Archive for July, 2011

Tado Festival Participants Face Animal Cruelty Charges

Five people who participated in the 2009 Tado Festival have been charged with animal cruelty:

The five men were suspected of beating the bellies and backsides of horses with sticks and kicking them in the ribs on May 5, 2009, during a Shinto festival that dates back to the 14th century. According to Kuwana police, the five men admitted to the charges. Police had been investigating the case after receiving complaints from animal rights groups in May 2010.

The Shinto festival called “Ageuma-Shinji” (Horse-riding Shinto ritual), held every May to predict whether there will be a good rice harvest for the year, involves young men riding horses up a steep slope along the stone stairway leading to the Tado Shrine. The festival is designated by the prefecture as an intangible folklore cultural asset. It has long been pointed out that animals were abused and minors were drinking and smoking during the festival.

Some of the footage in the news report includes what appears to be people slapping the backside of horses that are running up the hill.

When the horses reach the top of the steep hill, they are expected to leap over a 3-meter embankment. It is not easy and many of the horses fall. Injuries occur: earlier this year, one horse had to be euthanized after breaking its leg during a similar festival in another part of Mie prefecture.

The charges against the 5 people represent the latest battle in a war that animal welfare groups have been waging against the festival:

One of the most vocal groups opposing the Age-Uma, the Equine Protection and Management Research Project (EPMRP), has been looking out for the welfare of horses in Japan since 2000 and started the Age-Uma Shinji campaign in 2003. Its efforts have forced changes such as halting the use of ropes to pull the horses over the wall, eliminating the beating, teasing and abuse of the horses during the event and ending the use of stimulants and other doping—at least in view of the public—to excite the horses.

The changes made to the Age-Uma in the last couple years were significant enough for the EPMRP to call off their formal campaign. But some spectators still wince at the treatment of the horses during the festival, indicating that certain issues have yet to be addressed to everyone’s satisfaction.

On the other side of the coin are the traditionalists. The Age-Uma festival dates back hundreds of years and is important enough for the government to declare it an Intangible Cultural Property of Mie Prefecture. If traditions are altered to accommodate every new wave of political correctness, are they really being maintained in their true form? Are they in danger of becoming sterilized versions of the past, cleaned up and made palatable for the modern world and thereby losing any real authenticity? It’s certainly something to ponder while watching the drunken revelry of the event.

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Top New York Chefs Prepare Food For Tohoku

A group of chefs from some of New York’s top restaurants visited Iwate prefecture over the weekend to cook for earthquake and tsunami survivors:

An excerpt from the press release that announced their visit:

Early on the morning of Sunday, July 3, the chefs and the food they have prepared with fine Japanese ingredients, will travel to Kamaishi and then on to the local community facility where they will serve a lunch to 1,000 people. Each of the visiting chefs will personally serve his own signature dish, food that they believe will offer the simple pleasure of a good meal. For example, Chef Daniel Boulud’s tender braised beef is intended as a soul satisfying, Western style comfort food, and a dish that will appeal to the Japanese lunch guests. The menu may also include specialties such as Chef Tadashi Ono’s chilled seaweed soup with sea scallop and sea urchin; Chef Bill Telepan’s miso stir fry vegetables with grilled Kuruma shrimp and seared tuna; and Pastry Chef François Payard’s rolled chocolate cake with chocolate tofu pudding, matcha green tea macarons, black sesame macarons and milk chocolate yuzu macarons – to name but a few.

The Japanese TV news report shows the chefs preparing some of the dishes in advance at the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay hotel. To support farmers and promote the safety of Japanese food, the chefs made sure that most of their ingredients had been produced in Japan.

Special focus is put on Tadashi Ono, the only Japanese chef in the group (probably because he can give interviews in the native language of the TV viewers). Ono says that he and the other chefs volunteered because they wanted to brighten the lives and give hope to disaster survivors.

Most of the people served seemed very happy to eat dishes prepared by internationally-renown chefs.

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Mexican Man Convicted Over Attempted Abduction of Daughter

A Japanese court has ruled that a Mexican man broke the law when he tried to forcefully take his daughter out of the country:

The Niigata District Court sentenced Nathanael Teutle Retamoza, 33, to two years in prison, suspended for four years, for his attempt to take the 1-year-old girl to the United States. The ruling comes at a time when the government is preparing legislation to help settle international child custody disputes.

The ruling said it was “selfish” for Retamoza to act on his urge to see his daughter, from whom he had been separated for two months, without heeding the sentiment of his former wife and her relatives.

It also noted that he prepared for the abduction well in advance as he had booked U.S.-bound air tickets for himself and his daughter beforehand.

Several months ago, sites such as Debito.org and Left Behind Parents Japan had posted messages supporting Retamoza’s cause and demanding his release from detention. Somebody also made a YouTube video explaining his Retamoza’s side of the story:

As you can see, the video implies that it was not a forced entry because the mother-in-law opened the door to the house. It states that nobody was hurt except for Retamoza, who was beaten by Japanese police officers.

The news report about his conviction mentions the many months he was detained, but it doesn’t say anything about the alleged police brutality. It would also seem that Retamoza showed remorse for the inflicting injuries on the mother-in-law:

However, the court said the prison sentence is suspended as the man regretted inflicting on his former mother-in-law injuries that required two weeks of treatment and received punishment in the forms of nearly eight months of detention and abandonment of his daughter’s custody.

Having received a suspended sentence, Retamoza is now free. A Facebook group of his supporters is seeking donations to help him buy an air ticket home to Mexico.

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Ryu Matsumoto’s Self-Destruction

Disaster Reconstruction Minister Ryu Matsumoto resigned yesterday because of public anger over his rude treatment of the governor of Miyagi prefecture (English subtitled video uploaded by kukekku):

“Regarding the maritime industry, you said you wanted to concentrate (fishing ports damaged by the disasters) from one-third to one-fifth, so you at the prefectural office should get a consensus on that. Otherwise, we won’t do anything. You’d better get these things done right.”

“(The governor) entered (the meeting room) after I did, but when you are receiving guests, you must enter the room first and then call in the guests. Listen to me, that is what they do in the Self-Defense Forces (to which Murai once belonged) where they understand the respect that should be shown to those who are senior. Do you understand? You had better shape up.”

“That last comment is off-the-record. Do you all understand? If any of you write about it, that will be the end of your company.” (To reporters covering the meeting)

The English language translation cannot capture the full rudeness of the remarks, which were delivered in the style of a boss chewing out an incompetent subordinate. Matsumoto’s anger about having to wait for the governor was also unreasonable. The governor arrived at the scheduled time: Matsumoto had arrived earlier than expected.

The threat to reporters was the icing on the cake. And what a lovely cake it was – YouTube clips of the incident received hundreds of thousands of views, and every Japanese TV network played the clip over and over on their news broadcasts.

Apparently it happened because of his blood type:

“I’m a type B (blood type) and can have the tendency to be simplistic and straightforward at times,” he said. “My intentions don’t always come across perfectly. My wife called me earlier to point that out. I think I need to reflect on that.”

For more information about this scandal, check out the posts over at Shisaku and Ampontan.

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Italian Journalist Criticizes International Media Coverage of the March 11th Disaster

The Asahi has an article up about Pio D’Emilia, an Italian journalist who thinks there were some serious problems with international media coverage of the March 11th disaster:

Some relatively benign and laughable stories are already notorious, including those that claimed Japanese were wearing face masks to guard against radiation, when the masks are commonly used to prevent hay fever symptoms. In another one, a journalist mistook a large white radish, or daikon, for a mutant radioactive carrot.

Yet D’Emilia notes there were more serious aberrations.

One journalist copied an entire article from another foreign newspaper, without verifying the facts. Despite not even visiting the place the story concerned, the reporter embellished the story with emotive descriptions. To D’Emilia’s disgust, the piece went on to win the writer a prestigious award and 5,000 euros in prize money.

According to D’Emilia, the foreign media misrepresented the situation for two reasons. Firstly, many were “parachute journalists” who arrived here knowing nothing about Japan, its culture or terrain. Secondly, many of the local correspondents chose to report indirectly from Osaka or other cities in western Japan. Some even wrote their stories from outside the country.

D’Emilia is also critical of domestic media coverage. He sees the Japanese media is too trusting of the government and Tepco, but thinks that the stress from worrying about radiation will cause more health problems than the radiation itself.

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Snake on a Train: Honduran Milk Snake Halts Japanese Bullet Train

A bullet train was forced to make an unscheduled stop on Monday after somebody found a snake on one of its seats:

A conductor found the snake on a seat in the No. 3 car of the Kodama No. 642 train at about 9 a.m. Monday. The train originated in Shin-Osaka and was bound for Tokyo.

The conductor asked the sole passenger in the car to evacuate to another coach and closed doors to confine the snake. Staff from the prefectural Animal Shelter in Konan, Shiga Prefecture, captured the snake and turned it over to local police. No one was injured.

It was a Honduran Milk Snake. As its name suggests, it is not native to Japan. Authorities think it was a pet, and they’re looking for its owner.

Semi-related video clip:

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