This building is located in Yoyogi, Tokyo.

Having recently seen the trailer for Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha, which Hollywood has tried to turn into a movie to hit world movie screens for Christmas viewing (and Oscar nominations time), I can’t help but feel this film will be a dud.

Why? Well, I’m not a New York Times film critic, and I don’t have a Ph.D. in film studies, but one look at the trailer and it’s obvious that the American producers erred bigtime by deciding to cast Chinese actresses in the roles of the Japanese characters in Golden’s book.

For one thing, the big-name Chinese actresses “look” like Chinese women, from their faces to their hair to their body language, and they speak English in the movie with Chinese-accented English. It’s obvious they are not Japanese. The film becomes a travesty of movie-making.

It’s so un-authentic as to make one shudder as how deeply Hollywood goofed by not casting Japanese women in the main roles. I predict a huge blockbuster with critical raves from the Western media, but for the wrong movie.

Why did they cast the Chinese actresses instead of Japanese actresses?

The bottom line is the “bottom line”: the stupid producers thought, aided by their marketing departments, that the Chinese women in the movie had more global clout and name recognition than any Japanese women, and therefore more tickets could be sold with Chinese actresses playing the Japanese roles.

They are probably correct, from a marketing point of view. But for an authentic movie based on Golden’s bestselling book, Hollywood’s golden boys really goofed. The movie is laughable all the way through. But since most Western audiences can’t tell a Japanese from a Chinese from a Vietnamese from a Thai, watch this movie become a huge hit in North America and Europe (and bomb terribly in Japan).

Click here to see the trailer.

One of the first full-time jobs I managed to get as an English teacher in Japan was at the YKK Machinery and Engineering Group, in Kurobe, Toyama Prefecture.

Although YKK produces about 90% of the world’s zippers (though YKK calls them ‘fasteners’), most Japanese people are familiar with the company’s architectural products - the company chose to locate in Kurobe because of readily available hydroelectric power needed to produce aluminum, the raw material for most of what the company’s produces.

My roommate and I both lived in a large house built for former President Jimmy Carter (he had helped YKK set up a plant in Georgia at one point), and we taught at the Kurobe facility four days a week. On weekends I visited my girlfriend (from Tennessee) who lived on the Noto Penisula.

I don’t remember much about the place, except that there was a lot of snow that winter, most of my students were obsessed with horse racing, and the female students, who had been recruited from rural Toyama, had startlingly bad teeth. My roommate had also just turned 40, was getting a divorce, and had just been fired from his job as a salesman at a computer chip maker for sleeping with the boss’s secretary.

Not a happy time, but I’ve always had fond memories of YKK.

So, I’d like to invite Japundit readers to check out the YKK Fastening Awards. As the website explains:

Centering on the use of fasteners, buckles, snaps and buttons, this is a unique fashion contest aimed at aspiring designers.

A series of competitions have been held since the Spring, and finalists’ works will be displayed at a fashion show early in September.

A ’sample movie’ of those who made it through the semi-finalis can be found here (wmv).

Past awards are archived here (click on the links).

I don’t have an abnormal interest in toilets–honest–even though I just wrote about the subject a few days ago. But this report of a toilet college opening its doors in Singapore (where else?) was too good to pass up.

The article by the AFP-Jiji Press says the objective is to “teach cleaners how to improve their lavatory washing skills. ” The college also plans to offer courses on toilet design and architecture next year.

This article from Kyodo adds that they intend to use Japan as a model for the training, though they provide no details on exactly how they plan to use Japan as a model.

It isn’t as if the Singaporeans need to take a leaf from anyone else’s roll. As Kyodo reports:

The Singapore government has waged a war against dirty public toilets since the mid-1990s by launching campaigns to find the loveliest lavatories and slapping fines on people who fail to flush after using public lavatories.

I wonder how they enforce the law on flushing. I also wonder about the law enforcement officers. You know how they have meter maids to check on parking meter violations? Do they have Singaporean Permanent Latrine Orderlies (PLO) as in the novel No Time for Sergeants? Do the PLOs undergo special training? Are there acceptable levels of urine in the bowl that don’t need to be flushed? Are there scofflaws who will try to get away without flushing after a clear stream?

Come to think of it, maybe I really don’t want to know after all.

The reports also state that the toilet college will be run by the Singapore-based World Toilet Organisation. This non-profit organisation has 17 members, including the Restroom Association of Singapore, the Japan Toilet Association and the Beijing Tourism Bureau.

I smell a website!

Sure enough, here it is! The top page has news about the World Toilet Summit 2005 in Belfast, Ireland. There is also an advisory about the World Toilet Expo & Forum 2006, which the site says is “not to be confused with the World Toilet Summit”.

The site has links to other international organizations, including the previously mentioned Japan Toilet Association. This is in Japanese, but it’s worth a glance at the photos. The first five show kids checking out the Toilet Exploratorium in the Global Citizens’ Village at the Aichi World Expo this summer. The two photos at the bottom of the page are from a gathering to commemorate both the 100th meeting of the Maintenance Study Group and the publication of the Public Restroom Managers’ White Paper. (Will they use that as complimentary reading material in public restrooms?)

The WTO also has a page of what they call interesting websites, including one for toilet training a cat (which is possible–I have actually seen a toilet-trained cat), and a link to a website called the Bathroom Diaries. This in turn has a link to the world’s finest public toilets called The Golden Plungers, the first sentence of which reads: ” Branson, Missouri, features a bathroom Valhalla, otherwise known as the Shoji Tabuchi Theatre”.

I dare you not to laugh!

There are also links to the Virtual Toilet Paper Museum and the Tokyo Toilet Map featuring maps and photos of clean and dirty toilets in the metro area and a listing of those facilities that have toilet paper. (Hey JP! Be sure to add this to our collection of links on the left of the page!)

They also have a link to a site giving information on Japanese-style toilets. For those of you who have never seen one, we provide the photograph at the top of this post.

International Exchange at the Grassroots Level

I don’t have one of these models in my home, but I did have one in the first place I stayed in Japan. It was a single-family dwelling rented by the owner of the English school where I worked. The owner put a big sign over the front door that read, “International House”. He might as well have put up a sign that said “Foreigners’ Dormitory”, but the Japanese like euphemisms. (That’s why they like to call the bathroom the toiree rather than one of the 20 or so Japanese words they have for the fixtures or the room.)

The theory was that sharing a house would contribute to international exchange and understanding and blah blah blah woof woof. My boss told me that I should ask one of the Japanese teachers if there was anything I didn’t understand about Japan or Japanese society.

Well, I managed to use the Japanese-style toilet without mishap the first couple of days, but I was still unsure if there was something about the equipment that I didn’t understand and should have known. So, I asked one of my housemates, a Japanese guy named Hideki who had just returned from a year in New Zealand after graduating from university. (He has since become a junior high school English teacher.)

So much for the theory of international understanding. He barked out a half-contrived, derisive laugh and declared at the top of his voice, “You foreigners always ask this question! You mean you don’t understand how to go to the bathroom? Do it the same way you do it in the woods!”

Well, that wasn’t the problem. I was more concerned about which direction I should face at which time.

Hideki got me straightened out and pointed in the right direction.

The new school year began a couple of days after that, and the first classes were held in a new facility the owner had just purchased and refurbished. This involved the installation of new toilets, all of which were Western style fixtures.

The first time I had occasion to use one, I lifted the lid and was surprised to see a lot of Japanese writing and diagrams with stick figures on a decal attached to the underside of the lid. I bent down to examine it more closely and discovered that the text was a thorough explanation of the proper way to use one of these exotic Western devices. The stick figures, of course, showed the correct seating methods. Oh, was I tempted! “Hey, Hideki, you mean you guys don’t understand how to go to the bathroom? You need a mini-instruction manual and pictures?”

But I thought discretion would be the better part of valor, and held my tongue.

As it turns out, however, Japanese toilets have evolved into a new species since those days, reaching breathtaking levels of sophistication and complexity. In fact, I freely admit that it’s all I can do to operate one of these normally, much less figure out what all those switches and buttons are for.

Yes, I actually do need a mini-instruction manual and pictures!

The Liberal Democratic Party’s second in command indicated that the LDP will raise the nation’s consumption tax during fiscal 2007 in order to finance social security programs.

Asked by a moderator on a Fuji TV program whether the LDP’s election manifesto means the consumption tax — currently at 5 percent — will be hiked in the year starting in April 2007, LDP Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe said, “Yes.”

The LDP now has to consider the margin of increase, the party’s No. 2 man said.

Apparently, the thought of cutting costs has not occurred to the ruling party. Perhaps they need to maintain budget levels so they can ensure a steady supply of luxury ashtrays. . .

An informal look around the Intergoogle indicates that there are some interesting place names around the world that at first glance seem, well, out of place. But they aren’t out of place at all.

For example, there’s a town called Mandarin, Florida, and everyone has heard of Paris, Texas.

Just for fun, do you know of any other place names in Western countries that use place names from Japan, China, Taiwan or South Korea as names of cities or towns?

Add your comments below.

Daruma doll artisan Sumikazu Nakata of Takasaki, Japan is busy at this time of the year, prior to the upcoming parliamentary elections set nationwide for September 11.

It is a Japanese tradition to paint a black pupil in the left eye of a daruma doll after making a wish. If the wish is fulfilled, the other pupil is added.

There once was a time in Japan when tobacco was king, with puffing considered the norm and non-smokers treated as second-class citizens. Those days are long gone as smoking is now banned on trains, in stations, in certain areas of the city, and in other areas where large groups of people gather.

One of the more comical stories to come out of the no smoking era is the report that officials in Yamagata, Japan are planning to auction off 28 cast metal “luxury ashtrays” that were once positioned at various locations around municipal offices. The ashtrays are no longer necessary since smoking is now banned in government buildings.

The starting bid for each ashtray is set at 19,400 yen, which is about 10% of the original cost of the most expensive ones.

I was surprised that nowhere in the story did anyone ask why the municipal government found it necessary to shell out up to 200,000 yen in taxpayer money for an ashtray.

While most Western men married to Japanese women would agree with the Japundit view that adult Japanese women don’t take marching orders from anybody, much less their husbands, Japanese people would sometimes pretend otherwise.

Occasionally, when Japanese people - and I sometimes get this vibe from Westerners, too - find that I’m married to a “Japanese woman”, I get comments like, “It’s no wonder: Japanese women are kind, considerate, and obedient, and make good mothers.” Blah blah blah. You were initially attracted to her personality? Really. There’s chemistry between the two of you? That’s nice, but you must be so happy that your wife is willing to iron your socks.

It seems that Koreans also tend to ignore personal compatibility and instead use dehumanizing stereotypes to explain “what it is about Korean women that Western men like.”

In an recent old story that somehow appeared in a Google News alert about American celebrities who are involved with Korean women, the leftish Chosun Ilbo tries to find out why Nicholas Cage is attracted to Korean-American Alice Kim:

Kenny, an executive at a (sic) LA Koreatown broadcasting company, said in an interview with a Korean broadcaster that, “Korean women are submissive and kind. They are known to make breakfast, lunch and dinner for their husbands, help their husbands well, and raise children well.”

The Chosun Ilbo, presumably unable to interview movie stars or otherwise intelligent people (and ignoring the fact that Alice Kim is a total hottie), canvassed foreign English teachers residing in Korea for their opinion:

There are also those who feel that in the eyes of Western men, East Asian women possess a sort of mysteriousness about them. They say that one can grow fond of the unknown “Orient.” 24-year-old James Cecil, an American living in Korea, said, “Even Korean women who are not thought of as pretty by Korean men can give a sense of mystery to Western men.”

Everything’s a mystery when you can’t speak the local language, James. Korean university English instructor Zane Ivy (did you know what you were getting into when they approached you on the street, Zane?) also explains why Western men are attracted to Korean women:

Korean women are conservative. They are conscience of what people around them think, depend on their families and parents and are submissive.

Take it from a married man: these are not the ideal qualities most men are looking for in a life partner, or even a girlfriend.

As well, if the Chosun Ilbo is so willing to publish such overworn (and borderline misogynistic) stereotypes about Korean women, rather than actually interview international couples themselves to find out what makes their relationships tick, it makes you wonder if the rest of the paper’s reporting, particularly of the relationship between Japan and Korea, is also lazy and lacking in depth.

And the Chosun also loses 5 points (but don’t worry, there’ll be a re-test after school) for making a spelling mistake in Zane’s quote.

Click here for an Ohmy News interview with Yuko Tojo, whose grandfather Hideki Tojo was executed as a Class A war criminal for his actions as prime minister of Japan during World War II.

[Tojo] behaved like a samurai, and took responsibility for his failures as a good soldier. But by what definition was he a criminal?

Bruce McCall comes to mind. Japan and the US are planning to build a giant floating runway off the coast of western Japan in a bid to reduce noise pollution by US military aircraft, reports the Guardian Unlimited.

The “megafloat” will be built six miles off Iwakuni, home to a US marine base, at a cost of up to ¥500bn (£2.5bn), the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said, quoting government sources.

The new runway would be used by about 70 aircraft, including F/A-18 fighters.

The jets, which serve the US aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk moored at nearby Yokosuka naval base, have been the target of complaints from residents because of the noise.

“Being four kilometres away [from land], nearby residents won’t be bothered by the noise,” the Yomiuri quoted a Japanese government official as saying.

In other military news, Stars&Stripes reports officials in Okinawa have asked that the U.S. military ban the playing of weekend “war games” in city parks.

(Officials) claim young camouflaged Americans shoot at each other with so-called airsoft or BB-guns, scaring people who use the park for more peaceful purposes and creating a risk from errant air-gun pellets.

When questioned, the game players identified themselves as Marines and their family members, a city official said. They said they played the games in the park because the air guns are not allowed on U.S. bases. One of the game participants told a city official players had strict safety standards and would halt the game if other people were in the vicinity.

An Okinawa police spokesman said since no Japanese law restricts air guns, police couldn’t intervene unless a stray pellet injured someone.

The article reports that Japanese players also participate in the war-games.

A popular temple in Taiwan known as the “Shi Ba Wang Gong” (Eighteen Lords Temple) is open 24 hours a day, and many entertainment people go there in the wee hours of the morning to pray and …. place lighted cigarettes in the incense stands.

It seems that according to legend, the “lords” honored at the Taoist temple were fond of smoking, so many worshippers light cigarettes and place them in the large incense bowls in front of the altar.

Reporter Jaya Hiranandani, writing in the English-language newspaper the China Post the other day, ended her report with this comment: “I guess the eighteen lords do not mind a little pleasure in the afterlife!”

In case you missed it, Saturday was Samba day in Tokyo.

Samba dancers from Japan and other countries gathered for the Asakusa Samba Carnival parade where they strutted their stuff to drums and whistles before hundreds of thousands of spectators.

The Asakusa Samba Carnival parade has been held each year since 1981, when the mayor of Taito ward invited the winner of Brazil’s Rio carnival to Tokyo to put on a display.

These days, teams from Brazil are joined by more than 3,000 Samba dancers from throughout Japan for a day of wild dancing in the streets.

Click here for a photo collection from this year’s Samba Carnival, courtesy of Mainichi Daily News.

For your browsing pleasure during the dog days of August, here’s a link to Frantisek Staud’s excellent photos of Japanese rock gardens, mostly in Kyoto temples. Be sure to follow the link to the 250 additional photos on another page. Staud is a professional photographer, so you can purchase prints or license images from the website.

He also has photos of a moss garden and lotus flowers, often used as a metaphor in Eastern esoteric religions. Lotus roots are eaten in Japan, by the way, and they are quite tasty.

If this appeals to you and you want to know how to make your own Japanese zen rock garden, here’s a knowledgeable explanation of the philosophy and techniques by Scott Reil that’s worth reading.

On a recent trip to Asakusa while showing visiting family members around Tokyo, I parked next to a parking meter, dutifully inserted 300 yen, and took off to see the sights. I was under the impression that I could cover any overage by adding more money when I got back.

Wronnng!

When I got back to my car, I found a ticket attached to the side mirror, with instructions to report to the nearby koban (police box). There the police on duty explained to me that parking on the street in Asakusa is strictly limited to one hour at a time, and then proceeded to write me ticket with a fine for 10,000 yen.

I got the impression that the Asakusa koban does a pretty brisk business by strictly monitoring cars parked next to meters and ticketing unwary motorists as soon as their one hour is up. (They are so gung ho that another cop almost ticketed my car again while it was parked in front of the koban where I was getting my original ticket!)

So. . . if you ever go to Asakusa and plan to stay for more than an hour, be sure to park in a parking lot and give the parking meters a pass.

An entreprising chef in Taiwan is in hot water with government officials for bragging to viewers on a recent TV show that the some of the sushi he serves at his Taipei restaurant was whale meat.

While it is legal to serve whale meat in restaurants in Japan, it is illegal in Taiwan, as the chef, Hiesh Shun-chi, knew (he said was just joking on the TV show).

He now faces a fine of around US$25,000 and a possible jail sentence of six months behind bars. He told a local newspaper that the sushi was not whale meat at all, but “black tuna that a trading company from Japan sold me.”

Sign on the mirror above the sinks in the toilet at Tokyo Tower.

Many Western men married to Japanese women have at some time been subjected to the petulant accusation by Western women that they chose their wives because “Japanese women will do anything you say”.

This is so silly and presumptuous it’s difficult not to laugh in their faces. Adult Japanese women don’t take marching orders from anybody, much less their husbands, as any one of us married to them will attest. Besides, this complaint is just a badly disguised combination of ignorance and—let’s make no bones about this—jealousy, so there’s nothing much to do but shrug it off.

While I realize it’s unfair to make sweeping generalizations, and there are always exceptions on both sides, there are still some significant differences between Japanese women and Western women that make me glad I wound up married to one of the former instead of one of the latter. (And yes, I also realize I could be digging myself a very deep hole here.)

Explaining those differences would not be easy and would require too many generalizations to be meaningful, so I usually don’t try. This week, however, while reading a newspaper article on a subject entirely unrelated to Japan, I came across a passage that so clearly highlights the difference, I thought I should bring it up here.

The article is from the Washington Post, and can be found here. It’s about a 32-year-old career minor league baseball player named Rick Short. Short had spent about 10 years in the minor leagues without ever playing in a major league game until this year, when he was called up briefly twice to play for the Washington Nationals. He’s one of those players good enough to get hired every year by a minor league team (and once by a Japanese team), but not quite good enough to play in the major leagues. (He doesn’t hit many home runs, and hitters like that need to play very good defense.)

He’s the subject of an article because he’s having a tremendous season—Short may wind up hitting .400 for the year. This hasn’t been done in the major leagues since 1941 by Ted Williams, and in the minor leagues since 1961 by Aaron Pointer, who also had some famous singing sisters.

The reporter interviewed Short’s wife about their life together. Mrs. Short was not much of a baseball fan before they got married, but this is what she said:

“You have no idea how many people have told me, ‘I wouldn’t let my husband play that long without getting to the big leagues,’ ” she says. “I would say, ‘You never say never.’ I can’t make him quit; this is what he loves.”

There you have it in one sentence. Western women tell Mrs. Short, “I wouldn’t let my husband…” Oh, you wouldn’t? And when did women become the final arbiters of their husband’s career? As I said, generalizations are dangerous and there are exceptions, but the average Japanese woman would never presume to take this attitude about her husband’s career choice.

That isn’t to say they meekly roll over for everything their husbands do or want to do. For example, my wife would never let me join a yakuza gang, spend the monthly house payment on pachinko, or sleep with the neighbor lady next door. To be more precise, if I did, I would soon be wifeless. By the same token, if my wife had refused to allow me to become a freelance translator instead of remaining a salaried drone at some company, she would soon have been without a husband.

Note how Mrs. Short says, You have no idea how many people have told me… Doesn’t that suggest how commonplace that attitude is among women in the West? JP and I have talked about this subject before, and he has a great story about it. Perhaps we can convince him to blog about it someday. Without going into too much detail, he studied for his university degree in the States on the GI Bill while working full time during the day. He knew several other men at school doing the same thing, but he was the only one of the group to stick to the plan and graduate. All the other men were forced to quit school by their wives because they weren’t spending enough time at home. JP’s wife, a very pleasant Japanese woman, was the only one of the group with enough foresight to realize that being patient until he earned his degree would pay off handsomely for the whole family down the road.

In the town where I live, there’s an American named Jimmy who’s married to a Japanese woman and runs a tavern. Jimmy and his wife spent many years living in the States before moving to Japan. He once told me that when they lived in the U.S., he had an arrangement with his buddies to go bowling and have a few beers one night a week. He said that along about 10 o’clock, he would suggest having another beer, but all his friends would look at their watches and reply, “Naw, it’s getting late, I’d better be getting home.”

Translation: If I don’t go home now, my wife will kill me.

That isn’t to say Jimmy’s wife thought it was just ducky for him to be spending that time on his own drinking beer, but she wasn’t presumptuous enough to say anything about it, especially considering that it was only one night a week and he wasn’t leaving his family starving and barefoot. And of course, if Jimmy had a hangover, he knew better than to look to his wife for sympathy. “Don’t complain about it to me. You’re the one who decided to drink that much.”

That might as well be my wife speaking, and perhaps that’s just what Mrs. JP would say, too. Perhaps the difference between Japanese women and Western women is one of a certain amount of respect for one’s partner as an individual. It would be ironic if that were the case, as Western women usually are the ones to complain about the lack of respect shown by their husbands to them as individuals. In addition, respect for the individual is usually thought of as a characteristic of Western nations, not Japan.

Japan? Are you out of your mind?

While I’m on the subject of presumptuous behavior, I’ll bring up another brief article that caught my eye today in The Japan Times. It’s just a short bit of filler they run on Saturdays called The Japanese Experience, so I don’t think it’s on line. The idea is for foreign residents to write a brief note about their life in Japan. Today’s column is only five paragraphs long, and it’s called Going Home Satisfied. The author has spent 2 1/2 years in Japan with his wife and children and is about to return to the United States. He writes about the wonderful time they had in Japan.

Here’s how he starts the second paragraph:

We came here because of a job opportunity of my wife’s. Many people back home thought we were crazy or running away from something when we told them we were moving to Japan.

Crazy to move to Japan? Running away from something? Why do Westerners say things like this to other people? What makes them think that other people would even care? To be frank, I would barely tolerate that from any member of my immediate family. If a friend said that to me, that would be the end of the friendship. Yet, this man—who seems normal and well-adjusted from his photo—says many people thought… Even allowing for exaggeration, one person spouting off like that is already one too many. Again, though I’m sure there are exceptions, I can’t imagine anyone in Japan saying the same thing to a friend or a family member.

Notice also that the man came to Japan because of his wife’s job opportunity, while Mrs. Short’s women friends said, I wouldn’t let my husband… Fascinating contrast, isn’t it?

Everyone who lives for a long time away from their native country eventually reaches a point when they start to wonder whether their country has changed that much since they’ve been away, or whether they were the ones who’ve changed. Most of the time, they realize they were the ones to have changed.

Speaking for myself, I’m very thankful. And I’m keeping the change.

The Financial Times is reporting that Al-Qaida is getting ready to attack Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, or some other large financial center of Asia. The purpose of the attack is said to be to undermine investor confidence.

“We have several elements of information that make us think that countries in this region, especially Japan, could have been targeted,” Jean-Louis Bruguiere told the British paper. “Any attack on a financial market, like Japan, would mechanically have an important economic impact on the confidence of investors,” Bruguiere said. “Other countries in this region such as Singapore and Australia are also potential targets.”

The only time in Japan I can remember being turned away from a restaurant or shop because of being a foreigner was one night, back in the mid-90’s when I tried to get into a strip club in Mishima, Shizuoka. It didn’t matter really, because the tuxedoed doorman at the club next door tried to entice me into his place, but my nerves were shot I and went back to the Yokohama Tire dormitory where I was spending the week.

While foreigners in Korea have their own problems, at least they have a red light district to call their own. BootsnAll Travel’s Conor Purcell provides a graphic description of Seoul nightlife, focussing especially on the seedy Itaewon area that caters especially to foreigners who are looking for sex:

On any given weekend, from dusk to dawn and beyond, you will see parading US GI’s, Russian pimps, drunk Arabs, wasted Koreans and zombie-like English teachers swarming the main thoroughfare, all in the pursuit of pleasure. Violence is as frequent as it is unavoidable. The irresistible mixture of sex, testosterone and alcohol fuels a tense undercurrent that runs through Itaewon once the sun goes down.

Most of the action is centered around ‘Hooker Hill’, which, predictably enough is not somewhere for that Sunday afternoon family stroll. No, Hooker Hill is the main red light district in Seoul catering for Westerners, mainly US servicemen. Walking up the hill once the sun goes down is a trying experience. Heavily made up Korean whores literally try and drag you into their ‘bars’. Shouting things like “You want play?”, “Me want talk to you…two minute…come on baby…”

Getting back to Japan, the Foreign Correspondants Club of Tokyo has posted a number of articles in its No. 1 Shimbun section. While one article documents a press conference with the Japanese Society for Textbook Reform, there are other interesting posts as well, including one about why war criminals are victims too:

It is said that Japan surrendered unconditionally — I myself learned so at school. But Japan surrendered by accepting the Potsdam Declaration. “Unconditionally” meant that troops in the front line would “disarm with no conditions.” Counsel Kiyose pointed out that the Allied forces should have observed the clauses of the declaration, which doesn’t mention punishing “class- A war criminals” for crimes against peace — something not stipulated in international law. It is obvious, therefore, that the Allies did not have the authority to punish “class-A war criminals.” Nor did General MacArthur, who was appointed supreme commander for the Allied powers.

Other weekend reading: Earlier this spring, the Globe and Mail ran a series of articles (registration required) about “the Japanese recovery.” While this theme has been done many, many times before over the last decade, the series is still worth reading.

In a story titled Juggling Tension and TradeLeo Lewis says:

Tokyo and Beijing may not always see eye to eye, but managers in both countries have at least agreed on one thing — that it is a profound mistake to view the future relationship as a zero-sum game.

Japan’s recovery from long years of slump is coming because so much of what Japanese industry does well complements China’s staggering growth. As China’s middle classes splash out as consumers, Japan is ready to sell them high-end electronics. As China’s industry and constructors demand better and better components, machines and materials, Japan is perfectly placed to turn on the taps.