Showing posts with label I think I'm turning Japanese.... Show all posts
Showing posts with label I think I'm turning Japanese.... Show all posts
Monday, November 19, 2007
Dear Japan, I hate you, signed Jennifer
Japanese Whale Hunt: A Japanese fleet left for the Antarctic Ocean yesterday with the intention of killing more than 1,000 whales, including 50 of the endangered humpback whales protected by an international moratorium since 1963. Japan argues that whaling provides value material for research into whale stocks, and that whale populations are at sustainable levels. Hideki Moronuki, whaling chief at the Japan Fisheries Agency, said humpback whales in our research are rapidly recovering Junichi Sato, spokesman for Greenpeace Japan, said "this is not about research," and charged that most of the whale meat will end up in Japanese pubs and supermarkets
Monday, March 19, 2007
Take my gold in Takayama
I've actually been to this town, the fact that they were the victims of a museum heist is a pretty weird coincidence. I'm not sure how something like this could happen, I certainly wouldn't agree to a job where I was the only person standing between the general public and 1.7 million dollars worth of gold. Where I volunteer, we have a discovery learning exhibit on 
right now where kids can dig up fake artifacts and fake gold nuggets in a sandbox type area, even that's being pocketed like it's going out of style. People will take anything that's not nailed down or under plexi-glass.I don't know how this museum's insurance company let them get away with that kind of security, I know the crime rate is lower in Japan, but seriously.
I can think of one good place for the police to start their hunt, the Fort-Knox-like gold depository in the hills above Takayama owned by that crazy cult we visited when we were there.TOKYO (Reuters) - Three masked men on Sunday snatched a block of gold bullion valued at roughly $1.71 million from a Japanese museum that allowed visitors to touch the 221-pound piece.
Shoving aside a woman museum worker, the three then fled with an accomplice who had been serving as lookout at the museum in Takayama, a small city in central Japan.
"There were no sensors or burglar alarms, since the museum allowed its visitors to touch the gold as they wanted," a police spokesman said.
He could not explain why the gold had been displayed in the museum.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Glad I went last year, 'cause that's not going to happen to me
Japanese cabinet approves plan to fingerprint foreigners
Last Updated Tue, 07 Mar 2006 15:00:37 EST
CBC News
Most foreigners visiting Japan would be photographed and fingerprinted under controversial legislation approved Tuesday by the country's cabinet.
Children under 16, diplomats and permanent residents — such as ethnic Koreans born in Japan — would be exempt from the requirements.
A U.S. Customs computer displays fingerprints as travellers from Japan wait at a Los Angeles airport in 2004. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
The government wants the bill voted into law during the current session of parliament, which ends on June 18.
If the law is adopted, advance lists of passengers and crew members would also be required for all airplanes and ships arriving in Japan.
The revised immigration bill was put forward as part of a plan to prevent terrorism, despite criticism that the measures may violate the rights of travellers.
Japan's Federation of Bar Associations opposes the bill, saying it violates a constitutional requirement to treat people with respect.
The lawyers' group also says the fingerprinting proposal is a violation of privacy.
Last year, about 7.45 million people visited Japan.
with files from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Last Updated Tue, 07 Mar 2006 15:00:37 EST
CBC News
Most foreigners visiting Japan would be photographed and fingerprinted under controversial legislation approved Tuesday by the country's cabinet.
Children under 16, diplomats and permanent residents — such as ethnic Koreans born in Japan — would be exempt from the requirements.
A U.S. Customs computer displays fingerprints as travellers from Japan wait at a Los Angeles airport in 2004. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
The government wants the bill voted into law during the current session of parliament, which ends on June 18.
If the law is adopted, advance lists of passengers and crew members would also be required for all airplanes and ships arriving in Japan.
The revised immigration bill was put forward as part of a plan to prevent terrorism, despite criticism that the measures may violate the rights of travellers.
Japan's Federation of Bar Associations opposes the bill, saying it violates a constitutional requirement to treat people with respect.
The lawyers' group also says the fingerprinting proposal is a violation of privacy.
Last year, about 7.45 million people visited Japan.
with files from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Friday, February 10, 2006
Whale meat 'made into dog food'
Nisshin Maru factory ship in the Southern Ocean (Greenpeace/PA)
Japan has recently expanded its whaling programme
Meat from whales caught under Japan's "research" programme is so abundant that it is being sold as pet food, according to a UK conservation group.
Thousands of tonnes of whale meat has been stockpiled as more animals are killed each year, says the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS).
The Japanese government has attempted to sell the whale meat to schools but the price has continued to fall.
A company is selling meat on the web as "healthy and safe natural" dog food.
"A quiet whale meat boom is starting," says the website hakudai.com.
"The number of pet-owners who care about their animals' health are growing, recognising the nutritious value of whale meat," it adds.
"Now the demand and the sales are soaring."
We have heard many arguments from Japan... but they have never stated that they needed to kill whales to feed their dogs
Mark Simmonds
The website describes whale meat as "organic" and fished "freshly out of the water".
Mark Simmonds, director of science at WDCS, said: "Whaling is a cruel activity and the fact that Japan is killing these amazing animals to produce dog food is shocking.
"We have heard many arguments from Japan over the years about why whaling is necessary to them but they have never stated that they needed to kill whales to feed their dogs."
A global moratorium on commercial whaling has been in place since the 1980s, but hunting for scientific research is permitted under the rules of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
The hunting is condemned by most conservation groups on the grounds that it is inhumane, unnecessary and may harm fragile populations.
Japan and Iceland run scientific programmes, while Norway lodged a formal objection to the moratorium and maintains an openly commercial operation.
A number of indigenous peoples are also allowed to hunt under tight restrictions.
Expanding the kill
The sheer volume of Japan's operations makes it the principal target for the wrath of conservation groups.
Whale burger on the menu
In the current hunting season, it launched a programme called JARPA-2 which doubles its annual minke whale catch from Antarctic waters.
JARPA-2 will remove 935 minkes and 10 fin whales each year; while its other research programme JARPN takes 100 sei whales, 100 minkes, 50 Bryde's whales and five sperm whales annually from the north Pacific.
The IWC obliges countries practising scientific whaling to process what they catch, and the meat from Japan's programmes has always found its way into restaurants.
Last year, it initiated a scheme to distribute whale meat to schools, and a fast-food chain began selling whale burgers.
But the latest news suggests demand from Japan's human population is running some way behind the recently expanded supply.
WCDS quotes research showing that the price of meat from Bryde's whales has halved over the last five years, with other species falling as well.
Protest for survival
Most whale species are at risk of extinction, and last year 63 members of the IWC's Scientific Committee condemned the JARPA expansion.
Find out about the different endangered whale species.
In graphics
"With the new proposal, Japan will increase its annual take... to levels approaching the annual commercial quotas for Antarctic minke whales that were in place prior to the moratorium," they declared.
In January a group of 17 countries, including the UK, mounted a formal diplomatic protest.
"The UK is totally opposed to any activity that undermines the present moratorium on commercial whaling," said Britain's fisheries minister Ben Bradshaw at the time.
"We urge Japan to reconsider its position and end this unjustified and unnecessary slaughter which is regarded by many countries and their public as a means to bypass the IWC moratorium."
Japan maintains that hunting is part of its cultural heritage, which other nations have no right to condemn.
Japan has recently expanded its whaling programme
Meat from whales caught under Japan's "research" programme is so abundant that it is being sold as pet food, according to a UK conservation group.
Thousands of tonnes of whale meat has been stockpiled as more animals are killed each year, says the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS).
The Japanese government has attempted to sell the whale meat to schools but the price has continued to fall.
A company is selling meat on the web as "healthy and safe natural" dog food.
"A quiet whale meat boom is starting," says the website hakudai.com.
"The number of pet-owners who care about their animals' health are growing, recognising the nutritious value of whale meat," it adds.
"Now the demand and the sales are soaring."
We have heard many arguments from Japan... but they have never stated that they needed to kill whales to feed their dogs
Mark Simmonds
The website describes whale meat as "organic" and fished "freshly out of the water".
Mark Simmonds, director of science at WDCS, said: "Whaling is a cruel activity and the fact that Japan is killing these amazing animals to produce dog food is shocking.
"We have heard many arguments from Japan over the years about why whaling is necessary to them but they have never stated that they needed to kill whales to feed their dogs."
A global moratorium on commercial whaling has been in place since the 1980s, but hunting for scientific research is permitted under the rules of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
The hunting is condemned by most conservation groups on the grounds that it is inhumane, unnecessary and may harm fragile populations.
Japan and Iceland run scientific programmes, while Norway lodged a formal objection to the moratorium and maintains an openly commercial operation.
A number of indigenous peoples are also allowed to hunt under tight restrictions.
Expanding the kill
The sheer volume of Japan's operations makes it the principal target for the wrath of conservation groups.
Whale burger on the menu
In the current hunting season, it launched a programme called JARPA-2 which doubles its annual minke whale catch from Antarctic waters.
JARPA-2 will remove 935 minkes and 10 fin whales each year; while its other research programme JARPN takes 100 sei whales, 100 minkes, 50 Bryde's whales and five sperm whales annually from the north Pacific.
The IWC obliges countries practising scientific whaling to process what they catch, and the meat from Japan's programmes has always found its way into restaurants.
Last year, it initiated a scheme to distribute whale meat to schools, and a fast-food chain began selling whale burgers.
But the latest news suggests demand from Japan's human population is running some way behind the recently expanded supply.
WCDS quotes research showing that the price of meat from Bryde's whales has halved over the last five years, with other species falling as well.
Protest for survival
Most whale species are at risk of extinction, and last year 63 members of the IWC's Scientific Committee condemned the JARPA expansion.
Find out about the different endangered whale species.
In graphics
"With the new proposal, Japan will increase its annual take... to levels approaching the annual commercial quotas for Antarctic minke whales that were in place prior to the moratorium," they declared.
In January a group of 17 countries, including the UK, mounted a formal diplomatic protest.
"The UK is totally opposed to any activity that undermines the present moratorium on commercial whaling," said Britain's fisheries minister Ben Bradshaw at the time.
"We urge Japan to reconsider its position and end this unjustified and unnecessary slaughter which is regarded by many countries and their public as a means to bypass the IWC moratorium."
Japan maintains that hunting is part of its cultural heritage, which other nations have no right to condemn.
Eat more whale meat, Japanese urged
This makes me so fucking mad that I don't know if I can have a rational conversation about it, but I'll try. If traditions are bad things that you did in the past repeated in the present, then a bad thing that we did in the past that we could repeat in the present is dropping the A-bomb on Japan. I am so angry about this whaling that I want to quit my job and sign on to the Rainbow Warrior and ride around in Zodiacs preventing the Japanese whalers from getting a good shot. I think we need a campaign here. Let's all write to our members of parliament. Who else has an idea of what to do, and does anyone have any access to torpedos?
Japan faces whale meat glut — consumers turn away even as price falls
Feb. 9, 2006. 02:49 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOKYO — Japan has enticed children with whale burger school lunches, sung the praises of the red meat in colorful pamphlets, and declared whale hunting "a national heritage.''
But Tokyo has a dilemma: by rapidly expanding its whale hunt, Japan now kills more of the giant mammals than its consumers care to eat.
The result is an unprecedented glut of whale meat. Prices — once about $15 a pound — are plunging, inventories are bursting, and promoters are scrambling to get Japanese to eat more whale.
It's a tough sell.
"To put it simply, whale meat tastes horrible," said 30-year-old Kosuke Nakamura, one of the diners at a Hana No Mai restaurant in Tokyo who turned their noses up at whale meat.
Young people are put off by the tough, pungent meat, Nakamura said, while older Japanese are reminded of the lean years after the country's defeat in World War II.
And while few Japanese voice environmental concerns over hunting whales, some younger people say it has brought the country unfavorable publicity.
"Whaling's so bad for Japan's image. I don't know why we still hunt," Nakamura said.
Some 1,035 tons of whale meat hit the market in Japan last year, a 65 percent increase from 1995, the Fisheries Agency says. And sluggish demand means inventories have almost doubled in five years to 2,704 tons in 2004.
In the same period, the average price of whale fell almost 30 percent, to just over $10 a pound in 2004. That's more than the average price for beef — about $9 a pound — and far higher than for chicken or pork.
But the glut of whale meat hasn't stopped the harpoon guns. Tokyo plans to kill — under a research program — some 1,070 minke whales in 2006, over 400 more than last year. Japan will also hunt 10 fin whales, and a total of 160 Bryde's, sei and sperm whales, fisheries official Kenji Masuda said.
The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, approving limited hunts for research purposes a year later. Opponents have called Japan's hunts merely a way for it to dodge the whaling ban.
Tokyo says its program is needed to establish reliable information on whale populations and habits — data Japan says can only be gleaned by killing the animals.
The government, which distributes the meat and uses profits to fund research, is working to promote whale meat and secure new distribution channels.
"Is it OK to eat whale meat? Of course it is," reads a pamphlet titled "Delicious Whales" that is distributed by the government-affiliated Japan Whaling Association.
"Even if we capture 2,000 whales a year for 100 years, it's OK because whale numbers are growing," the pamphlet says.
The association acknowledges whale is a hard sell. The meat was considered a rich source of protein in the lean years after World War II, but people moved on to other meats — notably beef — as they became more affluent.
Some local governments have begun offering whale meat in school lunches.
Wakayama, a prefecture with a whale-hunting tradition 280 miles southwest of Tokyo, has been aggressive in getting youngsters to eat whale, introducing whale meals at 270 public schools in 2005.
Nutritionists have even developed child-friendly whale dishes, including whale meatballs, hamburgers and whale spaghetti bolognese, said Tetsuji Sawada of Wakayama's education board.
Chimney Co., which runs the Hana No Mai eateries, acknowledges customers are wary of new whale dishes.
Still, Hana No Mai will keep selling whale meat. And a trader at one of Tsukiji market's biggest wholesalers, Daito Gyorui Co., was equally optimistic.
"The fall in prices is a good thing because it will make whale meat more accessible," Yoshiaki Kochi said. "Japanese will never forget the taste of whale. It's part of our culture. It's in our DNA.''
Japan faces whale meat glut — consumers turn away even as price falls
Feb. 9, 2006. 02:49 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOKYO — Japan has enticed children with whale burger school lunches, sung the praises of the red meat in colorful pamphlets, and declared whale hunting "a national heritage.''
But Tokyo has a dilemma: by rapidly expanding its whale hunt, Japan now kills more of the giant mammals than its consumers care to eat.
The result is an unprecedented glut of whale meat. Prices — once about $15 a pound — are plunging, inventories are bursting, and promoters are scrambling to get Japanese to eat more whale.
It's a tough sell.
"To put it simply, whale meat tastes horrible," said 30-year-old Kosuke Nakamura, one of the diners at a Hana No Mai restaurant in Tokyo who turned their noses up at whale meat.
Young people are put off by the tough, pungent meat, Nakamura said, while older Japanese are reminded of the lean years after the country's defeat in World War II.
And while few Japanese voice environmental concerns over hunting whales, some younger people say it has brought the country unfavorable publicity.
"Whaling's so bad for Japan's image. I don't know why we still hunt," Nakamura said.
Some 1,035 tons of whale meat hit the market in Japan last year, a 65 percent increase from 1995, the Fisheries Agency says. And sluggish demand means inventories have almost doubled in five years to 2,704 tons in 2004.
In the same period, the average price of whale fell almost 30 percent, to just over $10 a pound in 2004. That's more than the average price for beef — about $9 a pound — and far higher than for chicken or pork.
But the glut of whale meat hasn't stopped the harpoon guns. Tokyo plans to kill — under a research program — some 1,070 minke whales in 2006, over 400 more than last year. Japan will also hunt 10 fin whales, and a total of 160 Bryde's, sei and sperm whales, fisheries official Kenji Masuda said.
The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, approving limited hunts for research purposes a year later. Opponents have called Japan's hunts merely a way for it to dodge the whaling ban.
Tokyo says its program is needed to establish reliable information on whale populations and habits — data Japan says can only be gleaned by killing the animals.
The government, which distributes the meat and uses profits to fund research, is working to promote whale meat and secure new distribution channels.
"Is it OK to eat whale meat? Of course it is," reads a pamphlet titled "Delicious Whales" that is distributed by the government-affiliated Japan Whaling Association.
"Even if we capture 2,000 whales a year for 100 years, it's OK because whale numbers are growing," the pamphlet says.
The association acknowledges whale is a hard sell. The meat was considered a rich source of protein in the lean years after World War II, but people moved on to other meats — notably beef — as they became more affluent.
Some local governments have begun offering whale meat in school lunches.
Wakayama, a prefecture with a whale-hunting tradition 280 miles southwest of Tokyo, has been aggressive in getting youngsters to eat whale, introducing whale meals at 270 public schools in 2005.
Nutritionists have even developed child-friendly whale dishes, including whale meatballs, hamburgers and whale spaghetti bolognese, said Tetsuji Sawada of Wakayama's education board.
Chimney Co., which runs the Hana No Mai eateries, acknowledges customers are wary of new whale dishes.
Still, Hana No Mai will keep selling whale meat. And a trader at one of Tsukiji market's biggest wholesalers, Daito Gyorui Co., was equally optimistic.
"The fall in prices is a good thing because it will make whale meat more accessible," Yoshiaki Kochi said. "Japanese will never forget the taste of whale. It's part of our culture. It's in our DNA.''
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Greenpeace dumps dead whale at Japanese embassy in Berlin
Sorry PX, but this is awesome....
BERLIN (AFP) - A dead whale was lying in front of the Japanese embassy in Berlin, after Greenpeace brought it to the German capital in a protest against Japanese whale hunting for scientific research.
The whale was brought to Berlin by the environmental group after it was found beached near Wismar on Germany's Baltic coast on Saturday.
The 17-meter (55-feet) -long whale, which was between 10 and 20 years old, was lying in the snow under a banner stating: "Science does not need harpoons."
Greenpeace activists said the whale came from the North Atlantic and appeared to have beached after hunting for herrings and being trapped in shallow waters in the Baltic.
They plan to transport the whale to the maritime museum at Stralsund in northeastern Germany where it was due to be dissected on Friday.
The Japanese embassy has refused to comment on the protest.
Greenpeace is leading an international campaign against whale hunting by the Japanese.
The International Whaling Commission imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986 but Japan has continued hunting for what it calls scientific research.
Japan, however, makes no secret of the fact that the meat from the hunt winds up on dinner plates.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Japanese official: police may be asked to protect whalers from protest ships
Thought whaling was a thing of the past? Think again!
The only question this article brings to mind for me is: Does anyone have any torpedos to donate to the Sea Shepherd?
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Japan's fisheries agency may ask for Japanese police to be sent to protect the country's whaling fleet following two separate collisions this week between whalers and protest ships, a senior official said Tuesday.
Conservation groups Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd have been chasing Japan's whaling fleet in Antarctic waters for two weeks, frustrating their hunt for the 850 minke whales and 10 fin whales that Japan says it wants to kill as part of a scientific research program. Japan sells the whale meat for food.
Hideki Moronuki, the deputy chief of the Far Seas Fisheries division of Japan's Fisheries Agency, was quoted as saying by Australian Associated Press that it may ask Japan's Maritime Police Agency to support its whaling operations if the conservationists escalate their interference.
AAP reported that when asked what Japanese police could do if deployed, Moronuki, speaking from Japan, replied, "I have no idea. They may dispatch aircraft and they may ask the Australian government to take some action."
The two separate collisions on Sunday occurred in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary established by the International Whaling Commission in 1994. Japan does not recognize the sanctuary.
Conservationists have urged the Australian and New Zealand governments - both strong opponents of whaling - to send navy ships to stop Japanese ships from killing whales.
Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill said Tuesday there were no plans to deploy ships.
"It's a civilian issue," Hill said. "We don't see an Australian military role."
New Zealand Defence Minister Phil Goff said there would be no role for a navy ship as New Zealand had "no legal authority over either party."
"Sending a frigate down there would serve no purpose at all because we would have no authority to act as intermediaries between the protesters and the whalers," he said.
Japan and Greenpeace are at odds about who was to blame for Sunday's collision between the whaler Nisshin Maru and Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise. The Greenpeace ship was dented at the bow, but no injuries were reported.
Sea Shepherd said it deliberately struck the supply vessel Oriental Bluebird with its ship Farley Mowat later Sunday. Neither ship was badly damaged and no injuries were reported.
"We sideswiped them to get our point across," Paul Watson, the Farley Mowat's captain, told Seven Network television Tuesday by satellite phone.
The Australian government has condemned Sea Shepherd for using extreme tactics.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Woman attempts 'hara-kiri' suicide in front of Japanese PM's residence
11:19 AM EDT Aug 30
CHISAKI WATANABE
TOKYO (AP) - A woman blocked from driving through a security barrier at the Japanese prime minister's residence Tuesday attempted to kill herself by committing "hara-kiri" disembowelment, a police official said. The woman was in critical condition.
The woman, identified only as a 50-year-old housewife from Nagano in central Japan, cut herself in the abdomen, the neck, the left wrist and both upper arms with a small knife as security agents tried to persuade her to come out of her car, a police official said on customary condition of anonymity.
"She was committing hara-kiri," said the official at the Kojimachi police station in central Tokyo.
The woman was rushed to a hospital by ambulance.
The police official said the woman had pamphlets criticizing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government, with a message - written in black ink with brush - saying "Stop Koizumi's coalition government."
Police are investigating the case as alleged trespassing and illegal possession of weaponry. But the official quoted her husband as saying that the woman has been psychologically unstable recently.
"Hara-kiri" suicide dates from Japan's feudal period when ritual suicide was considered an honorable death under the samurai warrior ethic. While Japan's suicide rate is high - the National Police say 32,325 Japanese killed themselves 2004 - disembowelment is extremely rare.
The incident came on the first day of the campaign for Sept. 11 parliamentary elections. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was campaigning in a Tokyo suburb early Tuesday and was not in his residence at the time of the attempted intrusion.
Japan has bolstered security in public places amid campaign jitters. A plane in northern Japan was evacuated on Monday after a man called in a bomb threat, but no bomb was found.
NHK reported that Tokyo police deployed 8,000 agents, including riot police, around the capital for the electoral season, a record number for election campaign security.
Police refused to confirm the report.
CHISAKI WATANABE
TOKYO (AP) - A woman blocked from driving through a security barrier at the Japanese prime minister's residence Tuesday attempted to kill herself by committing "hara-kiri" disembowelment, a police official said. The woman was in critical condition.
The woman, identified only as a 50-year-old housewife from Nagano in central Japan, cut herself in the abdomen, the neck, the left wrist and both upper arms with a small knife as security agents tried to persuade her to come out of her car, a police official said on customary condition of anonymity.
"She was committing hara-kiri," said the official at the Kojimachi police station in central Tokyo.
The woman was rushed to a hospital by ambulance.
The police official said the woman had pamphlets criticizing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government, with a message - written in black ink with brush - saying "Stop Koizumi's coalition government."
Police are investigating the case as alleged trespassing and illegal possession of weaponry. But the official quoted her husband as saying that the woman has been psychologically unstable recently.
"Hara-kiri" suicide dates from Japan's feudal period when ritual suicide was considered an honorable death under the samurai warrior ethic. While Japan's suicide rate is high - the National Police say 32,325 Japanese killed themselves 2004 - disembowelment is extremely rare.
The incident came on the first day of the campaign for Sept. 11 parliamentary elections. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was campaigning in a Tokyo suburb early Tuesday and was not in his residence at the time of the attempted intrusion.
Japan has bolstered security in public places amid campaign jitters. A plane in northern Japan was evacuated on Monday after a man called in a bomb threat, but no bomb was found.
NHK reported that Tokyo police deployed 8,000 agents, including riot police, around the capital for the electoral season, a record number for election campaign security.
Police refused to confirm the report.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Japan PM announces snap election
Last Updated Mon, 08 Aug 2005 08:44:54 EDT
CBC News
Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi surprised his country on Monday with an election call after losing a crucial economic reform vote in parliament.
Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. (AP file Photo)
INDEPTH: Japan
Voters in Japan will head to the polls on Sept. 11.
The election call came after defections from Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) resulted in his losing a vote to privatize Japan's postal system.
The vote was defeated by 125 to 108.
Postal reform is a cornerstone of a sweeping economic package Koizumi has wanted to implement since he swept to power in 2001.
After losing the vote, Koizumi called an emergency cabinet meeting and decided to dissolve the lower house of parliament.
The defeat highlights serious divisions within Koizumi's party, and observers say the party could split into several camps once the campaigning begins at the end of August.
"I will smash the old LDP and forge ahead with a new LDP," Koizumi is quoted as saying after the vote.
Some parliamentarians called the move a mistake.
"There is no justification. It's like suicide bombing," said LDP lower house lawmaker Housei Norota, who had opposed the bills.
The postal service has an estimated $3 trillion US in holdings, including banking, life insurance and mail delivery.
Privatization would result in Japan Post becoming the world's largest bank.
CBC News
Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi surprised his country on Monday with an election call after losing a crucial economic reform vote in parliament.
Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. (AP file Photo)
INDEPTH: Japan
Voters in Japan will head to the polls on Sept. 11.
The election call came after defections from Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) resulted in his losing a vote to privatize Japan's postal system.
The vote was defeated by 125 to 108.
Postal reform is a cornerstone of a sweeping economic package Koizumi has wanted to implement since he swept to power in 2001.
After losing the vote, Koizumi called an emergency cabinet meeting and decided to dissolve the lower house of parliament.
The defeat highlights serious divisions within Koizumi's party, and observers say the party could split into several camps once the campaigning begins at the end of August.
"I will smash the old LDP and forge ahead with a new LDP," Koizumi is quoted as saying after the vote.
Some parliamentarians called the move a mistake.
"There is no justification. It's like suicide bombing," said LDP lower house lawmaker Housei Norota, who had opposed the bills.
The postal service has an estimated $3 trillion US in holdings, including banking, life insurance and mail delivery.
Privatization would result in Japan Post becoming the world's largest bank.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Hiroshima cover up
NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN
The Hiroshima Cover-Up
By Amy Goodman and David Goodman
08/05/05
Baltimore Sun
A STORY THAT the U.S. government hoped would never see the light of day finally has been published, 60 years after it was spiked by military censors. The discovery of reporter George Weller's firsthand account of conditions in post-nuclear Nagasaki sheds light on one of the great journalistic betrayals of the last century: the cover-up of the effects of the atomic bombing on Japan.
On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; three days later, Nagasaki was hit. Gen. Douglas MacArthur promptly declared southern Japan off-limits, barring the news media. More than 200,000 people died in the atomic bombings of the cities, but no Western journalist witnessed the aftermath and told the story. Instead, the world's media obediently crowded onto the battleship USS Missouri off the coast of Japan to cover the Japanese surrender.
A month after the bombings, two reporters defied General MacArthur and struck out on their own. Mr. Weller, of the Chicago Daily News, took row boats and trains to reach devastated Nagasaki. Independent journalist Wilfred Burchett rode a train for 30 hours and walked into the charred remains of Hiroshima.
Both men encountered nightmare worlds. Mr. Burchett sat down on a chunk of rubble with his Baby Hermes typewriter. His dispatch began: Hiroshima, 30 days after the first atomic bomb destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly people who were uninjured in the cataclysm from an unknown something which I can only describe as the atomic plague.
He continued, tapping out the words that still haunt to this day: "Hiroshima does not look like a bombed city. It looks as if a monster steamroller has passed over it and squashed it out of existence. I write these facts as dispassionately as I can in the hope that they will act as a warning to the world. "Mr. Burchett's article, headlined "The Atomic Plague," was published Sept. 5, 1945, in the London Daily Express. The story caused a worldwide sensation and was a public relations fiasco for the U.S. military. The official U.S. narrative of the atomic bombings downplayed civillian casualties and categorically dismissed as "Japanese propaganda" reports of the deadly lingering effects of radiation.
So when Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter George Weller's 25,000-word story on the horror that he encountered in Nagasaki was submitted to military censors, General MacArthur ordered the story killed, and the manuscript was never returned. As Mr. Weller later summarized his experience with General MacArthur's censors, "They won."
Recently, Mr. Weller's son, Anthony, discovered a carbon copy of the suppressed dispatches among his father's papers (George Weller died in 2002). Unable to find an interested American publisher, Anthony Weller sold the account to Mainichi Shimbun, a big Japanese newspaper. Now, on the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings, Mr. Weller's account can finally be read.
"In swaybacked or flattened skeletons of the Mitsubishi arms plants is revealed what the atomic bomb can do to steel and stone, but what the riven atom can do against human flesh and bone lies hidden in two hospitals of downtown Nagasaki," wrote Mr. Weller. A month after the bombs fell, he observed, "The atomic bomb's peculiar disease, uncured because it is untreated and untreated because it is not diagnosed, is still snatching away lives here."
After killing Mr. Weller's reports, U.S. authorities tried to counter Mr. Burchett's articles by attacking the messenger. General MacArthur ordered Mr. Burchett expelled from Japan (the order was later rescinded), his camera mysteriously vanished while he was in a Tokyo hospital and U.S. officials accused him of being influenced by Japanese propaganda.
Then the U.S. military unleashed a secret propaganda weapon: It deployed its own Times man. It turns out that William L. Laurence, the science reporter for The New York Times, was also on the payroll of the War Department.
For four months, while still reporting for the Times, Mr. Laurence had been writing press releases for the military explaining the atomic weapons program; he also wrote statements for President Harry Truman and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. He was rewarded by being given a seat on the plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, an experience that he described in the Times with religious awe.
Three days after publication of Mr. Burchett's shocking dispatch, Mr. Laurence had a front-page story in the Times disputing the notion that radiation sickness was killing people. His news story included this remarkable commentary: "The Japanese are still continuing their propaganda aimed at creating the impression that we won the war unfairly, and thus attempting to create sympathy for themselves and milder terms. ... Thus, at the beginning, the Japanese described 'symptoms' that did not ring true.
"Mr. Laurence won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the atomic bomb, and his faithful parroting of the government line was crucial in launching a half-century of silence about the deadly lingering effects of the bomb. It is time for the Pulitzer board to strip Hiroshima's apologist and his newspaper of this undeserved prize. Sixty years late, Mr. Weller's censored account stands as a searing indictment not only of the inhumanity of the atomic bomb but also of the danger of journalists embedding with the government to deceive the world.
Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, and David Goodman, a contributing writer for Mother Jones, are co-authors of The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them.
The Hiroshima Cover-Up
By Amy Goodman and David Goodman
08/05/05
Baltimore Sun
A STORY THAT the U.S. government hoped would never see the light of day finally has been published, 60 years after it was spiked by military censors. The discovery of reporter George Weller's firsthand account of conditions in post-nuclear Nagasaki sheds light on one of the great journalistic betrayals of the last century: the cover-up of the effects of the atomic bombing on Japan.
On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; three days later, Nagasaki was hit. Gen. Douglas MacArthur promptly declared southern Japan off-limits, barring the news media. More than 200,000 people died in the atomic bombings of the cities, but no Western journalist witnessed the aftermath and told the story. Instead, the world's media obediently crowded onto the battleship USS Missouri off the coast of Japan to cover the Japanese surrender.
A month after the bombings, two reporters defied General MacArthur and struck out on their own. Mr. Weller, of the Chicago Daily News, took row boats and trains to reach devastated Nagasaki. Independent journalist Wilfred Burchett rode a train for 30 hours and walked into the charred remains of Hiroshima.
Both men encountered nightmare worlds. Mr. Burchett sat down on a chunk of rubble with his Baby Hermes typewriter. His dispatch began: Hiroshima, 30 days after the first atomic bomb destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly people who were uninjured in the cataclysm from an unknown something which I can only describe as the atomic plague.
He continued, tapping out the words that still haunt to this day: "Hiroshima does not look like a bombed city. It looks as if a monster steamroller has passed over it and squashed it out of existence. I write these facts as dispassionately as I can in the hope that they will act as a warning to the world. "Mr. Burchett's article, headlined "The Atomic Plague," was published Sept. 5, 1945, in the London Daily Express. The story caused a worldwide sensation and was a public relations fiasco for the U.S. military. The official U.S. narrative of the atomic bombings downplayed civillian casualties and categorically dismissed as "Japanese propaganda" reports of the deadly lingering effects of radiation.
So when Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter George Weller's 25,000-word story on the horror that he encountered in Nagasaki was submitted to military censors, General MacArthur ordered the story killed, and the manuscript was never returned. As Mr. Weller later summarized his experience with General MacArthur's censors, "They won."
Recently, Mr. Weller's son, Anthony, discovered a carbon copy of the suppressed dispatches among his father's papers (George Weller died in 2002). Unable to find an interested American publisher, Anthony Weller sold the account to Mainichi Shimbun, a big Japanese newspaper. Now, on the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings, Mr. Weller's account can finally be read.
"In swaybacked or flattened skeletons of the Mitsubishi arms plants is revealed what the atomic bomb can do to steel and stone, but what the riven atom can do against human flesh and bone lies hidden in two hospitals of downtown Nagasaki," wrote Mr. Weller. A month after the bombs fell, he observed, "The atomic bomb's peculiar disease, uncured because it is untreated and untreated because it is not diagnosed, is still snatching away lives here."
After killing Mr. Weller's reports, U.S. authorities tried to counter Mr. Burchett's articles by attacking the messenger. General MacArthur ordered Mr. Burchett expelled from Japan (the order was later rescinded), his camera mysteriously vanished while he was in a Tokyo hospital and U.S. officials accused him of being influenced by Japanese propaganda.
Then the U.S. military unleashed a secret propaganda weapon: It deployed its own Times man. It turns out that William L. Laurence, the science reporter for The New York Times, was also on the payroll of the War Department.
For four months, while still reporting for the Times, Mr. Laurence had been writing press releases for the military explaining the atomic weapons program; he also wrote statements for President Harry Truman and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. He was rewarded by being given a seat on the plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, an experience that he described in the Times with religious awe.
Three days after publication of Mr. Burchett's shocking dispatch, Mr. Laurence had a front-page story in the Times disputing the notion that radiation sickness was killing people. His news story included this remarkable commentary: "The Japanese are still continuing their propaganda aimed at creating the impression that we won the war unfairly, and thus attempting to create sympathy for themselves and milder terms. ... Thus, at the beginning, the Japanese described 'symptoms' that did not ring true.
"Mr. Laurence won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the atomic bomb, and his faithful parroting of the government line was crucial in launching a half-century of silence about the deadly lingering effects of the bomb. It is time for the Pulitzer board to strip Hiroshima's apologist and his newspaper of this undeserved prize. Sixty years late, Mr. Weller's censored account stands as a searing indictment not only of the inhumanity of the atomic bomb but also of the danger of journalists embedding with the government to deceive the world.
Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, and David Goodman, a contributing writer for Mother Jones, are co-authors of The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Dan and Jason - Don't breath too deeply
Tokyo dispatch
Japan's asbestos time bomb The failure of the world's second-largest economy to heed the health warnings over asbestos amounts to a national disgrace, writes Justin McCurry Wednesday July 27, 2005 It was once embraced as the answer to the construction industry's prayers: a cheap, light and easily obtainable substance that would make buildings stronger, warmer and more resistant to fire. A quarter of a century has passed since the world was emphatically warned that asbestos was also a killer.
The material has been blamed for thousands of deaths, and has condemned its victims to years of suffering from lung cancer, pneumoconiosis and mesothelioma, a cancer of the chest and abdominal cavities of which asbestos inhalation is the only known cause.
While most of the industrialised world has banned or severely restricted the use of asbestos, the substance is now fuelling the rapid development of several Asian countries including China and Thailand.
Those countries could do worse than listen to the hundreds of stories of lives painfully cut short in Japan, which is only just coming to terms with the full horror of its former dependence on asbestos and the inept response of its government to the health consequences.
The most recent revelations began as a trickle at the end of last month when Kubota, a manufacturer of farm equipment, admitted that 79 former employees had died of cancer and other diseases linked to asbestos over the past few decades.
Then came the deluge: according to health ministry data almost 900 people died of mesothelioma in 2003 alone, and last week the trade ministry said nearly 400 people - and in several cases their relatives as well - working for dozens of companies had died from diseases caused by the inhalation of asbestos.
In the absence of a means of recording the incidence of such diseases among the myriad subcontractors that support the Japanese construction industry, the actual death toll is feared to be much higher.
Many of the victims were for years unaware that tiny fibres of asbestos had lodged themselves inside their lungs. Mesothelioma has an incubation period of between 20 and 40 years.
And yet 25 years after the World Health Organisation identified asbestos as a carcinogen, Japan's silent time bomb continues to tick.
Despite the warnings, blue and brown asbestos - the most carcinogenic forms - were not banned until 1995, and even then only in principle, while white asbestos, which is said to be a much weaker carcinogen, was outlawed only last year. Even with the bans in place, however, asbestos can still be used when no alternative materials are available. It is still found in gaskets for machinery, insulating plates for switchboards, chemical seals and industrial rope. A ban on all asbestos use will not go into effect until 2008.
It is not as if the government was unaware of the dangers: as long ago as the mid-70s, British studies on the health risks of asbestos prompted Japanese officials to urge firms and local authorities to warn local residents and encourage at-risk workers to undergo health checks. The directive was largely ignored.
Critics have likened the inaction over asbestos to the HIV scandal of the 1990s, when despite official knowledge of the risks involved, thousands of haemophiliacs acquired the Aids virus via unheated blood products.
Faced with overwhelming evidence of the misery asbestos has caused, the government has been forced to act. It has urged private firms to stop using the substance immediately and is drawing up a compensation plan for victims - though payments may only be forthcoming only if government inaction is found to have been responsible for their ill health.
Even so, feelings of culpability are running high in official circles, with the senior health minister Hiroyoshi Nishi admitting in parliament that the central government made a "crucial mistake" in ignoring the warnings of almost 30 years ago.
Health experts, meanwhile, warn that the worst is yet to come, when people who have been exposed in more recent times begin to show symptoms of asbestos-related diseases.
One expert has predicted that over a 40-year period starting in 2000, the number of deaths from the disease could exceed 100,000. Thought will also have to be given to how an unknown number of old, asbestos-laden buildings, including schools, can be demolished without posing a risk to both workers and nearby residents.
That so many people have had to die such long, painful deaths, is being called a national tragedy; that the majority of those deaths might have been prevented in this, the world's second-biggest economy, could fairly be described as a national disgrace.
Japan's asbestos time bomb The failure of the world's second-largest economy to heed the health warnings over asbestos amounts to a national disgrace, writes Justin McCurry Wednesday July 27, 2005 It was once embraced as the answer to the construction industry's prayers: a cheap, light and easily obtainable substance that would make buildings stronger, warmer and more resistant to fire. A quarter of a century has passed since the world was emphatically warned that asbestos was also a killer.
The material has been blamed for thousands of deaths, and has condemned its victims to years of suffering from lung cancer, pneumoconiosis and mesothelioma, a cancer of the chest and abdominal cavities of which asbestos inhalation is the only known cause.
While most of the industrialised world has banned or severely restricted the use of asbestos, the substance is now fuelling the rapid development of several Asian countries including China and Thailand.
Those countries could do worse than listen to the hundreds of stories of lives painfully cut short in Japan, which is only just coming to terms with the full horror of its former dependence on asbestos and the inept response of its government to the health consequences.
The most recent revelations began as a trickle at the end of last month when Kubota, a manufacturer of farm equipment, admitted that 79 former employees had died of cancer and other diseases linked to asbestos over the past few decades.
Then came the deluge: according to health ministry data almost 900 people died of mesothelioma in 2003 alone, and last week the trade ministry said nearly 400 people - and in several cases their relatives as well - working for dozens of companies had died from diseases caused by the inhalation of asbestos.
In the absence of a means of recording the incidence of such diseases among the myriad subcontractors that support the Japanese construction industry, the actual death toll is feared to be much higher.
Many of the victims were for years unaware that tiny fibres of asbestos had lodged themselves inside their lungs. Mesothelioma has an incubation period of between 20 and 40 years.
And yet 25 years after the World Health Organisation identified asbestos as a carcinogen, Japan's silent time bomb continues to tick.
Despite the warnings, blue and brown asbestos - the most carcinogenic forms - were not banned until 1995, and even then only in principle, while white asbestos, which is said to be a much weaker carcinogen, was outlawed only last year. Even with the bans in place, however, asbestos can still be used when no alternative materials are available. It is still found in gaskets for machinery, insulating plates for switchboards, chemical seals and industrial rope. A ban on all asbestos use will not go into effect until 2008.
It is not as if the government was unaware of the dangers: as long ago as the mid-70s, British studies on the health risks of asbestos prompted Japanese officials to urge firms and local authorities to warn local residents and encourage at-risk workers to undergo health checks. The directive was largely ignored.
Critics have likened the inaction over asbestos to the HIV scandal of the 1990s, when despite official knowledge of the risks involved, thousands of haemophiliacs acquired the Aids virus via unheated blood products.
Faced with overwhelming evidence of the misery asbestos has caused, the government has been forced to act. It has urged private firms to stop using the substance immediately and is drawing up a compensation plan for victims - though payments may only be forthcoming only if government inaction is found to have been responsible for their ill health.
Even so, feelings of culpability are running high in official circles, with the senior health minister Hiroyoshi Nishi admitting in parliament that the central government made a "crucial mistake" in ignoring the warnings of almost 30 years ago.
Health experts, meanwhile, warn that the worst is yet to come, when people who have been exposed in more recent times begin to show symptoms of asbestos-related diseases.
One expert has predicted that over a 40-year period starting in 2000, the number of deaths from the disease could exceed 100,000. Thought will also have to be given to how an unknown number of old, asbestos-laden buildings, including schools, can be demolished without posing a risk to both workers and nearby residents.
That so many people have had to die such long, painful deaths, is being called a national tragedy; that the majority of those deaths might have been prevented in this, the world's second-biggest economy, could fairly be described as a national disgrace.
Monday, June 27, 2005
Love Those Japanese Trains
Click the link to see the picture, those gold things slow the train down if it needs to stop suddenly, tres drole.
Japan tests new bullet train
Monday, June 27, 2005
The new "bullet" train is set to start commercial service in 2011
TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Japan's largest railway company began a test run for a new bullet train that it eventually aims to operate at a record-breaking 223 miles per hour -- faster than many propeller airplanes -- according to recent news reports.
The Fastech 360S, developed by East Japan Railway Co., successfully made its first test run between Sendai and Kitakami stations in northern Japan at a more leisurely 170 mph, Kyodo News agency reported.
The train, painted in jade and white colors, has cat ear-shaped air-brakes that pop up from the rooftops to help slow the train in an emergency.
By the time the test ends in early 2008, the operator hopes to hit the maximum speed of 250 mph -- faster than the train will travel during regular operation.
French company Alstom SA's TGV, or Train a Grande Vitesse, is currently the world's fastest train, operating at a top speed of 218 mph.
The new "bullet" train is set to start commercial service in 2011, when a new section on the Tohoku bullet train line currently under construction is completed.
The train is expected to make the 360 mile trip between Tokyo and Aomori --about the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles -- within three hours, half of the amount of time it currently takes.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
Monday, June 27, 2005
The new "bullet" train is set to start commercial service in 2011
TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Japan's largest railway company began a test run for a new bullet train that it eventually aims to operate at a record-breaking 223 miles per hour -- faster than many propeller airplanes -- according to recent news reports.
The Fastech 360S, developed by East Japan Railway Co., successfully made its first test run between Sendai and Kitakami stations in northern Japan at a more leisurely 170 mph, Kyodo News agency reported.
The train, painted in jade and white colors, has cat ear-shaped air-brakes that pop up from the rooftops to help slow the train in an emergency.
By the time the test ends in early 2008, the operator hopes to hit the maximum speed of 250 mph -- faster than the train will travel during regular operation.
French company Alstom SA's TGV, or Train a Grande Vitesse, is currently the world's fastest train, operating at a top speed of 218 mph.
The new "bullet" train is set to start commercial service in 2011, when a new section on the Tohoku bullet train line currently under construction is completed.
The train is expected to make the 360 mile trip between Tokyo and Aomori --about the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles -- within three hours, half of the amount of time it currently takes.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
I don't want to hear any jokes about Asian drivers as a result of this!
Woman in car crash 'already dead'
TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- A young mother found at the scene of a car crash near Tokyo in which her husband and infant son were killed had been dead for at least a day before the accident happened, police were quoted as saying on Sunday.
The bizarre discovery was made after emergency crews who rushed to the scene found the body of Rie Ishikawa, 28, in a state of rigor mortis, Kyodo news agency reported.
The family car crashed early on Sunday on a highway in Sawara, Chiba Prefecture.
Ishikawa's husband, Masayuki, 32, survived the initial crash after the car hit a concrete wall then rebounded and hit the lane divider in the center of the highway, Kyodo said.
But the impact threw the couple's 3-year-old son, Masamune, out of the car from the front passenger seat.
When the father got out of the car to find him, both he and the child were struck by oncoming vehicles and killed, police were quoted as saying.
The woman, who was in the back seat of the car, was believed to have died one or two days before the accident, police were quoted as saying. There was no immediate explanation of how she died.
TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- A young mother found at the scene of a car crash near Tokyo in which her husband and infant son were killed had been dead for at least a day before the accident happened, police were quoted as saying on Sunday.
The bizarre discovery was made after emergency crews who rushed to the scene found the body of Rie Ishikawa, 28, in a state of rigor mortis, Kyodo news agency reported.
The family car crashed early on Sunday on a highway in Sawara, Chiba Prefecture.
Ishikawa's husband, Masayuki, 32, survived the initial crash after the car hit a concrete wall then rebounded and hit the lane divider in the center of the highway, Kyodo said.
But the impact threw the couple's 3-year-old son, Masamune, out of the car from the front passenger seat.
When the father got out of the car to find him, both he and the child were struck by oncoming vehicles and killed, police were quoted as saying.
The woman, who was in the back seat of the car, was believed to have died one or two days before the accident, police were quoted as saying. There was no immediate explanation of how she died.
Monday, June 20, 2005
New Accounts of the A-bomb in Japan
American George Weller was the first foreign reporter to enter Nagasaki following the U.S. atomic attack on the city on Aug. 9, 1945. Weller wrote a series of stories about what he saw in the city, but censors at the Occupation's General Headquarters refused to allow the material to be printed. Click on the title to read Weller's stories, written in September 1945.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Last days of disco
So, with my last two days in Japan, I shopped till Dan dropped - what a sport - thanks Dan-boy! I tried Octopus balls - they were OK, but they were also one of the few things I've ever eaten where I felt the portion was too big.
We went to Shibuya and took pictures of the world's busiest pedestrian intersection - it's in Lost in Translation. We went to a store called 109, it's 7 floors of boutiques with Japanese shop assistants who hold Paris Hilton as their personal fashion role model and all have long fake nails, completely encrusted in jewels and bleached blonde hair. Normally, I have a rule about stores such as these, if you are in a store and the music is too loud for you, you are too old to shop there. Well, I was way too old to be shopping in these places, but I did it anyway, and I got some great stuff.
By the way, here's the fashion report for Japan: Layers are in, shiny, sequined things are in, Paris Hilton is in, t-shirts with illiterate English writing on them are still in -Reggae Hairstyle Rock and Roll! Guys with afros are in, guys in really gay looking business suits are in - but they aren't gay.
Anyway, I had an awesome time in Japan, and now it's over and I'm sad. But I'm also excited to go home to my apartment which I left thinking it was tiny, but I think it'll seem much roomier when I get back. See you at the airport, Aaron.
And I'll try to get my pictures developed and put some of them on the blog, shortly, if I can figure out how to do it.
By the way, here's the fashion report for Japan: Layers are in, shiny, sequined things are in, Paris Hilton is in, t-shirts with illiterate English writing on them are still in -Reggae Hairstyle Rock and Roll! Guys with afros are in, guys in really gay looking business suits are in - but they aren't gay.
Anyway, I had an awesome time in Japan, and now it's over and I'm sad. But I'm also excited to go home to my apartment which I left thinking it was tiny, but I think it'll seem much roomier when I get back. See you at the airport, Aaron.
And I'll try to get my pictures developed and put some of them on the blog, shortly, if I can figure out how to do it.
Matsumoto-jo
One of the 4 castles declared national treasures by the Japanese government. (Himeiji-jo is another, the one I visited the day I went to Hiroshima.) Also, unlike a lot of the other places I've visited while I've been here, this building is original to the 1500s with some additions. Most historic buildings here have been rebuilt 3 times most recently in the 1800s or 1900s - not surprising considering all the earthquakes and fires and wars in Japanese history.
The castle is 6 stories, but it only looks like 5 from the outside, the hidden floor has a really low ceiling and no windows, so you'd never know it was there. The stairways, is this joint were so steep, it reminded me of Chichen Itza or Uxmal, or Dan's house in Tokyo. They say that steep stairs like these prevented invaders from being able to take the castle quickly. Also this castle was really interesting because it was designed for warfare with guns, it was built 5 years after the Portuguese brought guns to Japan, so it has loopholes for shooting and a 60 metre moat.
The castle is 6 stories, but it only looks like 5 from the outside, the hidden floor has a really low ceiling and no windows, so you'd never know it was there. The stairways, is this joint were so steep, it reminded me of Chichen Itza or Uxmal, or Dan's house in Tokyo. They say that steep stairs like these prevented invaders from being able to take the castle quickly. Also this castle was really interesting because it was designed for warfare with guns, it was built 5 years after the Portuguese brought guns to Japan, so it has loopholes for shooting and a 60 metre moat.
Last day of the rail pass
At the moment I'm on a train headed for Matsumoto which has, I'm told, a lovely castle and then I've got to make sure not to miss the last train back to Tokyo at 8:02 pm tonight, because today is the last day of my awesome all-you-can-travel-in-7-days Japan Rail pass.
After being here for almost 2 weeks, I've decided that the person I know who would love Japan the best is Bill. The trains are so efficient, I have never had to wait more than 5 or 10 minutes, even for a long distance train. The tanks of the toilets are also the sink, so when you flush the clean water that would normally fill up the toilet tank runs through at tap on top of the tank and you can wash your hands with it, so the water gets used twice. So many of the things here are so neat - Bill, you'd think you'd died and gone to efficient, German heaven.
On the other hand, the lack of environmental awareness and the waste, the over-packaging of everything would drive you right around the bend. Like the story Dan tells about being at McDonald's and asking for no bag, but the cashier had already picked the bag up, so instead of putting it back on the pile of bags, she tossed it in the garbage. Also at McDonald's, they put your food in a paper bag, then your drink in a paper bag and put the whole thing in a plastic bag.
Or when Peter started trying to carry his own chopsticks, so as not to have to use a new disposable pair for every meal, someone accused him of putting disposable chopstick manufacturers out of work.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Geisha dress-up party
I'm getting much better at getting stuff done here, even without speaking the language. It really strikes you how much of communication is non-verbal. I was pretty proud of my linguistic/non-linguistic skills this morning. Yesterday, I put a smudge on the lens of Dan's camera with my finger and I really needed it cleaned before arriving at my appointment at the tea house for my Geisha make-over. Dan told me that my best bet for purchasing lens paper would be the electronics section of a department store, but none of them were going to be open until after I had to be there. So I tried convenience stores - no dice - then I hit the mother lode a little Japanese guy with a huge video camera and an assistant carrying ten bags of camera accessories. So I pulled out the trusty phrase book, marched over to him and said, "Sumimasen, renzu kami, ku da sai." (Excuse me, lens paper, please.) Then I pointed to the relevant words and phrases in the phrase book, then I held up my camera and made rubbing, camera cleaning type motions.
He and his assistant thought it was excellent, or silly and stupid - it's hard to tell here. But, not only did he have what I needed, he cleaned the whole camera for me, inside and out, and it was sparkling when he finished.
I have to say that this isn't a unique occurrence, staff at stores, restaurants, passers-by, have all been universally helpful. Ask for directions and they'll walk you there and tell the other person when you get there what they've already figured out from you so far, so you don't have to start from scratch with the phrase book again. It's wild, and there's no tipping here, so they are just that nice and polite. Note to self: be extra nice to Japanese tourists in other countries.
Actually, I paid the favour forward about 20 minutes after I got the camera cleaned when some Italians came up to me and asked for help finding a street. I was thinking, I don't know where the heck I'm going either, but I had a look at their map, but their first problem was, it was all in Japanese - so I cracked out the guide book and said one of the few words I know in Italian, that isn't a swear, Andiamo! (let's go!)
So I met Peter at 10, discovered that the real tea house (where the Geishas work and sometimes live) where I was getting my dress-up done couldn't take me till noon. So we went and hung out at his office and went for lunch at a restaurant that was down an alley and around the corner and absolutely beautiful inside. The food was a-mazing, but the best part was the bathroom, I already have a picture of the worst bathroom I've ever seen, and so when I went into the best bathroom I've ever seen, I wish I could have taken a picture, but it seemed inappropriate, so I'll just have to settle for fond memories. Perhaps if I ever own a home, I'll recreate it.
He and his assistant thought it was excellent, or silly and stupid - it's hard to tell here. But, not only did he have what I needed, he cleaned the whole camera for me, inside and out, and it was sparkling when he finished.
I have to say that this isn't a unique occurrence, staff at stores, restaurants, passers-by, have all been universally helpful. Ask for directions and they'll walk you there and tell the other person when you get there what they've already figured out from you so far, so you don't have to start from scratch with the phrase book again. It's wild, and there's no tipping here, so they are just that nice and polite. Note to self: be extra nice to Japanese tourists in other countries.
Actually, I paid the favour forward about 20 minutes after I got the camera cleaned when some Italians came up to me and asked for help finding a street. I was thinking, I don't know where the heck I'm going either, but I had a look at their map, but their first problem was, it was all in Japanese - so I cracked out the guide book and said one of the few words I know in Italian, that isn't a swear, Andiamo! (let's go!)
So I met Peter at 10, discovered that the real tea house (where the Geishas work and sometimes live) where I was getting my dress-up done couldn't take me till noon. So we went and hung out at his office and went for lunch at a restaurant that was down an alley and around the corner and absolutely beautiful inside. The food was a-mazing, but the best part was the bathroom, I already have a picture of the worst bathroom I've ever seen, and so when I went into the best bathroom I've ever seen, I wish I could have taken a picture, but it seemed inappropriate, so I'll just have to settle for fond memories. Perhaps if I ever own a home, I'll recreate it.
So Peter took me over to the tea house which was covered with pictures of a recent visit by Richard Gere and like everyone else in Japan, they love Richard Gere. And no, he didn't get dressed up like a Geisha! Or at least there were no pictures of that, his daughter and her friend did.
So first they put you in a dressing gown with a really open neck and back and the mother of the house did my hair while her daughter in law did my make-up. Usually the Geishas do their own make-up and get their hair done once a week. So the first step is to put wax on your skin wherever the white make-up will go. The wax is sticky and doesn't spread very easily and it has to be really even, so when they are putting it on your face you feel like your skin is being detached from your face. Then they take a big brush and spread the white on, then powder, on all of your face, chest and back. Then they put a little pink around your eyes, and eyebrows, red on the lips and black on the lashes. All the while, the mother was pushing and pulling on my hair.
The kimono part was quite involved. Peter chose a gorgeous blue kimono that one of the Maikos in the house would wear (Maikos are apprentice Geisha). They put about 3 layers of garments on me under the kimono and those little socks with the big toe separated. Then they put the Kimono on me and I had to hold my arms up for a million years while they put the Obi on me. Actually, they had me holding a bamboo pole so they wouldn't knock me down with all the pushing and pulling - it was tight! Holding the bamboo pole reminded me of the scene in Gone With The Wind when Mammy is tightening Scarlet's corset and Scarlet is holding on to the bed post and Mammy says, "Now hold on and suck in!"
The funny thing is that the Obi actually adds bulk to your waist instead of making you look thinner - but forget having any movement between your shoulders and your hips, because it's not going to happen. Bend from the waist and take small steps.
Peter stuck around for the whole thing, and took pictures and translated and it was so great, I was sad that no one was going to be there to see and take pictures because Dan had to work in Tokyo and besides, without the rail pass, you'd have to auction off your first born child to pay for the ticket. So having Peter there totally made up for it and he took some amazing photos. If any of you guys are going to Kyoto, I'll give you his number (he's the best and he's cute too!)
So now I completely understand why Geishas walk the way they do. I want to go back and do it all again - even the wax part.
So after that, I went to the knife shop that sells the best knives in the world, which were priced as such, yeesh! Then I headed back to Tokyo for the night.
Hiroshima scream-ah
I wasn't able to get my Geisha make-over the next day so I decided to switch my plans around and go to Hiroshima the next day instead and hopefully be able to get the Geisha make-over on the following day.
I don't really know what I was expecting from Hiroshima. I've been to Dachau, which was excruciating, and I just finished a big essay on the Bhopal Union Carbide Disaster, which left me wanting to go over to Warren Anderson's house and release MIC into the air intake of his furnace or airconditioner and see how he likes it.
It was raining when I left the hotel in the morning and I bought an umbrella from the nifty umbrella vending machine in the lobby of the hotel. I bought some curry buns at the bakery in the train station, found my train and headed out.
When I got to Hiroshima, I thought I was pretty clever when I got the taxi driver to circle me around the peace park so I could take some zoom lens pictures of the statues from the cab window without getting wet. I went in to the museum and it starts with some pretty dull background stuff about Japan in the run up to WW2 and how Hiroshima was among other things a gathering point for the army before heading out to war, seemed like a pretty even handed treatment of the whole situation to me - I don't really claim to know a whole lot about the subject - but it didn't seem all that anti-American. Then I got around to the part where the bomb was dropped and the watch that had stopped at 8:15 in the morning on the day of the bomb blast, the hands and the watch glass were melted to the watch face. Dioramas of Hiroshima immediately before and after the bomb hit, there were letters from within the American government regarding the Manhattan project that were just so matter of fact about the whole thing (including one from Albert Einstein urging the government to fund a program to develop nuclear weapons).
The most chilling part was the incredible amount of preparation and scientific research they did. This was not an act of desperation on the part of the Americans, they were already negotiating for Japan's surrender when they dropped the bomb and they sent so many planes full of research equipment to document the whole thing and film it. Then afterwards during the occupation, the Americans, instead of treating the survivors would bring them in, examine them and not treat them. Isn't that something that everyone gets upset about from the Holocaust, that the Nazis did medical and scientific experiments on the Jews in concentration camps - well, what about this? This was more recent and on a much, much larger scale, but the Americans won the war so they get to write the history and they get to be the good-guys and the Japanese get to be the bad-guys, right?
The other thing that just broke my heart was the number of stories of people who survived the blast but couldn't get treatment for their injuries and died slow agonizing deaths over weeks and months, the pictures of people walking around after the bomb with their skin hanging off in shreds from their arms and faces. One mother saved the skin hanging from her son's hands including a complete finger tip, when he died, to show his father who was still away at war.
People had to drink the black rain that fell from clouds contaminated by radioactive ash and debris, because there was nothing else to drink. The dark parts of people's clothes absorbed more heat than the light parts and so the patterns of their clothes were tattooed to their bodies in burns. And for years during the occupation the Americans told them there was nothing wrong, nothing to worry about, and examined them and didn't treat them and censored any report or publication about long term damage for the survivors.
But you'd be surprised that the museum doesn't focus that much on the horror of the bomb and a large portion of the exhibits are about how they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and rebuilt and dedicated themselves as a city to opposing nuclear armament. They have a whole wall of telegrams and letters that every mayor of Hiroshima has ever written to a head of state, begging them to stop testing nuclear weapons and disarm their nuclear arsenal. The chilling part his how recent a lot of them are. Dan said that when he was there with his mother, that there was one from only a couple of weeks previous to George W. Bush.
You know, the Germans have been forced to apologize for the Holocaust, how about every Canadian, American or other citizen of an allied country apologizes for this by sending a letter, every time the mayor of Hiroshima writes a letter.
I'm going to bring this subject up, every single time I hear some whining B.S. about the world trade centre. Number one, the US was lucky that they didn't drop a nuke on New York and not just a plane, and number two, those dirty bombs y'all are using in I-raq are also called mini-nukes and it's not just a name. Right after visiting the museum I was sad, but now I'm disgusted.
I had been planning to eat okonomyake, a Hiroshima specialty, for lunch while I was there, but between not wanting to eat anything grown there and the images of people with their skin hanging off, I just got back on the train. I stopped on the way back at a castle called Himeiji-jo, but it was still raining, and it didn't cheer me up, so I just went back to the hotel and watched TV and went to bed.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
The Case of the Buddha's Nostril
On May 5th, I spent the morning exploring Nara. This city was Japan's first capital for 75 years, after which it moved to Kyoto (the capital, that is, not Nara) until 1868 when the capital moved to Tokyo. I walked through the Nara-koen (park) which has something like 1200 deer/Buddhist messengers of god, they are considered national treasures and you can buy shika-sembei (dear biscuits) to feed the little beggars.
They didn't seem much like national treasures to me, I bought some deer biscuits and was immediately surrounded by deer who were hanging around the biscuit vendor, and much to the amusement of all the people watching, one butted me in the but with its nose and made me yelp. After high-tailing it out of range of the infernal deer, I went over to the Todai-ji temple. It has a huge Buddha statue, one of the largest bronze statues in the world (16 metres tall, 437 tonnes of bronze and 130 kg of gold), it's the largest wooden building in the world and it has some fun activities too.
There is a hole in one of the pillars of the building, and it's believed that since the hole is the same size as the Buddha's nostril, that if you can fit through it, you are ensured enlightenment. I had a look at the hole and decided that enlightenment would cost me about 70 pounds and possibly some kind of surgical rearrangement of my shoulders and pelvis. It might have been fun to try, but then I imagined news crews and rescue teams and chain saws cutting through the support structures of the largest wooden building in the world trying to get my fat ass out of Buddha's nostril and decided that enlighenment could wait.
The activity I did participate in, was a statue where you rub the Buddha's body and you rub the corresponding part of yourself and whatever ailment you have in that part of your body with go away. So I rubbed it's foot and then my foot, tossed some money in the receptacle and went away feeling pretty satisfied. Unfortunately, my foot actually worsened as the day went on and it left me wondering if I rubbed the left foot of the Buddha and the right foot of myself or something, I just must have done it wrong!
They didn't seem much like national treasures to me, I bought some deer biscuits and was immediately surrounded by deer who were hanging around the biscuit vendor, and much to the amusement of all the people watching, one butted me in the but with its nose and made me yelp. After high-tailing it out of range of the infernal deer, I went over to the Todai-ji temple. It has a huge Buddha statue, one of the largest bronze statues in the world (16 metres tall, 437 tonnes of bronze and 130 kg of gold), it's the largest wooden building in the world and it has some fun activities too.
There is a hole in one of the pillars of the building, and it's believed that since the hole is the same size as the Buddha's nostril, that if you can fit through it, you are ensured enlightenment. I had a look at the hole and decided that enlightenment would cost me about 70 pounds and possibly some kind of surgical rearrangement of my shoulders and pelvis. It might have been fun to try, but then I imagined news crews and rescue teams and chain saws cutting through the support structures of the largest wooden building in the world trying to get my fat ass out of Buddha's nostril and decided that enlighenment could wait.
The activity I did participate in, was a statue where you rub the Buddha's body and you rub the corresponding part of yourself and whatever ailment you have in that part of your body with go away. So I rubbed it's foot and then my foot, tossed some money in the receptacle and went away feeling pretty satisfied. Unfortunately, my foot actually worsened as the day went on and it left me wondering if I rubbed the left foot of the Buddha and the right foot of myself or something, I just must have done it wrong!
Later on when I got to Kyoto, I met up with Peter MacIntosh, the Geisha expert and he took me and two other women on a tour of two of Kyoto's Geisha districts. Peter said something pretty apt about buying fortunes at shrines after I told him about buying 7 bad fortunes in a row. He said, "Sure you can buy good fortune in Japan, but the shrines are the only ones getting lucky." So true. The Geisha tour was amazing. Peter knows everyone in the Geisha districts, he showed us tea houses and introduced us to Geishas. He moved to Japan 12 years ago and his wife is a former Geisha (you have to retire when you get married, but you can come back if you get divorced). Now his wife works at a salon where the Geishas get their hair done with the only male Geisha hair dresser ever. I read a really interesting essay that he wrote about the whole thing, and he explained that Geisha hair dressers used to all be women and they were expected to not marry and remain virgins their entire lives. Now there are only 5 or so left in the world and their average age is something like 70, and even in those conditions this younger man, found it difficult to break into the business. The hairstyles are so beautiful and intricate - it made me feel that I don't put nearly enough effort into my hair and I put more effort into my hair than a lot of women.
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