Japan's private schools fill a niche but at a cost

Abstract: OSAKA - The saga of scandal-plagued, Osaka-based Moritomo Gakuen, which advocated a nationalist education, has thrown the spotlight on private educational institutions in Japan and how they are operated. While Japan’s public elementary, junior high and high schools are often praised internationally for their quality, especially in math and sciences, many parents in Japan have long complained about a decline in standards and look to private schools to provide the type of education they feel their children need. How many private elementary, junior high and high schools are there in Japan? Education ministry statistics show there were 20,601 elementary schools in Japan as of fiscal 2015. Of these, only 227 were private. That same year, out of a total of 10,484 junior high schools, 774 were private. But among Japan’s 4,939 high schools, 1,320, or 26.7 percent, were private. The trend over the past two decades shows that the number of private elementary and junior high schools has increased, while the number of private high schools has remained virtually unchanged. Education experts attribute this to a number of factors, including an increased demand among parents for better education at a younger age. Does Japan have a long tradition of private schools? Yes, very long. In a 2016 book on education and private schools, Masahiko Suruga traces the first private school in the country back to about 828, when the monk Kukai established Shugei Shuchi-in in Kyoto to teach Confucianism and Buddhism to ordinary people. A millennia later, during the 19th century, private education for a select few was offered to a closed Japan by the Dutch, who taught Western medicine and science. At the end of the Tokugawa Period, in 1858, the Shoka Sonjuku private school, run by famed intellectual Shoin Yoshida, was established in Yamaguchi Prefecture to teach young men military tactics and politics. Many of those who attended his school would go on to become leaders of the Meiji Restoration in 1868. In the post-World War II era, legal changes allowed for the rapid development of private schools. The Association of Private Universities of Japan notes there were three reasons for the spread of so-called incorporated educational institutions ( gakko hojin ) that manage private schools. First: to emphasize the value of diversity, in recognition of the narrow value system that brought Japan to war. Second: to help educate workers in the postwar period when the central government could not provide the necessary investment. The third reason is that while national universities trained the nation’s top government and business leaders, private universities could educate a broad range of specialties to create a large middle-management sector. Do those who set up educational institutions need to have an educational or academic background? No special training or advanced degrees are necessary. A private school operating as a business can be established by entrepreneurs regardless of their academic pedigree. However, what is required is a solid business plan and assurances that there will be a certain number of students and a certain teacher-to-student ratio. The education ministry is responsible for evaluating applications to start a private university or technical school. Prefectures are responsible for applications from entities wishing to establish private kindergartens, elementary, and junior high and high schools. So, legally, these incorporated educational institutions are similar to other incorporated businesses? There are many similarities. The Private Schools Act of 1949 is the fundamental legal instrument that establishes and regulates private schools in Japan. Prefectural governments have private schools councils that set out the frameworks for K-12 private schools. Council members are chosen by the governor for their relevant knowledge and experience in education. The law says the council should comprise between 10 and 20 members. What is the key barrier to gaining approval to set up a private school? In a word, money. Article 25, Section 1 of the Private Schools Act says that “an incorporated educational institution shall possess the facilities and equipment necessary for the private school that it establishes or the funds required therefor, as well as the property necessary for the management of the private school that it establishes.” The requirement to show that one has the necessary property, in particular, is one of the origins of the current problems with Osaka’s Moritomo Gakuen. The school has claimed that if it only rented, rather than purchased, land, its application to run a new elementary school might have been frowned upon by Osaka Prefecture. The land was later drastically, and suspiciously, reduced in price. In addition, ensuring prefectural officials that the necessary funds to operate have been secured is believed to be a reason why Moritomo submitted a low-cost construction estimate to the prefecture, one of three different estimates that the prefecture is now investigating. What does the future of private schools in Japan look like? With the number of children under the age of 14 expected to decline from about 15.5 million at present to about 13.2 million by 2030, the number of potential applicants for private kindergarten, elementary and junior high schools is clearly shrinking. While that will spur competition and force struggling private schools to close or merge, educational experts warn a balance needs to be struck between private education, which is profit-oriented and often emphasizes specific training and advocates specific philosophies, and the broader concept of a public education to create well-rounded citizens in a diverse society. Some worry over-privatization of schools will imperil the right to equal education opportunities, which are supposed to be free of charge under Article 26 of the Constitution.


One of the healthiest parts of Australia's Great Barrier Reef damaged by Cyclone Debbie

Abstract: SYDNEY - A cyclone that left a trail of destruction in northeast Australia and New Zealand has also damaged one of the few healthy sections of the Great Barrier Reef to have escaped large-scale bleaching, scientists said Monday. The natural devastation adds to the human and economic toll of Cyclone Debbie, which killed at least six people in recent weeks and severed rail transport lines in one of the world’s biggest coal precincts. The damage caused when the intense, slow-moving cyclone system struck a healthier section of the reef outweighed any potential beneficial cooling effect, scientists from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies said. “Any cooling effects related to the cyclone are likely to be negligible in relation to the damage it caused, which unfortunately struck a section of the reef that had largely escaped the worst of the bleaching,” ARC said in a statement. The World Heritage site has suffered a second bleaching event in 12 months, triggered by unseasonably warm waters, ARC added. Higher temperatures force coral to expel living algae and turn white as it calcifies. Mildly bleached coral can recover if the temperature drops, and an ARC survey found this happened in southern parts of the reef, where coral mortality was much lower, though scientists said much of the Great Barrier Reef is unlikely to recover. “It takes at least a decade for a full recovery of even the fastest-growing corals, so mass bleaching events 12 months apart offers zero prospect of recovery for reefs damaged in 2016,” said James Kerry, a senior research officer at the ARC. Repeated damage could prompt UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee to reconsider a 2015 decision not to put the Great Barrier Reef on its “in danger” list. Tourists drawn to the unique attraction spend 5.2 billion Australian dollars ($3.9 billion) each year, a 2013 Deloitte Access Economics report estimated.

australia
great barrier reef
oceans
weather
storms
biology
climate change


Amazon launches same-day delivery service for food and medicine

Abstract: As delivery firms struggle to manage overwhelming numbers of parcels, e-commerce giant Amazon Japan G.K. is expanding its same-day Prime Now delivery service to include cooked meals and other items. Amazon Japan said Tuesday it teamed up with Mitsukoshi’s flagship store in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district to deliver foods such as deli fare and Japanese wagashi confections sold at the store. The online retailer also announced it has teamed up with pharmacy chains Cocokara Fine Inc. and Matsumotokiyoshi Holdings Co. to deliver cosmetics and other daily supplies within one hour after an order is placed. The Prime Now service, launched in November 2015, has been available to Amazon Prime members who pay an annual fee of ¥3,900. Customers may choose items via a smartphone app with a minimum purchase of at least ¥2,500. The service is currently available to customers in parts of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, Osaka and Hyogo prefectures. The food delivery is only available for customers in eight Tokyo wards and the city of Urayasu in Chiba Prefecture. Meanwhile, Amazon.co.jp also started selling category No. 1 drugs, which require consultation with a pharmacist before purchase, at its website from Monday. Before placing orders, customers need to report their symptoms and medical history via a form on Amazon’s site. Items will only be delivered after approval by a pharmacist. Amazon is also reportedly considering a rollout of same-day delivery service of fresh food including fish and vegetables, although a spokeswoman for Amazon Japan on Wednesday declined to comment on the service. Similar options already exist in other countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Competition over same-day delivery of groceries via online shopping is heating up in Japan. Retailers such as Ito-Yokado Co., Aeon Co., and Seiyu GK. are competing for market share. Foreign services such as UberEats are also vying for customers in the food-delivery fray. While same-day delivery options may expand the way people shop online, the home delivery industry is seeking ways to mitigate the burden caused the recent huge spike in the number of parcels being transported by understaffed fleets of drivers. According to transport ministry, a record 3.87 billion parcels were delivered in 2016, up about 32 percent from a decade ago. This is mostly due to the increased popularity of online shopping, a market that expanded about 1.8 times from 2010 to 2015. To alleviate work overloads on drivers, parcel delivery firm Yamato Transport Corp., the leading deliverer for Amazon, has negotiated with the e-commerce giant on measures to improve the situation, including pulling out of same-day delivery. For Prime Now service, Amazon has established a delivery channel separate from Yamato that is dedicated to same-day delivery, the Amazon spokeswoman said. She also said that parcels ordered through the service rarely requires the extra burden of re-delivery.

amazon
delivery
foods
e-commerce
prime
yamato transport
amazon.com


Zuckerberg says augmented reality strategy to start with smartphones

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg laid out his strategy for augmented reality, saying the social network will use smartphone cameras to overlay virtual items on the real world rather than waiting for AR glasses to be technically possible. People will be able to use their phones to play games virtually on coffee tables, overlay statistics on a video of their daily run, leave a virtual note on the fridge, and more, Zuckerberg said Tuesday on stage at F8, the company’s developer conference in San Jose, California. It’s an evolution of the kind of technology that Snap Inc. pioneered, allowing people to change their faces into fun characters like puppies and vomiting rainbows. Facebook has spent the last few months adding Snapchat-like cameras to all of its apps. “Even if we were a little slow to add cameras to all our apps, I’m confident we’re going to push this augmented reality platform forward,” Zuckerberg said. “As silly as these effects might seem, they’re actually really important and meaningful because they allow us to share what’s important to us on a daily basis.” Zuckerberg sees virtual and augmented reality as the next phase of technological communication — and he’s not alone. Virtual reality completely immerses users in an artificial world and is being pushed most actively for gaming. Some analysts view it as a niche rather than a potential mainstream technology. Facebook in 2014 paid $2 billion for Oculus, a company that makes virtual reality headsets, taking an early step into the area. Now the field is crowded with others such as Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Apple Inc., which have more hardware experience. Augmented reality is a less-intrusive technology that places virtual elements into a user’s everyday experience. Apple CEO Tim Cook is said to be focusing on this area. Some rivals are building new AR devices, including glasses that project images in front of a user’s eyes. The global market for augmented reality products is estimated to surge 80 percent to $165 billion by 2024, according to researcher Global Market Insights. With the camera-filter moves announced Tuesday, Facebook is diversifying its bet and focusing on an area where it’s already dominant: communications software. Zuckerberg said he’s going to open a platform for developers to make AR camera effects for Facebook’s apps, “so we can just be sitting here and we want to play chess, snap, here’s a chessboard and we can play together,” he said. “Or a digital TV on the wall, instead of a piece of hardware it’s a $1 app.” Snap announced earlier that it will also make it possible to overlay three-dimensional effects on a person’s surroundings.

augmented reality
facebook
mark zuckerberg
vr


Yamato preparing 20% delivery rate hike in September, its first rise in 27 years

Abstract: Yamato Transport Co., Japan’s leading door-to-door parcel delivery service provider, is making final arrangements to raise its base shipping fees by up to 20 percent in September, sources familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The rate hike would be the first in 27 years, except for increases made in line with consumption tax hikes, and will affect both individual customers and corporate clients. The move coincides with Yamato’s efforts to curtail some of its services, such as by shortening the hours during which same-day delivery can be rearranged, amid a serious shortage of truck drivers and long hours worked by employees due to a surge in online shopping. Yamato will use proceeds from the rate hike to improve its workers’ conditions and services for its clients. With rival parcel delivery providers similarly facing labor shortages, they may follow Yamato’s lead once the company goes ahead with the rate hike. Currently base shipping rates vary by parcel size, as well as place of dispatch and destination. For example, it costs ¥756 ($7) to send within the same region a parcel that weighs up to 2 kg and measures up to a combined 60 cm in length, width and height. Yamato will raise the rates by between 5 and 20 percent, depending on parcel size, according to the sources. Under the plan, the rate for a package that now costs ¥756 to send is likely to be around ¥900. Along with the shipping rate change, the company will review its contracts with major corporate clients to limit the volume of parcels it must handle. It has already begun talks with major clients, including Amazon.com Inc.’s Japan unit, and it may terminate contracts with clients that do not accept higher shipping rates. The company delivered a record 1.87 billion parcels in the year ended in March.


China uncovers environmental breaches at two-thirds of firms

Abstract: BEIJING - More than two-thirds of the companies investigated by China in its latest campaign against pollution have violated environmental rules, a environment ministry official told a briefing on Friday. China launched a campaign earlier this month aimed at “normalizing compliance” in 28 cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, a major pollution hot spot. Tian Weiyong, head of the monitoring department at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said 4,077 firms had already been investigated as part of the campaign, and 2,808 firms were found to have violated environmental rules, 69 percent of the total. China is in the fourth year of its “war on pollution,” but the environment ministry has traditionally struggled to impose its will on powerful industrial enterprises and growth-obsessed local governments. It has drawn up new laws and standards, increased the range of punishments and boosted its monitoring and enforcement capabilities in order to tackle noncompliance. China imposed total fines of 6.63 billion yuan ($963.30 million) for environmental violations in 2016, up 56 percent compared to the previous year, the ministry said in a statement ahead of the Friday briefing. It said it punished a total of 137,800 environmental violations in 2016, up 34 percent from 2015, in its efforts to boost environmental law enforcement and compliance. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is under pressure to cut 2012 levels of breathable particulate matter known as PM2.5 by a quarter by the end of this year. While the region has made progress over the past five years, average PM2.5 concentrations in the region rose 48 percent year-on-year in the first two months of 2017. Friday’s statement said China now had a workforce of more than 70,000 responsible for enforcing environmental laws and regulations, and noted the MEP was also encouraging ordinary citizens to report pollution. In a separate statement on Friday, the Beijing environmental protection bureau issued new guidelines, saying it would pay rewards up to 50,000 yuan ($7,300) to residents who reported serious environmental violations, including the dumping of hazardous waste or radioactive materials. Individuals who report firms for improperly using or tampering with environmental monitoring equipment could get a 3,000 yuan ($440) reward, the environmental protection bureau said.


Overwhelmed Yamato mulls exit from Amazon's same-day delivery service

Abstract: Yamato Transport Co., Japan’s leading door-to-door courier firm, is considering withdrawing from its same-day delivery service for Amazon.com Inc. to reduce the heavy workload on its drivers, sources close to the matter said Friday. The online retail giant offers the service to customers who pay a ¥3,900 annual fee, using Yamato to deliver parcels on the same day orders are placed. But the service is taking an increasing toll on Yamato’s drivers because of the high volume of nighttime deliveries. Yamato will gradually reduce the volume of parcels accepted for the service and eventually withdraw from it completely — a move that could force online retailers to review their services, the sources said. Last month, the group firm of Yamato Holdings Co. said it will review contracts with major corporate clients, including online retailers, to reduce the amount of parcels handled. The company had been considering partly terminating contracts with major clients who refused to accept raised shipping fees or deferring delivery days during peak periods. Yamato plans to raise its base shipping fees by the end of September for the first time in 27 years to maintain service quality amid a manpower shortage and an increase in online shopping, while struggling with growing costs for outsourcing its deliveries. With 90 percent of its parcels coming from corporate clients, including online retailers, Yamato had been offering them discounts based on delivery volume. But Yamato has already begun talks with major clients, including Amazon’s Japan unit, over the envisioned fee hike. According to Yamato, the company delivered roughly 1.8 billion parcels in fiscal 2016 amid a surge in online shopping. But the number is likely to drop, with Yamato pulling out of the same-day service and Japan Post Co., the mail unit of state-owned behemoth Japan Post Holdings Co., expected to pick up some of it.

amazon
delivery
yamato transport
yamato holdings


Kinki finance staff met with Osaka officials five times to hash out Moritomo's school application

Abstract: OSAKA - The Osaka Prefectural Government announced Thursday that staff from the Finance Ministry’s Kinki Local Finance Bureau met with its officials five times over 16 months to discuss scandal-plagued Moritomo Gakuen’s application to open a new elementary school, placing pressure on officials in the final meeting to settle things quickly. The announcement came after a weeks-long investigation by the prefecture into whether Moritomo Gakuen received preferential treatment. The opening of the school has been indefinitely postponed by a scandal in which the private school operator, which advocates a nationalistic education, received a suspiciously large discount on a piece of government property. Yasunori Kagoike, who was head of Moritomo Gakuen at the time of the land purchase, is also under investigation for submitting different construction cost estimates to the prefecture, the central government and the original owner of the parcel purchased for the new school in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture. According to the prefecture, the first of the five meetings between the prefectural and Kinki Local Finance Bureau officials took place on Sept. 12, 2013, at a time when the school’s operator had been told by the central government that the property and what Moritomo wanted to build on it could be rented first, as long as it was purchased at a later date. At that point in time, Kagoike could not afford the ¥956 million the land was valued at and decided renting was the best option. He later purchased the land after approval to open the school had been granted and the price had been slashed to ¥134 million for reasons yet to be determined. The prefecture says that, during the second meeting in November 2013, its officials were shown a proposal for financing by the regional bureau. The prefecture replied that since approval for the school had yet to be granted, it was difficult to reply to the proposal. Things remained static until late July 2014, when the regional bureau asked Osaka if any progress had been made on the issue. They asked the same question again just over two months later, in early October. At this point, Moritomo had not officially applied to open the school but did so at the end of that month. With the application still under review in January 2015, the Kinki finance bureau met with Osaka officials for a fifth time and asked when approval would be handed down, reportedly suggesting to the prefecture that it could control the schedule of the review process. The prefecture replied that, even if a reply was given, it didn’t mean it would be a nod of approval. However, about three weeks later, the prefecture gave conditional approval for the elementary school, despite concerns about whether it would attract enough students to meet local regulations for operating a private school and doubts about whether its financing plan was sound. The central government has denied it pressured Osaka Prefecture to grant approval. The prefecture’s investigation was based largely on individual memories of the events and interviews with officials, who said they did not take official notes of the meeting. Osaka Gov. Ichiro Matsui has called on the Finance Ministry and the Kinki Local Finance Bureau to release their own records of the five meetings. In Diet testimony last month, the Finance Ministry said records of individual meetings were only stored for one year and that the computer data had been automatically destroyed.


Higher education keeps overreaching

Abstract: Since the mid-2000s, the number of Japanese people who turn 18 in a given year has remained constant at about 1.2 million. That will change with the high school graduating class of 2018, which will be smaller than the class of 2017. This eventuality, though predicted some time ago, is making the government and the education industry nervous. For two decades the authorities have grappled with the declining birthrate and its effect on demographics, and during that same period there has been an increase in the number of universities in Japan. In 2015, there were 604 privately run four-year institutions of higher learning, or about twice as many as there were in the 1980s. In 2012, then-education minister Makiko Tanaka refused to approve three new private universities , saying there were too many already, but she later bowed to bureaucratic pressure and allowed them to open. The current amakudari (descent from heaven) scandal involving education ministry bureaucrats securing post-retirement employment in the field they administer before retiring — a practice that is illegal — shows that the relationship between the ministry and universities remains codependent. It’s all about money or, at this point, economic survival. This is one reason for the media’s obsession with Japan’s rankings in the latest survey of Asia’s best universities as carried out by the magazine Times Higher Education. The University of Tokyo, ranked seventh, is the only Japanese school in the top 10. Japan still has more schools on the list than any other Asian country, but that’s because it has so many schools in the first place. Only 12 of the 69 Japanese universities mentioned are in the top 100, two fewer than last year. In terms of worldwide rankings, only two Japanese schools are in the top 200 . Education researcher Yo Ogawa studies Japanese universities vis-a-vis their counterparts in other countries. In his latest book, “ Kieyuku ‘Genkai Daigaku’: Shiritsu Daigaku Teiinware no Kozo ” (“Vanishing ‘Universities on the Brink’: The Framework of Insufficient Enrollment at Private Universities”), he shows how declining academic standards are the result of schools’ efforts to stay in business. Years ago these institutions recognized the difficulties that lie ahead and have been trying to prepare themselves. During a recent discussion of his book on the TBS radio show Session 22 , Ogawa kept circling back to the number 80. Every year, private universities set enrollment targets, and as long as they reach at least 80 percent of their targets, they can get by. Anything less and they fall into the red. Right now, says Ogawa, about 130 private universities, or one-fifth of the total number in Japan, are already below 80 percent, which means if they don’t get their numbers up they will probably go bankrupt. The curtain on this Darwinian scenario rose in the ’80s, when two-year junior colleges saw enrollment drop because their main customer base — female high school graduates — decided to pursue university degrees as clerical jobs were becoming automated. Many of these schools, with the permission of the education ministry, restructured as private universities. The timing was good. The children of the baby boom generation started graduating from high school in 1986, so there was greater demand for higher education. Ogawa calls this period the “bonus stage.” Private universities charged whatever they wanted. Juku (cram schools) practically printed money. Universities received another boost when the bubble era ended in the early ’90s. As growth slowed, fewer companies hired high school graduates, so more young people felt they needed a university diploma to get a good job. Though the government already knew enrollment would drop by the end of the decade, they allowed more new universities to open. Compared to other developed countries, Japan’s matriculation rate to four-year universities was low at 50 percent, so there was room to work with. The trick was to get high school graduates who would normally go on to vocational schools to switch to universities, so the government relaxed regulations to allow universities to adopt departments and curricula that were more transparently job-oriented. In the ’80s, the only private university with a nursing program was St. Luke’s. Now, one out of four has one. Private universities also developed “katakana courses” — programs with English language names like “communications” and “global education” that had a fashionable ring to them. With their own enrollments dropping, many vocational schools restructured as universities. Last year, news site Post Seven reported that the number of private universities facing insolvency was around 250, higher than Ogawa’s number. Private institutions derive 80-90 percent of their operating budgets from tuition, and since 2009 some have restructured as public schools, which receive funds from local governments and thus can charge lower tuition fees. Local governments like the idea because they think young people in their areas will take advantage of the lower cost rather than move away for college. But as one researcher told Post Seven, such public schools become a net burden on the finances of the local governments and in the long run siphon students away from private schools with sounder management and better academic standards. The effort to increase and maintain enrollment results in a deceleration of scholastic progress — less world-class research, fewer academic papers — and a glut of veterinarians and dentists. The hallowed national university system isn’t completely free from these concerns, either. In 2004, each was incorporated and put in charge of its own finances, but the employees had no experience in running corporations. According to the Mainichi Shimbun , soon-to-retire education ministry officials were “transferred” to these schools to help them with budgets and the like — basically amakudari through a loophole. By that token, it doesn’t take a leap of logic to believe that the purpose of deregulating private universities was to keep them in business so they could provide bureaucrats with new fields to graze after being sent out to pasture.

higher education
university
makiko tanaka
amakudari
rankings
the university of tokyo
yo ogawa


Japan Times 1967: 'Wife no longer hesitant in taking a bath first'

Abstract: 100 YEARS AGO Friday, April 13 1917 Wife no longer hesitant in taking a bath first It has been discovered that cherry trees at Yoshino-yama, the most celebrated cherry flower resort in Japan, have been attacked by white ants. This has given no small surprise to the caretakers of the resort and on Monday last Dr. Nawa, prominent entomologist, and several members of the Nawa Institute for Entomological Research visited Yoshino-yama and instituted investigations as to the damage wrought by the white ants. A vigorous crusade against invaders has been launched and is reported to be still in progress. It is regrettable to learn that a number of ancient cherry trees have already fallen victims. 75 YEARS AGO Tuesday, April 14, 1942 Bataan Peninsula falls after MacArthur flees The complete occupation of the Bataan Peninsula was announced in a communique issued by the Imperial Headquarters at 4:20 p.m. on Monday. The announcement reads: “The Imperial Army Units in the Philippine area crushed the main body of the American-Philippine forces falling back on strong fortresses, and on April 11, eight days since the commencement of the general attack, completed the occupation of the Bataan Peninsula.” Another communique was issued by the Imperial Headquarters at 4:25 p.m. the same day. It stated: “The Supreme Commander of the Army Forces in the Philippine area is Lt.-Gen. Masaharu Homma.” Domei has the following to say in comment on the reduction of the Bataan Peninsula: “Following the capture of Manila on Jan. 3, the remnants of the defeated American-Philippine forces, thrown into consternation by the lightning speed with which the Imperial Forces advanced, betook themselves to fortresses in the Bataan Peninsula. There the enemy troops, in geographically advantageous positions, made frantic efforts to check the further advance of the Japanese. “Gen. MacArthur, commander-in-chief of American-Philippine forces, escaped to Australia, leaving the men under him to their fate when he saw that he was in danger. Without a leader, the American-Philippine forces which had by this time been reduced to a strength of 70,000 men, had, until they surrendered, been putting up ineffectual resistance against the Japanese. The general attack on the enemy troops in the Bataan Peninsula was commenced on April 3, on the occasion of Jimmu Tenno-Sai, anniversary of the demise of the Emperor Jimmu. The bombardment of the fortresses upon which the enemy troops were falling back was so violent that it almost changed the shape of spear-like mountains on which they were located. 50 YEARS AGO Wednesday, April 5, 1967 Wife no longer hesitant in taking a bath first The Japanese wife no longer hesitates to take a bath ahead of her husband. This was reported last week by the Life Science Research Society after it had polled some 1,000 persons of both sexes. There was a time when the husband was the first to take a bath while other members of the household had to wait their turns. This is no longer true, the pollsters said. On the status of women, 17.3 percent believed Japanese women had grown “strong.” But 34 percent believed men still enjoyed the extra privileges. Most of those who believed women are enjoying equal rights were in their 20s, the pollsters said. Asked if equal rights were desirable, 18.6 percent replied in the affirmative while 15.7 percent said women tended to be too assertive. About 30 percent believed “things are just right.” About 56 percent said there exist equal rights in their homes, but 13 percent believed the husband “tended to lord it over.” Twenty-six percent said men asserted their authority too much but that was “all right.” Only 4.1 percent believed women were domineering. About 18 percent said men and women were “inferior in ability.” 25 YEARS AGO Saturday, April 18, 1992 Fingerprint revision passes amid outcry The Lower House passed a bill Friday to limit the fingerprinting requirement for alien registration to nonpermanent foreign residents. But some foreign residents have criticized the bill for failing to abolish the fingerprinting system altogether and for treating any violator of any section of the law as a criminal. If the bill, a revision of the Alien Registration Law, is passed by the Upper House during the current Diet session, it is expected to take effect by next Jan. 10. The Justice Ministry will abolish the fingerprinting system for permanent residents and introduce a family registration system, which will use the resident’s picture and signature and will contain information on parents and spouses living in Japan. The current law requires all foreign residents who are 16 years or older and who stay in Japan for over one year to give a print of their left index finger when applying for alien registration certificates. Under the new law, permanent foreign residents who will become 16 between the date of the bill’s passage and the date when it takes effect will not be required to give their prints. The bill also contains a rider that says it will be revised thoroughly in 1998 so its basic purpose will be changed from the control of foreign residents to provision of government services for them. But even under the new law, about 320,000 nonpermanent residents, including 40,000 Koreans, will have to give their fingerprints. It will be impossible to erase the prints already on government files because they are on microfilm along with other information. Both permanent and nonpermanent foreign residents will also be required to carry alien registration certificates at all times, as under the current law. “The revision shows the government still treats foreigners as a potential national security threat and tries to control them,” said Robert Ricketts, an American who is teaching English at Wako University.

cherry trees
bataan peninsula
fingerprinting
wwii
world war ii
sexism


Gangsters in Japan aren't quite as intimidating as they used to be

Abstract: The National Police Agency announced last month that the number of crime syndicate members fell below 20,000 in 2016. The figure dropped by about 2,000 from a year earlier to 18,100, the lowest since comparable data became available in 1958, the National Police Agency said. The number of associate members declined as well. Reports in the media say gangs are struggling to secure financing amid police crackdowns and a growing civil movement to eliminate them, but I’m not convinced that’s the only reason. Retired police officers and gangsters say that people these days simply don’t fear gangsters the way they used to. It wasn’t so long ago when police would hesitate to interfere in the activities of criminal organizations — and for good reason. In 1992, Juzo Itami released a film titled “The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion,” portraying gangsters as greedy, violent and deceptive parasites on society. The film’s underlying message was gangsters shouldn’t be feared and that they can be defeated if confronted. Six days after the release of the film, five members of the Goto-gumi attacked Itami at his home, slashing his face. “Naturally I didn’t order the attack but I was pleased my men did it,” wrote Goto-gumi chief Tadamasa Goto in his autobiography, “While Hesitating” (“Habakarinagara”). “(Itami) made fun of us. It was unpleasant.” For decades, crime syndicates would use this type of intimidation to get what they wanted. Things have certainly changed in recent times. According to a survey published by the National Police Agency in December 2016, 89 companies said that a crime syndicate had attempted to extort money from them between July 2011 and July last year. The crime syndicates made vague threats in about 50 percent of the cases, but also threatened to interfere with business operations or harm employees and/or relatives of the company’s owners. Seventy-two of the companies surveyed said they refused to pay the syndicates. In 41 out of 72 cases, the syndicates did absolutely nothing. In 24 cases, they became more aggressive in delivering their verbal threats. In 13 cases, gangsters showed up at the company’s office or made prank calls. In four cases, the syndicates tried to blackmail companies by exposing trade secrets to the media. In three cases, sound trucks were sent to raise a ruckus in front of a company’s building. Actual damages were inflicted in just one case. A detective in Saitama who was previously assigned to an organized crime division says gang bosses fear civil lawsuits being filed as a consequence of their underlings’ actions. “Gangsters are getting older and the guys at the top don’t want to go to jail,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They’ve already been there and done that. Although a boss may avoid criminal charges (owing to a lack of evidence), they could still be liable as an employer in a civil suit. The last thing the boss of a crime syndicate wants is for his thugs to do something that won’t earn him anything but will put him at risk of losing money. So they do nothing. And when people realize that crime syndicates are nothing but hot air, they stop being afraid.” A retired crime boss agreed. “We used to strike fear in people,” he said, also speaking on condition of anonymity. “In recent years, however, we aren’t even allowed to carry business cards or wear yakuza badges anymore. Whispering our organization’s name isn’t scary, it’s silly and so we simply leave. The badges are now being sold online — they’re collector’s items, video game props. People should fear crime syndicates but I fear that our time is up.” As the National Police Agency noted in its report in March, crime syndicates are moving away from traditional extortion to such activities as fraud. Let’s hope this trend continues and gangsters don’t demonstrate an eagerness to return to their historically violent roots. Crime syndicates have never been above making a judicious example of anyone who opposes them and it’s threats such as this that still keeps them in business.

juzo itami
goto-gumi
organized crime
yakuza


Prewar bayonetting martial art makes return to schools

Abstract: A little-known Japanese martial art called jukendo came under the spotlight recently after it was stipulated in the revised junior high school curriculum guidelines for the first time as one of nine martial arts schools can choose to teach students. Due to its historical background as combat techniques developed and used by the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II, the decision has sparked criticism among many, with some branding the move as anachronistic. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet denied such accusations in a statement on April 14, saying it was not the revival of militarism or a move to return to prewar values. Jukendo was stipulated because “it was considered to further improve the flexibility of budo’s contents,” the statement said. What is jukendo? Jukendo, which literally means “a way of the bayonet,” is a Japanese martial art similar to kendo. Donning robes and armor for protection, practitioners jab each other’s throats or bodies using wooden mock rifles, according to the All Japan Jukendo Federation. It is officially listed as one of nine Japanese martial arts by the Japanese Budo Association. It is mainly practiced by Self-Defense Forces personnel. Why is it controversial? Many associate the martial art with the Imperial Japanese Army. According to the jukendo federation, its history can be traced back to the Meiji Era (1868-1912) when the Imperial army developed a combat style using rifle-fixed bayonets by incorporating traditional spear fighting and French bayonet techniques. “Back then, it was the techniques for fighting,” said jukendo federation vice president Takeshi Suzuki. But following Japan’s surrender in 1945, it was banned along with other martial arts by the Allied Occupation Forces. After the ban was lifted in the 1950s, it was developed as a modern sport with completely different purposes, including honing etiquette and training minds and bodies, Suzuki said. How popular is jukendo in Japan? Around 30,000 people are currently registered as members of the sport, out of which roughly 90 percent are SDF personnel, according to the federation. The number of participants is much smaller than major martial arts such as judo, which has around 160,000 practitioners, and kendo, which is practiced by about 1.8 million people in Japan. The federation said it had around 50,000 members a decade ago, but the number has since dwindled due to the nation’s shrinking population and people’s declining interest in martial arts in general. Apart from the 30,000 members, the federation also has 1,000 junior members who are junior high school students or younger. Suzuki said it has five non-Japanese members, from France, Australia, New Zealand and Poland. Would jukendo be a compulsory subject at junior high schools under the new curriculum guidelines? No. Since 2012, budo has been a mandatory subject for first- and second-year junior high school students. But it is up to each school to decide which martial arts to teach. Although the current curriculum guidelines recommend sumo, kendo and judo, junior high schools have the freedom to teach other Japanese martial arts that are not listed, including jukendo, according the education ministry. In reality, however, only one junior high school in Japan, in Kanagawa Prefecture, teaches jukendo, the ministry said. As some teachers hesitate to teach subjects that are not clearly spelled out in the guidelines, the jukendo federation believes it will become easier to promote the martial art to junior high school teachers once the new guidelines take effect in fiscal 2021. Why did the government include jukendo in the new guidelines? Jukendo was initially not listed in the draft version of the guidelines released by the education ministry in February, even though all other martial arts recognized by the Japanese Budo Association were stipulated. An official at the sports agency, an external bureau of the ministry, said it was excluded because it was hardly taught in junior high schools. But the ministry’s draft guidelines sparked anger from jukendo enthusiasts, including Masahisa Sato, an Upper House lawmaker from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Sato, a former GSDF commander, urged the ministry to stipulate jukendo in the guidelines during an Upper House foreign affairs and defense committee session in March. He also called on fellow LDP members, former SDF personnel and his supporters to send public comments to the education ministry, according to his blog. The sports agency official said the ministry decided to include jukendo in the guidelines after receiving “several hundred” public comments urging its inclusion. While the ministry’s move was welcomed by Sato and other jukendo supporters, some slammed the decision, including Niigata Gov. Ryuichi Yoneyama. Following the release of the new curriculum guidelines on March 31, Yoneyama tweeted that he was terrified. Jukendo is different from kendo, judo and sumo, which are established as sports and practiced by many people, he said. “(The decision) is nothing but anachronistic,” he tweeted. Will it be dangerous for children to practice the jabbing techniques? Students will not be taught techniques to target opponents’ throats, according to the federation, which helped draw up teaching guidelines for jukendo. First- and second-year students will only be practicing noncontact kata — the basic movements of jukendo, Suzuki said. The students may take part in a match in the final year — but only if they fully master the basics and wear formal protective gear, he added.


China's first unmanned space cargo ship docks with Chinese space station

Abstract: BEIJING - China’s first unmanned space cargo ship Tianzhou 1, which was launched Thursday, successfully docked with the country’s orbiting Tiangong 2 space station on Saturday, China national central television reported. The cargo spacecraft was built to carry fuel, materials and other supplies for the construction of the Chinese space station due for completion around 2020. The cargo ship is said to be the equivalent of the Dragon spacecraft of the private U.S. company Space X and the Japanese replenishment ship Konotori. The Chinese are working to perfect material transportation technology to enable long-term stays on the space station.


Kansai leaders grope for ways to keep regional population stable amid projected slide

Abstract: OSAKA - A projection showing that Japan’s population could fall from 127.09 million in 2015 to 88.08 million by 2065 has pushed Kansai leaders harder for more policies and funding to increase the local birthrate, keep younger people from leaving and protect the growing ranks of the elderly. The announcement this month by the government-affiliated National Institute of Population and Social Security Research came just after the start of the 2017 fiscal year, and amid growing worries about projections that many areas of the country will become inhabited only by seniors and depopulate — an issue that, over the past few years, has become the top concern of local politicians seeking to shore up their tax bases. The institute’s latest projections are only for Japan as a whole, not individual prefectures. But they come at a time when municipalities and prefectures nationwide had already spent several years nervously planning long-term policies based on earlier depopulation projections for specific locales. According to the institute’s estimates in 2013, the eight major prefectures (Shiga, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Hyogo, Wakayama, Tottori and Tokushima) that make up the Union of Kansai Governments are expected to lose about a quarter of their collective population between 2010 and 2050. But by 2050, those aged 15 to 64 are expected to account for only half of Kansai’s population, while those over 65 will account for nearly 40 percent. By contrast, less than 10 percent of Kansai’s population is expected to be under 14 at midcentury. What has many Kansai leaders worried is that the projections also show young people, especially college graduates, are continuing to leave prefectures other than Osaka to move to Osaka or Tokyo for employment and other opportunities. The coming Kansai demographic crunch will hit some prefectures harder than others. By 2050, Wakayama and Tokushima prefectures are expected to be hit particularly hard, while Shiga will only see a relatively minor decrease. The large portion of people who currently live in Shiga but commute to the nearby city of Kyoto, and Osaka prefectural residents who work in Osaka, mean that both prefectures will see a large increase in elderly neighborhoods in the suburbs. Wakayama and Tokushima prefectures, however, will see a large decrease in the number of elderly who live in towns and villages. “From about 2010 to 2015, Shiga actually saw an increase in its population. Shiga’s geographic location means that the Kansai and Chubu regions are close, so lots of people who live here commute west to Kyoto or Osaka, or east to Gifu and Aichi prefectures for school and work,” Shiga Gov. Taizo Mikazuki told reporters earlier this year in explaining the reason for the increase. But the population has started to decrease and Mikazuki said the prefecture plans to take a number of measures this fiscal year to encourage young people in particular to remain and to stabilize the population. Much of the emphasis will be on helping people find affordable housing. Certain groups of people working in industries like transportation will be targeted for different forms of prefectural assistance as well, as the shinkansen line runs through the prefecture and many Japan Railway Group employees live there. In neighboring Kyoto, Gov. Keiji Yamada, who is also head of the National Governors Association, says the challenge that local politicians in Kansai and nationwide face is how to come up with effective economic policies that benefit young people. He said that while many have established any number of plans to stop depopulation, the latest statistics show that the flight from rural areas to Tokyo, in particular, continues. “The 2015 national census showed that while Japan’s total population had declined by 960,000 people since 2010, Tokyo actually gained 350,000 over that five-year period. The central government needs to better recognize the seriousness of overconcentration of people in Tokyo and its effect on the rest of the country,” Yamada told local media in February.

kansai population osaka depopulation shiga kyoto


In collaboration with Starbucks, Kobe brews a renewable energy source

Abstract: OSAKA - Coffee drinkers in Kobe who are wondering what they can do to help the environment and support local renewable energy projects might consider heading to a Starbucks. Last December, as part of a local effort to increase alternative energy sources, the city teamed up with Starbucks and researchers at Kindai University to carry out tests on producing biomass fuel generated from, among other things, used coffee grounds. The plan is to produce a solid fuel called “biocoke” that uses pruned trees, paper cups and used coffee grounds. “This is a good example of how local governments, industry and the academic community can cooperate to create a sustainable society at the local level,” the city said in announcing the project. The project, which received central government funding, went through a trial period in January and February and results are now being analyzed. It’s still in the experimental stage, and the city says it will be a while before people are actually plugging in to draw electricity from biocoke. The tie-up between business, government and academia is designed more to reuse resources like raw waste to spur innovation and the creation of local renewable biomass businesses than to immediately supply electric power. Kobe is a small, but telling, example of growing municpal efforts nationwide to be more innovative and proactive in promoting renewable energy projects to encourage young entrepreneurs to stay and invest in new energy-related businesses rather than relocate to Tokyo. Such efforts are especially important in the Kansai region, where the fossil fuel and nuclear power lobbies are particularly strong. Kansai Electric Power Co. continues to push for the restart of as many of its 11 reactors as possible despite public concerns about safety and questions about whether the older reactors will continue to be economically competitive in the next 10 or 20 years. Last month, an institute run by Chiba University professor Hidefumi Kurasaka and the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies released a nationwide ranking of renewable energy supplies in towns and prefectures. The ranking showed that few municipalities in the Kansai region had high levels of self-sufficiency, or the ability to generate more electricity than required. Of the top 100 ranked municipalities, only six villages, in Kyoto, Wakayama and Nara prefectures, had the ability to supply at least three-quarters of their needs with renewable sources. Only eight villages, in Wakayama, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka and Hyogo prefectures, had enough renewable sources to supply more than 90 percent of their electricity needs. In 2015, the central government set a goal to have renewable sources account for between 22 and 24 percent of the nation’s energy mix by 2030. Renewable energy, including hydropower, accounted for an average of just over 15 percent of Japan’s electricity production over the first three quarters of 2016.


The real Moritomo Gakuen story is clear as mud

Abstract: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” — Mark Twain Two months have elapsed since the scandal involving Osaka-based private school operator Moritomo Gakuen went from a local land deal gone bad to a national political scandal. Yet we remain in the dark as to who is lying and who is telling the truth. The result is that what really happened with the nationalist school and whether Akie Abe, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s wife, really gave Moritomo Gakuen’s Yoshinori Kagoike a ¥1 million donation in her husband’s name, is as clear as mud. Despite Kagoike’s electrifying Diet testimony last month and the continued insistence of both he and his family that Akie Abe did hand him an envelope full of cash during a school visit on Sept. 5, 2015, she and the prime minister continue to strenuously deny it. Without solid evidence on either side, we remain in a “he said, she said” situation. As time passes, however, the story is becoming overtaken by events — OBE’d, as we in the newspaper trade say. From debate over the so-called conspiracy bill designed, so the government insists, to combat terrorism, to somewhat overheated but very real concerns about a clash with North Korea, there have been other, more important things to think about if you were a reporter, editor or television producer — especially if you were reporting from Tokyo. The Osaka media took the lead on the Moritomo story back in February and have never really let go. Tokyo’s media, out of the loop and no doubt irritated at getting scooped by the Osaka competition, adopted an initial tone of “Oh, it’s just a local story.” Even as evidence came to light — in the form of phone calls and emails between Akie Abe and Kagoike’s wife, Junko — that Akie Abe did, indeed, have a closer connection to Moritomo than she or her husband had initially let on. The Prime Minister’s Office realized, too late, that the public nationwide, and not just in Osaka, was concerned, and that this was a story they needed to take seriously because the opposition parties were not letting it go. Even members of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party grumbled to TV cameras or complained to weekly magazines about how badly Abe and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga were handling the media fallout. At the same time, as the scandal drags on, Tokyo pundits from media firms that are generally sympathetic to Abe have increased their presence, appearing on news programs and serving as de facto spin doctors for the administration. A cynic might wonder if some of them aren’t getting cash under the table from the LDP for their enthusiastic defense of the honor and virtue of the prime minister and his wife, and their sneering dismissal of Kagoike’s claims. On the other hand, there may be no need to pay them off, as they appear to truly believe “Honest Abe” would never tell a lie. In Osaka, it’s a different story. Popular local TV news and variety shows that are not broadcast in Tokyo have adopted a more skeptical — which is to say more journalistic — view. Commentators in Osaka repeatedly note that Akie Abe has yet to be publicly questioned about her relationship with Moritomo, while Kagoike and his family have agreed to face the microphones and cameras on multiple occasions. What does Kagoike have to gain by lying? Not just to the media but in sworn testimony (which carries possible prison time if found to be untrue) to the Diet? Perhaps Akie Abe — if she ever submits to questioning by the media or by the Diet — will provide the answer.

moritomo gakuen
osaka
akie abe
shinzo abe


Creating a real ghost in the shell

Abstract: Yasuo Kuniyoshi is a man with an extraordinary plan. Kuniyoshi, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, has been attempting to produce an utterly convincing artificial being for the past 30 years. “A robot,” he says, “that has developed the real ability to understand correctly what people are saying, and is able to converse and interact with them naturally, just as humans do with each other, based on its own experiences and bodily sensations.” I’ve been thinking about Kuniyoshi’s work since seeing the recent Hollywood remake of “Ghost in the Shell.” The original anime from 1995 was hugely influential and, together with “Akira” and “Spirited Away,” is one of the most well-known Japanese animes in the West. Set in 2029, “Ghost in the Shell” depicts a world where cyborg enhancement and artificial intelligence are commonplace. It is a world where the lines between the organic and the electronic are growing ever more blurred. It’s a future we could very well be moving toward. Last month, Elon Musk founded a new company called Neuralink, which is aimed at developing what it calls “neural lace” technology that will allow people to communicate directly with electronic machines. The lace is envisioned as a mesh of electrodes that implant into the brain. It would mean that data could be uploaded to the organic brain from computers and thoughts could be downloaded onto electronic hardware. Musk, a billionaire who co-founded PayPal, already runs Tesla and SpaceX, but is known for his enthusiasm for big science projects. Perhaps his launch of Neuralink could spur cyborg enhancement technology to another level. We see a Hollywood vision of this in the new “Ghost in the Shell” movie. The main character — The Major, played by Scarlett Johansson — is the most extreme kind of cyborg one can be: Her entire body has been replaced by a cyborg shell and only her brain remains of her organic former self. This is the “ghost” in the shell — her consciousness, an awareness people have that differentiates them from machines. Many people assume that consciousness is a real thing and not an illusion: the mystery of whether a machine or an artificial creation can ever have consciousness has been explored in much of our storytelling, from Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” to HBO’s science fiction thriller Westworld. There are currently a number of different “species” of artificial intelligence. Some specialize in playing chess, others in driving cars and controlling the purchase of shares on stock markets. Siri, the AI we speak to on our iPhones, is very good at recognizing our voices and interpreting our questions. However, it can’t drive a car or play chess. At present, AI cannot adapt to different tasks. Since adaptation in this sense is one of the defining characteristics of human intelligence, Kuniyoshi wants to build AIs that are more adaptable or, in other words, can think in the same way as humans. “It is necessary to understand the nature of human intelligence and the basic principles that generate human behavior,” he says. Kuniyoshi believes that you need a body to become truly intelligent. This is the concept of embodied intelligence, the idea that a person’s thoughts are influenced by — and maybe even determined by — our relationship with the physical world. As he and his team put it when describing a bipedal robot they had built, “Human behavior arises more as a result of the constraints and interactions governed by a person’s physical traits and their environment than being something that is regulated by the central nervous system.” It’s an extraordinary idea. It might mean that a disembodied brain — say, a brain kept alive in a tank — may not be conscious. The idea led to a re-examination of metaphors we use all the time: “I am on top of the situation,” “he/she is under my control” and “I’m feeling up today.” When people think about the future, they lean slightly forward. If embodied intelligence is correct, then human head transplants — such as that planned by maverick Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero — might work (in the sense that consciousness would be maintained). But would a head kept alive without a body have a sense of self? (It reminds me of stories of executions, in which the head of a man who had been guillotined blinks, and the mouth opens and shuts.) In “Ghost in the Shell,” The Major maintains her consciousness even when her brain is implanted into a cyborg body. (Happily for the brain, the body is in the shape of Scarlett Johansson.) After building a humanoid robot that was able to stand and jump, Kuniyoshi then started studying how humans develop intelligence from in the womb. First, he created a virtual fetus and had it gestate in a computer simulation. The virtual fetus spontaneously showed movements similar to those in a real baby. He then made a computer model of a fetus in the 32nd week of gestation to study how the brain receives information. This extraordinary work is building a picture of how human awareness (if not, precisely, consciousness) might start to build up on the basis of feedback from the fetus’ own body. He has also made a “toddler bot” called Noby, again to understand how we learn. I’m taking consolation from Kuniyoshi’s work. Unfortunately, I felt the remake of “Ghost in the Shell” didn’t deliver the same deep, mind-boggling material that the Japanese original did. The story and the characters were flat, and for a movie about the human soul it had surprisingly little of its own. The original anime had a spooky abstract quality that this didn’t manage — the Hollywood remake was a shell without a ghost. The good news is that Kuniyoshi is pursuing work in the real world with more than enough thought-provoking intellectual depth to fill the gap.

ghost in the shell
robotics
artificial intelligence
ai
westworld


Television has forgotten its golden years

Abstract: Japanese commercial television companies have a problem. The bulk of their programming has always been aimed at relatively young people, because that’s what advertisers want. But young people no longer watch TV, or, at least, not in the numbers they used to. Having grown up in a world ruled by the internet, they may crave the kind of content television offers but have no desire to sit down in front of a TV set at a prescribed time. The people who do watch TV that way are those who have always watched TV. It’s just that they’ve matured while TV programming hasn’t. So Kuramoto , a well-known TV scriptwriter whose heyday was during that time when television was the vanguard medium, understands this problem and thinks it’s unforgivable that TV doesn’t produce entertainment that appeals to older viewers, who, as a matter of fact, have the disposable income advertisers drool over. As he told Asahi Shimbun in an April 5 interview, boomers now find current drama series “boring,” even though they still enjoy TV. That’s why he’s writing a daily drama series that’s for and about seniors. “ Yasuragi no Sato ” (“A Comfortable Home”), which started April 3, is broadcast Monday through Friday at 12:30 p.m. The 82-year-old Kuramoto is churning out 130 20-minute episodes, enough to last until September, and TV Asahi is airing them as a kind of experiment. The time slot is significant. Afternoon programs are traditionally designed for homemakers, but there may be fewer of those these days than there used to be. Fuji TV and TBS were once famous for their afternoon soap operas, but in recent years they’ve been replaced by information and tabloid news shows. Kuramoto told Asahi that he is making a drama expressly for daytime, when retired people are free. TV Asahi obliged by scheduling it right after its long-running program, “Tetsuko no Heya” (“ Tetsuko’s Room “), a talk show hosted by media maven Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, who at 83 is already a magnet for the silver set. And each day Asahi rebroadcasts the previous day’s episode on its BS satellite channel at 7:40 a.m., for early risers. In the Asahi interview, Kuramoto complains of the treatment that his generation of professionals has received at the hands of TV. His bitter reaction was provoked by the 2009 death of actor Reiko Ohara , who was one of the most popular TV and movie stars of the 1970s through to the ’90s. Ohara had all but disappeared by the late ’90s and became a recluse. She died alone, her body undiscovered for several days. To Kuramoto, the indignity of her passing symbolizes what he feels is the heartlessness of the industry. “Yasuragi no Sato” takes place in a retirement community for showbiz professionals. The average age of the dozen actors who portray the residents is 78. The protagonist, a scriptwriter like Kuramoto, played by 75-year-old Koji Ishizaka, loses his will to write after his wife dies. A mysterious organization invites him to move into its facility — a luxurious Izu Peninsula establishment that overlooks the sea and caters to former TV people free of charge. More to the point, only freelancers are welcome. Former employees of TV networks are not, ostensibly because they already receive generous severance packages and pensions. In the third episode, after the scriptwriter, Kikumura, moves in, he receives an elaborate episode-length orientation, during which he learns that the community, called Yasuragi no Sato, was built by the former president of a powerful talent agency who resented the way the industry treated his charges. This is Kuramoto’s backhanded swipe at the media, which he told Asahi “made Reiko Ohara disposable.” His sympathy extends to everyone who has ever been exploited by TV, including, presumably, himself. At one point, Kikumura asks the concierge if any of the residents still work. She tells him that in the past TV producers would contact residents with offers but the actors were often disappointed with the jobs, so now all such requests are screened by Yasuragi’s management, which essentially makes the place a talent agency for old folks. If that were the main premise of the series, it might be fun, but Kuramoto’s purposes are different. Like the characters they play, the actors in the series were big stars in the past, and as each one makes his or her entrance — invariably in slow motion and soft focus — a montage of bromides from the actor’s heyday flashes across the screen. It’s not just that these people are basically playing themselves, but rather that, like their characters, they’ve been discarded by the corporate entities they made rich. The implied thrust of the plot is that Kikumura will come out of self-imposed retirement to write scripts for all these ignored artists who long to work again, which is what Kuramoto is doing with this script. What makes the premise disingenuous, however, is that few of these stars have actually been discarded. As actors they may no longer get leading roles, and the roles they do get rely on old-people stereotypes, but that has more to do with the general lack of imagination in Japanese TV. While quality is certainly a function of industry prerogatives, it affects everything — not just the employment prospects of old pros. “Yasuragi no Sato,” in fact, is typical. The PR value of having all these old stars in the same place obviates the need to make a series that might appeal to anyone besides viewers looking for a nostalgia fix, though in the Asahi interview Kuramoto says he hopes young people will also tune in. Regardless of how good or bad “Yasuragi no Sato” turns out, it is creatively circumscribed by the industry conventions Kuramoto despises but which also made him a celebrity writer with the power to do whatever he wants. An executive of rival network TBS told Asahi he is looking forward to the show, presumably because Kuramoto’s name is attached, but he betrayed no belief in the possibility that it would change his mind about anything. “We still focus on prime time,” he said. “That’s where you attract the most viewers.”

television
so kuramoto
yasuragi no sato
tetsuko no heya
tetsuko kuroyanagi
reiko ohara
koji ishizaka


The Japanese ego: the difference of self

Abstract: “Go, my son! Fight, make your way in the world.” But — the proviso is implicit — tell no one who or what you are. Ushimatsu Segawa, the protagonist of Toson Shimazaki’s 1906 novel “Hakai” (“The Broken Commandment”), harbors a deep, dark secret: who and what he is. His true self is very different from his apparent self. His person and his persona are separate and incompatible. The Ushimatsu his friends know is a personable, intelligent young man, an able and popular rural primary school teacher. The Ushimatsu his friends don’t know is an eta — a member of a traditional underclass whose name means, roughly, “filth.” It’s a designation with roots deep in ancient Shinto notions of purity. Buddhism, a more philosophical and compassionate religion, unfortunately had its own notions of purity, and the eta, hereditary slaughterers, tanners and executioners, found themselves twice damned when Buddhism came to Japan in the sixth century. Official emancipation from opprobrium came in 1871. But unofficial opprobrium raged on. A born eta had, it seemed, one passport to full humanity — concealment. With his father’s encouragement, Ushimatsu hides his background, enters college, graduates and begins a career. His future looks bright. It isn’t. Two facts threaten his secret. One is the suspicion of jealous colleagues. Sniffing out dirt to bring him down to their level, they find it. The second is the prompting of his own conscience. His secret weighs heavily. His idol is a charismatic crusader for eta rights, an eta who himself came out of the closet after acquiring an education, a man of indomitable courage and dedication. Should not Ushimatsu follow Rentaro Inoko’s example and join his cause? A true man is true to his true self, not a careerist cringing behind a mask. As a first step along a braver road, he makes up his mind to reveal his secret to Rentaro. Opportunities present themselves, but always he steps back from the brink. Weakness, perhaps — but had not his father forced him to swear he would never tell anyone? That is the “broken commandment” of the title. Eventually he does break his oath — not as a fighter flinging a bold challenge at a corrupt world but as a criminal confessing a crime; and not to Rentaro but to his 10- and 11-year-old students. They, it is pleasant to report, stand by him regardless. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 was a political, social and economic revolution. It built modern Japan. It was also a psychological revolution — how could it not be? So vast a change in so short a time is a reconfiguring experience. The “I,” ego, self of the Meiji Period (1868-1912) is as different from the “I” of the Tokugawa Period (1603-1868) as Meiji industrial capitalism is from Tokugawa feudalism. Tokugawa morality was Confucian, stressing duty and social cohesion. Meiji morality, without shedding Confucianism, seasoned it, intoxicated it, some said poisoned it, with new, foreign ideas. “Man is born free” was one. The 44 years of Meiji split fairly neatly into two phases. The labels “progressive” and “reactionary” are simplistic but, due allowances made, convenient. The paradoxical dividing line is the opening in 1890 of Japan’s first parliament. It’s paradoxical because this seemingly progressive innovation in fact ushered in the reactionary phase. The progressive ferment that characterized early Meiji was spent. Individualism morphed into jingoism, the quest for self-fulfillment into one for national fulfillment. There were reasons. Western imperialism was spreading. So was Western individualism, percolating vigorously through Japan’s popular rights movement of the 1880s. But what was individual liberty if the nation itself was enslaved? China, India, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam — cautionary tales, all wholly or partly swallowed up by the rapacious West. Would Japan be next? What would guarantee that it wouldn’t be? National strength, national unity. Individual rights could wait. The government’s logic was persuasive. Many popular agitators were won over; the movement petered out — leaving pockets of despair in its wake. Tokoku Kitamura (1868-94) — poet, essayist and popular rights activist — at 17 committed himself to “becoming a great philosopher and destroying the new school of ‘survival of the fittest’ philosophy.” That it itself was fit to survive he must have known, for he also wrote: “I desired … to become a great statesman and recoup the failing fortunes of the Orient. I conceived the ardent desire to sacrifice myself entirely for the benefit of the people. Like another Christ, I would consecrate all my energies to politics.” Christ seems an odd model for a political activist, but Kitamura did adopt Christianity and its view of each individual as precious in God’s sight. The air of post-1890 Meiji Japan was toxic to him. “The greatest misfortune of the Orient,” he wrote, “is that, from its beginnings up to the present, it has not known freedom of spirit.” In 1894, age 26, he “sacrificed himself.” More prosaically, he hanged himself. Among those shocked by his death was his close friend, literary disciple and fellow-Christian Toson Shimazaki. “Freedom of spirit” is Toson’s theme and Ushimatsu’s quest. Does Ushimatsu achieve it? It’s hard to say. His public unmasking of his secret self seems more a defeat than a victory. Expectations that he will go on from there to fight for eta justice are disappointed; he emigrates to America instead. What is Toson trying to tell us? That freedom can be pursued in America but not, alas, in Japan? Inoko, Ushimatsu’s mentor, is murdered by political thugs and Ushimatsu’s emigration, though presented as an escape into a wider, freer life, seems something else: a kind of death like Inoko’s, or of suicide, like Kitamura’s. The Meiji regime served the nation, which flourished, but betrayed the self, which withered.

egos
toson shimazaki
eta
tokoku kitamura


Foreign nationals relive 2016 Kumamoto quakes in new English booklet

Abstract: FUKUOKA - A group of overseas students at Kumamoto University has compiled an English booklet recording the experiences of foreign nationals during last April’s powerful earthquakes. “We wanted to record people’s different experiences, and we think we can learn from other people’s experiences” to prepare for future disasters, said Khine Zar Wynn Myint, a graduate school student from Myanmar studying pharmaceutical science. Armenian graduate student Mariam Piruzyan was among those who recounted their experience on April 14 when the first strong quake with a magnitude of 6.5 struck the region. “I was scared and tried to call my mom in Armenia, but wasn’t able to get through,” she said. Two days later, a more powerful magnitude-7.3 quake hit, killing 50 people and forcing more than 190,000 in Kumamoto and neighboring Oita Prefecture to evacuate amid continuing seismic activity in the area. Following the first quake, which registered an intensity of 7 — the strongest on the Japanese seismic intensity scale — Piruzyan evacuated to the university’s gymnasium. “When I saw my friends, unconsciously tears flowed from my eyes,” she said. The April 16 quake also registered 7 on the Japanese scale. The booklet noted that a survey of foreign nationals had found that many panicked as they were unable to understand much Japanese. They said most of the information provided was in Japanese and they did not know what to do. There were 685 foreign students attending universities in Kumamoto as of May last year, with 288 from China, 59 from South Korea, 27 from Taiwan and 251 from other countries in Asia and the Middle East. Some other students came from areas such as Africa and Europe. Of the students, 496 attended Kumamoto University, 98 went to Sojo University and 39 attended Kumamoto Gakuen University. The 44-page booklet compiled by the volunteer group, called Kumamoto Earthquake Experience Project, or KEEP, has been distributed to around 180 universities and other institutions across Japan. It is available at kumadaiquake.wordpress.com .

kumamoto university
disasters
foreign students
2016 kumamoto earthquake


China's first cargo spacecraft docks with orbiting space lab

Abstract: SHANGHAI - China’s first cargo spacecraft docked successfully with the Tiangong-2 space lab on Saturday, the official Xinhua news agency reported, marking a major step toward Beijing’s goal of establishing a permanently manned space station by 2022. President Xi Jinping has prioritized advancing China’s space program to strengthen national security. The Tianzhou-1 cargo resupply spacecraft made the automated docking process with the orbiting space lab after it had taken off on Thursday evening from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in the southern island province of Hainan. The Tiangong-2 space laboratory, or “Heavenly Palace 2,” was home to two astronauts for a month last October in China’s longest-ever manned space mission. The cargo spacecraft mission provides an “important technological basis” to build a Chinese space station, state media have said. It can reportedly carry 6 tons of goods, 2 tons of fuel and can fly unmanned for three months. Despite the advances in China’s space program for military, commercial and scientific purposes, China still lags behind the United States and Russia. In late 2013, China’s Jade Rabbit rover landed on the moon to great national fanfare, but ran into severe technical difficulties. The U.S. Defense Department has highlighted China’s increasing space capabilities, saying it was pursuing activities aimed at preventing other nations from using space-based assets in a crisis. China insists it has only peaceful ambitions in space, but has tested anti-satellite missiles.


Documentary renews debate over renewable energy

Abstract: Earlier this month, Kyodo News surveyed 44 companies that started selling electricity to consumers after the energy market was liberalized in April 2016. More than 60 percent of respondents objected to the government’s plan to make them share in costs associated with compensating victims of the Fukushima nuclear crisis and the related cleanup. Since industry data shows that only 5.5 percent of Japanese households have opted to leave regional utilities for alternative suppliers, it seems doubtful that the objecting companies will persuade the government to change its mind. These figures illustrate how regional power monopolies have swayed the public, as well as the government’s role in helping them do so. The media has also had a hand in maintaining the status quo. As the government doubles down on its determination to reopen Japan’s nuclear power plants, a move the public is against, voices advocating for renewable energy have been muted. Instead, the media regurgitates the pro-nuclear narrative, which mainly has to do with cost and practicality : Renewables just aren’t ready to take on the country’s energy needs. Hiroyuki Kawai , a lawyer at the center of the anti-nuclear movement, and Tetsunari Iida , a nuclear scientist at the forefront of the renewables campaign, have been working together since the Fukushima disaster in 2011. In standing up to the so-called nuclear village, a monolith of institutions with a stake in the future of nuclear energy and which includes the mainstream media, the two men have not been as successful as they would have liked. With the recent release of their documentary, “ Nihon to Saisei ” (“Japan and Rebirth”), they appear to be changing tactics. The pair’s previous films were mainly about the dangers of nuclear power. The effects of radiation unleashed by the Fukushima meltdown are still a matter of controversy that has overshadowed their main point, which is that renewables are superior to other energy sources, including nuclear, in every respect. The problem is that the Japanese media, in line with the government and industries that benefit from both nuclear and fossil fuel-based power, don’t promote or even cover the benefits of renewables in a balanced way. “Nihon to Saisei” is definitely advocacy filmmaking, but it says almost nothing about the perils of nuclear energy. What it says is that nuclear power is uneconomical and impractical, the two charges usually aimed at renewable energy in Japan. Most of the data presented in the documentary was collected in countries overseas where renewables have taken root and which themselves have had to combat the same beliefs about financial and practical disadvantages. The overarching theme is that Japan, an advanced technological society, is nevertheless lagging behind the rest of the industrialized world when it comes to energy self-sufficiency, a matter that baffles these countries. As the noted American physicist Amory Lovins tells Kawai at one point, it’s bizarre that Japan isn’t at the forefront of renewable technology considering how blessed it is with renewable energy sources. One German scientist estimates that Japan has nine times the renewable capacity that his country has. Almost all of the interviews are with persons whose engagement with renewables is at the local level. Germany is a leader in this regard. In fact, the country’s race toward renewables was accelerated by the Fukushima disaster. An official of a town just outside of Frankfurt claims that their wind farm brings in the equivalent of ¥5 billion a year in revenue, which covers half the municipality’s budget. Energy self-sufficiency is 262 percent. Kawai and Iida then show how local governments in Japan are working toward their own goals of energy self-sufficiency despite “barriers.” The regional monopolies own the transmission systems and limit how outside organizations can use them. Local leaders say they hope to revitalize their economies by developing renewable energy systems with the help of regional banks, thus creating jobs and reducing the financial burden on residents. However, they get little support from the central government, which has made licensing complicated. It is this local angle that worries power monopolies. When production and transmission are decentralized, reliability increases because risk is dispersed. Millions of households are affected if a power plant fails due to natural disaster or human error. When a single household producing its own energy fails, only that household is affected. The most common media myth about renewables is that they are inconsistent: Solar cells only provide energy when the sun shines; wind turbines only turn when it’s windy. However, Kawai shows how a mix of different sources — not just solar and wind, but geothermal, hydro and biomass — can be easily controlled to provide a constant supply of localized energy that is more efficient than conventional power plants. In Europe, this myth has been perpetuated by the claim that Germany cannot meet its power demand with renewables but has to import electricity from nuclear-powered France. By 2013, however, Germany was selling three times as much electricity to France as France was selling to Germany. By 2015, the trade balance in power was 50 terawatt-hours in Germany’s favor. Kawai and Iida address problems associated with renewables, specifically wind turbine noise and the danger they pose to flying birds, as well as a lack of recycling plans for old solar panels. They say these problems are being solved, but at any rate they can’t compare to problems associated with nuclear and fossil fuels, which go beyond economics and safety. U.S. military officials tell them they promote renewables in order to reduce armed conflicts, which are often caused by thwarted access to resources. “Nihon to Saisei,” which was released earlier this year, has had limited distribution in Japan, owing as much to its wonky presentation style as to its subject matter. However, the film’s message is that renewable energy is inevitable and the only matter up for debate is whether this future will arrive sooner or later.

renewable energy
nuclear power
hiroyuki kawai
tetsunari iida
japan and rebirth


Hokkaido's ancient place in the modern world

Abstract: “Even the birds do not fly to Ezo,” went a popular 19th-century saying about Japan’s northernmost island. “Ezo” means “land of barbarians.” Settlement tamed it into “Hokkaido” — “north sea road.” But it was a rough passage. Pioneers from the mainland — for centuries a trickle, by the late 1800s a steady flow — were of all kinds. Gold prospectors and other adventurers brought their moral values, Christian utopians theirs. The latter cleared forests to found paradise on Earth; the former polluted rivers panning for instant riches, damn the cost to others — Ainu fishing the same rivers for salmon, for instance. Between these moral extremes were traders, drifters and refugees from all sorts of misfortunes — legal, financial, meteorological. If a storm destroyed your land back home or personal calamity your prospects, the Hokkaido wilderness offered — or seemed to — hope in despair. Many came unprepared. The winter cold was beyond anything they’d known, the summer mosquitoes likewise. Disease raged. Many died. Not a few went mad. Hokkaido today, with its tourism, agribusiness and blandly commercial city life, shows little of its tortured past. “Tortured,” perhaps, is not the right word. Certainly it’s not the only word. Another was spoken by a young Ainu woman named Yukie Chiri (1901-22), who, before her death from heart disease at age 21, transcribed into written Japanese some of the oral Ainu tales known as yukar — recitations chanted down the ages, handed down from generation to generation, never committed to writing until Chiri did her work. They are the heart and soul of Ainu culture, one very different from anything mainstream Japan had ever acknowledged as “culture.” Introducing her anthology, Chiri wrote, “In the past this spacious Hokkaido was our ancestors’ world of freedom. Living with ease and pleasure in the manner of innocent babes in the embrace of beautiful, vast nature, they were truly the beloved children of nature. Oh what happy people they must have been!” Ainu life is vast in its unchanging continuity. Thousands, tens of thousands of years flow by, each generation so much like another as to make time itself an almost superfluous concept. Hunting and gathering satisfied the people’s bodily needs, the yukar their spiritual aspirations. Agriculture made few inroads; writing, none. Left undisturbed, Hokkaido might have remained pre-agricultural and pre-literate to this day. So much the better, thought Chiri. Born too late to know directly “the beautiful sparkle of the spirit of the people of the past whose every action was informed by religious feeling,” she reflected bitterly on the fruits of “progress”: “This land has undergone rapid change as development goes on, progressively turning mountains and fields to villages, villages to towns. … In the past surely our happy ancestors never imagined for a moment that this, our homeland, would in the future be reduced to the kind of miserable state at hand.” One people’s happiness is another’s misery, and vice versa. Anthropologist Hiroshi Watanabe (quoted by Sarah Strong in her excellent study, “Ainu Spirits Singing”) captures in a phrase an essential difference: “The Earth’s surface, which is seen by us as a carpet of fauna and flora, is seen by the Ainu as a carpet of spirits.” That changes everything. It spiritualizes everything. It’s what Chiri meant by “every action” being “informed by religious feeling.” Hunting becomes not physical butchery for physical survival but a form of worship, a spirit-to-spirit communion. Consider the bear. Strong explains: “A weighty spiritual being, the bear lives with a human lifestyle in the high mountains and in community with other bear spiritual beings. Out of generosity and a desire for human wine and human inau (ceremonial shaved sticks), the bear spiritual being visits the humans in the form of a bear and allows itself to be killed by them. Once dead, its spirit is treated to a feast and it is sent back to its home in the bear-sending ceremony, bearing gifts of inau, wine and food.” Similarly with other animals. Giving thanks to the sea for the gift of a stranded whale, Ainu elders prayed, “Spiritual Being of the Sea, thank you for giving us this whale. We have received oil and meat, and in return in this way, together with inau and wine as gifts, we humbly send off the spirit of the whale, so please receive the whale.” Was Ainu life as idyllic in reality as in Chiri’s imagination? Did her ancestors really know something about life and its living lost to more restless, insatiable, progressive, “civilized” breeds? Maybe they did, mused some very haughtily civilized people. “What a strange life!” wrote Isabella Bird in “Unbeaten Tracks in Japan” (1885). Arriving in Japan in May 1878, she trekked to Hokkaido in August. Japan itself, opened to the West a bare decade earlier, hardly met her British Victorian standards of civilization. What would she make of the Ainu? “They have no history, their traditions are scarcely worthy the name, they claim descent from a dog, their houses and persons swarm with vermin, they are sunk in the grossest ignorance … they are uncivilizable and altogether irreclaimable savages. … And yet they are attractive and in some ways fascinating, and I hope I shall never forget the music of their low, sweet voices … and the wonderful sweetness of their smiles.” Horace Capron (1804-85), an American engineer lending his expertise to the cause of Hokkaido development, recorded his impressions on his arrival in 1870. Was progress good? He had come on purpose to further it. He was a brusquely practical, down-to-earth man. The Ainu gave him pause, however, if only briefly. Struck by “a real natural grace in all their movements,” he found himself wondering “how far the introduction of the wants, habits and ideas of civilized society, with all its concomitants of evils and vices, may add to their real happiness in this world.” It proved a question with a long life ahead of it. It’s with us to this day.


For better relations, Tokyo should use Korean residents to open diplomatic channels with new South Korean government

Abstract: OSAKA - Since the beginning of the year, Japan’s official relations with the Korean Peninsula have gone from bad to worse. Not a day goes by without a report about North Korea’s latest provocation. Journalists, politicians, and pundits deliberate — one might say “geek out” — over whether the missile just fired by North Korea is of this or that type, what the military response by the United States might be if a nuclear device is tested, and, of course, what China might do. With South Korea, the past continues to plague the bilateral relationship. At the forefront is Japan’s anger at the establishment of “comfort women” statues by Korean groups to commemorate the Korean women forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during World War II. Only last month did Tokyo return the Japanese ambassador to Seoul after he was withdrawn in January to protest a comfort women statue in Busan. In the midst of such tensions, deft diplomacy is more crucial than ever but not something that seems to be getting a lot of political or media discussion. Yet one option to repair relations with South Korea, and perhaps even make some headway with North Korea, seems obvious if you are in Kansai: Use Japan’s Korean community as an unofficial diplomatic back-door channel of communication. And for that, there is no better place to open that channel than Osaka. Newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in was labeled “anti-Japanese” by right-wing and conservative Tokyo-based media organizations that promote historical revisionism and are particularly close to the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. But Kansai’s Korean residents see an opportunity. As Kwak Jin Woong of the Osaka-based Korean NGO Center noted, Moon has a broad range of contacts and support across a diverse range of groups, including citizens’ groups, of Korean residents in Osaka — and the nation in general. Given Japan’s relative lack of connections to Moon via official links, Osaka’s Korean community could prove to be helpful source of citizen diplomats. In Kansai, diplomacy with South and North Korea is not merely an abstract principle to be discussed among diplomats, journalists, and academics. As of 2015, Justice Ministry figures showed there were about 498,000 resident Koreans in the nation’s 47 prefectures. But over 187,000 lived in Osaka, Hyogo and Kyoto prefectures, with 113,000 in Osaka Prefecture alone. And more importantly, Korean residents in Kansai have friends and family in North and South Korea with whom they remain in touch. For them, the relationship between Japan and Korea is not a diplomatic game; it’s personal, and something which, historically, they’ve been more involved with than is often understood. During the latter half of the 20th century, Liberal Democratic Party politicians relied on Kansai’s Korean community to make introductions, facilitate meetings, and conduct quiet diplomacy with North and South Korean leaders. Whatever the controversies over history and political ideology, generations of LDP leaders understood the value of keeping a back door open to the Korean Peninsula. They cultivated relationships with Kansai Korean community leaders who had deep family and business ties to North and South Korea. Such connections had weakened by the time Abe returned to power in 2012. But with many in his Cabinet supporting right-wing, revisionist and nationalist groups, unofficial diplomatic efforts between the ruling LDP-Komeito coalition and South Korea via Japan’s Korean community have become more difficult. If the pessimists are right and the world is just one mistake from a conflict in East Asia, and if Moon really does have good contacts in Kansai’s Korean community, then Abe and the LDP have a moral obligation to try and utilize those contacts — and quickly. Citizen diplomacy is no substitute for professional diplomacy. But in the case of Japan’s relations with the Korean Peninsula, it is one that has played an important supporting role in the past and could do so again.

korean peninsula
north korea
missile
moon jae-in
south korea-japan relations


Funai's new TV models to hit Japanese stores in June

Abstract: OSAKA - Funai brand television models will return to the Japanese market for the first time since 2006, with Yamada-Denki to begin selling them on June 2, Funai Electric has said. The 11 new models from five series, including new 4K high-definition TVs, are equipped with hard disks for recording TV programs, the Osaka-based maker said on Wednesday. Though prices have not been set, they are likely to be cheaper than competitor models with similar specs. Funai Electric aims to secure a domestic market share of 5 percent in fiscal 2017. The new models will also include less expensive 2K televisions, as Funai Electric plans to attract a wide range of customers to distinguish itself from major domestic manufacturers that focus on expensive models. Noboru Yamada, chairman of Yamada-Denki — which has signed an exclusive sales deal for Japan with Funai Electric — said the lineup of TV sets at stores has narrowed due to Japanese makers’ withdrawals. “We need Japanese brands which can earn support from customers,” Yamada said. Funai Electric predicts domestic sales of TVs in fiscal 2020 will double from last year’s level to around 10 million, driven by demand fueled by the Olympic Games. The company aims to further expand its domestic market share to 20 percent in fiscal 2020 as it plans to launch TV sets with organic electroluminescent screens next summer.