Category Archives: Japan

by | 25 September 2005 · 3:55 pm

Bix on Judge Radhabinod Pal

The Indian appointee to the [Tokyo war crimes] court was sixty-year-old Radhabinod Pal of the High Court of Calcutta. Pal had been a supporter of the pro-Axis Indian nationalist, Chandra Bose, and a longtime Japanophile. Unlike most Indian elites, who condemned both British and Japanese imperialism and never embraced the ideology of the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere, Pal was an outright apologist for Japanese imperialism. Arriving in Tokyo in May, he accepted his appointment under the charter in bad faith, not believing in the right of the Allies to try Japan, let alone judicially sanction it any way. Determined to see the tribunal fail from the outset, Pal intended to write a separate dissenting opinion no matter what the other judges ruled. Not surprisingly he refused to sign a “joint affirmation to administer justice fairly.”

Thereafter, according to the estimate of defense lawyer Owen Cunningham, Pal absented himself for 109 of 466 “judge days,” or more than twice the number of the next highest absentee, the president of the tribunal, Sir William Webb himself (53 “judge days”). Whenever Pal appeared in court, he unfailingly bowed to the defendants, whom he regarded as men who had initiated the liberation of Asia. Pal, the most politically independent of the judges, refused to let Allied political concerns and purposes, let alone the charter, influence his judgment in any way. He would produce the tribunal’s most emotionally charged, political judgment. Many who repudiate the Tokyo trial while clinging to the wartime propaganda view of the “War of Greater East Asia,” believed that the main cause of Asian suffering was Western white men–that is, Pal’s “victors.” They would cite Pal’s arguments approvingly. So too would others who saw the war primarily in terms of the “white” exploitation of Asia.

SOURCE: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, by Herbert P. Bix (HarperCollins, 2000), pp. 595-596

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by | 25 September 2005 · 12:03 pm

Japan’s Television Wasteland

I was going to post something about the wasteland that is Japanese network television, but Jeff at Conbinibento has captured it much better than I could.

For the most part, Japanese network television is pretty darn unremarkable. If one were to flip through the channels at any time of day, one would likely find:

  • A variety show featuring a roomful of mindless “talents” who are completely and utterly devoid of any actual talent whatsoever
  • A cooking program
  • A cooking program featuring a roomful of mindless talents who watch food being cooked and then sample it and loudly and repeatedly exclaim “OISHII!!!“
  • Some kind of quiz show
  • A quiz show featuring a roomful of mindless talents demonstrating just how mindless they truly are
  • A sappy documentary about someone somewhere in the world who faces some sort of adversity (e.g., is looking for a job, is living in a brutal war zone, was born without legs, a combination thereof, etc.) and who Tries His/Her Best® to overcome the hardships of their situation
  • A variety show featuring a roomful of mindless talents watching a sappy documentary and providing their horribly forced reactions to the hardships (tears) and the overcoming of the hardships (more tears) for the sake of the television viewers at home who have to be instructed how to react since they have neither souls nor a capacity for empathy

via Japundit

I just have one tiny correction: Males are more likely to exclaim “UMAI!” instead of “OISHII!!!”

And one minor addition: NHK’s lecture channel (Ch. 2 in my area), where a professorial talking head addresses his (sometimes her) dry monologue at the camera hour after snoring hour.

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by | 24 September 2005 · 3:26 pm

The "Big Bang" of Modern Keigo Ideology

Ask Japanese speakers on the street today if they know what keigo is, and the answer will be a resounding yes. A hundred years ago, the response is more likely to have been no, or at the very least, “What?” The word “keigo” was invented by Meiji scholars to describe something that presumably already existed but had never been named. Along with that naming came keigo ideology. In some sense keigo is a modern construct that serves an important ideological function. Its contemporary identity is a product of historical processes that begin in what I call the “Big Bang” of keigo ideology: kokugo seisaku ‘language policy’, which began with the Kokugo Chôsa Iinkai of 1902.

If keigo ideology did not exist before Meiji, how did it come to exist today? What was the cloud of raw materials out of which it formed? What stages has it passed through? How is its contemporary shape different from the primordial mass from which it emanated? And how did it happen that the primordial mass has passed from a timeless state of perfection to a state of decline?

If one presses modern Japanese speakers to talk a little more about keigo, they will probably indicate that it is an important component of what it means to function as an adult in society, that they wish they could use it more skillfully, or that they wish the younger generation could use it more skillfully–that keigo today is midarete iru ‘in a state of disarray’. They will talk about keigo in terms of the social fabric within which it functions. Their views are echoed and elaborated in a self-help, “how-to” genre. Keigo how-to takes its place alongside other kinds of Japanese how-to, and makes use of the same images, the same constructs, and the same view of the Japanese cultural landscape as do other kinds of how-to in Japan.

SOURCE: Keigo in Modern Japan: Polite Language from Meiji to the Present, by Patricia J. Wetzel (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2004), pp. 1-2

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by | 18 September 2005 · 8:12 pm

A Visit to International Ota City

Ota City (太田) in Gunma Prefecture is just two train stops southwest from Ashikaga City on the private Tobu line. Ota English School‘s website brags that

Ota itself is quite an international town. The neighboring town [Ôizumi] has one of the largest Brazilian populations in Japan. Ota itself has one of the largest Asian communities outside of Tokyo. This means that, as well as all the usual non-Japanese restaurants (Italian, French, Chinese) there are many Indian, Pakistani and Brazilian restaurants a short walk or drive from the school.

Purdue University‘s The Exponent Online is rather more modest when it compares Ota City to Lafayette, Indiana.

The populations are almost the same, both cities were changed from agricultural centers to industrial centers, both cities are on a river, and for the most part, both are flat cities.

What moved a Purdue student reporter to compare Lafayette and Ota? Well, West Lafayette, Indiana, is home to Purdue’s main campus as well as to Subaru-Indiana Automotive, Inc. Fuji Heavy Industries and Subaru are among the largest employers in Ota, a commercial cluster development center dating back to the days of textiles and then military aircraft.

So, is Ota really as international a city as these websites suggest? The Far Outliers got a skewed impression when we set out to find a Brazilian restaurant to eat dinner at last Saturday evening. We headed south from Ota train station zigzagging between the two widest streets we could find, asking policemen, passers-by, shopkeepers, and even employees at the main post office (open on Saturdays) if they knew of any Brazilian restaurants in the city. No luck. Even those who took the trouble to look through the restaurant listings in the telephone book couldn’t find any Brazilian restaurant. A few people recommended we go instead to neighboring Ôizumi–Japan’s “Little Brazil.” (Been there. Done that. More later.)

We did find a few tiny Filipino restaurants (none yet open) scattered along one of the longest strips of seedy strip joints, hostess bars, and member clubs that I’ve seen in a while. (I’ve never been to Las Vegas.) It went on for at least a full kilometer. It was still early when we walked its length, encountering no more than a few bouncers loitering outside a few doorways. When we retraced a portion of the strip on our way back to the station later that night, there were a lot more drunken males and leggy females on the sidewalks. Judging from the streetside advertising, some portion of Ota City’s international Asian population would seem to be women from China and the Philippines. (A Japanese customer I was chatting with at a yakitori shop in Ashikaga last week demonstrated his few words of “French” by saying Magandang gabi! That’s Tagalog for ‘Good evening!’)

After the trail went cold in that direction, we headed back for the station on a main drag with more vehicle traffic. It was a much more family-oriented strip mall, with a huge shopping center, and plenty of parking, car dealers, tire shops, and the most amazing site entirely dedicated to weddings that I’ve yet seen, the Royal Chester Ota (for “The Brilliant European Wedding”). (Again, I’ve never been to Las Vegas.) We saw plenty of chain restaurants, but nothing representative of Ota City’s large foreign community.

We couldn’t find a clue until a couple hours later when, after circling a few blocks north of the station, we asked at Rana, an “International, Halal” food store run by some Iranians. The only other customer was a Nepali who not only owned an Indian restaurant named Darjeeling, but offered to drive us there, and even to drive us back to the station if his place wasn’t too busy by the time we finished eating. We readily accepted, and had a wonderful meal of chicken tandoori, mutton masala, nan bread, and salad vegetables, washed down with a couple of beers unusual for Japan: Everest and Grolsch. The proprietor came to Japan ten years ago, and his restaurant has been successful enough for his elder brother to open a branch in Tokyo.

Except for a few words of English, he and I communicated entirely in Japanese, quite informally and comfortably. Neither of us had done enough formal study to command formal registers very well anyway. After dinner, we insisted on walking back to the train station, and he came out to the street to confirm his earlier directions and we parted in typical Japanese fashion, with bows and thank yous. On the way back, we passed the Civic Center, with a range of social support facilities for both citizens and foreigners, including an office that handled passports and visas.

The 1 May 2005 issue of Pakistan’s Dawn has more about unskilled foreign workers in Ota.

Kimio Matsudaira, an official at Hello Work, a public labour office in Ota city, Gumma prefecture, 60 kilometres north of Tokyo, said there is now a special programme to help and support foreigners working in the area. Ota has a population of about 200,000 people. The irony is that more than sixty per cent of its people are over 60 years of age, in a city where the economy is dependent on manufacturing. Without doubt, Ota really needs foreign workers badly. To support the city’s automobile and electronic industries, Ota is now host to more than 30,000 Japanese Latin Americans, descendants of Japanese who emigrated to South America in the early 20th century seeking a better future. In the late eighties Japan launched a policy of accepting third and fourth generation Japanese Latin Americans to support a labour shortage in its factories stemming from the bubble economy at that time. More recently, Asians, mostly from South-east Asia, have also arrived to work in factories, comprising a total of 45,000 registered workers in Ota city. Matsudaira said foreign workers are vital to the survival of Ota’s economy.

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by | 18 September 2005 · 4:15 pm

Kiryu’s Changing Industries: From Silk to Pachinko

Kiryu (桐生), in Gunma Prefecture’s southeast fanhandle, was an early center of silk manufacture, a later pioneer in textile manufacturing, and now home to Gunma University’s Faculty of Engineering, which offers this glimpse at its industrial transitions.

Kiryu is often referred to as “the Eastern Kyoto”. Like Kyoto, Kiryu has over 1,000 years of history behind it and owes its wealth and tradition to the silk textile industry. Even now, Kiryu is a major centre for the manufacture of kimonos (traditional Japanese wear). The precise origins of the silk industry in Kiryu have been lost in the mists of time, but according to local legend a young man from Kiryu won the heart of a princess at the Imperial Court in Kyoto with his exquisite poetry. They eventually married and returned to Kiryu, where she taught the local inhabitants the art of weaving. There are records of silk production in Kiryu dating from the 10th century. Over the years, the silk industry grew and flourished in Kiryu. Kiryu silk was sent to the Imperial Court and was used by the Tokugawa Shogun for his army’s battle banners in 1600. Kiryu became the site for a major silk market which drew merchants from all over Japan.

However, in recent years the kimono was been largely replaced by Western-style suits and dresses. The golden age of the silk industry has now passed.

With the decline of the silk industry the people of Kiryu adapted themselves to new industries, mainly the production of automotive parts, electronics and related industries. However, Kiryu has become a major producer of another typically Japanese product–pachinko machines! (Pachinko is a type of pinball which is extremely popular in Japan.)

An article by Tomoko HASHINO entitled “Power-looms and the factory system: the relation between production systems and technology choice in the silk textile industry in Kiryu in the 1910s” has more about the early transition from hand looms to power looms. The abstract from Socio-Economic History, vol. 63, no. 4, follows.

Recent studies have clarified some special features regarding the introduction of power-looms, especially in pre-war Japan. One of the more important findings was the close relationship between particular production systems and technologies, for example the factory system and power-looms and the putting-out system and hand-looms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the above relationship in the silk textile industry on the basis of the hypothesis that the factors leading to the introduction of power-looms are independent from those leading to the introduction of the factory system. Kiryu is one of the oldest silk textile industry districts in Japan. In the early Meiji period (1870s-80s) it showed a positive response to the introduction of new foreign technology, such as the batten and the Jacquard machine, and helped to spread them to other areas. But Kiryu was slower than other areas in introducing power- looms. The putting-out system was widely adopted in Kiryu and had a long history. It has been assumed that this acted as an obstacle to the introduction of power-looms.

In the 1910s, there were four types of factory in Kiryu: factories with power-looms only, factories with hand-looms only, those with both, and those with none, which were often called orimoto (clothiers). Neither the production systems nor the technology dramatically changed in Kiryu in the 1910s; however, some factories began to introduce power-looms.

There were some reasons that promoted the adoption of the factory system. OJT (on-the-job-training), which played a role in maintaining the quality of goods, was an important reason in Kiryu in the 1910s. As past studies point out, institutional, technological and market factors were other reasons that promoted the introduction of power-looms there. While both electrification and the establishment of domestic and local power-loom suppliers were very important, it appears that the change in raw material from raw silk to rayon in the 1920s was the decisive factor in accelerating mechanization. The fact that hand-loom factories have often been categorized as “manufacture” has been a controversial issue among historians. But we must recognize the significance of their role in controlling workers and turning them into a skilled labor force.

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by | 13 September 2005 · 1:03 am

Watching the Japanese Elections

Jonathan Dresner at Frog in a Well has a nice summary of how effective Japan’s Postal Savings system has been since it was first created back in the Meiji era.

The Postal Savings system was a fundamental institution in the Meiji modernization, enabling reliable low-cost long-distance transactions (including remittances from overseas, which is where my research comes in) and accumulating small deposits into a pool of capital that was agressively used for investment in railroads and other heavy industrial development.

I know I’ve been relying on the post office ATMs while I’ve been in Japan these past six weeks, since a lot of combini don’t give equal access to accounts overseas.

My first comment on the recent election is that it provided me a great opportunity for language-learning that kept listening and reading skills in synch. The constant repetition of restricted sets of visual and oral clues with each new set of results (enough to keep me watching) gave me time to look stuff up in my handy-dandy new Canon WordTank: 当選の当 (short for ‘elected’)、確実の確 (short for ‘called’)、比例の比 (short for ‘proportion[ally elected]’)、圧勝 (‘pressure=overwhelming victory’)、plus a lot of surnames and placenames that I’m always a little shaky on.

Two more points: (1) Koizumi seems to be creating the equivalent of Blair’s New Labour or Clinton’s DLC (which is where I feel most comfortable on the political spectrum). Can we call the current LDP the New Tories? (Please, not Neocons!) (2) The DJP really got wiped out in Greater Kanto. I’m right now in Ashikaga, on the border of Tochigi and Gunma, where all but one out of maybe 18 wards went for the LDP. You can see the economic growth (industrial parks, tract housing, strip malls, big box retailers, lots of cars and parking) all around the edges of the Kanto plain.

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by | 12 September 2005 · 10:09 pm

Japan: A "Third Beer" Country

This summer, the major Japanese brewers have all been pushing their new “third beer” products. I was motivated to sample them by the relative price–about ¥600 for a six-pack, as opposed to at least ¥1200 for malt beer.

The “third beer” boom was sparked by Sapporo, which launched a beverage called Draft One in February 2004. Made with protein extracted from peas, Draft One’s selling point is its light taste and drinkability. Meanwhile, Kirin’s Nodogoshi Nama, made with soybean protein, touts its good flavor and crispness. Asahi’s Shin Nama, which uses soy peptide and a yeast that the company also employs in beer making, offers a dry finish. And Suntory’s Super Blue, which contains low-malt beer mixed with liquor distilled from wheat, has a crisp, refreshing taste.

Determined to avoid the high taxes imposed on beverages made using malt as a raw ingredient, the brewers went to a lot of trouble to find alternatives. Sapporo, the pioneer in this market, experimented for four years with a series of ingredients that included two types of millet and corn before hitting on pea protein as a raw ingredient.

I’ve now sampled all of the above-listed “third beers”–plus Sapporo’s new low-calorie, “high fiber” Slims–and the only six-packs I could finish were Sapporo’s Draft One and Asahi’s Shin Nama. And if the weather hadn’t been so hot and muggy, I’m not sure I could have accomplished even that much.

Now I guess I’ll have to sample a couple of Japan’s “second beers”–the low-malt happoshu. But, except in really hot weather, I prefer my beers flat, dark, and bitter, not sudsy, pale, and yeasty. I could drink Guinness for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I never had to get any work done.

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by | 7 September 2005 · 6:26 am

The Wild Pigs of Ashikaga

One day last weekend, an early morning walk turned into a full morning’s hike along mountain trails near our apartment. We started at Ashikaga’s Orihime Jinja, a textile industry shrine established in 1937.

FIRST DETOUR: Orihime is 織姫 ‘weaving princess’; textiles are orimono 織物 ‘woven things’. Orihime is the heroine of the Tanabata story. “The legend was probably imported from China in the Heian Era (794-1185), and its associated Tanabata Festival has developed through the centuries. The story involves the stars of Vega and Altair and their apparent proximity to the Milky Way.” Although July 7 marks Tanabata in much of Japan, Ashikaga and other northern cities follow Sendai in celebrating it on August 6-8.

Behind the shrine’s parking lot were markers of several trailheads, and we saw some old folks setting out for hikes. So we kept going. The first sign we saw as the trail left the parking lot was a warning about イノシシ (inoshishi 猪 ‘wild boar‘) on the mountain trails. We hesitated for a moment, but then forged ahead. Near the top of the first crest, near the upper parking lot, we encountered an old lady who was so excited about having seen two wild pigs that she had to tell the first people she met, even if they were foreigners. (My Japanese is just good enough to get people talking, but not good enough to follow more than the gist once they get wound up. I need subtitles when the vocabulary gets away from me.)

“I saw two inoshishi,” she said, “They were so cute. Don’t worry. They’re used to people and won’t attack.”

“What do they eat?” I asked.

“They live on fresh roots, fallen fruit, and the food left on graves.”

SECOND MEANDER: Sure enough, a few days later, we saw another sign warning about inoshishi, this time at Hôrakuji (1294), a temple that served as a model for the much more famous Ginkakuji (1460) in Kyoto, both built by Ashikaga clan leaders, as was the more spectacular Kinkakuji (1397). It asked people not to put food on the graves in the large cemetery behind the temple that climbed halfway up the same hillside we had hiked.

We thanked the lady for her advice and set out on a well-traveled trail. We never saw any inoshishi, nor did the other people we queried as they were returning. But once we got to the shrine at the top and decided to take a less travelled path back, we began to see constant signs of pigs rooting beside the trail. We never saw–nor even heard–the pigs themselves, but when the path turned out to be a little less well beaten than we had hoped, we were sometimes heartened to see that at least the pigs recognized it as a human thoroughfare likely to attract the odd bit of food waste. Near the end of the mountain trail, as we slowly approached civilization by way of overgrown cart trails past overgrown vegetable gardens, we even saw a real pig wallow at a bend in the road, with the water still murky from recent use.

It’s good to see that even larger Japanese animals are making a comeback, even if they do make pests of themselves from time to time.

FINAL TRAIL OFF: According to an abstract in PubMed, there are two subspecies of wild pig in Japan, Sus scrofa leucomystax and S.s. riukiuanus (the latter from the Ryukyus), both more closely related to the Far Eastern (S.s. ussuricus) than to the Middle Asian (S.s. nigripes), Transcaucasian (S.s. attila) and European pigs (S.s. ferus).

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by | 6 September 2005 · 7:20 am

Nichiren and Japan’s National Spirit, 1924

Seeking to resist the democratic current and build up the waning imperial authority, on November 10, 1923, the Kiyoura cabinet adopted a “cultural policy” based on the regent’s [i.e., Crown Prince Hirohito’s] Imperial Rescript on the Promotion of the National Spirit. Prime Minister Kiyoura thereupon formed, in February 1924, a Central Association of Cultural Bodies in response to Hirohito’s call for the improvement of thought and “the awakening of the national spirit.” Invited to the association’s convocation meeting to discuss a national campaign against “dangerous thoughts” associated with the labor movement and the Left were representatives from Shinto, Christianity, and Buddhism, including the leaders of Nichiren.

The sect, founded in the thirteenth century, was enjoying its golden age of influence and growth, and two of its leading proseltyzers–Honda Nisshô and Tanaka Chigaku–immediately seized upon this “national spirit” campaign to draw up an appeal asking the court to issue a rescript conferring on Nichiren, the founder of their religion, the posthumous title of “Great Teacher Who Established the Truth,” so that they could then use it for prosletyzing purposes. After the court granted Nichiren the title, Imperial Household Minister Makino is alleged to have declared: “This decision was due to the emperor’s benevolent awareness that the present ideological situation in Japan requires better guidance by sound thought, and especially, firm religious belief.”

In fact the imperial house, controlled by Makino and Hirohito, awarded the title because it considered the social situation bad enough to warrant the services of the most passionate enemies of Taishô democracy, the Nichiren believers. When Honda went to the Imperial Household Ministry to receive the award, he met Makino and told him that the Nichiren religion “is the banner of an army on the offensive in the ‘ideological warfare’ of the present day.” Honda also expressed his patriotism and boasted about the Nichiren sect’s antidemocratic, anticommunist nature.” That Buddhism (or the faith of Nichiren believers, many of whom were upper-echelon military officers and civilian right-wing ideologues) had to be called on to supplement emperor ideology indicates that the official creed was never able to exercise a controlling influence on all groups in Japanese society.

SOURCE: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, by Herbert P. Bix (HarperCollins, 2000), pp. 163-164

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by | 5 September 2005 · 6:19 pm

Guidance: Welcome it is all of you!

The following sign at Shin Sapporo Station Bus Terminal no. 22 was helpful and befuddling at the same time.

Guidance: Welcome it is all of you!

A visitor going to “a village of reclamation” takes a bus for “Kaitaku no mura” of the 22nd number from a departure home of here and please take it to a terminal.

Because I can be more late by traffic circumstances from the departure time, please understand it. Then please spend pleasant time.

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