Archive for May, 2010

Zainichi Korean J-Leaguers Will Play in World Cup (for North Korea)

NTV news reports on how 3 professional soccer players who were born and raised in Japan will be playing for the glory of one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships in the 2010 World Cup:

The three players are of Korean ancestry, choosing to hold on to the Korean citizenship of their parents rather than naturalize and become Japanese. They all play professionally in Japan on J-League teams. Although they do not live in North Korea, the North Korean government recognized their soccer skills and requested that they join the national team.

In this clip, the North Korean team is shown wearing t-shirts with the slogan “1966 again” – a reference to the stunning performance their national team gave in that year’s World Cup. [The shirts presumably do not refer to how many of the 1966 team members ended up in the gulags upon their return to North Korea.]

Ahn Young-Hak, a player for the Omiya Ardija J-league team, is interviewed about his expectations. He seems to be proud to be representing North Korea and hopes that the team’s strong sense of unity will help it win some matches. North Korea’s position in the “group of death” will put it up against incredibly strong teams, so any victory could be hailed as a repeat of the surprise of 1966.

Relevant Link: The Wall Street Journal has an article up about the North Korean soccer team. It includes some quotes from Ahn.

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Are U.S. Bases in Japan Dangerous?

Here’s another clip from that ATV program that criticized the American practice of naming bases in Japan after war heroes. In this section, they attempt to teach viewers about the U.S. Marine Corps:

According to explanation, the Marine Corps is an branch of the U.S. military that is used offensively. They are sent to other countries to fight.

This seems to surprise comedian Toshiaki Kasuga, who thinks that hosting an American attack force could invite other countries to retaliate against Japan. The ATV graphics team judges this to be an important point, going so far as to create a sensational animation of jets dropping bombs all over Okinawa [see 1:37 into the video].

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Hollywood Stars Make Propaganda PSA for Dolphin Rights Activists

I received an e-mail this morning from Social Radius, a PR agency that helps corporations spread propaganda on the internet. They seem to have noticed that this blog is related to Japan, so they assume that I will help them spread the word about a new promotional video created by the

The producers of the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, so highly controversial in Japan, have released a new PSA featuring a number of A-list American celebrities, which is now available with Japanese subtitles. The video is geared towards collecting signatures for a petition to be presented to the governments of Japan and the USA, calling for an end to the dolphin slaughters in Taiji and thereby the multitudes of murky ethical issues and acute health risks the long-secret killings generate.

The message behind The Cove has been well-publicized and well-received in America, but the Japanese response to the film has been largely negative and its general release in Japan is continually threatened. However, the producers are continuing to work at bringing to film to the people most directly effected by the toxic levels of mercury dolphin meat holds. Would you be willing to help reach the Japanese audience by running the PSA on your blog? It can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uBfafEcqGU

I normally ignore press releases that are sent my way, but since I’ve been posting a lot recently about “The Cove,” it seems like it would be relevant to mention this new PSA.

Let’s take a look at the video:

The following points are introduced in an attempt to convince Japanese people to stop Taiji’s Dolphin hunt:

1. Dolphins are playful and fun.
2. Dolphins are intelligent.
3. Dolphins can swim really fast.
4. Dolphins can understand us.
5. Dolphins save human lives.
6. Dolphins are brutally killed in Japan.
7. Dolphin meat contains toxic levels of mercury.
8. The majority of people in Japan do not even know this is happening.

The Japanese media has already devoted a considerably amount of coverage to this issue, so it might be fair to say that a pretty large percentage of Japanese people are now well-aware of what is happening at Taiji. Japanese who have paid attention to the many news reports will see this video and recognize same old irrational, emotional, and subjective arguments that activists have made over and over again in their campaign. The fact that we now have celebrities delivering talking points on behalf of the animal rights groups changes nothing.

The second-to-last point on the list, that of the “toxic levels” of mercury in the dolphin meat, is probably the only reasonable argument they have for their cause. However, as we’ve seen, a newly-released study by the National Institute for Minamata Disease has examined over 1,000 Taiji residents and found nobody with mercury-related health problems. Some, such the the director of “The Cove,” claim that the study is all part of a conspiracy to hide the truth. Others have said that because the study was “voluntary,” one can conclude that the study is probably worthless. (Are we to assume that most credible public health surveys involve forcing people to participate against their will? )

Finally, let’s think about the main message of the PSA – a call for viewers to visit www.takepart.com/thecove so that they can join the movement against the dolphin hunt. Apparently in their big PR effort to translate this high budget video into Japanese, they failed to notice something important: that website is in English. There is no option to view the site in Japanese. Even if a Japanese person watched the subtitled video and, by some remote chance, agreed with its message, he/she would find that one must understand English to participate in this Japan-centric activism campaign. Bravo, guys, Bravo.

Update: I checked my e-mail this morning to find a message from Social Radius. It would seem they don’t even check the blogs they send PR spam messages to:

“I wanted to follow up with you about the PSA from the producers of THE COVE I emailed you about yesterday. Have you had a chance to check it out yet? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and it’d be wonderful if you could run something about it on your site.”

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Alcohol + Rivers = Danger

During the Golden Week Holiday, many people gathered by the Tama River in Tokyo to have BBQ parties, ans as this footage from FTV demonstrates, a few of them got very drunk and decided to play in the river:

In one case, a guy was nearly swept away by the fast flow of the river. He was able to pull himself onto the safety of dry land, where he drunkenly admitted on camera that the experience was pretty scary.

Later, the reporter finds a naked guy who seems to have cut himself while tumbling around in the shallows. He spits some alcohol onto his wounds to “disinfect” them and thanks the reporter for warning him about the danger of such activities.

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An Embarrassing Moment for Japan’s Foreign Minister

NTV reports on a scene from Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada’s visit to South Africa last week, where he and South African Minister for International Relations Maite Nkoana-Mashabane were supposed to give eachother personalized soccer jerseys:

Okada presented Maite with her own Team Japan soccer jersey, apparently signed by Japan’s top soccer players. In return, he received a South African soccer jersey with “HATOYAMA” written on it. Ouch.

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Cove Director: Taiji Mercury Study Was Not “Real Test”

As we saw yesterday, the National Institute for Minamata Disease released a results of a study on mercury levels in the hair of the residents of Taiji in Wakayama Prefecture, a town that probably eats more whale and dolphin meat that any other in Japan. Of the 1,137 residents tested, a mere 43 were found to have mercury levels in their body exceeded WHO warning levels, but researchers could find no mercury-related health problems.

Here’s a report from FTV about the issue:

A Taiji resident, evidently happy to hear the results of the study, is shown proudly proclaiming that he will continue to eat whale meat. Whale meat lovers in Chiba prefecture express their satisfaction. One shopper buying whale meat wonders why so much focus was put on dolphin and whale meat, when other fish also contain mercury.

One of the central arguments of “The Cove,” a documentary produced by American animal rights activists, is that the town of Taiji and the Japanese government are actively encouraging the sale of whale and dolphin meat while failing to tell consumers about the “dangerous” levels of mercury in such meat. When interviewed over the phone about the new study results from the National Institute for Minamata Disease, Louie Psihoyos, the director of the film absolutely refused to acknowledge that the research might reflect reality. Psihoyos seems to believe that the National Institute for Minamata Disease, an organization staffed by researchers who devote their entire careers to protecting Japanese people from mercury poisoning, is falsifying its research. Supporters of “The Cove” will probably agree with this conspiracy theory.

The FTV report ends with an explanation on how methyl mercury exists in marine life, with mercury levels increasing as one goes up the food chain. The news anchor makes no judgment about the safety of eating whale, dolphin, or tuna.

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