Not really anthing to do with Asia, but click here to see Celine Dion as you’ve probably never seen her before. . .

Years ago, ping-pong diplomacy was credited with bringing the U.S. and China closer together. Now it looks as if a little pedophile diplomacy may be working its magic on Sino-Japan relations.

According to Japan’s Shukan Bunshun, someone posted photos of 11-year-old Saaya Irie in a bikini on a Chinese forum, which had been a hotbed of anti-Japanese rhetoric, along with the following message:

“An 11-year-old Japanese girl with large breasts has a proclamation for all Chinese people! Dear elder brothers, a beautiful young Japanese girl is beseeching you.

Please stop these anti-Japanese hijinks. If you don’t, I won’t like you anymore.”

At the end of the message, she states that her breasts would “rise up” if the people “unite for the sake of China’s democracy.”

The photos were an immediate hit among the Chinese participants, and the number of Japan-bashing postings declined. One writer exclaimed, “This is one Japanese import I won’t be boycotting!”

What does Saaya have to say about all this?

“I would like to see good relations between Japan and China. If relations are good, I think everyone will be happy.”

Here are more additions to the various products available to lonely Japanese men who experience problems with establishing and maintaining relationships with members of the opposite sex — pillows and bed sheets with images of popular personality Waka Inoue.

It is hard to turn on the TV or open a magazine these days without running into Ms. Inoue, whose main claims to fame are a 90 cm chest, 90 cm hips, and a pair of lips that bring to mind superhuman feats involving a garden hose and golf ball.

The sheet is being sold for 8,000 yen and the pillow for 5,300 yen. Or they can be purchased as a set for 12,800 yen. These and other Waka Inoue goods are available at this Japanese site.

Just a quick note to let everyone know that both Amp and I have become buried under separate avalanches of work from our day jobs, which is severely limiting the time we can devote to JAPUNDIT articles.

Personally, I would like to quit my day job and just write for JAPUNDIT, but Mrs. JP won’t let me. . .

We expect to get back to a more regular posting schedule when work clears up, but for now posting may become a bit spotty.

JP

A man was arrested in Nagano after he climbed a 27-meter tower for high-voltage electrical lines with the intent of committing suicide.

After being talked down by police and asked why he wanted to kill himself, the man said, “I’m not getting along well with others and my worries got me thinking about suicide.”

Seeing as how his little stunt caused about 10,000 homes in the area to be without electrical power for about 90 minutes, there is little doubt that it will probably make him even more unpopular than ever before.

A new book claims that high divorce rates is not a modern phenomenon in Japan, but is actually more of a tradition.

In DIVORCE IN JAPAN: Family, Gender and the State 1600-2000 (Stanford University Press: Stanford, 2004, 226 pages), which was reviewed recently in The Japan Times, Harold Feuss claims that divorce rates in 19th-century Japan were actually higher than they are today.

Elevated divorce rates are nothing new to Japan; indeed, 19th-century rates have been exceeded only by those in the post-1970s United States. As recently as the late 19th century, there was little stigma attached to divorce and multiple marriages were common. A civil code and new laws on family registration introduced in 1898, however, led to a sharp decline in divorce rates. Fuess notes that “Industrialization, urbanization, and modernization, broad trends often blamed for an increase in divorce, had the opposite effect in Japan during the first four decades of the twentieth century.”

Fuess also says that spouse testing was the norm long ago in Japan, with both men and women remarrying.

How did Japan get a reputation for low divorce rates?

The anomalous period in Japanese divorce history spanned the period 1898-1940 when divorce rates declined. Why? According to Fuess, there was a strengthening of the institution of marriage because the Japanese “valued economic and social stability in marriage above romance and affection.” In addition, a new sexual morality developed that criticized divorce as a national disgrace and a poor reflection on women’s rights.

More than 57% of Japanese people who responded to a Kyodo New poll are of the opinion that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should not visit Yasukuni Shrine this year.

Those who gave that answer totaled 57.7%, marking an increase of 16.9 percentage points from a survey conducted in December, while those who said he should pay a visit decreased by 16.7 points to 34.3%.

I hope this lays to rest the view that the Japanese are bunch of robots whose minds have been numbed by a lifetime of history distoring textbooks, manga, and corrupt politicians. . .

Pick up any book about Japan and you’ll read that the country consists primarily of the four main islands of Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido. But even the Japanese sometimes forget about the part of the country that fans out over a large area southwest of Kyushu. This is the Ryukyu archipelago, of which the primary island is Okinawa. The islands in this archipelago comprise Okinawa Prefecture, which is remote enough from the rest of the country to have developed its own traditions and a dialect that other Japanese can’t understand.

The Ryukyus were nominally independent until 1879, when they were made an administrative unit of the Japanese government. Despite becoming a prefecture, Okinawa did not become part of the Japanese political mainstream until after the United States returned it Japan in 1972. The islands retain a strong sense of regional identity: they were independent for so long, given short shrift by the national government, burdened by heavy taxes, suffered terribly during the war, and were occupied the longest by the United States. American installations still occupy almost a fifth of Okinawa Island, and roughly three-fourths of US bases and more than half of the American troops stationed in Japan are on Okinawa, which accounts for 0.6 percent of Japanese territory. It’s no surprise that many Okinawans quietly nurse the dream of independence, but few expect it to happen.

These feelings are heightened by the archipelago’s distance from the rest of Japan. The flight to Naha Airport from Tokyo is 2 1/2 hours, and about an hour from Fukuoka in Kyushu. They are tropical islands, making them a perfect spot for a vacation in the fall, winter, and spring. (I’ve been told that it’s so hot in summer only the natives can handle it.)

But as Dr. Seuss found more letters in the alphabet in On Beyond Zebra, there is more to Japan and Okinawa Prefecture on beyond Okinawa Island. At the extreme southwest of the Okinawan chain lie the Yaeyama Islands. This is the spot in Japan where people really go to get away from it all without having to use a passport.

One of these islands is Taketomi, six kilometers square, where 90% of the island’s income is derived from tourism. How far is it from the rest of Japan? Taiwan is closer than Okinawa Island and The Philippines are closer than Kyushu. Getting there requires another hour-long flight from Naha and a 10-minute ferry ride. An excellent article about Taketomi in today’s Japan Times explains just how remote it is:

Of all the places in this country, the Yaeyamas are the one where you feel least like you are in Japan. And this perception of otherness is certainly felt by the Taketomi islanders themselves: On the huge map in the visitor center “Japan” is written over distant Honshu in the same script and style as “China” is inscribed below Beijing, as though signifying some foreign land.

I’ve wanted to visit these islands ever since I first heard about them more than 20 years ago, and after reading this article I was ready to pack my swimming trunks and buy a plane ticket. There’s one serious obstacle, however—our household has the classic seashore/mountains split when it comes to vacation spot preferences. I could easily live in a beach community, but my wife, who grew up on a riverbank, yearns only for the cooler mountains.

I’ll get there eventually, but there’s nothing stopping you from getting there first!

Princess Sayako, Emperor Akihito’s daughter, is going to be married this fall. Since her husband-to-be is a commoner, she will lose her royal status. But for all that she will ostensibly be losing, Sayako, who is 36, will be gaining the privilege to do some things she’s never done before. These include getting a drivers’ license, having the right to vote, having a last name, getting her own telephone, and going shopping for herself.

Here is an official’s explanation as reported by Reuters on the difficulties presented by a member of the Japanese Imperial family getting a driver’s license:

“In general, members of the Imperial Family, such as the Emperor, do not drive outside the palace grounds because they might cause bother for the public,” said a spokesman for the Imperial Household Agency. Providing security for royals on wheels would also be a problem, he added.

To put that less diplomatically, it’s not that their driving would bother the public, it’s that the response by others to their driving that would bother the public. The Japanese media is among the world’s most tenacious and obnoxious, and the number of useless people assigned to follow the royal family wherever they go would soar from the current horde to an unmanageable mob tailing the unfortunate driver even on the most mundane of errands.

The article reports that Sayako is learning on the palace grounds. Most Japanese go to a driving school before getting their license, but that would be unimaginable for the Emperor’s immediate family, no matter how much they might enjoy mingling with the common folk. The media would camp out in tree houses to film every second the princess spent behind the wheel and broadcast it endlessly on television, with groups of self-proclaimed experts and third-rate showbiz personalities commenting on her skills when shifting from first gear into second.

She will not be the first among her siblings to get a driver’s license, however. The first was her older brother, Prince Akishino (also widely known as The One Who Doesn’t Comb His Hair; see photo below). Akishino fancied himself quite the lad, and in his younger days used to tool around Tokyo in a yellow Volkswagen beetle. (The choice of a foreign car is significant; he couldn’t drive a Japanese car and therefore seem to favor one domestic automaker over another.) Akishino was filmed taking his father, the Emperor, for a spin.

Commonplace stuff for most people, but this was a bold new step for the Japanese Imperial family. It is difficult to comprehend their lack of personal freedom. Emperor Akihito was adamant that he wanted to be involved with his wife, the Empress, in rearing their children. He, as his ancestors before him, seldom saw his parents growing up, as he was essentially raised by palace functionaries. Akihito made a point when playing with his children of letting them jump off the lower step of an exterior staircase to the ground. He had not been allowed to play games like that for fear that he might get injured, and he certainly wasn’t allowed any time for frivolities with his father. Nevertheless, his son and heir, Crown Prince Naruhito, likely isn’t allowed to drive as his brother and sister are.

The Imperial Household Agency, part of the Japanese government, controls every aspect of the public life of the Imperial family, and a large part of their private life. The agency determines how their time is spent in official duties, where they go, what they wear, who they see, and, for the most part, what they say. This is exacerbated by the conservative and secretive nature of the agency and its members. One look at their mugs and you can see the little cartoon balloons sprouting over their heads containing the words, “You can’t do that.”

Crown Prince Naruhito caused a tsunami last year when he hijacked a press conference, usually a dull affair, to complain that his wife Masako wasn’t permitted by the Imperial Household Agency to take a more active role in promoting Japan overseas. (Before her marriage she worked in the Foreign Ministry; she also speaks several languages.) As most public statements from the Imperial family are the very definition of bland, Naruhito’s open criticism of the Agency was almost shocking and was dissected in detail by the mass media. It definitely shocked his parents, the Emperor and Empress, because he hadn’t discussed it with them beforehand. Father and son have some difficulty communicating, regardless of how well they get along; they have to make appointments in advance to see each other, and they just can’t pick up the phone and call because they don’t have personal telephones.

The members of the Imperial family themselves would like to lead a more modern lifestyle, and many Japanese share their wish. The distance they have to travel to approach the modern age must seem enormous to them, however, as they deal with constraints that are tantamount to confinement in a Medieval dungeon. Here’s hoping that Sayako will adjust to her new status as a commoner with a minimum of fuss and thrive–and drive–in relative anonymity. While she might be losing her royal status, she just might be gaining her life.

A man in Fukuoka, Japan who is on trial for murdering his wife’s niece during a confrontation with police has been spending his time in detention sending threatening letters to the judge.

The man, Tadashi Kawamura, 39, is due to receive a ruling on his case in the Fukuoka District Court on Thursday. During his trial he had shouted at witnesses, and he reportedly sent the letters because the case hadn’t proceeded as he expected it would.

Sources close to the case said about 100 letters were sent from Kawamura’s detention cell to the court and other places from December 2002. In statements he made to a judge in the letters, Kawamura said he would earn provisional release even if he received a life sentence and that if the ruling went against his will he would not forget it and there would be “trouble.”

During his trial, Kawamura has also been known to yell out suddenly during testimony of his family members, and has had two lawyers resign from his defense.