Japan's nuclear comedy just goes on and on

Abstract: What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. — Ecclesiastes 1:9 These words are said to have been penned by King Solomon around 3,000 years ago. Perhaps they were an augury of Japan’s nuclear industry. I’m sure somewhere there’s an original text that reads, “In the Land of the Melting Sun.” Here’s the basic pattern: An accident occurs in Japan’s nuclear industry; those in charge fail to deal with it well; people suffer; those in charge lie to the public; finally they admit it and apologize profusely. Then the cycle is repeated. The latest revelations of leaks from at least one of more than 1,000 storage tanks being used to store radiation-contaminated water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) are really nothing new; it’s just another in a series of follies being handled in an irresponsible and short-sighted way. True to form, while the media had been reporting on the problem for weeks, Tepco had denied it. Finally — and oddly, just after July’s Upper House elections — there was the admission, the obligatory apology, and an announcement by the Japanese government that it would come to the rescue. They say those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it — yet the patterns of mishaps in Japan’s nuclear industry that I write about are so reproducible as to give me a strange sense of déjà vu. We have been here before. The explosions and meltdowns of three reactors at Tepco’s Fukushima facility in March 2011, leading to massive leaks of radiation, comprised the world’s worst nuclear disaster since a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the USSR (present-day Ukraine) in April 1986. In the northeastern Tohoku region of Honshu, where the Fukushima plant is located, more than 100,000 people have been forced to evacuate due to high radiation levels and the cleanup will likely take at least 40 years. Tepco at first blamed the accident on “an unforeseen massive tsunami” triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011. Then it admitted it had in fact foreseen just such a scenario but hadn’t done anything about it. A Special Diet Commission reporting in July 2012, and other studies, concluded that the earthquake alone probably damaged the cooling system of the Fukushima plant’s 40-year-old Reactor 1 so badly that, even before the tsunami, meltdown was inevitable because it would overheat so much. In other words, some of Japan’s nuclear power plants may be unable to withstand an earthquake. Not a comforting thought in a country that has constant seismic activity. Of course, “nuclear meltdown” itself was denied for months. Even up to May 2011, while the foreign media had long labeled the Fukushima disaster “a triple meltdown,” Tepco — and the national government — stonewalled, insisting that meltdown had not been confirmed. Then finally, just a week before members of an International Atomic Energy Agency investigation team were to arrive in Japan, the government and Tepco admitted the facts — with the usual ritual apologies. The current leakage problems at the Fukushima plant are even more baffling to those of us blessed with a memory. That’s because, in December 2011, the government announced that the plant had reached “a state of cold shutdown.” Normally, that means radiation releases are under control and the temperature of its nuclear fuel is consistently below boiling point. Great! Mission accomplished! Let’s go home. Unfortunately, though, if Tepco stops pumping coolant into the reactors to keep their temperature down, then they won’t be in “a state of cold shutdown” anymore. And thanks to the haphazard cleanup at the plant, even just a few rats can jeopardize that shutdown. Yes, rats — not Tepco executives, but real furry rodents. The plant is being run on makeshift equipment and breakdowns are endemic. Among nearly a dozen serious problems since April this year there have been successive power outages, leaks of highly radioactive water from underground water pools — and a rat that chewed enough wires to short-circuit a switchboard, causing a power outage that interrupted cooling for nearly 30 hours. Later, the cooling system for a fuel-storage pool had to be switched off for safety checks when two dead rats were found in a transformer box. Perhaps there’s a secret Tepco PR manual 101: When in doubt, blame the rats. However, the words of a top Tepco exec should be of some comfort: “I wish to express regret for the recent cases of misconduct at our company, which eroded public confidence in the nuclear power industry. We will do everything … to prevent similar incidents and to maintain safety. We will promote release of information in order to reassure the general public that we are making sincere efforts, and to convince them that ‘Tepco is trustworthy’ again.” All very well — but those remarks were made in 2003 by then Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata after the company admitted to extensive falsifying of safety records for more than a decade. The coverups included dangerous problems in a number of its aging nuclear power plants. At that time, the entire nuclear industry came under great scrutiny. Reform had come. And just to show lessons had been learned, there were further apologies in 2004, when five workers at Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Mihama nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture were scalded to death by steam leaking from a corroded pipe that hadn’t been inspected since 1976. Well, apologies are cheap; safety is expensive. Do you see the pattern? My guess is there is only one way to stop it, and that’s to finally pull the plug on Japan’s nuclear energy industry. We can only trust them to do one thing: place profits first, wreak havoc, lie about it and then apologize. But I don’t think that works so well anymore.

fukushima no . 1
nuclear power plant
tepco
tsunehisa katsumata


Only in Japan could a sword be 'life-giving'

Abstract: Few countries have broken with their past as sharply as Japan did. That was the price it paid for modernity. Japan in the mid-19th century had a beautiful, deep, highly refined culture that reached far down the social scale — but it was an ancient culture, not a modern one, artistic rather than acquisitive, helpless against encroaching Western powers that had already colonized much of the non-Western world and were hungry for the rest. Japan had only to look next door to China to see its own ghastly fate if it failed to match the West strength-for-strength. And so the past was shed. Japan became strong, rich — “Western.” When was the boundary crossed between Japan’s Oriental past and its “Western” future? A strong case could be made for the year 1876 — when the modernizing Meiji government (1868-1912) passed an edict banning the wearing of swords in public. “The sword is the soul of the samurai” — such was the proud declaration down the centuries. It is a weapon common to most early civilizations, but “there is no country in the world where the sword has received so much honor and renown as in Japan,” wrote Yokohama-based English diplomat Thomas McClatchie (1852-86), one of the first foreign students of Japanese martial arts. The sword figures in the earliest myths. Susano’o, the storm god, slays a people-devouring monster, extracting from its forked tail the sacred sword that became, together with a sacred mirror and a sacred jewel, one of the regalia of Imperial authority bestowed by the gods upon the nation’s first human ruler. Down to modern times, “The swordsmith was not a mere artisan,” wrote the Christian scholar Inazo Nitobe in “Bushido” (1900), “but an inspired artist, and his workshop a sanctuary. Daily he commenced his craft with prayer and purification.” The Japanese knew of firearms as early as the 1540s, when Portuguese traders brought them and did a very brisk business selling them. In Japan, though, the gun never displaced the sword, as it did in the West. Why? Numerous material factors can be cited — the shortage of firearms relative to the number of fighters; the unrelenting warfare of the time that favored tried and true techniques over uncertain experimental ones; the inconvenient length of time it took to reload a gun between firings. But the sense of the sword as more than a weapon — as a “soul” — was surely decisive. Old Japanese literature — philosophical, religious and military — refers frequently to “the life-giving sword.” Why “life-giving”? The sword is a lethal weapon, none more so than the Japanese sword, whose technical excellence is the marvel of connoisseurs worldwide. No one talks of the life-giving pistol, the life-giving atomic bomb, the life-giving drone. Where is the life in a death-dealing sword blade? The modern mind struggles to understand. Religion and martial ardor meet in the person of a Zen priest named Takuan Soho (1573-1645). An accomplished swordsman himself, he served as spiritual guide to the outstanding martial artists of his day, whom he taught along such lines as these: “The enemy does not see me. I do not see the enemy. Penetrating to a place where heaven and earth have not yet divided … I quickly and necessarily gain the desired effect.” That “desired effect” can only be the death of his opponent, but the death of a master swordsman at the hands of a master swordsman, tradition has it, is not death — certainly it is not murder — because the religious enlightenment that is prerequisite for true mastery places one beyond the illusory distinction between birth and death. “As long as a student of Zen entertains any kind of thought in regard to birth-and-death, he falls into the path of the devil,” explains a Zen master quoted anonymously by Zen priest Daisetz T. Suzuki (1879-1966) in “Zen and Swordsmanship.” Foremost among Japan’s master swordsmen is Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645), who lives on long after death in kabuki, bunraku (puppet theater), novels, manga, movies and television dramas. Musashi fought his first duel at age 13 and spent much of his life roaming the country matching skills with other masters. Japan’s centuries of civil wars were over by 1615. Peace held until 1894. But the “life-giving sword” was not to be suppressed by peace. Musashi fought 60 bouts in all, most of them fatal to his opponents. Does that make him a killer? Emphatically yes, in the eyes of some. He “elevated killing to a fine art,” writes historian Beatrice Bodart-Bailey in “The Dog Shogun” (2006). “His famous ‘Book of Five Rings’ consists of detailed instructions on how to kill quickly and effectively.” Bodart-Bailey will have none of the “life-giving sword” mysticism — but Musashi himself wrote, “I was unbeaten because I gave no thought to my life.” He was a dedicated student of Zen; also a poet, tea master, landscape gardener, town planner, writer and painter. To him, the artist was in a state of religious transcendence and all arts were one. Swordsmanship, to Musashi, and indeed to all swordsmen, was an art. In the Japanese tradition there is no “Thou shalt not kill.” If the 1876 anti-sword law stripped the samurai of their soul, it did not — nor did it intend to — pacify the national spirit. The notion of the “life-giving sword,” extended to embrace modern weaponry, survived into the 20th century. “There is no choice,” wrote Zen scholar Tomojiro Hayashiya (1886-1953) in 1937, “but to wage compassionate wars which give life to both oneself and one’s enemy.” We who can look back on World War II know what kind of “life” that meant.


Former leader of Japan's ruling party against raising defense profile

Abstract: Ahead of the anniversary Thursday of Japan’s surrender in World War II, former Liberal Democratic Party President and noted dove Yohei Kono expressed his views on constitutional revision proposed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other issues. Kono, 76, who was known for being the most dovish among LDP lawmakers, held such key posts as chief Cabinet secretary, foreign minister and Lower House speaker before retiring from politics in 2009. Abe is keen on revising the Constitution. The LDP, now headed by Abe, in its draft proposal defines the Self-Defense Forces as a national defense force, while allowing Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense. What is your take on this? I do not see the need for revisions. If Japan modifies its Constitution to position the SDF as a national defense force and changes its defense guidelines to allow increased defense equipment, this would be encouraging neighboring nations to alter their defense programs. There is absolutely no need to set the stage for a never-ending arms race. There are views that the security environment surrounding Japan is changing, but this is exactly the time when more diplomatic efforts are needed. I understand that you have previously written about your wartime experiences, such as running to bomb shelters during air raids and your memory of listening to the broadcast of the voice of Emperor Hirohito (declaring Japan’s defeat). They are unforgettable experiences. Time has passed since the current Constitution was written and I now see a trend that takes (the war-renouncing) Article 9 lightly. We must go back to the basics and think properly as to why this kind of Constitution came to be. We must not forget the devastation and tragedy caused by the war. Article 9 demonstrates the fundamental spirit of Japan. There used to be LDP lawmakers who were opposed to constitutional revisions, but there seems to be no opposition these days. Why is this? What has made a big impact is that the Lower House is comprised of people elected in single-seat districts. Under such an election system, lawmakers can’t be endorsed by the party if they do not strictly adhere to the party’s pledges. Abe has recently indicated he supports changing the government’s interpretation that Japan can’t exercise the right to collective self-defense. What is your view on this? At first, the direction was to modify the Constitution (and enable exercising the right to collective self-defense). But since constitutional revision is not an easy task, it is now shifting to the reinterpretation of the Constitution. The procedure to change the interpretation can be done by a Cabinet decision, but wouldn’t that mean holding the Diet and the people in low account? It would inevitably lead to engaging in war if we exercise the right to collective self-defense, and it deviates significantly from the spirit of the Constitution. Voices are growing in the LDP criticizing the 1995 statement issued by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama apologizing for Japan’s wartime aggression in Asia. What do you think about that? They must be asserting that the previous war was not a mistake, but such an argument can’t be accepted at home and abroad. It will raise Japan’s position in the international community if we admit what was wrong.


Man survives train fall, redistribution of resources Japan's mission, GSDF adopts local guns, chandelier falls

Abstract: 100 YEARS AGO Wednesday, Jan. 29, 1913 Man survives train fall Tamejiro Kawai, aged 48, a milk-hall keeper in Yamashita-cho, Yokohama, while going by rail from Tokyo to Yokohama a little after midnight Jan. 27, fell between the cars. A by-stander sounded the alarm, the engineer stopped the train, and an examination was made. Upon being informed that a man had fallen, all thought that he must have been killed or run over by the train. But fortunately, the man was not only not dead, but unhurt, as he fell just between the rails flat upon the ground and the train passed over him without touching him. 75 YEARS AGO Tuesday, Jan. 4, 1938 Yamato race must redistribute resources By Ryutaro Nagai, Communications Minister — The new idea that “a state is not a body comprising various factions with complicated and conflicting interests but a body with a common aim of fulfilling a noble cultural mission, and that a nation is not a mere materialistic existence chasing after its own interests but a spiritual existence obliged to make contribution for the welfare of humanity” seems to have penetrated through the minds of the people dissatisfied with a materialistic civilization. The supreme and noblest spirit manifesting the nucleus of “Japan Spirit” is the very basis of the national livelihood. The nation intends to adopt Western science, and systematize and adjust it with the spirit peculiar to Japan, thereby contributing much to the interest of the world. The mission of the Yamato race, I am fully convinced, is to work for the redistribution of the natural resources of the world and thereby prevent the majority of the people from falling into poverty and despair, as well as to emancipate humanity from the Communist menace now threatening the world. Communists always take advantage of the dissatisfaction arising from poverty. For the manifestation and enhancement of the “Japan Spirit” abroad, however, there is something to be done beforehand in this part of the world — the Orient. That is to reconstruct and rehabilitate the stricken Asian continent. We must first strengthen cooperation among Japan, Manchukuo and China, bound together as they are with a common civilization, establish a basic principle of sufficing one another from the standpoints of national defense and industries, check others’ malicious activities in the Orient and eventually build a new land for co-existence and co-prosperity among the three countries. It is exceedingly regrettable, however, that China under the Nanking regime has not only betrayed the other two in that great task but has also resorted to a policy of anti-Japanese resistance. Such being the situation, Japan was compelled to take arms against it. This is the origin of the current Sino-Japanese hostilities. Japan’s enemy, therefore, is not the Chinese people but the Government under General Chiang Kai-shek, who is dead to all sense of the shame of selling his country to others. Japan must continue its fight in China till it can stabilize the foundation of that nation. As for the Japanese people, they must be prepared to endure whatever sacrifice the country demands. [Nagai, who had served as a Diet member since 1920, died on Dec. 4, 1944, during the Tokyo air raid.] 50 YEARS AGO Monday, Jan. 7, 1963 Small arms to be made locally The Defense Agency will begin this year mass production of small firearms to replace U.S.-made carbines, rifles and machineguns used by the Ground Self-Defense Force, it was learned Sunday. The mass production plan grew out of recognition that U.S.-made arms are too large for Self-Defense Force personnel and most are now obsolete. These arms were said to be inconvenient, especially where ammunition was concerned, because of the large variety of U.S. weapons. A new machinegun developed by the Technical Research Headquarters of the Defense Agency was claimed to be better than the U.S.-made models A4 and A6 now in use by the GSDF. A new rifle, tentatively known as model 64, also has been developed and is expected to be adopted officially by the defense forces next year. [The new machinegun mentioned here was eventually manufactured by Sumitomo Heavy Industries and thus became known as the Sumitomo Type 62. “Model 64” later became known as Howa Type 64. Both weapons became standard issue in the GSDF and continue to be used to this day.] 25 YEARS AGO Wednesday, Jan. 6, 1988 Two killed by falling disco chandelier Two women were killed and 15 others, including 11 women and four men, were injured when a two-ton chandelier fell on dancers at a disco in Tokyo’s Roppongi Tuesday night, the Tokyo Metropolitan Fire Board reported. The women were identified as Akemi Mizobe, 21, and Keiko Takagi, 26. When the rectangular-shaped chandelier fell around 9:40 p.m., about 200 guests at the Roppongi disco Turia were sent into mass pandemonium, an employee there said, adding that some of the victims were pinned under the light, while others caught fragments of flying glass. The chandelier, measuring three meters by two meters by one meter thick, fell about 10 meters, from the second floor ceiling to a basement where about 100 guests were dancing. The disco, located near the Defense Agency, is known for its selectiveness, with a video camera that monitors guests to determine fashionability.

chiang kai-shek
self-defense force
sumitomo heavy industries


How Japan's teens can avoid sleep demons

Abstract: Have you ever woken up but been unable to move; felt a powerful pressure holding you down, gripping you tight? Haruki Murakami has, and he describes it like this: “I was having a repulsive dream — a dark, slimy dream. … After I awoke, my breath came in painful gasps for a time. My arms and legs felt paralyzed. I lay there immobilized, listening to my own labored breathing, as if I were stretched out full-length on the floor of a huge cavern.” In this excerpt from the short story “Sleep” from his “The Elephant Vanishes” collection, Murakami is describing an episode of sleep paralysis, which is better known in Japan as kanashibari (literally, “bound in metal”). In other cultures, the experience has been attributed to a ghost (China and Korea), a demon feeding on the living (Fiji) and, in the southern United States, to a witch. People all over the world experience kanashibari, but with accounts going back at least as far as the kaidan (ghost stories) of the Edo Period (1603-1867), it has a particularly Japanese flavor. In Japan, too, the phenomenon seems to disproportionately affect young people, while homegrown horror films often play on a psychological fear of ghosts manifesting in the real world. It’s no surprise that these movies depict young people as being disproportionately affected by these apparitions. Fiction that may be, but in fact a nationwide survey of junior and senior high school students in Japan conducted in 2011 by Yoshitaka Kaneita of Nihon University School of Medicine in Tokyo, and colleagues, found that of the 90,081 questionnaires analyzed, 35.2 percent of respondents reported having nightmares, and 8.3 percent experienced kanashibari — compared with 6.2 percent of the general population in the United States who separate studies have found to report instances of kanashibari. The results of the Japanese survey — as reported in the journal Sleep Medicine (DOI reference: 10.1016/j.sleep.2010.04.015) — show that Kaneita and his team found a number of factors that seem to increase the chance of having a nightmare or experiencing an episode of kanashibari. For nightmares, they are: drinking alcohol, having trouble going to sleep, poor mental health — or simply being female, though there is little to be done about this factor. For kanashibari, males were found to be more susceptible than females, with their odds of affliction shortening more due to taking a long daytime nap, having an early or late bedtime — and again, having difficulty going to sleep and/or poor mental health. Kaneita’s team concluded that regular sleep habits are important to help prevent nightmares and episodes of sleep paralysis. However, Japanese high school students are often cited as being overloaded with work to the point that they have to get by on as little as four hours’ sleep a night. Indeed, in a separate survey of 3,478 Japanese high school students aged 16 to 18 (equivalent to 10th- through 12th-graders), researchers found that on average they slept for 6.3 hours, going to bed at 00:03 and rising at 06:33. As the evidence suggests that teenagers in both Japan and South Korea are more sleep-deprived than those in Western countries and China, Kaneita and his coauthors recommend that health education about regular sleep habits should be promoted among Japanese adolescents. Kanashibari — attributed to supernatural causes for centuries — may even shed light on the surprising mysteries of that most ubiquitous, beguiling and enjoyable of experiences: sleep. By monitoring volunteers in sleep labs, scientists have found that episodes of sleep paralysis occur when rapid-eye-movement (REM) stages of sleep overlap with waking stages. Nonetheless, for something so intrinsic to the human condition, sleep remains poorly understood. There are many explanations, and probably many are correct. Sleep has numerous functions. It helps regulate emotions (we’re invariably in a better mood after a good sleep); it helps us recharge and conserve energy; it helps the brain to process memory. Sleep also helps the automatic functioning of the body — the heart rate, breathing and hormone production. What seems to happen in kanashibari is that the person starts to wake up while REM sleep is still continuing. This leads to a situation where you are aware but “trapped” in a frozen body — because during REM sleep the muscles are paralyzed. We’ve all probably experienced moments of this intriguing and (to me) pleasurable feeling of the consciousness “floating,” unmoored to the body. But it’s only ever been a few seconds for me. If the feeling lasted for minutes or even hours, as it does for some unfortunate people, I can see how if could generate panic. It turns out that the brain becomes hyper-vigilant during these episodes, and can hallucinate a presence — a supernatural being, it may seem — holding them down. For some people it’s an evil cat, or a witch, or the bedclothes appear to become the twisted limbs of a dead body pressing on top of them. But let’s not end on such a horrific note. Consider, for instance, dolphins and seals: When they sleep, half the brain is dormant while the other half stays alert. What on Earth does that feel like? Perhaps dolphins have nightmares — being trapped in a cove by Japanese drive fishermen armed with spears, for example — but whatever their experience, it doesn’t last long: The sleep of marine mammals tends to occur in short bursts. Sweet dreams to all in this new year of 2013!


Okigusuri

Abstract: Dear Alice, I was on a two-week home stay in the countryside of Japan when a visitor came to the house. I don’t think he was expected, but my home-stay mother greeted him like an old friend and fetched a plastic drawer-box from the kitchen, which seemed to contain packaged medicines. While they chatted over tea, he went through the drawer counting packages and checking something on each package. He replaced certain products and seemed to recommend others, some of which went into the box. In the end, my home-stay mother paid what seemed to be a very small amount of money considering the amount of product left behind. They parted warmly and the box went back into the kitchen. She confirmed the products are medicine but otherwise couldn’t explain what the heck was going on. Can you? Gary K, Hong Kong Dear Gary, You witnessed a sales call for okigusuri , a uniquely Japanese method of marketing medicine, and one that has a history of well over 300 years. Here’s how it works: A variety of medicines are brought to your home and entrusted to you without any deposit or advance payment. You are given a free case in which to store them. There’s no obligation to buy anything but the medicines are there if you need them. And should the need arise, you may use anything from the box on the understanding that the next time the sales representative comes around, you’ll pay for only what you’ve actually used. In Japanese, this way of selling is called seny ō k ō ri (use first, pay later). Today, it is most strongly associated with medicine manufacturers in Toyama Prefecture, which together supply more than half of all okigusuri. This part of the country, located on the Japan Sea coast in the central part of the country, has had a high concentration of medicine makers ever since the Edo Period (1603-1867), when the area was called Etchu province. By the early 18th century, medicines from Etchu were sold throughout Japan, no small feat given the distances and strict restrictions at the time on travel and trade. The story goes that in 1690 the feudal head of the province, Masatoshi Maeda (1649-1706), was on a formal visit to Edo Castle when another lord fell seriously ill with a stomach complaint. Maeda immediately offered a remedy from his region, which he always carried with him, and it almost instantly relieved the man’s suffering. Impressed, the many lordly witnesses to this speedy recovery spoke to Maeda afterwards, asking that the medicine be made available in their own domains. Thanks to this official support, it became possible for medicine sellers from Etchu to enter other domains to peddle their products. The industry cooperated on distribution, dividing the country into 18 to 22 territories and assigning routes. Salesmen typically made two trips a year, carrying products in a set of nesting woven baskets tied to their back with a large cloth. To gain consumers’ trust for an unfamiliar medicine, they left their products with no advance payment and no obligation to use it. People often assume that the Etchu medicine manufacturers pioneered the “use first, pay later” method of sales, but recent research has confirmed that it was used even earlier for a variety of products, including cooking pots, hoes and mosquito nets. To find out how the okigusuri industry works today, I set up an appointment with Masao Inoya, immediate past chairman of the Tokyo-to Iyakuhin Haichi Kyokai (Tokyo Metropolitan Medicine Placement Association) and an okigusuri salesman with more than 60 years in the business. Inoya says he places medicines in both homes and offices, and generally visits each client two or three times a year to replenish supplies and collect payment for product used. When I asked what the salesman you observed was looking for on the packages, Inoya said he was checking the expiration date, because unopened but out-of-date product is removed and replaced at no charge. The average okigusuri box, which is called a haichi-bako or azuke-bako , he said, is kept stocked with 15 to 20 products worth something in the range of ¥7,000 to ¥10,000. Inoya said his rate of collection is very nearly 100 percent, and the industry has few problems with customers disappearing with the goods or refusing to pay. The actual selection of products varies by distributor and customer preference, but the typical okigusuri box will contain pain relievers, cold medicine, throat lozenges, stomach remedies and bottled health tonics. It usually also includes first-aid supplies such as bandages, disinfectant and shippu , which are packaged hot or cold compresses that may be treated with analgesics or anti-inflammatory drugs. Inoya told me his particular area of strength is health-promoting medicines that people use even when they aren’t experiencing any particular symptoms. “I’m not selling medicine; I’m selling health,” he asserted. “So I have to be healthy myself.” And to show me just how healthy he is, Inoya, who is 77, got down and did the splits, sitting with his legs flat to the floor and straight out to the sides. That alone would have impressed me, but then he bent forward and touched his head to floor. Such health and flexibility must serve him in good stead, because he now has to travel a much wider area in order to maintain sales. “Unfortunately, sales of okigusuri are down,” Inoya explained. “When I started in the business, someone was home during the day in most households. And there were fewer stores in neighborhoods. But now more women work outside of the home, and there’s a drugstore on every corner. People just have more options for buying medicine.” Interestingly, the “use first, pay later” system has been introduced in developing countries to improve access to health care. With support from the Nippon Foundation, programs in Mongolia, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam provide rural families with health education and cases of locally manufactured traditional medicines. The participating families can use the medicine if they need it, and pay only for what they use.

okigusuri
medicine
tokyo-to iyakuhin haichi kyokai


Unraveling the mystery of male birds' missing members

Abstract: How the chicken lost its penis: It sounds like a weird cousin of one of Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories for Little Children” from 1902, which featured “How the Leopard Got His Spots” and “How the Camel Got His Hump.” But weird or not, this month we explore why almost all birds lack that flagpole of masculinity: the penis. Back when I was a postgraduate student, a biologist in the department where I worked had a quiet word with my adviser: “Your student,” he said, “is obsessed with animal genitalia. There’s something wrong with him.” My professor laughed it off. “That’s part of his PhD,” he said. “I’d be worried if he wasn’t thinking about sex all the time.” I’ll happily accept that there may well be something wrong with me. After all, I did spend several years looking at the sperm and the genital morphology of many different kinds of animals. But in my defense I’d say this: If that’s the case then there’s also something wrong with most evolutionary biologists. The evolution of sex, of male and female genders — and of the organs that accompany the act of procreation — pose fascinating questions for biologists. So they think about it a lot. That’s their excuse, anyway. I was reminded of that episode last week when I came across a scientific paper reporting on a study of how birds lost their penises. And yes indeed, in 97 percent of bird species, the males don’t have a member. It’s a vexing question for biologists, let alone our feathered friends. Nonetheless, these individuals are just as randy and strutting as males of other more well-endowed species — though the poor wretches have to make do with a cloaca, which is basically just an opening where you’d expect to find a penis. Now Martin Cohn and Ana Herrera of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and colleagues, have found that chickens possess normally developing penises as early embryos. But then, as the birds develop, a genetic program swings into action and effectively chops off their little budding appendages. Think of it as a grim reaper just for males — though it’s achieved through the programmed, deliberate dying-off of cells. “Our discovery,” says Cohn, “shows that reduction of the penis during bird evolution occurred by activation of a normal mechanism of programmed cell-death in a new location, the tip of the emerging penis.” You may well ask: Why do we care? Well, it’s important to understand how this automatic cell-death mechanism operates because, if it fails to work when needed in the human body, it can lead to excessive or unregulated cell growth — and this can spell cancer. And there’s another reason: We care because we are “ obsessed with animal genitalia” and quite simply want to understand why birds don’t have penises. Herrera, the grad-student lead author of the study, who probably has a fixation like the one I had, says it’s not clear why chickens and other birds would have lost their penises. It might be down to aerodynamics: A flapping male phallus would not help in graceful flight. But Herrera has another interesting idea. It may be, she says, that the loss of a penis gives hens greater control over their reproductive lives. The natural evolutionary selection of females of the many species may, in other words, have driven the loss of the male’s pride and joy. How can that be? To find out, let’s turn to ducks. As alert readers will have noticed — and will likely be troubling over right now — I said that most male birds don’t have a penis. Some do — and boy, do they. Male ducks have giant, corkscrew-shaped penises. They use them to force females into having sex — you might have seen mallards chasing females of their species and jumping on them — which is what happens when the drake has an organ he can forcibly insert into the female. There’s not much a female duck can do to avoid a drake’s penetrative intentions, but over evolutionary time they have come up with something very clever to inhibit them. Hence the female’s reproductive tract is also corkscrew-shaped — but it twists the other way: The penis twists counter-clockwise, the vagina goes clockwise. So the females have evolved some measure of control over exactly where the male can put his penis, even if she can’t stop him inserting it in the first place. That’s because there are pockets and dead-end alleys inside her that prevent the penis growing to its full size. (If you’re a female duck you really don’t want that, as some drakes’ “manhood” can be as long as their body.) So female ducks have evolved quite elaborate countermeasures in response to the questing, unwanted penis. Yet how much easier if there wasn’t a penis at all! That is the case in the vast majority of bird species. Herrera and Cohn found that chickens have a gene known as Bmp4 that switches on at a certain stage in embryonic growth and culls the bird’s penis. In ducks and other enpenised avians, this gene stays switched off — as the results of their work, published in the journal Current Biology, show (DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.04.062 ) It appears that Bmp4 operates in mammals, too. What would happen — oh, horror — if it were switched on in the development of a human male? One can imagine a kind of reverse of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian 1985 Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” — a version in which some crazed ruling class of women would have activated Bmp4 in men, causing them to lose their penises. The plot could center on a group of rebel women genetic engineers who restore men to their natural glory. I’d enjoy such a book — just as long as it remained in the realms of fiction.

penis sex procreation cell-death cancer bmp4


The 'barbarians' were coming — like it or not

Abstract: ‘Sonn ō j ō i!” : “Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians!” The writing was on the wall long before the wall crumbled. Japan’s splendid isolation — splendid in its own eyes — would no longer be accepted. The outside world was growing restless. Nations were reaching out, testing their strength, harnessing new technologies, trading, expanding, colonizing. Could Japan remain haughtily aloof? An official sakoku (closed-country) policy had been in place since the early 17th century, when Christian missionaries, active in the country for 100 years, began to seem to the ruling shoguns like an advance guard for European imperialists. Up went the drawbridge. Japan became an impregnable fortress — or a black hole, strictly off-limits to all but a handful of Dutch and Chinese traders confined to specific parts of Nagasaki. “Let us trade, too!” pleaded a party of 61 China-based Portuguese envoys who landed in Nagasaki in 1640. Their arrest and summary beheading was the shogun’s crisp, clear response. It got the point across. Traders, whalers, diplomats, explorers all kept their distance — for a time. The first to come cautiously knocking, a century and a half later, were Russians. They had been quietly settling parts of Ezo (present-day Hokkaido), then largely unclaimed, and in 1791 a Russian naval officer appeared in Matsumae, Ezo, with a letter from the czar, Catherine the Great. Politely rebuffed, he left peaceably, his letter undelivered. But he too got a point across, to those with eyes to see it: Japan’s seclusion was wearing thin. The following years saw numerous intrusions, courteous or truculent, by British, American, French and Russian ships. Some demanded supplies, others wanted to trade; one or two carried Japanese castaways for repatriation. The world was shrinking; here it was at Japan’s gates, and what was Japan going to do about it? The harshest prod of all was the Opium War (1839-42), in which Britain wrested Hong Kong and various trading privileges (notably the right to deal in opium) from a decadent China. Would this be Japan’s fate as well? In 1844, King Willem II of Holland sent Shogun Tokugawa Ieyoshi a friendly warning: “The intercourse between the different nations of the Earth is increasing with great rapidity. An irresistible power is drawing them together. Through the invention of steamships distances have become shorter. A nation preferring to remain in isolation at this time of increasing relationships could not avoid hostility with many others.” The next act in the drama is well known: U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry; the “Black Ships”; the “opening of Japan.” That was in 1854. Japan under duress signed a series of “unequal treaties” (1854-58), first with the United States, then with Britain, Holland, Russia and France. Japanese ports, long closed, were opened to international commerce. Foreign nationals were granted rights of residence. Foreign consuls arrived. Tariffs were set low, to Japan’s disadvantage, Japan powerless to raise them. Foreigners were subject not to Japanese law but to the laws of their home countries. This was “extra-territoriality,” the most galling insult of all. Japan’s is a martial culture. A government submitting to terms like these had better watch its back. Long before Perry, the shogunate faced internal challenges. Broadly speaking they were of two kinds — progressive and conservative, as we would say today. The progressives knew something of Western science, medicine and government and saw in them Japan’s only hope against “barbarian” powers that preyed on the powerless. To conservatives, this was to accept barbarization. Japan would triumph not by brute power but by innate spirit. But what spirit — Confucian, or Shinto? Confucianists looked to ancient Chinese sages as the source of the moral Way. Nativists turned to their own country’s past. Why look further? Was Japan not “the land of the gods”? A sense of partaking in divinity is the most uncompromising of incentives. It bred in Japan a group of mostly low-ranking samurai known as shishi (men of spirit). Their zeal knew no bounds. They would put their swords at the service of the Emperor, descendant of the Sun Goddess, and rid their divine land of the barbarians. “Sonnō jōi!” For centuries the emperors had been mere ciphers, languishing in poverty and impotence in Kyoto, the ancient capital, while the shoguns ruled in Edo (present-day Tokyo), the seat of power since 1603. Emperor Komei (reigned 1846-67) began as a puppet like his predecessors — but turned at last on the puppeteers. The opening of the ports, “be it but for a day or even half a day,” was intolerable, he wrote in a personal memorandum to the shogunate in 1859. The shishi rallied round him, their spirits burnished by an 1825 text by nativist thinker Aizawa Seishin (1782-1863): “Our Divine Realm is where the sun emerges. It is the source of the primordial vital force, sustaining all life and order. … Our Divine Realm rightly constitutes the head and shoulders of the world and controls all nations.” To the shishi he inspired, temporizers were traitors. Ii Naosuke, the shogunal minister who had signed the treaties, was cut down. Many other assassinations were plotted and a few were carried out. Chaos reigned — madness too, if a beheading in 1863 in a Kyoto temple deserves the name. The victims were three wooden statues of 14th-century shoguns deemed to have been disloyal to their emperors. The heads were displayed on the banks of the Kamo River — a warning to traitors that patriots knew how to deal with them. Five years later the Meiji Restoration overthrew the tottering shogunate and launched Japan on the most intense modernizing and industrializing drive the world had ever seen. Many of its leaders were shishi. “Sonnō jōi”? Make that … “Bunmei kaika” — “civilization and enlightenment.” It was a Meiji maxim that meant, in effect, “Westernization.” Those who damned it as barbarization were by this time quite helpless to stem the tide.


Parolee in 1963 Saitama girl's slaying hits authorities for lying, forcing confessions

Abstract: Investigators will lie, grill for hours on end and withhold exonerating evidence — in effect do anything — to extract a confession from a suspect they have pegged for a crime, a 1994 parolee seeking a retrial to clear his name in the 1963 kidnap-murder of a Saitama Prefecture girl said Thursday in Tokyo. Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, Kazuo Ishikawa, who appeared with his lawyer, Taketoshi Nakayama, pointed to discrepancies in the kanji used in an apparent ransom demand for ¥200,000 and an earlier document he wrote and also alleged that the state looked to him as a usual suspect because of his roots in Japan’s former outcast class known as the “burakumin.” He continues to claim he is innocent. Ishikawa was arrested in 1963 for the kidnap-slaying of Yoshie Nakata in the town of Sayama. An autopsy carried out on her corpse at the time concluded she had been raped and strangled. In a notorious case that would become known as the “Sayama Incident,” Ishikawa was initially sentenced to hang. He claimed he was threatened and tricked by prosecutors into making a false confession, which he later retracted in seeking to appeal his sentence. “I was told by the police that my older brother was actually their prime suspect, and that they were planning to arrest him. But then they said that if I agreed to be his scapegoat, they would let me off the hook after just 10 years,” Ishikawa, 74, said, explaining why he decided to plead guilty during his first trial in 1964. But after being sentenced to death, he filed an appeal, professing his innocence and arguing the police had forced his confession. In 1974, the Tokyo High Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment. Dissatisfied, Ishikawa appealed to the Supreme Court but lost, and his sentence was finalized in 1977. Paroled in 1994, Ishikawa, who still must see a probation officer, called for abolishment of the “daiyo kangoku” substitute detention cells inside police stations that were originally set up in 1908 amid a shortage of prisons. The system is often denounced both in Japan and abroad because it effectively allows police to keep suspects under constant monitoring without access to lawyers. “When the clock hit about 5 p.m., the police would take away my wristwatch and just continue their interrogation until midnight. I had no way of knowing how long they had grilled me,” Ishikawa said. After Nakata disappeared and before she was slain, her family received a written ransom demand that remains the only possible clue to identify the killer. The carefully crafted letter, with bizarre kanji that some suspect was an attempt to suggest the writer was barely literate, has been used by prosecutors as the main evidence to implicate Ishikawa, whose handwriting they have claimed resembled that found in the note. Ishikawa, born into an impoverished “buraku” social outcast community, claims he never could have penned such a skilled letter, citing his near illiteracy at the time of the killing. His lawyer, Nakayama, questioned the legitimacy of the handwriting analyses by the police, pointing out they deliberately ignored obvious discrepancies that might work in Ishikawa’s favor. It was only after 47 years since Ishikawa’s arrest that prosecutors finally disclosed a petition letter he wrote that suggests his writing style differed from that of the ransom note. “How could they have kept such important evidence under wraps for 47 years?” Nakayama asked. Criticizing the prolonged unwillingness by prosecutors to make key evidence public, Nakayama claimed the police arrested Ishikawa because of his low social status. “The police basically took advantage of the deep-rooted prejudice against the outcast class to wrongfully proclaim Ishikawa a murderer. We’re now making our utmost effort to reopen his case” and clear his name, Nakayama said.


Japan by the numbers (06.25.13)

Abstract: 97.4% of people use PowerPoint over other visual presentation tools, such as Prezi or Keynote, according to a poll by Goo Research . 73% of those surveyed by Goo Research said that they believe electric vehicles will continue to gain popularity in coming years . 52.3% people who responded to a poll by Asahikasei Homes said Abenomics is motivating them to spend . 49.6% of families have at least one member who owned a smartphone at the end of last year , according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Two years ago, that number was only 29.3%. 25% of blog readers polled by MyVoicecom said they have purchased something online because of a particular blog post . 23.6% of Japanese Facebook users polled by Cross Marketing said they visit the site more than one time a day , while 24.6% of users use LINE daily.

powerpoint
electric vehicles
abenomics
smartphone
blogs
facebook
line
ev
japan pulse


FSA plans more action against Mizuho

Abstract: The Financial Services Agency will soon take additional punitive action against Mizuho Bank doing business with organized crime, FSA sources said Friday. The financial watchdog first ordered the bank in September to improve operations, saying it did not take “substantial steps” to prevent or break off transactions with “antisocial forces” for more than two years despite knowing about the matter. This time, the FSA is considering issuing the business improvement order to its parent Mizuho Financial Group Inc. as well, since the holding company failed to fulfill its responsibility to oversee the bank, the sources said. The Mizuho group will thus need to improve its management system again. After receiving the order, Mizuho Bank initially said top management was not informed of the gangster loans but later reversed itself, with President Yasuhiro Sato telling a press conference that he and former President Satoru Nishibori “were in positions to know” about the issue. While a third-party investigative committee — set up by the bank — concluded it had no intention of covering up the loan problem when it submitted a false report on the issue to the FSA, the agency decided on Nov. 5 to inspect Mizuho Bank and Mizuho Financial Group to examine their conclusions.


Japan achieves 10 million tourist target for 2013

Abstract: Japan on Friday welcomed its 10 millionth international visitor this year, achieving the government’s goal with barely less than two weeks to go. On top of the weakening yen and recovery from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tourist numbers were helped by easier visa regulations for Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, as well as the increase in budget airlines serving Japan. “It’s been 10 years since we launched the Visit Japan campaign and attracting 10 million visitors has been our genuine wish” and we have finally achieved the goal, transport minister Akihiro Ota said during a ceremony at Narita International Airport. A couple from Thailand, Praphan Pha Tra Prasit and Yu Pha Da Pha Tra Prasit, were chosen as the collective 10 millionth memorial visitors and joined the ceremony. They received goods including a plaque and lamps decorated with Japanese papers. Although a time frame has not been set, the government is now aiming to double its goal to 20 million, with a long-term goal of drawing in 30 million tourists by 2030. The goal of 10 million visitors in one year was first set in 2010, but only 8.61 million tourists showed up. While the figure may have fallen short of the goal, it was still a record that stood until this year. There was a serious decline in 2011 due to the Tohoku natural disasters and Fukushima nuclear crisis. The figure recovered last year before finally reaching the 10 million goal in 2013. According to data from the Japan National Tourism Organization, visitors from pretty much all countries increased except for China. The relaxed visa regulations paid off with tourists from most ASEAN members increasing. Between January and November, visitors from Vietnam increased 53.5 percent over the same period last year, while the figure was 36 percent for Indonesia and 69 percent for Thailand. While the government may have reached its 10 million goal, the number is not all that impressive when measuring countries and regions with strong tourism. For instance, 27 countries in 2012 drew more than 10 million visitors. France was No. 1 with 83 million while China drew 57.7 million and South Korea 11.1 million.


No-frills Beijing bun shop stunned as Chinese president drops by unannounced

Abstract: BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping dropped in Saturday at a traditional Beijing bun shop, where he waited in line, ordered and paid for a simple lunch of buns stuffed with pork and onions, green vegetables, and stewed pig livers and intestines. Such visits are extremely rare — if not unheard of — for top Chinese leaders, who are usually surrounded by heavy security and are not known for mingling with the public other than at scheduled events. After spotting Xi, fellow diners took photos of him and shared them on China’s social media. State media re-posted the photos on their microblog accounts, and the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Xi’s lunch through its Chinese-language news site. The manager of the Qing-Feng Steamed Dumpling Shop, who gave only her family name, He, when reached by phone said Xi and a small entourage arrived at the no-frills eatery in western Beijing at around noon without prior notification. She said Xi paid 21 yuan ($3.40) for his lunch. “There was no special security measure during his stay,” the manager said. “Customers could freely enter and leave the restaurant, and many took photos with him.” In one shot, a chef posed with Xi as he continued eating his meal in front of the camera. Installed as China’s president in March, Xi has sought to portray himself as being in touch with regular people, but has done so with scheduled visits to factories and homes. In April, a Hong Kong newspaper reported that Xi had taken a cab ride in Beijing — also highly unusual for a top leader — but the excitement soon dissipated when state media denied the report. Though a socialist country in name, China has a deep-rooted hierarchy system that accords privileges to one’s official ranking. In recent years, members of the Chinese public have applauded Western leaders for their regular person style to vent their disapproval of Chinese officials’ aloofness. Some commentators have noted that Xi’s team has been savvy in building his image. Others waxed lyrical over his bun shop stop. “Had it not been for the photos, it would be incredulous to believe Xi, as a dignified president and party chief, should eat at a bun shop,” author Wu Xiqi wrote in an editorial carried by the ruling Communist Party’s official news site. “Xi’s act has subverted the traditional image of Chinese officials, ushering a warm, people-first gust of wind that is very touching indeed.”


It's business as usual 'back in the USSR'

Abstract: Paul McCartney was in Japan some weeks ago. Having spent a totally Beatlemaniac four years of my pre-teen existence in the U.K., it was nice to see the erstwhile Beatle in such good form. The occasion also reminded me of the song “Back in the USSR,” a 1968 Beatles number. My fellow Beatles lovers will be very familiar with the lyrics of that piece. Just the same, let me remind you how part of it goes: “Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out. They leave the West behind. “And Moscow girls make me sing and shout. That Georgia’s always on my mind.” Here is some history for you. It is worthwhile remembering that both Ukraine and Georgia were a part of the USSR at that point. No prizes for remembering what USSR stands for, although I fear there could now be a generation of readers that must resort to the Internet to discover the answer. Both Ukraine and Georgia are independent states now. Yet it seems that given half the chance, Russian President Vladimir Putin would like to see them both pulled back into Russia’s sphere of influence. The recent turn of events in Kiev indicates Ukraine girls still need to be careful of how they tread. Putin would surely be happy to see them “leave the West behind” and rejoin him behind what is, for now, the invisible iron curtain. That would literally be a “Back in the USSR” moment for him. But there are things one hopes will never happen again in the history of any country. There are things one believes will never come back to haunt us. Nightmarish history should not, and will not, repeat itself — that is what you hope and believe, whether you are a Ukrainian girl or a Japanese citizen who lived through World War II times. Yet the hopes of both look a little bit threatened at this point. For the first time in a very long time, protesters came out in force to campaign against the recent enactment of the state secrets law in Japan. Many of them must surely be sharing the sentiments of the protesters in Kiev: This is not happening. This should not be happening. We should not need to be protesting against such things in this day and age. Never would we have thought such worries would trouble us again. Worries over freedom. Worries over threats to human rights. Worries about a state that ignores the rights and wishes of the people that it is supposed to be serving. The Beatles were never a very socio-politically conscious group. Yet the piece “Back in the USSR” is so full of interesting suggestions that one wonders where the inspiration for it all came from. Could Paul have been taking a trip across time as he set those words to music? Of course the most suggestive bit is the refrain. As we all know, it talks about “Back in the U.S. Back in the U.S. Back in the USSR.” If the U.S. is the USSR, and the USSR is the U.S., nobody needs to worry about either the fate of the Ukrainian girls or which Georgia we happen to have on our minds at any given point in time. If only the same kind of togetherness could be achieved by Japan and its neighbors, with whom our relationship seems so strained at this point. If Paul could come up with the kind of lyrics that glue us together a la “Back in the USSR,” he would be doing us all a great service. Merry and matey does it in this season of good will. Noriko Hama is an economist and a professor of Doshisha University Graduate School of Business.

back in the ussr
beatles
vladimir putin
noriko hama
japanese perspectives
secrecy law


Who is responsible for a corporate scandal?

Abstract: Recent scandals involving Japanese businesses have included bank loans to the underworld and misrepresentations of restaurant menus at leading hotels, and many of the media reports have focused on how management takes responsibility for the mess. I would like to highlight three points that need to be taken into account when discussing such issues: First, circumstances change with the passage of time. In these fast-changing economic times, corporations that were once considered top-tier can be forced into bankruptcy. Regarding bank loans to problematic borrowers, it is possible for borrowers to meet all requisite conditions when the loans were initially granted but then find themselves in a different situation over time. In such cases, corporations must be in a position to respond appropriately, which effectively means having established in-house oversight mechanisms already in place. In the case of Mizuho Bank, this mechanism appears to have been corrupted as a result of management problems typical of a bank that’s been created through the merger of multiple financial institutions, where the management structure tends to be vertically laid out along the divisional lines of each original bank. Secondly, who bears responsibility? Regarding loans to the yakuza, the party involved is a corporation — a legal entity as defined by law. Although some responsibility obviously lies with the people at the bank who actually dealt with the loans, it becomes a subject of debate as to who takes the blame for the fiasco as a business entity. In other words, the question is who should take responsibility for an act by a corporation that regularly rotates its management over time? I recall an experience I once had with a Swiss unit of a company I worked for that is related to the bank loan scandal. When approving annual earnings figures and electing members to sit on the board for the next fiscal year in Switzerland, a resolution is adopted that prevents former board members from being liable for anything that happens at the company at any time after they step down. Under the country’s banking laws, a majority of board members need to be Swiss nationals. I initially suspected that this was a measure of self-protection by the local board members. However, the purpose of such a resolution is to confirm that all responsibilities are formally passed on to the succeeding members of the board. As a result, subsequent board members cannot evade responsibility for an illegitimate loan with an excuse that he was not with the board or the bank when the loan was granted. If they do not agree to such a resolution, they have a choice to step down as a board member. Unless this principle is protected, a situation could emerge where nobody at the bank takes responsibility for problems in a long-term loan approved by their predecessors who have already retired. When this principle is applied to Mizuho’s yakuza loans, it’s obvious that the responsibility lies with the current members of the board. The question then becomes, who takes the blame for each specific aspect of the problem? Thirdly, acts of falsification — namely, the menu misrepresentations — can be carried out by corporations and individual businesses. Operators of those restaurants may have had a hard time making money as the cost of ingredients rose with the yen’s depreciation, but that’s no excuse for their actions. In any case, that’s precisely what happens in a competitive market. Market mechanisms can occasionally go too far, but socialism through artificial policy manipulation has historically shown itself to be a failure. In corporate organizations or individual businesses, responsibility falls on the people who actually drive the day-to-day transactions. The basic principles of commerce are tied to the level of trust that is ultimately formed with your customers, and this relationship of trust is maintained by the people in charge. As economies around the world become increasingly integrated, such acts as menu falsifications represent a betrayal of trust for consumers. We should remember that such actions are not just something individuals or corporations need to be aware of — they can also damage the international credibility of Japan as a whole. Teruhiko Mano is an international economic analyst.

mizuho bank
mislabeling
corporate responsibility


In touristy Tokyo, Harajuku still stands out from the crowd

Abstract: Harajuku, one of the most popular tourist spots for foreign visitors to Tokyo, is best known for Takeshita-dori, the narrow lane crammed with shops that runs for about 350 meters from JR Harajuku Station toward Meiji-dori. In a survey earlier this year by global travel information website TripAdvisor, Harajuku was voted the most popular tourist destination in the country. The street has become famous for its large number of shops and boutiques targeting youths, especially high school girls, with fashion items having unique — even peculiar — tastes. Since Takeshita-dori has been designated by Shibuya Ward as an adult entertainment-free district, there are no pachinko parlors or “fuzoku” sex shops nearby. That is one of the reasons why schools from across the country choose the area as a major destination during their traditional trips to Tokyo. The number of visitors peaks during spring break in March and Golden Week in late April and early May. According to data compiled by JR and Tokyo subway companies, an average of around 110,000 people visit the area every day. After World War II, the Washington Heights housing facility for high-ranking U.S. servicemen was built in what is now Yoyogi Park. Not long after, shops selling furniture and toys to the U.S. residents began to spring up around Harajuku. Local merchants say the current shape of Takeshita-dori based on youth fashion was formed in 1974, when a nine-story commercial complex called Palais France was built at the end of the street near Meiji-dori. The complex was demolished about a decade ago. Kazuhiro Osozawa, head of the Takeshita-dori merchants association, said he hopes the shops in the area will make young people’s dreams come true.


Crusader for social activism brings Change.org to Japan

Abstract: It was a victorious moment for Emmy Suzuki Harris when the Matsue Board of Education in Shimane Prefecture retracted its request to limit students’ access to the manga “Hadashi no Gen” (“Barefoot Gen”). The retraction last summer was partly because the ban had gone viral and triggered a controversy after more than 20,000 signatures were collected online against the restriction via Change.org . Suzuki Harris had launched the Japanese edition of the global petition platform in August 2012 . “We had significant victories where people felt like they are part of something that happened,” said Suzuki Harris. “People see something in the news and think, ‘Actually I have an opinion about that,’ and join the petition to make their voices heard.” Suzuki Harris has become a crusader for social change in Japan, where few people are used to wading into social or political activism. The 29-year-old advocate hopes Change.org will offer a place for Japanese to get involved in the democratic process by making their voices heard, as the world’s biggest online petition platform allows anybody to take matters into their own hands at any time without the worry of running up big bills. Since its launch in Japan, more than 150,000 people have either started or participated in petitions. This fast growth rate came as a happy surprise to Suzuki Harris, as she was often told this kind of platform wouldn’t work in Japanese society, where most people shy away from being the first one to take action and are afraid of the ramifications it they raise a voice regarding social or political issues. “You have to give people concrete and real examples of things that are working when you use online tools to impact the real world,” said Suzuki Harris. Petitions at Change.org range from the highly political, such as a call to abolish the controversial state secrecy bill or to press Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima not to authorize a landfill operation to build a relocation facility for the U.S. Futenma military base, to very local issues, such as not to do away with a bicycle lane in a neighborhood park. Several petitions have found success, such as a student drive for universities to reduce their fees when they take a leave of absence, while others have failed to produce positive results. “If you talk to petition starters, even if they did not win, they say ‘I am really glad that I did that. It was a really good experience for me,’ ” said Suzuki Harris. “You feel like they have a little bit more confidence and they have a little bit more experience under their belt.” Even though she is now a prominent activist in Japan, Suzuki Harris did not always have a strong bent toward social movements. Born into what she describes as a business-oriented family — an American father and Japanese mother here in Japan — she said she never really followed the news or took an interest in social issues. After graduating from Yale University, she worked for McKinsey & Co., an American-based global consulting company. Her turning point came in 2008 when she heard Barack Obama giving a campaign speech at a warehouse in downtown Seattle when he was running for president. Suzuki Harris said it was the first time that she had listened to a politician speaking and it really felt like he was speaking to her personally, as an individual. “That was the first time I’d ever taken an interest in politics and thought about the importance of the election or contributing to the society in a way more than to have a job and pay taxes,” said Suzuki Harris, who left McKinsey and moved to New York, where she joined Obama’s grass-roots campaign team. While Obama influenced U.S. voters with his campaign slogan of “change” in 2008, which helped him sweep to victory, his philosophy of bringing social change via the power of the Internet inspired Suzuki Harris to get involved in social change campaigns and ultimately help launch Change.org in Japan. This is why she is somewhat disappointed with the way the Japanese media and politicians treated the power of the Internet during the Upper House election in July, when online campaigning was partly deregulated. Suzuki Harris felt that even tech-savvy politicians talked about the Internet in the context of Facebook or Twitter to solicit votes when in reality the Internet could be a powerful platform for constructive policy discussion. Many politicians lost interest in online activities as soon as the election was over, she said, while in contrast Obama kept the communication channels open following his first victory in 2008. “Obama was able to reactivate people, because during those four years he spent money, time and effort in maintaining those communities,” said Suzuki Harris. “I think we are not going to see payoffs of that kind of community organizing done online in Japan for a little bit longer because people need to build the community, maintain it and make it OK for the people to express political will online, but I don’t think the people were there yet this past summer.” Suzuki Harris acknowledges that change takes time, as was demonstrated in the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s and recent victories by the LGBT community over same-sex marriage after many years of struggle. But she said it is now time for the Japanese people to realize that the government can no longer provide what they want when resources are limited, and that the public should not let big government organizations or companies keep control of the decision-making process. She said petitions are the easiest way for people to start taking ownership in their local community. “I think the marketplace for ideas here is limited to folks who already have a standing or who are quote-unquote not afraid of opinion,” she said. “My goal is to help more people believe that their voice matters and that their opinion is worth something, because I think too many Japanese people think their opinion is worthless.” Highlights for Emmy Suzuki Harris 1983 — Born in Tokyo. 2006 — Graduates from Yale University. 2006 — Joins McKinsey & Co. as a business analyst. 2008 — Leaves McKinsey and joins Obama for America as new media deputy. 2009 — Goes to work for the New York State Senate as an online communications manager. 2009 — Joins Purpose, a social movement startup, as a senior strategist. 2012 — Moves back to Japan and launches Change.org .

change
online petition
social change campaign


No country for small-time rice farmers

Abstract: ABIKO, CHIBA PREF., Ogata Akita Pref. - In the suburbs of Tokyo, rice farmer Koichi Yuge is weighing how the government’s change of heart on controlling rice prices will impact his 300-year-old family business. Yuge, who grows the Koshihikari brand of rice on 6 hectares of paddies in the city of Abiko, Chiba Prefecture, said he’s worried that the government’s recent decision to scrap traditional controls on rice production could cause supplies to surge amid slipping demand, lowering prices even further. The 48-year-old Yuge is a typical rice grower in Japan: a small-scale, part-time farmer who often finds himself at the whim of changes in government policy. “I don’t make money from farming, especially from rice,” Yuge, who lives with his wife, two school-age children and elderly parents, said. “I make a living from managing rental properties I own, and use that income to supplement my losses in farming.” Yuge said the reason he maintains his loss-incurring farming business is because he feels indebted to his forebears, who passed the land down through the centuries. “It also provides a reason to live for my parents, who like tending the paddies,” he added. For most Japanese farmers, rice farming is not nearly sufficient to earn a living. According to the agriculture ministry, the average arable land per farmer was only 1.8 hectares in 2006, compared with 16.9 hectares in Europe, 180.2 hectares in the United States and a staggering 3,424 hectares in Australia. Among Japan’s 1.2 million rice farming families in 2010, full-time cultivators accounted for only 18.7 percent, while the remainder, such as Yuge, farm part time while holding a second job. Yuge said things were rosier in the old days, when government-controlled rice prices kept going up every year. He pointed to a towel that he proudly hangs on the wall of a farmhouse behind his spacious residence, listing the year-by-year figure for the wholesale price of 60 kg of rice. The list goes all the way back to 1868. It shows that the price of rice grew steadily over the years, peaking in 1984 and plateauing for a few years afterward. By the time he inherited the family business in 1989, after graduating from college, prices had started falling despite the government-set “gentan” production quota, which reduces rice production by controlling farmland in use. The trend continues to this day, with domestic rice consumption waning as lifestyles become more Westernized. “When my dad was in charge, it was a great time for rice farmers,” said Yuge, who also grows corn, carrots and leeks. “If the price falls further, whether through a relaxation of government restrictions on rice production or through Japan’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, I won’t have enough money to replace my old farming equipment.” Despite his emotional attachment to farming, he said he doesn’t want his children to inherit the family tradition: “I tell my son to become a salaryman. It’s too tough to be a farmer.” For Hajime Kobayashi, chairman of the agricultural cooperative of Ogata, Akita Prefecture, the political landscape looks a bit different. His village was developed by the central government with land reclaimed from Japan’s second-largest lake, Hachirogata, and it is one of the few places left in the country with large-scale paddies. Ogata has 510 full-time farming families, and 80 percent of them have young successors ready to continue the family business. The average farmer has 17.2 hectares of paddies. “This is a place where you need to bet your future on rice production,” Kobayashi said. According to Kobayashi, agricultural cooperatives in other areas have maintained strong ties with ruling party politicians, meaning they could rely on the government to keep rice prices high and provide various subsidies to rice farmers. But he argues the state pricing system should now be scrapped to force rice farmers to compete. That would benefit consumers and at the same time create new sales opportunities at home and overseas, and for processed food products made with rice flour, Kobayashi said. But lowering prices means less income for farmers, particularly those who work full time, he said, so the government should provide direct subsidies to them to mitigate those losses and stabilize their income. Toru Wakui, another large-scale farmer in Ogata, largely agreed with Kobayashi. Government financial supports for rice farmers, if any, should be based on a national consensus that Japan needs to maintain its agriculture sector to be prepared for potential global food shortages — not on the vested interests of farmers and politicians, Wakui said. “If the people agree that Japan doesn’t need (domestic) rice, you should just get rid of agriculture,” he said. “But if the people believe Japan needs agriculture, something like direct payment to farmers or a high rice price may be needed. It should be a decision by the people.”


State secrets bill shows Abe's tin ear for local politics

Abstract: Former U.S. Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, one of America’s most influential politicians of the late 20th century, had some sage advice for those who thought about national or international politics. “All politics,” O’Neill warned, “is local.” It’s a lesson Tokyo’s political and media class too often forgets or ignores. In the case of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the negative reaction around Japan to his forcing the state secrets bill through the Diet just adds to the perception he has a tin ear for local politics. Had Abe or his Cabinet listened more and spoken less, they would have discovered the law was not just a “national” issue. From Osaka and Kobe to Fukushima, Fukui and Okinawa, local leaders were skeptical at best and have concerns that are not going to go away. In Osaka, Mayor and Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) co-leader Toru Hashimoto, of all people, rose to defend freedom of the press and open government from the old, mostly Tokyo-based, nationalist right-wingers in his party who welcomed the law as a way to return the country to the 1930s of their dreams. Hashimoto’s opposition was not political grandstanding. Like many Osakans, he saw the secrecy law as an ill-considered attempt by Tokyo control freaks to roll back government transparency and, Hashimoto believes, government efficiency. In neighboring Kobe, there was a different concern. Since the mid-1970s, the city has required foreign military vessels entering the harbor to declare whether or not they have nuclear weapons. The regulation was aimed at U.S. warships, and none have visited Kobe since the ordinance was passed. But Kobe citizens and local politicians now worry their city will be found guilty of violating the law’s provisions on defense if it continues to enforce the ordinance. In Fukui and Fukushima, the worry is what happens to information about nuclear power plants, rather than technical data. Shimin Ombudsman, a national confederation of government watchdogs, publishes information about the cozy financial relationship between nuclear power and local governments. And all local governments seek more information about the plants to facilitate better cooperation between their operators and local police, fire and emergency rescue teams. Could such information be at least partially classified by paranoid bureaucrats or politicians under the law’s opaque goal of “preventing terrorism”? The Fukushima Prefectural Assembly formally questioned the law, while Fukui Prefecture said it’s not applicable to nuclear power stations. This echoes Tokyo’s assurances. But it’s also a political warning to Abe that Fukui, which hosts 13 commercial atomic power plants, is not going to simply salute and say, “yes sir,” and walk away if told by the central government that whatever nuclear plant-related information it seeks has been classified. And then there’s Okinawa. Some proponents of U.S. military installations might welcome the law as a great way to shut up — and shut out — the anti-base movement’s constant demands for information. But this would be a mistake. Okinawan politicians, especially those in the local Liberal Democratic Party chapter who support the bases, also understand that actions by Tokyo resulting in less, not more, transparency about the bases is only going to create more political headaches for them. In addition, over the past couple of years Okinawa’s anti-base movement has changed tactics. It’s reached out to allies in Washington, with whom it regularly consults for information on what the U.S. government is doing. Just because Tokyo has classified something about Okinawa doesn’t mean it will remain a secret because Okinawans have more of an ability to seek out the same information in the United States, where the information may be publicly available. Whether due to hubris or a genuine belief he can ride out any opposition, Abe believes he’s weathered the storm and that, whatever political price he and his ruling LDP eventually pay for the secrets law, it will be small. He will no doubt continue to assert that the law is a national issue that has no effect on local government. However, as last week’s breakup of the opposition group Your Party showed, and as O’Neill would have known, even if it really is about local government none of the time, it’s about local politics, i.e. the attitude of your voters, all of the time.

state secrets
state secrets bill
shinzo abe
osaka
kobe
fukui
toru hashimoto
secrecy
nuclear power


Why didn't Japan have a revolution like France's?

Abstract: Why wasn’t there a revolution in Japan like the one in France? The suffering was as great in 18th-century Japan as in the realm of ill-fated King Louis XVI, the government here as callous and incompetent as the government there. How did Japan’s old order — rotting internally, as its collapse under foreign threat in the 1860s proved — escape being overthrown by the starving and enraged masses? Rage smoldered perpetually and erupted frequently. By one count there were 2,967 peasant ikki (uprisings) during the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867); by another, 6,889. It depends on what degree of violence qualifies as an ikki. The worst of them were very violent indeed, so much so that a mere threat was sometimes enough to make a prudent daimyo (feudal lord) back down. He would have in mind, perhaps, the Shimabara peasant revolt in 1638 in Kyushu’s present-day Nagasaki Prefecture — a victory for the shogunal forces that crushed it, though at the cost of 15,000 casualties. The living conditions in Shimabara were especially harsh. Tax was piled on tax — door tax, shelf tax, hearth tax, cattle tax, birth tax, death tax — all this in addition to the basic tax on produce. Taxes were paid in rice and other grains, so that payment often meant starvation. Punishment for nonpayment had to be worse in order to be effective. Various lesser tortures culminated in the “ mino dance,” mino being the name of the straw raincoat in which offenders were burned alive as an example to others. Cruelty this grotesque is rare in the annals. Oppression beyond a certain point hinders production. Peasant toil requires a degree of health and strength. If not human sympathy, simple self-interest inclined most daimyo to a measure of lenience. Only a measure, however. The nativist philosopher Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) expressed the prevailing attitude, warning in 1771, “If the people below do not fear those above, this is the root of disorder.” Had Motoori and other mainstream Japanese thinkers of the day ever even heard of France? China and India are the only foreign countries they mention. France would have rewarded scrutiny, however. “Disorder” there was acquiring a new meaning, soon to be encapsulated in a new political term: revolution. It means many things and arouses many emotions, from dread to exultation, but it boils down to this blunt observation by one of its early philosophers, Louis de Saint-Just (1764-94): “The wretched are the power of the Earth.” The Confucian theory then prevailing in Japan accorded peasants high honor. They ranked second in the class hierarchy, below the samurai but above artisans and merchants. So much for theory. Practice is summed up by two proverbs of the day: “The peasants are a tool for the extraction of rice tax,” and “Peasants are like sesame seeds. The harder you squeeze them the more they give.” That conveys their wretchedness. What about their power? They had it and often wielded it, frequently suffering torture and execution, sometimes carrying their point. The earliest ikki date back to the 15th century. In 1441, Kyoto, the Imperial capital, was besieged by peasants demanding nullification of crushing debt. “Now (the peasants) have blocked the seven gateways into the capital,” a government minister confided to his diary. “There is nothing on sale anymore, and the capital is doomed to starve. An unspeakable state of affairs!” Unspeakable but irresistible. “This was the first time in the history of Japan,” notes historian Donald Keene (in “Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion,” 2003), “that the government had bowed in this manner to demands of the common people.” The first time; not the last. In December 1707 Mount Fuji erupted, burying nearby villages in 4 meters of volcanic ash. Homes were lost, harvests destroyed, spring planting jeopardized. When officials of the Odawara domain (in present-day Kanagawa Prefecture) were slow to respond to appeals for relief, the desperate farmers hastily organized a march to Edo (present-day Tokyo). Cornered, the daimyo backed down. The last thing he wanted was thousands of his peasants swarming the metropolis and showing the world the breakdown of his local rule. Famine was the curse of preindustrial Japan, as of preindustrial France. No region in Japan suffered more down the centuries than Tohoku, the northeastern region of Honshu, and no part of Tohoku was harder hit than the Nanbu domain, desperately poor at the best of times, centered on Morioka. Begrudging nature and corrupt government share the blame. Here in 1853 there occurred one of the greatest peasant revolts in Japanese history. Some 17,000 farmers massed, marched, smashed property of the rich, crossed the border into the rival Sendai domain and submitted a list of grievances to the Sendai daimyo. The shogun in Edo took notice — and the shogunate took action. The Nanbu daimyo was dispossessed. The peasants were victorious. But not revolutionary. Why not? Where is the line that must be crossed before the aroused fury of the downtrodden masses produces not just destruction, fear and concessions but a true revolution? The best answer is a philosophical one. A revolution alters our deepest thoughts. It makes former ways of thinking almost unthinkable. In 1789, France’s revolutionary National Assembly produced a Declaration of the Rights of Man which proclaimed, “All men are born free and equal.” That’s France’s revolution in a nutshell. Nothing comparable came out of Japan’s peasant violence. Japan’s peasants, even the most progressive among them, never dreamed such a thing. All they demanded was relief from starvation. Sometimes they got it. More often they didn’t. Either way, the feudal system that oppressed and exploited them went practically unchallenged, and when it finally crumbled, a mere 14 years after the Nanbu revolt, the fatal blow was struck by foreign interlopers, not Japanese revolutionaries.

tokugawa shogunate
motoori norinaga
nanbu domain
morioka
french revolution


Osaka joins rush to attract foreign tourists

Abstract: If you asked many Kansai-area foreigners, and not a few Tokyoites, to come up with a slogan to promote Osaka internationally, you might get a response along the lines of: “Osaka: When You Can’t Get a Hotel in Kyoto.” Proximity to the ancient capital (station to station it is only 30 minutes on an express train) is one of many issues Osaka faces in its renewed quest to lure foreign tourists. But that’s not to say they are avoiding the city. Indeed, the opposite is true, especially for those traveling here from other countries in the region. Recent statistics released by the Osaka Government Tourism Bureau show that in 2012, about 8.36 million people visited Japan, with 5.42 million, or 65 percent, coming from four Asian countries and cities: South Korea, Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong. Of these, around 52 percent from Taiwan, 50 percent from Hong Kong, 30 percent from South Korea and 20 percent from China passed through Kansai airport, as opposed to only 11 percent of those from North America. This year, foreign visitors to Osaka are expected to hit about 2.6 million, up from 2.1 million in 2012. Past attempts to sell Osaka abroad have focused on bringing people to aquariums or landmarks that city planners mistakenly thought would be of interest. Now, however, the focus is on marketing Osaka as an entertainment destination and providing a more personal, interactive experience. Among the promotional activities planned for 2014 are the Osaka Pop International Cool Japan Awards, scheduled to take place in March, and the UNESCO-sponsored International Jazz Day, which is actually five days of concerts and workshops that kick off on April 25. The pop festival in late March includes events on manga, anime, food, music and other cultural curiosities. The awards will honor the most creative entries from around the world in a variety of pop culture fields and will become an annual event. On the other hand, promoting jazz in Osaka sounds strange to Kansai-area residents, who have long associated that particular genre of music with its western neighbor Kobe, the venue for one of the nation’s largest jazz festivals for over 30 years. But Osaka tourism bureau Executive Director Kunio Kano says efforts are bearing fruit. “In November, we hosted the first Osaka Asian Dream Jazz Competition. Thelonious Monk Jr. attended, and we had support from the Monk Institute of Jazz. With the International Jazz Day planned for April, we think Osaka will become a major Asian hub for jazz,” he said. Osaka officials have also, finally, begun to offer themed walking tours. Six tours are offered on the bureau’s website, covering the city’s northern and southern areas and focusing on Osaka Castle, Sumiyoshi Shrine, the city’s various waterways, the throbbing Dotonbori district and the more down-to-earth (traditionally, at least) Tennoji district. Residents have long been proud of their food and boast about the “takoyaki” (octopus dumplings) and okonomiyaki (as-you-like pancakes) as reasons to visit. However, Kyoto, Sapporo, Yokohama, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Okinawa and, of course, Tokyo, have restaurants of all kinds offering food that is similar in quality or better than what one can find in Osaka. The response to such regional competition has been to boost emphasis on the creation and enjoyment of simple foods via tours to local markets, highlight the part of town that sells kitchen and restaurant supplies, and offer home cooking experiences where tourists can learn to make dishes like sushi, okonomiyaki, and tempura. This overall strategy might be working, given the rise in visitors. But Osaka’s goal is to attract 4.5 million of them by 2016, and 6.5 million by 2020 — ambitious figures, to be sure. Additional flights from Asian cities into Kansai airport these past few years, plus the fact that more tour companies are bringing visitors in through Tokyo and out through Kansai, will help meet these targets. Additionally, if Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government legalizes casino resorts next year, those who with a yen for gambling will also have a reason to come. At the same time, private entrepreneurs are targeting the kind of visitor officials and big travel agencies tend to ignore: intelligent and curious individuals who hate guided bus tours and prefer to take things at their own pace. Osaka resident Sam Crofts conducts bicycle tours of Osaka through his company Cycle Osaka. Limited to six people, he takes visitors on a leisurely journey through the city, where they see the sites and stop occasionally for snacks, drinks, pictures and chit-chat. Many of those who sign up, Crofts says, are from Asia. “I get the impression that (my customers) want to see something real, not the old world perfection of Kyoto or the endless glass of Tokyo. They love the Osaka Castle grounds, and most are surprised by the amount of greenery, though my route is careful to exploit every square inch of it. They also like Nakanoshima’s European-style buildings and when random people stop and say hi, which happens all the time on our tours but much less outside of Osaka, apparently,” Crofts said. “On the less positive side, I get a lot of questions about homeless people. Many say it’s the only time in Japan they have seen people sleeping on the floor in the middle of town,” he added. His advice for luring more tourists was specific and critical to travelers in the digital age. “I’d like to see the implementation, as opposed to general discussion, of initiatives — such as Wi-Fi in tourism spots — it would be great for Osaka to take the lead nationally in that,” Crofts said A tourism bureau survey conducted between April and July of 4,600 foreigners who used Kansai airport also revealed the need for practical initiatives like better Wi-Fi access, rather than grand projects. But such requests are often ignored by bureaucrats who prefer to focus on the “big picture.” Thus, whether the latest effort to promote Osaka will address such practical needs is something that remains to be seen.


Kyoto aims to be Muslim-friendly city

Abstract: KYOTO - Kyoto, a city known worldwide as a major center for Buddhism and as the home of some of the country’s most famous Shinto shrines, is stepping up efforts to better welcome one particular group of foreign visitors: Muslims. With the number of Muslim tourists from Malaysia on the rise, thanks to visa restrictions that were eased last July and the growing number of international conferences in the ancient capital being attended by Muslims from Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, the city decided earlier this year to formally research better ways meet their needs. Of the nearly 845,000 foreign visitors to Kyoto in 2012 who spent at least one night at a hotel, only about 13,000 were from Malaysia and Indonesia. But that was up from the combined 8,000 or so who visited in 2011, and the figure is expected to grow. In response, Kyoto established a study group to make the city more Muslim-friendly. It consists of hotel managers, convention bureau officials, restaurateurs and others interested in attracting more Muslims. The group receives advice from the Kyoto Muslim Association, which allows Muslims to visit and pray at the mosque inside and which provides information on halal and Muslim-friendly restaurants in Kyoto. Some hotels, such as Hotel Granvia and Kyoto Century Hotel, already offer Muslim-friendly meals, while the Kyoto Rose Café, not far from the association’s headquarters, offers halal meals. There are also Japanese- and English-language websites that list halal and Muslim-friendly establishments in Kyoto. But one idea that the group, under the direction of the Kyoto Muslim Association, is looking at is a more detailed guide to restaurants that are classified as not only “Muslim-friendly” but also “halal,” “Muslim-welcome” and “pork-free.” A restaurant is designated halal when all of its menu items are halal-certified and contain no pork or pork products, and when no alcohol, including cooking wine or mirin (a sweet cooking wine made from rice), is used during the cooking process. Muslim-friendly means the restaurant has both halal and non-halal menus. Muslim-welcome means no pork or alcohol was used in the cooking, but non-halal meats and alcohol are available. Pork-free means just that, but alcohol may have been used in the cooking and the menu is non-halal. In addition to offering prayer rooms facing toward Mecca or taking care to ensure the food served meets the requirements of Muslim customers, there are other issues. Rie Doi, director of tourism promotion at the Kyoto Convention Bureau, notes it is especially important that Kyoto businesses interested in selling their wares to Muslim tourists understand the cultural background of their customers. “For example, some companies may wish to offer certain kinds of souvenirs in colors that are particularly popular in the Muslim world and different from (those) other foreign customers might want,” she said. At the same time, Muslim tourists, no matter where they’re from, ask the same kinds of questions any tourist might ask. A recent report presented to the study group noted that Malaysian Muslims asked their travel agents why they were going to a particular Kyoto temple or shrine and what, exactly, they could do while there. The report said addressing these questions was extremely important to Muslim visitors. But not a few tourists — most with limited time, little or no understanding of Japanese, and a minimal understanding of Kyoto’s history — are likely to want the answers as well.


Mizuho Bank to face one-month suspension of some affiliated loans

Abstract: The Financial Services Agency will order Mizuho Bank to suspend some of its affiliated loans for a month over its involvement in lending to members of organized crime groups, FSA sources said Wednesday. The FSA will also issue business improvement orders to the Mizuho Financial Group Inc., the sources said, adding the official announcement will likely come Thursday. The order by the financial watchdog will follow one issued to Mizuho Bank in September to improve operations after it left the problem unattended for more than two years despite its knowledge of the matter. The FSA decided to take additional punitive action over the loans to crime groups as the holding company was considered responsible for failing to prevent a false report from being submitted to regulators by the unit bank, the sources said. Mizuho Bank originally said its top management had not been aware of the issue, but it later reversed its claim, with President Yasuhiro Sato saying at a news conference that he and former President Satoru Nishibori were in a position to know about the loans. In late October, the bank submitted a report compiled by a third-party panel that said it found no evidence of a coverup. The FSA launched an additional probe into Mizuho Financial Group and Mizuho Bank on Nov. 5 to verify the contents of the report.

mizuho bank
financial service agency
punitive action