registered alien - Japan Blog

My Funeral

8/10/2022

My Funeral

Music:

Yesterday (Beatles)
In My Life (Beatles)
A Day in the Life (Beatles)
Strawberry Fields Forever (Beatles)
A Taste of Honey (Beatles cover)
Yes It Is (Beatle)

Mind Games (J. Lennon)
Scarborough Fair (Simon and Garfunkel)

Sonnets:

Shakespeare Sonnets #71, 72 and 74

Bible:

Ecclesisastes 2:18-26

Closing Music:

I'm Going Home (Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack)

Shinzo Abe

7/8/2022

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe makes a stump speech in Nara on Friday. He was shot immediately after this picture was taken.

Abe (center) lies on the ground in Nara after being shot on Friday.

Tetsuya Yamagami is grabbed by a security personnel after allegedly shooting Abe in Nara on Friday.

Saturday, July 9, 2022.

Shinzo Abe

September 21, 1954 - July 8, 2022
aged 67 years

The longest-serving Prime Minister in Japanese history, Mr. Abe retired as Prime Minister of Japan in September 2020. Abe came from an old and influential political family, and in retirement he remained a very influential figure here, and perhaps the most recognized Japanese politician at home and abroad. Abe was gunned down at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, July 8th in the city of Nara (near Kyoto) while making a campaign speech on the street in support of Kei Sato, the local Liberal Democratic Party candidate in general elections scheduled for Sunday, July 10th. Elections in Japan are always held on a Sunday. The shooter, 41-year-old Nara City resident Testuya Yamagami, seems to have used a home-made weapon.

Politically-motivated gun violence against national politicians is so rare that is seems like an artifact from distant history. This kind of lethal political violence hasn't been seen in Japan since Nagasaki Mayor Iccho Itoh was gunned down in April 2007 by yakuza gangster Tetsuya Shiroo. Before that, Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of Salman Rushdie’s controversial 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, was stabbed to death on the street outside his home in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, in July 1991. (It has always been presumed that his murder was related to his translation of Rushdie’s book.) The case remains unsolved. Before that was the February 1972 Asama-Sanso Incident in Karuizawa, Nagano when the extremist United Red Army killed 14 members of its own group (who weren’t radical enough, I guess) during a hostage drama that is still talked about today. And before that, Japan Socialist Party Chairman Inejiro Asanuma was knifed to death by right-wing activist Otoya Yamaguchi in 1960 in Tokyo’s Hibiya Public Hall (a building I recently visited).

Guns are so rare in Japan that the idea of gun violence is difficult to process. And, Japanese have no experience with the emotional and political aftermath of gun violence.

Japanese politics is pregnant with corruption, bribery, and back-room wheeling and dealing. There’s a lot of back scratching here.

Foreign media abound with the word “assassination.” But it is a word almost absent from Japanese media. The Japan Times Weekend edition print newspaper used the word “assassinated” in its frontpage headline on Saturday, July 10th. But Japanese-language print and television media only reported that Mr. Abe “died” after being “attacked.” There is a cultural reason for that, I suppose. Japanese media don’t hesitate to use the Japanese word for “assassination” (“ansatsu”) when reporting the violent deaths of foreign leaders. But since a politically-motivated murder is so exceptional in post-war Japan, the media tend to avoid the word here.

And yet, many in the media rushed to portray the murder as a political thing - an attack on Japanese democracy - and subsequently ran news articles about the government bravely refusing to bow to threats to free expression, and rejecting threats to democracy.  Yeah, yeah. That’s not it. The shooter chose Abe for personal reasons - reasons that sound rather lame and pathetic to foreign ears, because they are lame and pathetic - reasons centered on Abe’s supposed connection to a religious group that swindled and bankrupted the man’s mother. I don’t know if it’s true, but the fact is that in this country a connection like that is entirely possible. In Japan, there are dozens of Buddhist sects, some quite ancient, rich and powerful with tendrils throughout society. In national politics there is the Komeito Party (a coalition partner with Mr. Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party), which stems from the Soka Gakkai Buddhist religious movement. And, Japanese politics is pregnant with corruption, bribery, and back-room wheeling and dealing. There’s a lot of back scratching here.  In this case, the “religious group” in question turned out to be the Korea-based Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, widely knows as the Unification Church, or the “Moonies,” founded by Sun Myung Moon in 1954.

Abe was respected and well-liked, however. His longevity provided a political stability that Japanese enjoyed, and he was cast as a great statesman.  He had opponents over policy issues because he was both an historical revisionist and a nationalist. But he was not an extremist, and Japanese society is not polarized like it is in, say, America. Furthermore, he wasn’t the prime minister anymore. That someone would shoot him dead just stuns Japanese. It’s unbelievable! His death leaves a political void, and it generated sympathy that contributed to a strong LDP showing in national general elections on July 10th. Prime Minister Kishida has finally secured the ⅔ majority he needs in both houses of the parliament (the National Diet), to proceed with conservatives’ dream of amending the pacifist Article 9 of the Constitution.

Tempers rarely run high in Japanese politics.

Japan has extremely strict gun laws, and we live in a kind of safety bubble here. This kind of violence punctures our safety bubble. It’s unbelievable. Murders are more likely to occur here using knives or kitchen poisons. Mass killings are sometimes perpetrated through gasoline-fueled arson.  Tempers rarely run high in Japanese politics.  Security for sitting PMs is predictably very tight, but not so for former Prime Ministers. That may change from now.

They hang people in Japan.

Shinzo Abe takes a bow after being nominated to became prime minister at a plenary session of the House of Representatives. After his return to the Prime Minister's Office in December 2012, he focused on revitalizing the economy and put it back on track with economic policies that came to be known as Abenomics.

Abe, third from right, expresses joy at the moment Tokyo was chosen to host the 2020 Olympics at the International Olympic Committee General Assembly. In the spring of 2020, when the novel coronavirus crisis sparked debate about canceling the Olympics, he took the unprecedented step of postponing the Tokyo Games by one year.

People pay their respects in Nara City near the site where former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was fatally shot.

Tokyo Imperial Palace

7/2/2022

Saturday, July 2, 2022.

Tokyo Imperial Palace

At its height, Edo Castle was humongous. Nothing remains today except the renovated ramparts and gates, and the base of the keep. The castle was never attacked, and it never fell, although it was destroyed by accidental fire more than once. Every time I walk around it I try to imagine how it could have been attacked. The moats are deep, wide and steep. The walls are huge. Atop the walls, more walls are hidden behind the trees. The gates are killing zones. Every space is pre-sighted for archers' arrows. In Japan's feudal period, there were several rings of moats and walls, mostly gone now, hampering, guarding, and regulating the approach. The Tokyo Imperial Palace today is only the innermost core of the original, sprawling castle. It was a mighty fort, and an engineering marvel. The castle itself was its own city.

Today, I imagine how terrorists might try to sneak in to assassinate or kidnap the Emperor, or something. The short story is that it's impossible. First, intruders would have to contend with the moat that still exists. But the moat today is seeded with American snapping turtles and Amazonian piranha fish. But avoiding those perils, and successfully penetrating the walls, attackers would then face the Imperial Household Agency guards, who are pretty serious. Every guard post has direct line-of-sight to the next post, and the grounds are well patrolled inside and out. Finally, there is all the electronic surveillance and warning systems in place.

Guns In Japan

6/27/2022

Tuesday, June 28, 2022.

Guns in Japan

There are guns in Japan. Mostly various kinds of hunting rifles. There isn’t a big sport hunting thing going on here, but there is some. There are shooting clubs and hunters associations. What hunters mostly do in Japan is cull troublesome wild boar from forested mountains areas. You can bet that their firearms are highly regulated.

Handguns are another thing. They are extremely rare. Almost the only people here who have handguns are yakuza gangsters. If a crime occurs involving a handgun, the police often go directly to the local gang office - they have offices with signs announcing who they are - and ask for the culprit. Yakuza gangs advertise themselves as some kind of benevolent, traditional, community organization. The yakuza gangs often comply and hand over a suspect as requested. Whether it is the real perpetrator or not is almost irrelevant. When murders occur in Japan, they are more often than not done with household objects like kitchen knives, or with household or garden poisons. Blades have a special place in Japanese culture.

Blades have a special place in Japanese culture.

So, guns are rare. But they do exist here. How does one go about acquiring a legal firearm in Japan? Here’s how:

Hino maru

6/3/2022

Friday, June 3, 2022.

Hino maru

I took this photograph in my neighbourhood on Thursday, May 5, 2022, the third and last day of consecutive spring time holidays collectively called Golden Week. May 5th is “kodomo no hi,” or Children’s Day. It used to be called Boys’ Day, but in a postwar spirit of democracy it was rebranded. Children’s Day is also known for carp streamer wind socks, or “koi no bori,” that celebrate a family’s sons.

Unlike North America, where many people fly the Maple Leaf or the Stars and Stripes in their gardens, national public holidays are among the few occasions when Japanese are apt to fly their national flag, the Hino Maru. Government buildings, post offices, police stations, hospitals, and schools habitually fly the Hino Maru daily as a matter of course. But private citizens rarely do. The reason stems from chronic ill feeling towards the flag and its Second World War militarist symbolism. Reverence for the Hino Maru was closely tied to the ultra-nationalist ideology that drove the country to ruin.

If a private citizen wants to display the Hino Maru, they don't do it using a tall, vertical flagpole, but with a wall-mounted bracket near their doors, which makes for a diagonal disposition like this.

When I was growing up, I misunderstood the Japanese flag. I watched WWII movies and saw the Rising Sun flag. But I learned after living here that the Rising Sun flag was (and still is) the Naval ensign, not the national flag.

Where Is Mom?

5/1/2022

Sunday, May 1, 2022.

Where is Mom?

I used to hate when this happened: I’d be in my bedroom doing homework. Everyone else was around the house doing their own thing in their own space. Outside my door, Mom passed by. In a couple of minutes I would call on her with a homework question - I don't know: How do you spell “Confederation?” or, “metamorphosis,” or “Shakespeare,” or something.

I called, “Mom!”

No answer. I called and called again with a rising voice. “Mom! Mom! Mom! Soon, it was a question. “Mom?"

I left my room and started looking for her, after having just seen her a couple minutes before.

The upstairs. “Mom? Mom?”

My parents’ bedroom, the bathroom. Other bedrooms.

“Mom?”

Go downstairs. The kitchen, the dining room, the living room. “Mom!? Mom!?”

Where the hell could she be?

Then the laundry room in the basement. “Mom!”

Then outside to the patio and the garage. “Mom!!!”

Then the garden. “Mom!!!!”

Finally, back upstairs, still calling, “Mom! Mom?”

What the hell? She was just here, and I spent 10 minutes looking for her everywhere.

Eventually she was back, having been nearby all the time, talking to a neighbour in a little out-of-the-way corner of the garden.

“Oh, I didn't hear you” she said.

What the hell!! I used to hate when that happened.

Dogeza

5/1/2022

Sunday, May 1, 2022.

Dogeza

On Saturday, April 22, 2022, a tour boat went missing with 26 passengers off the north coast of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido. The ship, the Kazu I, operated by the Shiretoko Yurasen company in the town of Shari, Hokkaido, was warned by local fishermen of rough seas.

This cruise was an eco-tourism sightseeing excursion to view an area of the isolated and rugged Shiretoko Peninsula, which has been a World Heritage Site since 2005 in recognition of the peninsula being the southernmost point where sea ice usually forms in the Northern Hemisphere. Coronavirus restrictions are relaxing here as they are elsewhere in the world, and the annual spring Golden Week Holiday is upon us. Although holiday travel may very well cause a sudden spike in infections, hospitality industries all over the country have been looking forward to a return to business, including the sightseeing tours in Shari city with great anticipation. Now, however, this accident puts the marine sightseeing industry under a cloud, and I expect all their excursions to the Shiretoko Peninsula will cease until after a government enquiry.

Like the S.S. Minnow in the Gilligan’s Island TV show, the ship set sail for a three-hour tour. The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed. The ship radioed that it was taking on water and listing. It was reported that one 72-year-old passengers telephoned his wife to say that the boat was sinking and to say goodbye. Initially, hope was high because rescue efforts began quickly. But the frigid water meant that it was too late. The sea water was just above freezing, so it was soon clear that no one could have survived. It would have been like passengers of the Titanic going into the North Atlantic in April 1912.

Days later, eleven bodies were recovered from the sea (including at least one child), while the Japan Coast Guard brought in sonar equipment and cameras to search for the sunken ship on the sea floor in the most likely spot. The ship was found in 100-meters of water, and its identity confirmed on Friday, April 29th.

Sadly, there is video footage of the Kazu I leaving its harbor. The passengers were probably all happy, smiling and excited, unaware that they would be dead soon. It was reported that all passengers and crew had orange life vests, but the ship had no lifeboats.

I happened to be in Hokkaido the day of the accident. I was sightseeing in the southern Hokkaido city of Hakodate. The weather was sunny and cool, and it was windy. The seas near Hakodate were rough and choppy. It’s easy for me to imagine conditions were similar all over the island and its coastline.

This photograph is from the front page of the Thursday, April 28, 2022 Japan Times print edition newspaper. Shiretoko Yuransen President Seichi Katsurada is apologizing during a news conference on Wednesday 27th in the town of Shari.

This bowing posture is the “dogeza,” the deepest kind of the several kinds of Japanese bow, used to show the greatest apology and regret. In Japan, the only way to show greater apology and contrition than this is to kill yourself.

The only American I ever saw in the media doing the “dogeza” was U.S. Navy submarine Commander Scott Waddle who came to Japan in December 2002 to personally apologize for causing the deaths in February 2001 of 9 of the 35 people aboard the Japanese Fisheries High School training ship Ehime Maru, by carelessly surfacing his boat, the USS Greenville, right beneath the training ship in waters near Hawaii. Four Japanese high school students died in that incident.

In Japan, the only way to show greater contrition than this is to kill yourself.

Tokyo Crows

4/16/2022

Sunday, April 16, 2022.

Tokyo crows

I have noticed a couple things, both are said to be related to the coronavirus pandemic. First, the number of large crows in Tokyo is way down. Crows used to be everywhere, but not any more. A Saturday, April 9, 2022 story in the English-language Japan Times newspaper reported that in 2020, Tokyo authorities counted an estimated 11,000 crows at around 40 locations in the city, less than a third of its peak population in 2001. I have noticed it myself. Two kinds of large crow inhabit Tokyo - the jungle crow and the carrion crow. They are not the simple blackbirds that I called “crows” when I was growing up. They are what I called “ravens.” There used to be some here on my street. They were always loud, they would always try to pick at our garbage, and they even sometimes swooped down and attacked people on the street during spring time nesting season. (I was attacked once, several years ago.) But the coronavirus pandemic changed people’s behaviour in such a way that it also affected the kind of garbage we throw out, and the crows who feed off the garbage have moved elsewhere.

Second is a great reduction in the amount of paper flyer advertisements I get in my mailbox. That’s stuff like pizza delivery, local restaurants, sushi shops, ramen shops, health/sports clubs, local realtors, hair salons, package delivery and home moving services, and more. I usually take a photograph of all the mailbox flyers before throwing the papers away, and I post those pictures on Facebook so that people back home can see what Japanese writing looks like. Anyway, in recent months I’ve noticed that the amount and variety of paper that gets shoved into my mailbox has shrunk. This suggests to me that the coronavirus pandemic has affected local economic activity at least in this locally measurable regard.

Evolution of Play

4/16/2022

Saturday, April 16, 2022.

Evolution of play

Paediatricians, child developmental psychologists, and early childhood educators identify and measure several steps in the evolution/development of children’s playing behaviour. 1) Unoccupied; 2) Solitary play; 3) Onlooker of other children; 4) Parallel play with adjacent companions; 5) Associative play, interacting with playmates; and 6) Cooperative play, more actively interacting with others intentionally, by design, pursuing mutual goals. The steps represent the physical, mental and social development of children and can be used to identify normal/abnormal development.

I don’t remember any of that in my life. Who does? The steps pre-date memory. What I do remember about my childhood play is that I went through several phases of play when my time and attention were variously occupied by different things my parents provided. For example, (in no particular order and certainly not all at once), there was the colouring phase, the Christmas activity book phase, the Lego phase, the wooden blocks, the Hot Wheels cars, the marbles, kite flying, plastic models, balsa wood airplane models, grasshopper- and snake-catching, crystal, the banana seat / monkey bars bicycle, backyard soccer, tobogganing, walkie talkies, the BB gun, British Bulldog, ceramics / clay pots, swimming lessons.

And then, there was the jigsaw puzzle phase. I was still in elementary school when I assembled a number of puzzles. I slipped a large sheet of Bristol board under them when they were finished, flipped them over, then applied strong glue to the back side and mounted it to the Bristol board. Pressed overnight under a number of heavy books, the glue dried in a day and I could hang it on my bedroom wall as a picture. If I did such a thing today, I might frame them as some adult jigsaw puzzle hobbyists do. But I didn't do that as a kid. My imagination didn’t extend to frames, only to cardboard and glue. I still have a bag of marbles, by the way, and I still colour pictures, too.

Nara Deer Park

4/4/2022

Tuesday, April 5, 2022.

Nara deer park

On Saturday, April 2nd, I visited the ancient capital of Nara, in Nara Prefecture, on the Kii Peninsula, south of Kyoto.

Nara is famous for the many ancient temples and shrines found there. The city, and the Yamato Plain where it sits, and the Kii Peninsula are the heart of ancient Japan/Yamato. The seat of the greatest power in the island centuries before the warring kingdoms were unified in the early 17th century. In fact, the history and culture found there are overwhelming!

The Deer Park is a prominent feature of the city. (Deer, monkeys and bears are among the largest native fauna. Others include wild boar, foxes, and “tanuki” raccoon dogs.) The 1,200 deer that inhabit the park near Nara Station wander around without any restrictions, and they might appear to be domesticated. I’ve even read that adjective applied to them. But they're not. They are still wild deer. Posted signs warn people in three or four languages: don’t tease them with food; don’t play with them; don’t caress them; don’t let children approach them alone; don’t try to sit on them to take a funny picture. Deer are mythologized as messengers of the shinto gods, so their presence in the park is considered sacred. The city does not feed them. Instead, they subsist on grass and shrubs in the park (the ground is perpetually nibbled down to the dirt), as well as special deer crackers fed to them by visitors, that are sold by vendors for ¥200/packet. Once you have the crackers in your hands the deer know it because they can smell them. They chase you, head butt you, they’ve been known to kick - and they bite!!! I was bitten twice. But feeding them is cute and fun, so I did it. The deer don’t bother the vendors because they’ve been conditioned. They understand that the vendors - who keep their cache of deer crackers sequestered in wire boxes - won’t feed them. But those other humans will.

The deer are very popular with tourists, and one of the city’s attractions. Their antlers are shorn for safety. The vast majority of the animals are female, and they generally keep themselves in family groups. Deer are territorial. There are other herds of deer nearby, on the other side of the local hills, who do not wander into the city because of the presence of the deer park herd. They are territorial rivals.