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Japan’ Military: “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”
The NYT did an interesting article this morning on Japan’s recent increase in defense expenditures. I’m never sure where I stand on the issue of Japan’s military (not that I have a say). One the one hand, a stronger Japanese military would help solidify Japan’s position and a major global player, and put a formal end to it’s stupid, weak-kneed political isolation.
It would no longer be able to hide behind the skirt of the United States, a situation that complicates domestic and international policy. Japan’s military, one of the largest and most well equipped in the world, largely operates in the shadows, on paper, surrendering military policy to the United States. This complicates international policy by disincentivising Japan from taking a global leadership role and tends to exacerbate isolationist behavior at home. The influential words of Peter Parker’s venerated uncle may ring true.
On the other, Japan has to respond to credible threats from China and North Korea and can’t wait on the Americans to protect them. This is dangerous for us. Even a small skirmish would require the immediate response of the Americans, which could result in a global war.
On the other, other hand, giving Japanese right wingers the proper tools of war would be disastrous. I have zero confidence in American right wingers. My confidence in Japanese right wingers falls into the negative zone. Though Japan, in general, is a very pacifistic country, its extreme elements are so deeply backward as to be irresponsible.
ENOUGH
Big day today: submitted dissertation draft then submitted paper for publication, getting ready to submit another.
I can’t wait to get back to reading about economics. Writing is fine, but retroactively creating a story that somehow some non-related things are related is unpleasant. Please don’t do it at home.
I’ve figured out, though, that this is what people who write books do. If you keep revising, eventually it all makes sense.
I had some time today to read the news. I learned that the Bank of Korea is headed by a lady, which is awesome in Korea/Japan. I CAN’T EVER IMAGINE JAPAN HAVING A FEMALE PRIME MINISTER let alone a female head of a central bank. Significantly less developed Thailand even has a female head of state.
In many ways Korea is behind, in many ways, they are way, way ahead. I believe, though, that women have given up on the establishment in Japan, and just go ahead and do their own thing.
This headline, though, was disconcerting:
“Bank of Korea’s Suh Shuns Schoolgirl Outfit to Tackle Contagion”
Huh?? I read the article, and it appears that it was an OL outfit, not a schoolgirl outfit, but the headline was like, “huh?” Yes, I’m losing IQ. Too much writing.
I’ll say it again: JAPAN WILL NEVER HAVE A FEMALE HEAD OF STATE OR HEAD OF ANYTHING ELSE. And that’s a miserable, depressing and embarrassing state of affairs for the second largest economy (we can ignore China) in the world and one of the most developed places on earth.
Better yet, was thsi article, “Is Paul Ryan an Inflation Nutter?” Of course, the answer is an emphatic YES along with the entire Tea Party/Libertarian (オバタリアン？）set (sorry Ralph, you know I love you). Despite ZERO evidence of runaway inflation, even in the worst economic crisis since the depression, doom and gloomers have been predicting it all along. We got 99 (million) problems, but inflation isn’t one.
It’s like waiting for the rapture. The US is stronger in reality than Americans would like to think.
OK, I’m going to go and stare into space for a while. This LaTeX infused Alzheimer’s has got to go.
Donald Richie, RIP
Donald Richie
I approached Mr. Richie after class and asked him if it would be alright if I sat in on the class. He looked a bit distressed and asked if I would be doing the course work. I said that didn’t really matter to me. I just wanted to come to the course every week and listen to his lectures.
Richie loved the Japanese cinema. His lecture style was so un-alienating that one couldn’t help but love it, too. He would present the films in a manner that made them entirely foreign and unique products of the particular culture that produced, but simultaneously fit them squarely in a worldwide tradition of movies. He would present his lecture on the movie of the week, then we would watch the film in a theater, where he would deliver an abridged version of his Tuesday lecture for people who didn’t have the pleasure of attending his class. I think I learned more about art, cinema, media, culture, social science, the humanities and politics in that one 7 week course that I did in the entire remainder of my undergraduate education.
The time for the first mid term came, and I sat for it. Richie came up to me again with a distressed look on his face and stuttered, “A-a-are you taking this c-course for c-c-credit?” I said no, but asked him if I could take the exam anyway. He looked stressed but said yes, no problem. The following week, when he passed back the exams, he had thoughtfully commented on my work, writing more than a page of notes, ending with “If I were grading this, I would give you an A+. Good work.” When the time for the final exam came, the entire incident was repeated. To this day, I’m not sure why my not officially signing up for the course stressed him so. Perhaps he had too many students. I would like to think that he was trying to be meticulous and follow the rules to the letter, which was rather uncharacteristic of a man who flouted so many rules in his lifetime. Perhaps Japan had rubbed off on him more than he cared to consider (though there was no sucking of air through teeth).
I would see him on the street and he would always say hello. I regret not engaging him more while he was there, but it’s hard to just approach someone when you’re a starstruck kid. I later learned that he had a terrible time in Michigan, mainly because the stodgy faculty in the Japanese studies department would take him out on the town in neighboring Ypsilanti. I wish I would have known.
Shortly after that, I became more and more immersed in Japanese cinema studies and decided that I wanted to go to Japan and eventually pursue a graduate degree in the field (I didn’t do the latter). I arranged for a job teaching English conversation in Osaka (with the help of a friend), and left for Japan in November of 1996. It was there that I started speaking Japanese on a daily basis, and met my wife, who still puts up with my abhorrent command of the language.
If I had not taken Richie’s course, I don’t think I would have gone to Japan. It can’t be said that life would have been better or worse had I not gone, but it certainly would have been very different, and probably a little less interesting and certainly minus a life partner. For this, I am entirely grateful for Donald Richie’s existence and wholly sad for a great man’s passing.
Richie made experimental films in the 1960′s. This is one of them:
Donald Keene Takes Japanese Citizenship: Now Let’s Move On
Donald Keene took Japanese citizenship. Keene is a nearly 90 year old retired Professor of Japanese Studies at Columbia University. He was notable for his many excellent English translations of some of Japan’s most important literary works. Keene served in the US military during World War II working as an interrogator. Keene went to Japan, fell in love with the country and stayed. The New York Times wrote a short article detailing his life and reporting that he had finally retired to Japan.
Truthfully, I found the article quite annoying. Keene was an important member of the unofficial “Chrysanthemum Club,” a group of military associated academics and culturalists who were tasked with repackaging Japan as a friendly and tranquil ally of the United States. The incredibly deep cultural legacy of Japan most certainly cannot be denied, and is deserving of study. The “Chrysanthemum Club,” however, not only whitewashed Japan’s awful militaristic history, but exacerbated the existing “Nihonjinron,” a soul seeking quest of nationalistic Japanese academics hell bent on proving Japan to be “the most unique culture on the planet.”
The myth of Japanese “uniqueness” would go on to inform the manner in which Japan presented itself to the world and the way that Japanese departments and language education would educate. I studied Japanese briefly in the early 90′s at the University of Michigan. We were told that the author of the textbook (Jordan) believed the Japanese language so unique, that it is impossible to foreigners to achieve any level of proficiency. Presumably, because Japanese is “difficult” and that foreign brains are inherently unequipped to handle Japanese’s special nuances.
This “uniqueness” of the Japanese language is, of course, nonsense. Korean and Japanese are so grammatically similar as to almost be dialects of the same language. As for foreigners not being able to learn Japanese, well, come on over for dinner sometime. I’ll invite some of my friends and we can hang out.
As much as I want to venerate Keene, whose great contributions are many, I found my blood pressure rising while reading the NYT article. On taking Japanese citizenship, Keene states:
“When I first did it, I thought I’d get a flood of angry letters that ‘you are not of the Yamato race!’ but instead, they welcomed me,” said Dr. Keene, using an old name for Japan. “I think the Japanese can detect, without too much trouble, my love of Japan.”
or
““I have not met a Japanese since then who has not thanked me. Except the Ministry of Justice,””
These statements appear innocuous, but they are anything but. “A Japanese” grates on my nerves, sounding more like an animal than a human*. Worse yet, it implies that all people in Japan are the same, which they are certainly not. Anyone who speaks Japanese knows what a deeply diverse place Japan is. Keene’s probably well-intentioned statements are, to me, the worst kind of friendly racism out there.
This antiquated idea of Japan’s people as a “race” and the toxic “us vs. the other” attitude that dominated discussions of Japan following the War has got to go. Keene, as a thoughtful academic, should know this. Though I feel bad beating up on an old man, an esteemed individual like Keene should know very well how important semantics are.
When I was in Osaka last June, I had dinner with the head of the Economics Department at Osaka City University. He told me that Japan needed people like me (Japanese proficient academics) because it was so academically behind the United States. While I believe that he was just being kind, I quickly corrected him. Japan and the United States in 2012 are equals and we deserve to treat each other as such. Pandering and antiquated ideas of a strong US and a cute, child-like and fluffy Japan, an idea which Keene still appears to hold, have to finally be put to rest.
_____________________________________________________
* “An American” is purely a statement of statehood to me. “Americans” are holders of blue passports.
Hobbled By Bureaucracy
Red Tape Dispenser
I have dealt with travel and research reimbursements from the United States a number of times to some inconvenience, but little trouble. Despite a love of protocols, Americans, do, in the end, want to make things work. If for nothing else, an ease of procedure reduces the work load for office workers so that they can get back to Farmville.
Japan, if my current experience is any indication, is a complete bureaucratic nightmare. They seem to have never heard of a developing country, have little awareness of international currency exchange and are more intent on exercising the micromanaging authority of overfed office workers than trying to streamline processes and facilitate research and development.
Reimbursements take several months, and I get nailed with taxes on the way out, despite technically being exempt. Frustrating, but not frustrating enough to make me never want to work with them again. I can see how people could get discouraged, however.
A reimbursement from a Swedish institution, however, contacted me with the following:
“I sent the form to our economy department today. If you not hear from me again, you will receive your money within a few days.”
How easy is that?!
The World Bank keeps data on the relative ease of doing business in several countries around the globe. Overall, the US ranks 4th, Sweden 14 and Japan 20th.
For obtaining a construction permit however, the US is 17, Sweden 23, and Japan, a weak 63. If you want to start a business, stick with the US, it ranks 13th, Sweden 46th and Japan, an embarrassing 107! It’s easier to start a business in Ghana.
Granted, many of the current discussions of decentralization in Japan are directly related to this problem, but, in the meantime, I am astonished that it has taken this long.
The Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories
Today, I’m sitting in on the Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories symposium, a research dissemination event bringing film scholars working in the field of East Asian cinema.
While I don’t speak the same academic language as many of the presenters, it’s enjoyable to be here and see so many people working diligently on a subject as obscure as East Asian cinematic history. It is fascinating to sit and listen to discussions of Japanese colonial cinema, the philosophy of Maeda Ai, and Chinese literary giant Lu Xun’s “amateur” analysis of an obscure Japanese writer’s 1941 work on Democracy and cinema. Wow.
As always, I am struck as the paucity of discussions of modern cinematic and artistic history. I remember when I was an undergrad, studying German literature and cinema, being frustrated by the seeming reluctance of academics to work with current literatures and cinemas. While it is certainly safe to work in spaces where philosophies and criticisms are recorded, accepted and preciously interpreted, academic thought cannot progress by resting forever on the laurels of Foucault, Derrida and what academic libraries are willing to provide shelf space for. Admittedly, this impression is entirely based on the limited number of presentations I have seen to this point and likely not fair to those whose work I am not so familiar with, but this impression is what sticks.
Orignally, I had intended to go to graduate school in the humanities, specifically in Japanese film studies. Life, of course, got in the way and things turned out differently. I am most satisfied with the ways things turned out, but I am happy to have a background in the humanities. I often question to utility of segregating academics into the disciplines, the borders between which are often artificial and created for reasons other than academics. I find that we have much to offer one another, though little opportunity to interact. For someone as intellectually schizophrenic (if that can be considered a positive) as myself, I think that’s a shame.
Tonight, Ozu’s Tokyo no Yado, a Japanese silent, will be shown to live musical accompaniment and dialogue performed by a practicing benshi. Before talkies, silent films in Japan were narrated live. Often the narrators (benshi) were more popular than the movies themselves. Kataoka Ichirou is one of 15 practicing benshi in Japan and is visiting Ann Arbor for the next six months. I had the opportunity to speak with him briefly last night. Hopefully I will be able to interview him before he leaves.
Anti-Japanese Sloganeering in China Turns Revolutionary
Chinese vendor bites back
I have been following the recent row between China and Japan over a small set of islands north of Taiwan. While most of the rhetoric publicly available from the Chinese side is pretty standard nationalistic nonsense (“Kill all Japanese!”), the following was an intriguing twist.
The sign reads:
就算政府不养老，也要收复钓鱼岛
没物权，没人权，钓鱼岛上争主权
买不起房，修不起坟，寸土不让日本人No medical insurance, no social security, yet the Diaoyu Islands must be in your heart.
Even if the government does not take care of the elderly, we should recover the Diaoyu Islands.
No property rights, no human rights, but [our nation] contends for the sovereign rights of the Diaoyu Islands.
[We] can’t buy a home, can’t build a tomb, but we contest every inch of ground with the Japanese.
It made me think of similar nonsense at home, but clearly their situation is much worse. Senseless violence over territory and blind ideology is pretty useless if a country can’t even take care of its own people.
wholefoodsのこと
これは、前々から気になってること。
アメリカにはwholefoodsっていうスーパーがあります。
オーガニックとかも多いし、お肉やチーズはおいしいと思う。サンプルも多いから、フルーツなんかは買う前に味見できたり、
bulkも充実してるのでナッツやオーツ、粉類、雑穀も量り売りで買えて便利。
一般にあんまり回収してくれないリサイクルの４とか５（ヨーグルトの入れ物とか）も集めてたり、レジもすいてるし、迅速。
お惣菜コーナーにお寿司や、デリ、中近東料理なんかもある。
なんだけど。。。私の住んでるとこのwholefoodsでは（他のところはわからない)、お寿司とか、うどんを売ってるとこで働いてる人だけが
ハッピみたいなんを着せられてて、板前さんの帽子みたいなのを被らされてる。デリのほかの働いてる人はみんな同じ白い厨房服なのに。
あそこだけ、別の会社が借りてて、違う制服ってことないよね。
働いてる人は日本以外のアジアの国の方々。
違和感を覚えるのは私だけかなあ。。。これって、差別じゃない？
見ていて、あんまりいい気分はしない。
もし、自分がここで働いたら、見た目がアジア人ってだけで、あそこで働いてねーって言われるんかな。とか考えてしまう。
ピザ売り場とかの人はイタリア人のかっこうしてないし（ピザはアメリカ発祥か）、middle eastの料理売ってる人も中近東の国々の服ちゃうし。
他の売り場に、アジアの人は全然いなくて、あそこにだけ集中してる。
一回だけ、白人の人がハッピ着て働いてるの見ました。それはそれで変だった。ほんとの板前でもないしね。
ちなみに、アメリカではおすしは大人気。高いし、いいイメージがあるのはあるんだけどね。。。
Anti-Nuke Demonstrations Heat Up in Japan
For the record, I am not anti-nuclear power. Nuclear power is like riding on airplanes. Crashes are rare, but when there is an accident, a lot of people die at once. Cars on the other hand, are vastly dangerous. Small accidents happen every single day, but the numbers are staggering.
The data on nuclear power do not indicate that it is more dangerous than power generated from fossil fuels. In fact, it shows the complete opposite. To date, despite nuclear power being used worldwide, accidents have been very, very few while emissions from fossil fuels, oil spills and toxic spill over from oil extraction poison people and the environment every passing minute.
The left, no stranger to narrow mindedness, happily ignores this fact and the data and puts all of its protesting eggs into the nuclear basket, often with the silent encouragement and benefit of fossil fuel proponents and big oil business.
That being said, I don’t think that earthquake and tsunami prone Japan is a proper place to house nuclear power plants.
Japan is a country in slow upheaval. The 2011 Tsunami which devastated northeast Japan led to a massive accident at a nuclear power facility in Fukushima. The extent of the pollution and it’s impact on human health and the environment are still unknown and will likely be unknown for decades. The earthquake, tsunami and disaster at Fukushima, however, have created a seismic political situation in Japan.
Note police buses.
After shutting down all of its nuclear facilities for more than a year, the Oi plant in Fukui prefecture has been restarted. Hundreds of people showed up to protest the restart in Fukui. There have been wide protests in Osaka and more than 200,000 people showed up to demonstrate at the parliament building in Tokyo. Pictures of police dragging demonstrators in Osaka have been making the rounds on the internet. No enemy to big business and government, news reports on the protests have been scant and subdued. Social media, however, undermines official and unofficial stifling of vocal dissent and has only further agitated the Japanese populace.
How this will play out is anyone’s guess. My feeling though, is that the current trend of shrinking priorities, self sufficiency and a return to living with one’s means will continue. Agriculture will return to Japan, though it is insanity to believe that Japan will forego imported food. I fear that Japan will isolate itself once more, but am encouraged to know that this younger generation might have their priorities in order finally. We can wait, and learn.
Climbing on Ominesan, Nara, Japan: “No Girls Allowed”
“No Women Admitted” as vandalized from some angry ladies
Omine is notable in that it is the last remaining mountain in Japan that’s men only. In the past, Shinto rules barred women from all mountains, though it’s worth recognizing that Ominesan houses a Buddhist temple, not a Shinto shrine. Signs at the entrance boldly emphasize in both Japanese and English that the mountain is strictly “No Girls Allowed.” That didn’t stop a gaijin lady to deface one of the signs and remove the “No” from “No Women Allowed.” In fact, the sign is new. We found the previous sign had been ripped down and thrown into the brush.
One of our team told us that he took his wife and daughter up the back side of the mountain once. They got so rained on that they had to leave.
In Japan, nearly 70% of hikers are older women. It was pretty odd to see only men on the mountain, but, despite the political problems, it was kind of a good and relaxed time with the old guys along the path. Buddhist groups make the pilgrimage to the top of the mountain yearly, where they say prayers along the way and enjoy the scenery with friends.
It’s not an easy hike (which could explain why women aren’t allowed). We suffered a twisted ankle and several cuts along the way. One of our group is still hobbling around.
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- “No Girls Allowed” as vandalized from some angry ladies
