Archive for November, 2010

Wikileaks Reveals Boring Stuff About Japan [ #cablegate ]

The whole internet is abuzz about WikiLeaks’ releasing thousands of secret American diplomatic cables. The leak has led to juicy stories about rude and vulgar British royals and China acting as a conduit for North Korea’s arms sales.

The leaked stash contains a huge number of cables from the U.S. embassy in Tokyo, so we can expect some big Japan news stories soon. At the moment, however, journalists are still busy trying to read all the cables, so only a few rather dull tidbids about Japan have made their way into the papers. Here are three links that I found this morning.

We’ve got Masami Ito of the Japan Times writing about a classified transmission between the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the State Department from May 2009, with Taro Aso’s views on China’s leadership:

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was “very tired and seemed under a lot of pressure,” in the eyes of former Prime Minister Taro Aso when they met in Beijing in April 2009, according to a classified cable exposed by WikiLeaks…..Aso attributed his description of Wen to the fallout from the global economic crisis, while President Hu Jintao seemed “confident and relaxed.”

And the WSJ finding a 2010 transmission with vague statements about how North Korea attempted to reach out to the DPJ government:

Kim [South Korea's National Security Adviser Kim Sung-hwan] concurred with Campbell’s [Kurt M. Campbell, U.S. Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs] assessment that the DPJ was “completely different” from the LDP and agreed it was important for the DJP to coordinate with Seoul and Washington as it made preliminary overtures to Pyongyang. The North Koreans, Kim said, were clearly using several different channels to “knock on the DPJ’s door.” Kim acknowledged Campbell’s point that it was important to reach out directly to key DPJ officials like Foreign Minister Okada and Finance Minister Naoto Kan.

Iain Martin of the WSJ found made up a parody cable about how life is dull for U.S. embassy staff in Tokyo:

“Television is very big in Japan, as is anything else that involves technology. So we watch a lot of Japanese TV. There also isn’t much else for the staff here to do of an evening, frankly. And it helps keep up the language skills. Occasionally we go for a walk, and on Thanksgiving we took in one of those karaoke bars. Roger’s rendition of Living on a Prayer was scored a success by the locals. But they were less impressed by the impersonation of Lady Gaga, performed by (redacted) from the industrial espionage department. So in the evening we tend to watch television. They have this show where…” (continues for 200 words, before moving into an in-depth analysis of lessons that can be learned from Japan’s botched attempts to deal with its long-running deflation problem, and its impact on Japanese political culture.)

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Tanuki Trapped in Fountain

A video clip of a Tanuki (Japanese racoon dog) that somehow got itself stuck in a fountain in front of the offices of the Fukushima prefectural government:

After some effort, the tanuki was rescued. It will be released back into the wild after undergoing some medical treatment.

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Kabuki Star Beaten Up By “Half-Black” Man

A few days ago, Kabuki mega star Ichikawa Ebizo was admitted to the hospital with serious facial injuries after having been beaten up. Few details were reported other than the fact that there was some kind of argument that led to a fight. Ebizo and other witnesses to the brawl were not offering much information about the identity of the person who beat him up, apparently because the attacker was a yakuza or gangster of some sort.

The 32-year-old actor says he was drinking with his friends at a restaurant in Tokyo’s Nishiazabu district on Wednesday night, where they met with a group of people. He went to another restaurant with the group, where he got into an argument and was beaten up, according to the police.

Ebizo suffered injuries on his left eye and nose, and a broken front tooth, while he remains fully conscious, they said.

The police are investigating the incident as a case of suspected assault.

An article on ZakZak.co.jp included the above graphic showing the areas of Ebizo’s face that sustained damage. With his once handsome face so badly mauled, he will be out of action for a few months while doctors do their best to repair the damage.

Here’s an approximation of his appearance (created by somebody on 2-channel):

As I don’t normally follow Kabuki news, I wasn’t planning on posting about this story. However, the story took an unexpected twist yesterday when details started to emerge about the man who beat up Ebizo:

The first part of the headline states, “The Criminal was Half-Black?” It goes on to describe how Ebizo ended up drinking with a gang of some sort, and may have provoked the attack by drunkenly berating and messing with one of the gang members who had passed out. A fight broke out, and Ebizo was beaten up by a man who was described as appearing to be half-black [黒人のハーフのように見えた]. There is also speculation that the gang took Ebizo’s mobile phone, and that the star might be afraid to talk because of the private information that the phone contains.

A couple reports that appeared in the more sensational sports newspapers emphasized the huge size of the assailant by apparently quoting eyewitness accounts that compare the man to foreign athletes:

The Yomiuri’s Sports Hochi paper ran a headline in which the attacker was described as looking like Bob Sapp. The Mainichi and the Sponichi paper decided to go with another account, which describes the attacker as looking like Dennis Rodman. The Rodman comparison apparently comes from the fact that the guy had dyed hair. Ebizo is quoted as describing the man as a “black-colored” and “foreign-looking” [外国人風の色の黒い男].

The latest reports state the police have issued an arrest warrant for the man. He is apparently a 26-year-old former soccer player who used to be a forward on a junior-level J-League team.

Update: Nihon Television is reporting that the man is half-American[アメリカ人の父と日本人の母のハーフ], but ZakZak.co.jp is saying that he’s half-Central/South American[中南米系のハーフ]. Both seem to agree that the man’s mother is Japanese.

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Sea Shepherd in Taiji

FTV visits the town of Taiji in Wakayama prefecture to report on the latest tensions between animal rights activists and dolphin hunters:

They visit Taiji during the Taichiura Whale Festival, an annual event in which the residents of the small town honor the animals that they hunt for food. Visitors are amused by the presence of a cute whale mascot, and by local children pulling whale-shaped parade floats. Whale meat is also grilled and eaten.

The people of Taiji has hunted and eaten whales and dolphins for hundreds of years. They’re animals that can be eaten, not much different from pigs or cows. Many locals see dolphin and whale hunting as a part of their local culture that should be preserved and respected.

Not everyone at the festival supports Taiji’s culture of eating sea mammals. Outsiders in black shirts are trolling around the premises of the festival, filming everything. They are members of Sea Shepherd, a radical animal rights group that has become infamous in Japan for its use of violence to obstruct the activities of Japan’s whaling fleet.

Members of Sea Shepherd, led by Scott West, have been visiting Taiji every day since the September start of its dolphin hunting season. Their presence is getting a lot of attention this year because the Taiji dolphin hunt is now known all across the world because of the popularity of “The Cove.” Although their organization regularly violates the law when ramming Japanese ships on the high seas, West has declared that Sea Shepherd has promised not to violate any laws inside Japan. West and his team check the activities of Taiji’s fishermen each day, posting reports on their “Cove Guardians” blog about whether or not dolphins have been killed. (FTV’s narrator notes that they film the fishermen “without permission.”)

A dolphin hunt occurs on one of the days that FTV is in town to report on West’s activities. FTV has no problem with showing viewers clips of dead dolphins being dragged onto fishing boats. It presents the footage alongside paintings and photos that show the long history of dolphin hunts in Taiji. It is noted that Taiji’s dolphin hunt is not illegal and occurs with the permission of prefectural authorities.

A lot of focus is placed on how all of the Sea Shepherd members appear to be vegetarians. FTV follows them around a super market and their report seems to get a lot of amusement out of asking West’s daughter if she will eat meat or fish. One member tries to buy some cup ramen thinking that it is okay for vegetarians, but the FTV reporter helpfully points out that the package says it contains fish.

Mr. West eventually grows tired of having a Japanese news crew following him around. He gets angry and tells them that they are should go away because they are being “rude.” The reporter responds by asking why its wrong for him to film Sea Shepherd members, when West apparently thinks it is okay for Sea Shepherd to follow around Japanese fishermen and film them without permission. Instead of answering that question, West declares that he won’t speak to them anymore.

On November 2nd, the mayor of Taiji met with the Sea Shepherd members. FTV’s cameras were not allowed to film the meeting, which lasted two hours. When the mayor left the building, he seemed irritated by the presence of so many reporters and refused to comment on what had happened.

Scott West is eager to speak to the media after the meeting. He tells reporters that dolphins and whales are not fish, so they should not be considered a fishery resource. One of the reporters points out that Americans eat pigs, which are also mammals. West responds with a statement that falsely implies that the dolphins being hunted are endangered. A follow-up question about whether the number of dolphins is a deciding factor leads West to make a bizarre statement that equates the eating of dolphin meat to human cannibalism. He further confuses them by saying that he is a vegetarian for health reasons, not because he is an animal rights activist.

FTV was later able to get a 1-on-1 interview with the mayor of Taiji. The mayor said that Sea Shepherd’s views were the complete opposite of his own. He tells them that whaling is a crucial part of Taiji’s history and local culture. The people of Taiji obey the laws of Japan when carrying out their hunt (as opposed to Sea Shepherd, which has a reputation for law-breaking).

The anchors in the FTV news room have no sympathy for the actions of Sea Shepherd. Yuko Ando finds Sea Shepherds to be childish and hypocritical, and wonders why Sea Shepherd is focusing on Japan instead of something like the Kangaroo hunts in Australia. They introduce a graph that shows how Sea Shepherd’s increased focus on Japanese whale and dolphin hunting has been very profitable. It is projected that Sea Shepherd may raise nearly 10 times more money this year than it did in 2004. If they want to keep making boatloads of money, they will probably need to continue attacking the Japanese.

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