Archive for September, 2011

New “Cool Japan” Logo: JAPAN NEXT

The Japanese government has unveiled a new logo to be used by businesses and government agencies that fit with the theme of “Cool Japan” (anime, fashion, etc):

From a shortlist selected from among 99 logos submitted for a competition held between late July and mid-August, a logo incorporating the English words ”JAPAN NEXT,” created by prominent designer Kashiwa Sato, has been chosen by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, a government office for intellectual properties said.

Sato says he designed the logo with the image in mind of a Japan that overcomes the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disaster and is reborn as a stronger, more creative and confident nation — the ”next Japan.”

Kashiwa Sato designed the famous logo used by the Uniqlo clothing chain.

You can read more about the concept of “Cool Japan” in this January 2011 post and this Wikipedia entry.

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Yakuza Banned From Festival Stalls

Tokyo police have been making efforts to weaken Yakuza influence over stalls at festivals. Here is a clip from Tokyo MX about new anti-Yakuza rules being used at the Kitazawa Hachiman festival:

Prior to the festival, all stall operators had to undergo background checks. If police verified that they had no links to organized crime, they were issued licenses. The licenses have photographs on them, so the identity of the person in question can be easily verified.

Starting on October 1st, new anti-yakuza regulations will go into effect in Tokyo. The regulations are meant to prevent people and businesses from cooperating with and funding the activities of gangsters.

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10 Years After 9-11: Japanese Remember

Yesterday, Japanese TV news programs focused on the anniversary of the 9-11 terror attacks. Here is a clip from one channel’s coverage, focusing on how three Japanese people have coped with what happened:

Their first example is someone who is still struggling to deal with the loss of a family member. The second and third examples are of Japanese residents of New York who have worked hard and achieved success after 9/11 disrupted their lives.

The first person they feature is 71-year-old Haruhiro Shiratori, who lost his only child on 9/11. He had encouraged his son to go out and see the world, and was proud when he graduated from a university in America and started a career at a financial firm in New York. Although 10 years have passed, Shiratori still feels immense grief. Every day he wears clothing that had belonged to his son. (Not mentioned in the video but very relevant: Shiratori has traveled to Afghanistan and taken part in a project to build a park in Kabul.

The second person featured is Manabu Nishigaki, the owner of Ise, a Japanese restaurant that was only about 100 meters away from the World Trade Center. When the buildings collapsed, the restaurant’s windows were shattered and its interior was filled with dust and debris. Nishigaki had to close the restaurant, and its building was eventually torn down. He opened a new restaurant, and he’s been successful.

The third person featured is Toshiaki Kondo, who used to work at Nishigaki’s restaurant. The shock of the terror attacks made him realize that his life could end at any moment, so it was important that he pursue his dream without regrets. He quit his job and in 2004 he started his own izakaya-style restaurant, Rockmeisha. He specializes in food from his hometown, Hakata. The restaurant is pretty popular, and has even been featured in Michelin guide books.

The report notes the sense of recovery one gets when visiting the area around Ground Zero. It is clear that New Yorkers have been working hard to rebuild.

[Note: This video clip was edited. The same channel also devoted a lot of coverage to the American victims of the attack. ]

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Tokyo’s Foreign Population Drops After March 11th Disaster

An article in the English edition of the Asahi Shimbun has noted that the March 11th disaster caused the overall population of Tokyo has decreased by several thousand people. One segment of Tokyo’s population suffered a rather large decrease: foreigners. The number of registered foreign residents has “plummeted by about 10,000″ since March.

Electricity shortages, which forced many companies to reduce the size of Tokyo branches, are offered as one major explanation for the population drop. Among foreigners, irrational fear about Tokyo being “not safe” seems to also be a big factor. The article focuses on language schools, which are suffering because students from other parts of Asia are afraid to study in Tokyo:

Among the non-Japanese who left Japan from April to July, about 4,500 of them were South Koreans.

The Seoul and Shanghai offices of Akamonkai Japanese Language School based in Tokyo’s Arakawa Ward has tried to convince people wanting to study in Japan that “Tokyo is safe.” Nearly 100 of its students returned to their home countries from April to June.

The number of new students who plan to enroll in the language school in October is down 5 percent from the same month last year.

“Some students said they plan to go to other countries to study. Next year is the crucial year for our school’s survival,” said Tokiyoshi Arai, the school’s managing director.

According to Kannichi Fudousan, a real estate company in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward that mainly handles rental accommodations for South Koreans and Chinese, the number of canceled contracts nearly doubled from March 11 to May.

Since June, the number of contracts has been increasing again. But a company official said: “The number of contracts is 70 to 80 percent of that in conventional years. The business situation for us is still harsh.”

Of course, the majority of Tokyo’s 400,000+ foreign residents decided not to move out of the city. Yet, while a decrease of 10,000 is not huge, it can’t be written off as insignificant.

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One Year Anniversary of Senkaku Boat Ramming Incident

A little over one year has passed since a Chinese trawler rammed two Japanese coast guard ships in the waters around the Senkaku islands.

Here’s a short TV news report that aired on the anniversary:

They talk to former Chief Mate Masaharu Isshiki, the Japanese Coast Guard officer who leaked the video clip onto the internet. Isshiki expressed his dissatisfaction with the Japanese government’s weak response to the incident (printed in greater detail in the Sankei Shimbun). He wonders why has there been no clear and public answer to Chinese demands for an apology and compensation. On the topic of the leak, he said that he used Youtube because it allowed him leak the raw video to a place where anyone could watch it and judge for themselves.

Isshiki lost his job because of the leak. Back in China, the trawler captain who rammed the Japanese coast guard ships was treated as a hero. (But the Mainichi has reported that Chinese authorities have banned the “hero” captain from going to sea again.)

The situation near the Senkaku islands remains tense. In the last six months, Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force needed to scramble fighter jets 99 times in response to Chinese military aircraft that approached Japanese airspace near the islands.

At the end of the clip, news anchor Taro Kimura comments on how the Senkaku incident should be viewed within the context of China’s other maritime disputes with neighbors. Around the same time the Senkaku issue flaired up, China was also taking a very provocative stance towards territorial disputes in the South China Sea. The disputes have raised concerns from the United States.

Related Link: An editorial in yesterday’s Japan Times looked back on the incident and recommended that the Japanese government maintain a strong stance about his sovereignty over the islands. Reviewing the history of the dispute, it was noted that China had clearly violated Japanese territorial waters:

It must be pointed out that the Senkaku Islands have been integral part of Japanese territories since Japan declared the islands to be part of Okinawa Prefecture in January 1895 after confirming that they were not ruled by what was then China’s Qing Dynasty.

The Senkakus were not among the islands — Taiwan and the Penghus — that China had ceded to Japan under the Shimonoseki Treaty signed by Japan and China after the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95). The treaty took effect in May 1895.

After the islands’ incorporation into Japanese territories, Japanese nationals built a wharf and a factory to process dried bonito on the islands. They became uninhabited in 1940.

Under the San Francisco Peace Treaty of September 1951, the Senkaku Islands were placed under U.S. administrative power as part of Japan’s Nansei Islands. China at that time raised no objection to this provision.

It must be remembered that China and Taiwan did not start making sovereignty claims over the Senkaku Islands until the existence of offshore resources, including oil, was confirmed in the sea near the islands around 1970.

Before the resources came to light, China’s maps and the Chinese government recognized the islands as part of the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa Prefecture).

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Japan’s Trade Minister Jokes About Radiation

On Thursday, Prime Minister Noda made an official visit to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Accompanying him was Trade minister Yoshio Hachiro.

Hachiro was in a joking mood that day, and seems to have thought it would be a good idea to act like a idiotic child instead of an cabinet minister:

Hachiro made as if he was going to rub his jacket against a member of the press corps, while making a remark to the effect, “I will infect you with radiation,” according to witnesses.

As the target of the ill-concieved joke was a member of the press corps, the incident was soon reported by the media. Here’s his lame explanation:

After the news of his stunt broke, Hachiro said: “My memory isn’t clear” and admitted approaching a reporter for a reason he didn’t elaborate on.

The next day, Hachiro received a lot of criticism for making the following statement about the empty towns in the evacuation zone around the plant:

“To my dismay, there were no people in city centers or towns and villages around the plant. They were like towns of death,” Hachiro said Friday, following a Cabinet meeting.

The last bit is a literal translation of “死の町.” Other news sources, such as Reuters, have preferred to translate it as “ghost towns,” although it doesn’t sound as strong that way. Opposition lawmakers very strongly attacked Hachiro, claiming that such harsh words would crush the hopes of disaster survivors.

Hachiro quickly issued a public apology:

“I sincerely regret that the expression has caused some misunderstanding among people in the disaster area and I want to retract the expression,” he told another news conference. “I am extremely sorry.

“I wanted to say that we will strongly enforce decontamination measures so that evacuated people can return to their towns.”

Update: The apology wasn’t enough. Hachiro has announced his resignation.

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