Archive for February, 2009

Immigration raids curry restaurant chain in Tokyo

Tokyo immigration raided a famous chain of curry restaurants yesterday and FTV was on hand to capture the action:

Authorities were acting on information that the Jhonny, the Bangladeshi owner of the “Curry Kakumei” restaurant chain, had created fake documents in order to obtain skilled labor visas for his Bangladeshi staff. When raided, Jhonny initially claimed that he had nothing to do with the fake chef credentials his employees had been using, but he eventually admitted his involvement.

The raid also revealed the cramped room in the restaurant building that was provided as housing for the Bangladeshi employees. The floor of their single room had only enough room for their futons. A former employer interviewed claimed that he was forced to work 14-hour days and paid only 100,000 yen a month (a little over $1,000).

Before being taken away, Jhonny told the reporter that this was probably the end of his restaurant chain. It seems that it is, since immigration authorities plan on deporting him.

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JAXA to offer astronaut training tours (in English!)

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced it will offer astronaut training tours to the public:

Training tour participants must be of third-grade primary school age or older.

Four types of tours have been planned, including:

– Wearing a lightweight space suit used when conducting external activities at the International Space Station

– Experiencing emergency measures undertaken when an air leak occurs inside the ISS.

It is possible to undergo the space training in English, as the astronauts themselves do.

Each course lasts about 45 minutes and members of the public can apply for up to three courses. Individual courses costs 2,100 yen, with three courses costing 3,150 yen.

For enquires and reservations, contact Tsukuba Space Center at (0298) 55-2014.

More tourist information on the Tsukuba Space Center can be found on its official homepage.

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Organs for sale: Japanese tourists received illegal kidney and liver transplants in China

The Chinese government has began an investigation into the activities of a hospital after the Japanese press broke a story about 17 Japanese who traveled there and paid large sums of money for organ transplants:

“China strongly opposes organ transplant tourism,” the Ministry of Health said Tuesday in a statement on its Web site, adding that the hospitals and medical personnel “who carried out the organ transplants against the rules will be severely dealt with according to the law.”

China has banned all transplants for foreigners – so-called “organ tourists” – because an estimated 1.5 million Chinese are on waiting lists for transplants. The ban was issued May 1, 2007.

The ministry’s investigation, reported in the state-run newspaper China Daily, comes after a report by the Kyodo News agency in Japan that the 17 tourists had spent the equivalent of $87,000 each for the operations. The price reportedly included travel, accommodation and 20 days of treatment at a hospital in Guangzhou, in southern China.

At the request of the hospital, some of the Japanese patients registered under Chinese names, the Kyodo report said. Most of the patients were between 50 and 65 years old.

The agency also said most of the organs were probably harvested from executed Chinese prisoners.

A few days ago, USA Today reported on the launch of new mobile execution chambers in China. The “death vans” are equipped with cameras and recording equipment that will apparently discourage authorities from harvesting and selling the organs of executed prisoners.

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How could you, a foreigner, know more about Japan than any Japanese?

Author Roger Pulvers commented in the Japan Times a few days ago about his experiences living in Japan since the late 1960′s. He noted that he has seen changes in Japanese attitudes toward foreigners, especially regarding the concept of whether one has to have Japanese blood to understand and appreciate some aspects of Japanese culture:

Conversations with Japanese people about Japan used to fall into one of two patterns.

Pattern 1: You say something absolutely banal and ordinary about Japan, like: “I have lived here for two whole years now, and I’ve noticed that Japanese people make a noise when they eat noodles.” The Japanese person then exclaims: “Yoku gozonji desu ne!” (“You know us so well!”). In other words, you are fulsomely praised for stating the obvious.

Pattern 2: This pattern has two parts. Say something novel about Japan, something that is not within the bounds of conventional wisdom, and you may very well be met with guarded disbelief. After all, how could you, a foreigner, know more about Japan than any Japanese? Or you might be dismissed as someone who doesn’t understand the real Japan — meaning the Japan that Japanese people “genetically” comprehend.

This, too, has, by and large, changed.

Japanese people today are generally much more attuned to the outside world than the two previous generations, and they relate to foreigners more naturally, without the old provincial hangups.

The quaint “Amerika Hijiki” obeisance to Americans on a personal level is largely a thing of the past, though it seems to be alive and licking among Japanese politicians. Equally, I doubt that any foreigner would be met with shouts of “Amerikajin da!” by a Japanese child today. In fact, most Japanese people are open to contacts with foreigners even to the extent of being more frank and forthcoming in their company than they might be with their own.

Compared to the Japan that I first encountered many years ago, Japanese society has internationalized and become open-minded, and there is no reason to believe that these attitudes will not continue to develop even further.

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Guard sends birthday cards to ex-POW

The Daily Mail reports on how former POW John Baxter became friends with Japanese prison guard Hyato Hirano:

Mr Hirano risked being beaten by his fellow guards by offering starving prisoners food and water, and when Mr Baxter returned to Japan in 1995 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of VJ day he tracked down his former captor.

The pair have kept in touch ever since, and yesterday Mr Baxter opened a card sent by Mr Hirano to celebrate the retired plumber’s 90th birthday tomorrow.

It reads: ‘Many happy returns. I am currently spending my days in and out of hospital, but I am well otherwise. I wish you the best of health.’

Mr Baxter, a grandfather from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, said: ‘I have absolutely no resentment about the Japanese of today.

‘In fact, I think they are a good indication of everything human nature should be. They are respectful, polite and always willing to stop and talk to you.’

He went on: ‘I was not as badly treated as some in my camp. There are those who finished the war with hideous deformities and mental issues they will never resolve.

‘There are men who I know still hate all the Japanese and won’t so much as discuss them, let alone travel to meet them.

‘For me, I have moved on. There’s absolutely no point in dwelling on the past. You have to move on and understand we were living in very different times.’

Baxter’s memoirs are available at ForgottenTitles.com.

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Francis Xavier & Ruiji Izumi

Did you know that a blood relative of the Saint Francis Xavier is currently living in Japan? Saturday night’s episode of Sekai Ichi Uketai Jyugyou introduced him to television viewers in a short trivia segment:

Ruiji Izumi (Luis Fontes prior to naturalization) is a descendant of Francis Xavier’s brother. Just like Xavier, he is a Jesuit priest. According to JCN, he works at a church in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

In 2005, he wrote a book of life lessons in Japanese, which appears to be out of print. Amazon.co.jp is also selling a book about Ruiji Izumi’s life.

Interesting factoid mentioned in the video clip: The painting of Francis Xavier at the top of this post, which is a familiar image in almost every Japanese history textbook, was actually painted long after Xavier’s death. He may have looked nothing like the man in that painting, and as a Jesuit he probably would not have sported a semi-shaved head.

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