Gigantic Indonesian infant brought to Japan to entertain TV viewers

A very large 1-month-old Indonesian baby is being brought to Japan for a TV show:

Metro TV reported that the baby boy was invited by the Japanese Medical Association and will be sponsored by a domestic television network. He will leave for Japan by month’s end after the Japanese Consulate General in Medan, on the island of Sumatra, finishes processing his visa.

But the plan to bring the baby to Japan has sparked controversy, despite his doctor’s support, as some of his neighbors claim he will be exploited by Japanese doctors and media.

It’s hard to see this as anything more than a plan by a Japanese TV network to entertain viewers by promising to show them a freakishly large infant. Although it is exploitation, hopefully the family of the child is being paid a generous amount of money for the TV appearance.

—

Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

27 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - October 26, 2009 at 6:09 am

Categories: Foreigners in Japan Tags:

lovely

what passes for entertainment in this country truly astounds me, even after almost 20 years. i thought freak shows were something from the past.

Weirdo

Why this country? You’re naive if you think it’s something exclusive to Japan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S30ooGg65E

HamachiMan

Well we all should know by now, “only” Japan does this sort of thing. No other country exploits human tragedy, the human condition, or anything and everything inbetween in the search of the almighty t.v. ratings. Heck if some kid allegedly flew in a runaway balloon or some kid was found after being abducted decades ago, Japan would…oh wait, never mind.

And come on now, who are we kidding. The family of this infant was most assuredly compensated handsomely. If hollywood celebrities get paid insane amounts of money for a 10 second commercial, surely people from around the world will get compensated for appearing on Japanese tv. It may not be on the level of what hollywood celebrities get, but it sure is more than enough to compensate some of these guests based on the standard of living in their native countries.

Oh, and let’s not forget it takes ‘two to tango.’ If one is going to criticize the entire country of Japan for “exploitation,” they shouldn’t leave out the people themselves who offer their services to the Japanese media. It’s not like the Japanese media abducted or forced these people to appear on t.v., they willingly volunteered to do so. How is that “exploiting” someone?

Another example of double standards.

Supercoolmanchu

First of all, I’ve always enjoyed this site. I understand James wanting to create an active debate in these threads, but I can’t help but notice lately he’s got somewhat of Debito-esque inclinations in choosing what to post on this site sometimes. Not all the time, but it’s like he’s nit-picking the the worst parts of Japan for the sake of arousing a reaction. For someone who seemingly loves Japan for all that it is, the overall tone of this site unfortunately is quite negative consistently throughout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGHFmjookcU
http://www.yourtango.com/200919417/wolfboy-gets-dating-show
The Overthinker

Here’s the list of recent updates:
————-
The world’s smallest girl visits Japan

Japanese researchers observe altruistic chimps

Fast food breakfast battle

Gigantic Indonesian infant brought to Japan to entertain TV viewers

Electric Delorean in Japan

Japanese mascots hold summit in Hikone

Japanese guy with a big mouth

Cola Shock Zero

Sting wants Japanese people to buy his album

Zoo-themed construction site in Japan

Anime Makeup

Ultraman drives a Honda

Windows 7 Whopper

Windows 7 Fail
————–
Which of these are negative? Two or three at most.
http://dimesfornickels.wordpress.com/ William George

More comment arguments = more page views = bigger ad payouts

CONSPIRACY EXPOSED!
Supercoolmanchu

I think Ultraman driving a Honda is a slap on the face of Japanese people. It’s a shame you can’t recognize that.

Alright alright.. so maybe it’s not so consistent as it seems.

I guess his negative posts tend to stick out to me like thorns on a rose. Granted, few and far between, maybe once a week at most, but when one pricks you, you remember it. His recent use of translation services posting racist comments by asinine Japanese bloggers which reflects on the Japanese online community probably left somewhat of an impression. And the ever so popular blackface series on Japanese TV never misses a beat here on this site. All that tends to arouse a “what the hell is wrong with the Japanese” Debito-esque discussion on these threads.

Hey, like I said, I enjoy the site and I always have. Forgive me for being Japanese and being a bit more sensitive to these things.
pixel_bomber

I’m glad that not all of the articles are 100% pro Japan. Japan has problems just like the rest of the world, what the point of pretending it’s perfect? Besides the bad judgment of a few people does not represent a country. Certainly you don’t believe that everything you hear about people in the media is an accurate representation of their home countries.
The Overthinker

“Certainly you don’t believe that everything you hear about people in the media is an accurate representation of their home countries.”

Otherwise I’d be afraid to ever set foot in the US….
Montsan

@Overthinker

Actually, the past several days have been pretty peaceful. Before that we were getting rather frequent “hot-topic posts” that would include all of the myGengo-translated 2chan quotes. Was not a fan of those, but I’m just a reader. :-/
pixel_bomber

Otherwise I’d be afraid to ever set foot in the US….

Exactly my point.
Ninsheart

Actually, the translated 2ch posts were pretty interesting in my opinion.
http://www.japanprobe.com James

William George:

More comment arguments = more page views = bigger ad payouts

Let me fix that statement:

More comment arguments = the same five users loading the page many times, not having much of any impact on the per-IP-address counting system of most advertising systems = no significant ad revenue increase

Even in posts with 50+ comments, most of the comments are being left by the same handful of users.

A couple posts a week seem to anger a few readers, but the most popular posts by far are the posts of light-hearted videos. On the balance, I’d like to think that this site is improving the image of Japan around the world, although I don’t post with some grand plan in mind. I live in Japan, so I post about stuff that I find interesting, amusing, or annoying.

(If I lived in some other country and blogged about TV over there, I’m sure I’d complain about their freak show variety programming.)

http://dimesfornickels.wordpress.com/ William George

So remember, parents: Baby = Great way to make some cash.
k9

obviously, there is something evil & hostile intention against the baby and indonesians by JP media. Indonesian government should blame the JP media. www
Ajapa

An article on SFGate:
“Giant baby draws spectators to Indonesian hospital”
By DENNY SITOHAN, Associated Press Writer
Friday, September 25, 2009

According to this:

Indonesia’s heaviest-ever newborn drew curious crowds Friday to a hospital…

Crowds pushed to get a peek of the extraordinary boy…

“This is fantastic,” Dewi Miranti, a mother from a nearby village, said as she peered through a window with about a hundred other people….

He might be already in danger of exploitation… Not by Japanese but by Indonesian. I don’t know about “some of his neighbors” who are worried about exploitation by Japanese doctors and media. I hope it’s not referring to those two babies around him in the above photo. However, it is natural that some people around him are getting nervous on how he would be treated, especially, under circumstances which are beyond them. Thus, it is not clear if putting much emphasis on “Japanese” is appropriate here. Also note that a 41 years old diabetic mother gave birth to an unusually heavy baby; it may imply the necessity of more advanced medical care and medical devices. So, it would be too hasty to jump into the discussion of possible exploitation by Japanese people.

An article which might be regarded malicious was found on the Japan Times? (actually provided by Kyodo) Are there anything new?

pixel_bomber

Ah c’mon man, just because some one else is already exploiting the kid doesn’t mean it’s cool for the Japanese media to fly him over here. Putting a 1 month infant on an airplane seems unnecessarily risky to his health. I know I would not want to subject my child to that.

Yea you can just blame the parents if you want. But is it so hard to admit that maybe a Japanese person is being really dumb in this situation? Someone offered the family money to send the kid to Japan, and the family was dumb/desperate enough to take it. There is really no need to deflect every negative thing away from Japan. We all know Japanese are just people, not better or worse than anyone else. People do dumb stuff all over the world.

Ajapa

pixel_bomber,

Ah c’mon man, just because some one else is already exploiting the kid doesn’t mean it’s cool for the Japanese media to fly him over here.

Please point out which part of my comment indicated so. Anyway, I feel hostility toward me from your comment, so I will not be polite nor rational here.

Putting a 1 month infant on an airplane seems unnecessarily risky to his health.

Ah, I hadn’t imagined that he must be transferred by an usual airplane with commonly available child seats without accompanied by medical staffs. I would reject any offer from anyone to transport myself from an isolated mountain village to a hospital by a helicopter when I am weakened for some reason. I will not take any risk. No discussion are required for understanding precise conditions.

Yea you can just blame the parents if you want. But is it so hard to admit that maybe a Japanese person is being really dumb in this situation

You think I am about to blame the parents? Why? Not only media people but also doctors can of course be really really dumb in this situation, I’m sure.

Someone offered the family money to send the kid to Japan, and the family was dumb/desperate enough to take it.

Yeah, it’s all about money and dumb/desperate people. We don’t need to consider things from various aspects and viewpoints.

There is really no need to deflect every negative thing away from Japan.

We all know that there are no people who are already in deflection as evident from comments posted to various Japan Probe entries.

We all know Japanese are just people, not better or worse than anyone else.

No need to mention on this. I think I already did without giving any suggestion for the necessity of reasoning and rationalizing. Just believing so is enough.

People do dumb stuff all over the world.

I’m very sure here now.

pixel_bomber

Ajapa,

Sorry, I made assumptions about your previous response. I assumed that your statement

He might be already in danger of exploitation… Not by Japanese but by Indonesian. meant that you were saying the Japanese television station that invited him was not exploiting him at all.

I agree this article is brief but it does not mention any need for the child to receive any special care due to his size that is not available in his home country. So I made assumptions that they simply wanted to bring him here because he was unusually large. I do have access to Japanese variety programming and this seemed pretty consistent with the type of thing they might find entertaining.

Also I made assumptions that he might travel by commercial air liner. Personally I would never want to take a 1 month old on a commercial air flight with their still developing immune system. Not to mention the discomfort he would feel due to cabin pressure etc. I may be overly cautious but I would not take such a young infant on a commercial flight unless I had to.

We all know that there are no people who are already in deflection as evident from comments posted to various Japan Probe entries.

There are some people on this website who typically try to steer the subject away from the topic. Instead of discussing the topic simply attempting to change the focus to how some other country is worse. Or how some unrelated situation would be worse in X country. Personally I feel that deviating from the topic in this manner only weakens any arguments the person is trying to make. In this example your response was to say he was in danger of exploitation by Indonesians not by Japanese. A more accurate statement would have been to say everyone wants to exploit this child. When I read read your statement I felt that you were trying to say the Japanese television station is innocent of exploitation. Anyway, this is just my observation.
Ajapa

pixel_bomber,

Thanks for response. But I must now apologize my rude behaviour, honestly it was unexpected since I was awaiting for an invective or expecting mere neglect. I admit that my writing was poor and it could have caused problems, but forgive me as I’m merely an occasional English user.

So I made assumptions that they simply wanted to bring him here because he was unusually large. I do have access to Japanese variety programming and this seemed pretty consistent with the type of thing they might find entertaining.

To speak honestly, I have long been not watching TV regularly, especially variety programs and drama series, because they are mostly out of my taste, to say more, I sometimes feel a little ashamed for their silliness.

I won’t deny the possibility that it would result in an usual Japanese variety TV program, rather, I also worry that it might be more plausible result. However, I am not confident on my expectation as I rarely watch TV these days.

To state more clearly on my view, I think, it’s worth emphasizing that the Japanese Medical Association is involved in this matter. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the situation of “Shimura Zoo” where a chimpanzee, Pan-kun, made appearance repeatedly and various “heart-warming” series of stories of an animal, e.g. an immature infant animal and a retired guide dog, and a celebrity were created with support and/or backup of a zoo or an institution. I can’t judge this TV program is exploiting animals since I think I should leave the decision to experts. Another example of comparison could be a documentary about daily life of a pregnant celebrity and her fetus until the birth. I don’t call it exploitation to a fetus. Is the maternity nude considered exploitation to fetuses just because money is involved and (some of) Japanese media are supposed to be dumb?

Also, I doubt that invitation of a gigantic infant actually bring an enough benefit to compensate costs spent for transferring him to Japan carefully and providing sufficient medical care to him. I don’t assume doctors are completely losing their control in front of offerings by the TV company, but rather I assume they have an interest as a medical researcher.

The parents, doctors of Akbar, Japanese doctors, and TV people may have their own benefit and interest on this matter. I suspect a little that the parents might want to experience a life in unknown place far from thier home, with a good excuse supplied by a TV person that it give a chance for accessing advanced and costly medical devices and a decent medical care for free. This “excuse” for the parents might be main interest for doctors of Akbar as it can be hardly believed that the hospital Akbar now staying has good equipment, judged from photos and video clips. I think it stands upon a subtle balance of benefits of each parties.

Also I made assumptions that he might travel by commercial air liner.

This assumption particularly gave me a suspicion that you are not careful nor rational in your first reply. To me, there are no reason to assume that he might be brought to Japan with a single or few flight(s) like travel from Japan to Hawaii. Rather, I imagined that metropolises and million-populated cities with sufficient medical institutions and facilities, exist midway from Sumatra to Japan, could be used as the stepping stones, I think, this idea is fairly reasonable if doctors are not really “dumb” and do not forget about morals as a doctor.

There are some people on this website who typically try to steer the subject away from the topic. Instead of discussing the topic simply attempting to change the focus to how some other country is worse. …[omission]… A more accurate statement would have been to say everyone wants to exploit this child.

Sorry if my first post gave an impression that I had attempted to focus on some bad situation and/or aspects of Indonesia. I did not intend to degrade Indonesian people and Akbar’s parents. It was not actual purpose to mention on curious crowds of Indonesian people, but it was an introductory remark to lead to a suspicion that people feared of exploitation might have been overly nervous and the writer of Kyodo might have considered to utilize them to make up a story of a poor infant in danger of exploitation by the Japanese. Also, I wanted to indicate that we can’t assume those Indonesian people knew something about some Japanese media’s silly aspects thus there could be serious misunderstandings regarding their reaction, motives, reason, and sentiment. My intention was mostly to appeal to wait for more detailed information, especially from people who can understand Indonesian language and then try to comprehend this whole matter from more balanced and/or unbiased standpoint.

Maybe, my sarcastic comments induced bad impression. I still wonder where “sparked controversy” and “cries of exploitation” originated from and what it means exactly. From the information I provided on another comment, it actually means exploitation by scientists and doctors?

Ajapa

Anyone found any article on this issue by Kyodo written in Japanese? No one interested in fact-checking and verification of relevance and/or reliability of the original article?

I could only find a Metro TV news clip and an article which could be considered as reporting fear of “exploitation” by Japanese. As I can’t understand (any of) Indonesian language(s), it is very difficult to find other valid source of this Kyodo’s report. According to the above Metro TV article (machine translated to English), one of the doctors monitoring Akbar seems to admit that “there is a high risk for the safety of infants who serve as research objects”; and Akbar’s condition seems to be unstable these days and “many people doubt the safety of the baby’s life when used as the object of research by Japanese specialists.”

Is this Japan Times article title “Big Indonesian baby gets invite despite cries of exploitation” really appropriate? What kind of cries of exploitation actually are there?

helical

So the baby’s name is Akbar, eh?
Don’t go to Japan … IT’S A TRAP!!

Sorry, too many Star Wars reference opportunities today.
Ninsheart

Damn. I feel sorry for the mother who gave birth to this child.
HamachiMan

It’s all a matter of perception. As Overthinker showed, the
‘negative’ topics are far fewer than normal everyday Japanese topics.

For example, if there were several stories that highlighted crimes committed by foreigners/westerners in Japan, then some would complain and say that it’s focusing on too much negativity in regards to foreigners.
http://www.usguyintokyo.com Dave Faulkmore

Freakishly large is not in a unit of measurement. How many kg is this puppy?!
sublight

“some of his neighbors claim he will be exploited”

Sounds more like jealousy that they won’t get a cut of the tourist traffic this time.
pixel_bomber

the media is responsible for all evil in the world, no doubt about it

Here I fixed it for ya.

Gigantic Indonesian infant brought to Japan to entertain TV viewers

Recent Comments

Further Reading

South Korean Government Demands That International Hydrographic Organization Use “East Sea”

Japanese Documentary About Sea Shepherd’s Protest Activities in Taiji (English Subtitles)

Babies Born on March 11th Receive Special Present

Washington Times Freelancer Slams Former Employer, Fails to Ethically Disclose Relationship?

Christopher Johnson Attempts to Silence Criticism of His “Gaijin Gulag” Article (Legal Threats!!!)

Tabloid Reports About Yu Darvish’s Love Life: Kirara Asuka & Miho Koga?

Does K-Pop Group KARA Have Ties to North Korea?

Tokyo Gate Bridge

Sara Errani Admits She Avoided Tennis Tournament in Tokyo: Feared Radiation

Chinese Workers Who Survived March 11th Tsunami Return to Tohoku

Categories

Archives

Subscribe

Japan Blogs

Korea Blogs

Linkroll

Other Asia Blogs