage, a shot taken in Shinjuku. He’s
been my thing to talk with people after other press has left,”now moving toward video production out of personal interest
he says, leaving the hard news to the large agencies andas well as increasing demand from clients.
focusing instead on people and their experiences.
Speaking with Karlsson for a while, one gets the sense he may
Karlsson helped the FCCJ build and run its new website
have still more hobbies, facets we’ve yet to touch on. “Actually,”
in 2013, and in the winter of 2014 moved back to Sweden to
he says, as our time is winding down, “I
finish a degree in informatics he had
Tyler Rothmar is a Tokyo-based writer and editor.
have been DJing quite a lot . . .” ❶been chipping away at through corFCCJ

JUNE 201613

Flotsam, jetsam and Uncle Sam

Kobe to offer his services as a lecturer on Russian affairs. The Count flourished letters of credit practicable in America and Madrid, backed by a friendly note from theEquerry to the Duke of Connaught but, perhaps because they lacked the imprimaturof, say, British Lion Films, the Count’s bona fides failed to impress, and he and his
lecture series left suddenly, also for Shanghai.
But Hartman and the Count were small time. Perhaps the most remarkableaspect of their adventures was the amount of space the English-language newspapers gave them.

Tales of con men in Taisho Japan resonate because they betrayed theinsecurity that sometimes appears at the heart of expatriate life
by PETER O’CONNOR

HARDY PERENNIAL“P

ersonally I can see nopoints whatever in tropicallife,” wrote Britain’s firstpress magnate, Lord Northcliffe,
in his account of the round-theworld cruise that took him to
Japan and China in 1921:

Lord Northcliffe looks on“Now and then I get aless merchant of Kobe, Edward
Hyde Burton, offers a job to an
old bridge partner fallen on hardtimes, on condition he completes a “rather difficult” threemile swim from the Shioya Clubto the creek at Tarumi. Whenhis old associate drowns, Burton explains, “Well, I hadn’t got
a vacancy in my office at the
moment.”Both stories, first publishedin 1925, reflect an ambivalence
about the true value of expatriate status. Who really wants tobe a big fish in a small pond?
Maugham’s phenomenal sales
figures among the Anglophonesettlers in East Asia indicate
that, however viciously he twisted the knife, his readers bought
into this ambivalence, and may
have even enjoyed reading about their inner guppy.

peep into a bungalow and

The only people I find who likeit are (1) Scotsmen, who will go
anywhere in the world, makemoney, and settle down. . . . (2)People who at home would occupy humble positions, but are able
to figure here as Under-Secretaries, Members of the Council, andthe rest of it. (The social status
in these little communities issteam-rollered down to exact
accuracy). (3) People, including
missionaries, who come with asense of duty. . . . (4) Suburban
folks, who, instead of having one
little household drudge, bloom
into petty magnificence begotten of the obsequiousness of fouror five Orientals.

see a white lady within . . .

clothed in her bedraggled
dressing gown”

THE TREATY PORT PECKING ORDER

When Northcliffe died in August 1923, he was convinced that
By the turn of the century, the settled communities of YokohaGerman spies were poisoning his ice cream, so he may not havema and Kobe had established a tight pecking order headed bybeen right on the money, but his further reflection, “Now andmerchants, minor Treaty Port consuls, clergy and schoolteachthen I get a peep into a bungalow and see a white lady within
ers, with a flotsam of resting actors, abortionists, counterfeit. . . clothed in her bedraggled dressing gown” could have comeers, beachcombers, and elopers. Journalists and whores seem tostraight from Somerset Maugham’s vinegary pen.
have occupied a more ambiguous space, swanning around the
Despite the enormous success of their trading houses,
higher reaches but feeding at the bottom according to necessity.
the lasting achievements of their engineers, builders andBetween the two groups – the one established, the othermany writers and the enquiring spirit of their newspapers,transient – esprit de corps required that a deep insularity be
the association of the foreign communities of East Asia withmaintained towards all new arrivals, especially those with aboredom, jumped-up mediocrity and, above all, with failure,
positive impression of their new home, who would be treated
has gathered the force of truism.
with the utmost suspicion until they saw the light.
Few interwar writers stayed long enough in Asia to write inany depth about the foreign communities there. Compared to
MOST MINOR FOREIGN CROOKS preferred to put the bite on
Kipling and Conrad before him, or in his day, Maurice Collis andthe Japanese, but some, like Leonard Hartman, “Manager of(with gritted teeth) George Orwell and Forster, Maugham was
British Lion Films of Elstree,” over in Kobe to “investigate
only an occasional visitor East of Suez. But both the drifters
conditions,” mixed up a blend of hard-luck and prejudice
and the pillars of the foreign communities of East Asia comebound to touch the heart of even the flintiest expatriate.
out worse in his writings than in any of his contemporaries’.
Hartman’s line was that he had just arrived in Kobe (or YokoEither the degeneracy of the unsettled rebukes the prosperhama or Nagasaki or Hakodate) when he met a “well-dressed”
ity of the settled community, or the pillars of the community
Japanese who drugged him and made off with $600 Canadianare shown as heartless frauds. In The Taipan, after a slap-up
and a diamond ring. On the strength of this tale of “Oriental
lunch at his bank, Maugham’s prosperous executive of Shangduplicity,” Hartman managed to renew his fortunes several
hai, once a callow “griffin” fresh from the London suburbs,
times over before he was seen onto the next ship to Shanghai.
experiences a hallucinatory reckoning with the ghosts of old
In the summer of 1918, the Count de Toulouse Lautrec deShanghailanders in the English
Savine, a Russian General once
Peter O’Connor writes and lectures on the international media
cemetery. In A Friend in Need,in the suite of H.R.H. Arthur thehistory of East Asia.
Maugham’s cheerfully ruthDuke of Connaught dropped into
14

JUNE 2016

FCCJ

For a more significant impostor, and one whose motives were far more opaque andwhose imposture aroused what now reads like a surplus hostility in the foreign community, let us turn to the sometime Captain William Howard Hardy (1836-1918).
Between July 1853 and March 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry led two naval
expeditions to Japan, ending her isolation and securing the Kanagawa Treaty. Perry died within a few years of his final expedition and so was not in a position toappreciate the return to Japan of a “former crewmember, one William Hardy, nowa regular Captain.”
When Hardy visited Japan in 1917, it was as the last surviving link with the
Perry Expeditions, and he was wined and speeched and honored by everyone
from the Emperor down, as if to make up for any shortcomings in the greeting
given him and his commanding officer 64 years earlier. Described by the Japan
Chronicle as “a tall, patriarchal figure with a long white beard, clad incongruously as a sailor with bell-bottomed trousers and looking for all the world like
Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner,” Captain Hardy impressed all who met him withhis USS Mississippi sailor’s cap, his tales of derring-do and the eight pieces ofsurgeon’s silver replacing the ribs he had lost in the Civil War and the Spanish-

Hardy put a gun to his head, but the bullet
only punctured his starboard ear.
American War. When Hardy was taken to the beach at Kurigahama where theExpedition had landed back on July 14, 1853, the clarity of his recollections was amarvel and a blessing to witness.
Not long after he had returned to his native Seattle, Captain Hardy applied formembership of the Veterans Association there. The club secretary duly sent off to
the Naval Department in Washington for a copy of his service record. After a reply
came stating that the Department had no service record for a William Hardy, he
was arrested and charged with misrepresentation.
In Japan, there were red faces among Hardy’s sponsors at the American consulate. Back in Seattle, Hardy put a gun to his head, but the bullet only punctured his
starboard ear.
After his botched suicide attempt, little more was heard of Hardy.
Captain Hardy’s failed deception belongs somewhere between grandiose delusion and second-rate fiction. In a novel his character would have hampered thesuspension of disbelief. In life, the community that granted him credibility felt
badly let down by his failure to bring authenticity and value to their lives.
Michael Heyward once wrote, in the context of the Ern Malley affair, “A good
hoax is like a snapshot of the Zeitgeist.” For a few months in 1917, a crowd of people
who should have known better bought into William Hardy’s fantasy about his partin the expedition that changed Japan forever. When his story fell apart, they wereleft to contemplate their own gullibility, and many were deeply unhappy.
Their reaction demonstrated a fundamental lack of assurance, which is odd,
because, although they were ultimately powerless, the position of the foreigncommunities in pre-war Japan and China was ultimately stronger than that ofBritain’s far more domineering minorities in Malaya and India, for it rested moreon individual achievement than on imperial diktat.
Whatever Maugham wrote or Northcliffe thought, the foreign settler communities of their day were no worse and no less successful than people anywhere. But
in letting Captain Hardy get under their skin, the foreign communities of Japan
betrayed the insecurity that sometimes appears at the heart of expatriate life inJapan. Perhaps the mediocrity driving the Captain’s claim to a walk-on part intheir own early history irritated the foreign community so violently because it
sounded such a strong echo of their own. ❶FCCJJUNE 2016

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

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

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

15

URBAN ISSUESCLUB NEWSA young mayor attempts to lead a struggling
Hokkaido city out of bankruptcy

In the wake of the recovery plan,
Hokkaido issued low-interest loans
to Yubari. According to Suzuki, thecentral government set aside some¥100 billion for regional revitalization,of which Yubari received ¥77.7 million.
“There’s a limit to the comprehensive
finances of the government,” he said.

A tale of too many cities
by DAN SLOAN“Yubari is financially stricken, but we’re repaying ¥67 of debt every second.
Japan, at the same time, is incurring ¥825,000 in new debt every second. I
support the government policy that regions need to come up with their own
solutions to their problems. The point is that the central government hasn’t comeup with its own solutions.”– Yubari Mayor Naomichi Suzuki, April 26, 2016
IN 2007, THE CITY of Yubari wentbankrupt, strapped with some¥35.3 billion in debt and municipal
obligations, a long-dormant coal-based
economy better left in the groundand a rapidly declining and aging
population less than 10 percent its
peak size. The road to its perdition
had been paved over decades by dying
industry, easy credit, poor governance,
fiscal desperation, grim demographics
and even bad luck – a narrative inJapan not limited to Yubari.
The Hokkaido locale, known for coaland melons, was not the first in Japanto go bankrupt and won’t be the last,
but its humbling earned a place innational infamy with a law aimed atpreventing future Yubari-like collapses
through greater fiscal transparency.
A subsequent stringent long-term
recovery plan that could have made theInternational Monetary Fund blush,
later became the responsibility in 2011of its newly elected mayor, Naomichi
Suzuki, then the nation’s youngest.
Around the time of its failure, Suzuki
had worked in Yubari on consignment
from the Tokyo Metropolitan
Government, and like the plot of a Yoji
Yamada melodrama, was later encouraged
to run for mayor after building up
strong ties within the community.
He won handily, and now is its
ambassador and visionary.
BANKRUPTCY FORCED CONSOLIDATION
of social services, salary cuts andsteep retrenchments, closure of public
facilities, onerous higher taxes, andraised the prospect of merger withmore prosperous Hokkaido locales.
However, for Suzuki and Yubari’s lessthan-enthused neighbors, becoming
larger was not the answer.
“There were a number of bankrupt
municipalities including Yubari around2007,” Suzuki said at the Foreign
Correspondents’ Club of Japan in
April. “There were some cases when
16

NaomichiSuzuki at
the Clubcities merged and then split again, as
the tie-ups didn’t work very well. If
you neglect making the smallest unit
efficient, it won’t work.”
The first great merger push thatbegan nearly 150 years ago reduced thenumber of towns, hamlets and villages
from over 70,000 to about 15,000. A
postwar drive later trimmed that total
to four digits, with the current number
about 1,800, still shy of a central
government target of 1,000.
Since their origin, local
administrative authorities were tasked
with regional public services, suchas primary education and local tax
collection, then took on duties suchas running junior high schools andfire departments. As their liberty toredirect funds into other projects
grew and bank lending supported
development, mistakes were made andhorrific losses mounted.
For Yubari, the hole deeper than its
mines was tourism, or the lack of it.
Its Coal History Village was among the
Hokkaido non-sequiturs to travel parks
that included the Gluck Kingdom in
Obihiro and the Chinese wonderland
Tenkaen in Noboribetsu. All are now
closed, but the hardship continued
for Yubari and other urban centers as
population and economic flight added
to the blight.
Dan Sloan is editor-in-chief of the Nissan
Global Media Center, former president of the
FCCJ, and resident of Yokohama.

THE MAN CHARGED WITH overseeing
Japan’s regional recovery, Minister
Shigeru Ishiba, told Bloomberg inJanuary there would be winners andlosers in the effort: “Each village, town
and city needs to work out how torevive their own community,” Ishibasaid. “Does that mean wider gaps
among the regions? You bet.”Those gaps, Suzuki said, areexacerbated by central government
policies that force cities to compete
against each other, such as universal
child healthcare. It is paid for by thegovernment through age three butthen left to municipalities to subsidize
further coverage, depending on theircapabilities.
Yubari is now clearly focused on
efficiency over size. Once home
to 120,000 in 1960, the city has
experienced the greatest population
exodus of any Japanese municipality.
Yubari was envisioned over the courseof its recovery plan to shrink to 7,300
residents, but may become evensmaller. “When the population declines
to 4,000, we should have a compact
city, and consolidate the people in
a compact area to create a morecompact and functional city,” Suzuki
said. “It’s just depressing if you talk
only about declining population, but
I’m not thinking that way.”
In March, Suzuki met with Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe and related
ministers, telling them that the nextstage is to focus both on financial
reconstruction and revitalization,with a comprehensive plan coming inAugust. “The Abe Cabinet places thebiggest priority on economic recovery,
but at the same time we know Japan
has a long-term debt burden.”With its own population set to
decline by 20 percent, a rapidly graying
demographic, and debt mounting
despite attempts at fiscal consolidation,
is Yubari’s history a peek at Japan’s
future? Hopefully not, says Suzuki.
“‘Mission Impossible’ for Yubari
was actually possible. We’ve been able
to repay ¥9.5 billion as of March thisyear, and financial revitalization has
been done to a certain degree,” he said.
“Yubari epitomizes Japan, but the futureof Japan should not be like Yubari.” ❶JUNE 2016

FCCJ

森 (Forest): photographs by Hisashi Mochizuki
MY MEMORIES OF
taking pictures 40
years ago, holed up in a shelter atop Mount
Hachimantai in the middle of winter waiting
for the weather to clear up, are as clear to me
as if it all happened yesterday.
Blizzards so strong they seemed to lift the
shelter off the ground continued for dayson end. Just as I was getting fed up with theblizzard that had lasted for two weeks, theeastern sky colored deep red with the morningsun. It was the most moving thing I have everexperienced. Also, the memory of my elation
at seeing the yellow color of the stripe in the

FCCJ EXHIBITION

middle of the road after descending from thenearly pure white world is still vividly in mymind. The shapes of the rime-covered trees
extending far off into the distance and themorning moon sparkling above the trees gave aromantic, dream-like impression – as though I
were on another planet.
Perhaps due to climate changes, it is now
difficult to view large, photogenic examplesof rime-covered trees, but even now, I headoff toward the mountain top through the deep
snow with a heavy pack on my back, and myonly desire is to feel those emotions from 40
years ago in the middle of a blizzard. ❶Hisashi Mochizuki is afreelance photographer
who works regularly for
ANA’s Wingspan magazine,
He also traveled to 60
countries in six years forthe series, “The Rootsof Vegetables,” whichappeared in Shukan
Bunshun. He was oneof 10 photographerschosen to shoot the
Beijing Olympics, andis chairperson of theJapan-China Photography
and Cultural Exchange
Association. He has
held several exhibitionsof his work.

JOIN THE FILM COMMITTEE . . .
. . . on Monday, June 13 at 7:00 pm for the magical pairing of showbiz royalty Kyoko
Koizumi and spark plug Fumi Nikaido, as radical aunt and bored niece, in the thrillingly
quirky Kako: My Sullen Past, the second film from award-winning writer-director-author
Shiro Maeda. Nikaido plays 18-year-old Kako, whose summer vacation is shaken up by thearrival of long-dead Aunt Mikiko, a wisecracking eccentric who is apparently still on therun. Mikiko takes up residence in Kako’s room despite her niece’s fierce protestations,but when Kako hears about her aunt’s days as a radical bombmaker, a grudging respect
is born. Stuffed full of zingy dialog, oddball characters, off-kilter comedy, outrageous
twists and unexpected turns, Kako never wears out its welcome. It moves so quickly,
in fact, that its many screwball pleasures may require a second or even third viewing.
Nikaido and Maeda will be on hand for the Q&A session.
(Japan, 2016; 120 minutes; Japanese with English subtitles.)

FCCJ

JUNE 201617

CLUB NEWSIN MEMORIAM
With deep regret I wish to inform FCCJ
members that David Watts, a former
Tokyo Bureau Chief for the Times and apast Regular Member and officer of the
FCCJ passed away in the UK on April 10.
He was 72.
A Times journalist since 1974, Watts
joined the FCCJ in November 1984
on his posting to Japan as the London

New
Members

newspaper’s Tokyo correspondent.
He was a popular member and took
part in Club activities. Watts served on
the Bruce MacDonell Board as secretary
1986-1987 and was 2nd Vice President
on the Naoaki Usui Board of 1987-1988.
He came to the post in Tokyo
after four years as Southeast Asia
correspondent for the paper, stationed

REGULAR MEMBERS

CHLOE ARENSBERG was named Asia Bureau Chief for CBS News in April 2014, where she directs the news division’s
coverage of the region. Based in China, she manages both the Beijing and Tokyo bureaus of CBS News. She earneda bachelor’s degree from Barnard College, Columbia University and a master’s degree from Harvard University’s
Kennedy School of Government. Since joining CBS News in 2002, Arensberg has held a number of key positions
within the New York and Washington, D.C. newsrooms. She has covered such major international and national news
events as the 2015 earthquake in Nepal; the Hong Kong protests in 2014; the regional disputes in the South China
Sea; the 2004 and 2008 Presidential campaigns; Hurricane Katrina; and the earthquake in Haiti.
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Takahiro Araki, Yoshimoto Kogyo Co., Ltd.
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New in the
Library

Tetsuya Noguchi, Mitsubishi Corporation
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Corporation

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REINSTATEMENT (ASSOCIATE)
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Ise Jingu and the Origins of Japan
Miori Inata;
Matt Alt, Hiroko Yoda, Gregory
Starr (trans.)
Shogakukan
Gift from Miori Inata

Yucho mane wa doko e kietaka:kakusa o unda yusei mineika noshinjitsu
Hidehiro Kikuchi; Kobo Inamura
Sairyusha
Gift from Kobo Inamura

Asian Nationalisms Reconsidered
Jeff Kingston (ed.)
Routledge
Gift from Jeff Kingston

Fushigina igirisu
Toshihiko Kasahara
Kodansha
Gift from Toshihiko Kasahara

No More Champagne: Churchilland His MoneyDavid Lough
PicadorGift from Todd Crowell

Kokutai no kiki: nihon metsubo
seiryoku tono tatakai ni katsu!
Hiroyuki Fujita
IBAS Publishing
Gift from Hiroyuki Fujita

Holy Foolery in the Life of Japan: A
Historical Overview
Higuchi Kazunori;
Waku Miller (trans.)
International House of Japan
Gift from George Baumgartner

Embers of War: The Fall ofan Empire and the Making ofAmerica's Vietnam
Fredrik Logevall
Random House
Gift from Todd Crowell

The Akita Ranga School and the
Cultural Context in Edo Japan
Riko Imahashi; Ruth S McCreery(trans.)International House of Japan
Gift from George Baumgartner

Sambuichi Hiroshi setochi nokenchiku: kaze mizu taiyo tsuki
chikei = Hiroshi SambuichiArchitecture of Inland Sea
Hiroshi Sambuichi
TOTO Publishing
Gift from TOTO Ltd.

Senso hanzaikoku wa amerika
datta: eikokujin janarisito ga akasu
tokyo saiban 70-nen no kyomo
Henry Scott Stokes; Hiroyuki Fujita(trans.)Hato Shuppan
Gift from Hiroyuki Fujita

18

in Singapore, from where he covered theASEAN countries and made regular trips
into Cambodia and Vietnam.
We offer our deepest condolences to
his wife Shizuko and his two sons, Markand Dominic.
His obituary, which appeared in theTimes on May 17, appears on our website.
– Peter Langan, FCCJ Acting President

Japan's Asian Diplomacy: A Legacy
of Two Millennia
Kazuo Ogura; David Noble (trans.)
International House of Japan
Gift from George Baumgartner

Kieta machikado: Tokyo
Keiso Tomioka
Gendosha
Gift from Robert Linington
Walking the Kiso Road: A Modernday Exploration of Old Japan
William Scott Wilson
Shambhala
Fukushima and the Privatizationof Risk
Majia Holmer Nadesan
Palgrave Macmillan
Lost Enlightenment. Central
Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab
Conquest to Tamerlane
S. Frederick Starr
Princeton University Press
Writer's Market 2016: The Most
Trusted Guide to Getting Published
Robert Lee Brewer (ed.)
Writers Digest Books

JUNE 2016

FCCJ