The White Peril 白禍

Apparently miffed by all the attention the rail system has gotten this week, the air system has stepped up to the plate. Happily, if merely fortuitously, it hasn't killed 100 people in the process. Note that this time it wasn't poor JAL's fault that it was involved:

At 9:40 p.m., 29 April, a JAL jet landed, per instructions, on Haneda Airport's Runway A, which had been closed for inspection and repairs. Another JAL jet was in the middle of descending toward Runway A and was forced to change course when the mistake was realized in the control tower several minutes later. According to the Ministry of Land, Transportation, and Infrastructure, the source of the error was that the controller on duty forgot that the runway was closed and therefore gave incorrect instructions. The Ministry has launched an investigation because of the possibility that the error could have led to a major accident.

The controller is lucky that he made his screw-up when he did; the construction on the runway was set to begin at 11 p.m., an hour and change later. He's also lucky that the plane that landed on it, an Airbus 300, was carrying only 51 passengers and crew. The plane that was diverted was a Boeing 777 with 161 aboard; it reascended and landed 10 minutes later.

Added on 1 May: Good grief.

The air traffic controller has told the ministry's Haneda Airport office that he had forgotten that the runway was closed. Another 17 controllers on duty at the time also forgot about the closure of the runway even though all controllers working at the airport had been notified in advance.

The ministry was apologetic about the incident. "I express my apologies from the bottom of my heart for causing anxiety to the public," Yoshinori Furukawa, director of the ministry's Air Traffic Control Division, said at a news conference on Saturday.

Am I the only one who thinks it's a little creepy the way NHK is profiling the driver who, it seems to be all but certain, caused Monday's train derailment? We know that he loved sports, played basketball in junior high school, was kind of a party guy, and seemed to have been excited about being hired by JR West. I don't get it. If he were a serial killer, or something, I could understand looking for clues in his background to what animated him. Profiling him as if he'd just won some kind of prize, I don't understand.

There is one way in which information about Ryutaro Takami's breezy personality is possibly meaningful. He overran platforms several times--once by 100 meters!--and had been reprimanded and sent to retraining. According to the conductor's wife, Takami asked him to underreport the extent of Monday's overrun at the station before the derailment, presumably to avoid being relieved of his duties and receiving a more stern reprimand. And it's looking as if he decided on Monday that keeping his personnel record clean was worth risking the lives of his passengers by speeding.

That kind of thing happens all over the world, but it's a particular problem in appearances-are-everything societies like guess-where. One of Takami's colleagues also relates that the company's version of retraining involves mostly scolding by groups of superiors and pointless essay assignments about topics unrelated to railroad work, raising the possibility that JR West is in effect telling employees that avoiding the ire of higher-ups trumps every other priority. It'd be nice if that were more surprising than it is.

Added on 30 April: In the interest of translating ideas rather than words, I rendered 再教育 (saikyoiku: "re-education") as "retraining," since that's normally the word we would use for what goes on in the workplace. Re-education has totalitarian overtones.

It turns out that it might have paid to be more literal-minded. This Asahi story expands on the information in the NHK telecasts we've been seeing:

One great fear among train drivers for West Japan Railway Co. is being forced to take a ``re-education program'' after making a mistake on the job. Drivers are known to skirt safety procedures just to avoid the humiliation and financial loss of taking the program. One driver even committed suicide just after he started the re-education process.

...

Re-education of drivers who commit mistakes is a JR West policy. The mistakes include being behind schedule.

The main component of the re-education process is writing reports about the mistake to reflect on the error and think of ways to prevent a recurrence.

JR West workers who make mistakes are also assigned menial tasks, such as pulling weeds from gardens at JR West facilities, washing windows or painting company buildings.

There are one or two things that are important for context here. One is that, in Japan, those who are hired even at management level spend their first year or two going through "rotations," in which they work alongside people who do sales, clerical work, and other low-level tasks. There are a few reasons for this. One is to give future managers a sense of all the little things that have to get done to keep the organization going. Another is to make them feel a sense of kinship with people at all levels of the hierarchy. Another is to show them the side of the company that customers see. The idea is to keep managers from being out of touch about the practical effects of the policies they set once they're helping to run the place.

Against that backdrop, having people pull weeds or wash windows (or clean toilets, which is a job that's been mentioned on the broadcasts as another common punishment) is not just supposed to shame people into not transgressing again. Rather, it's also supposed to serve as a reminder that the drivers who do the crucial job of running the trains have a whole organization of people with less visible jobs depending on them.

I'd be willing to bet that that's the way the re-education program is officially conceived. There's evidence, though, that the message of humiliation ends up being so disproportionately emphasized that it drowns out the message that the employee should do his job more responsibly:

One driver was so upset at being forced to undergo the re-education program that he hanged himself in 2001. The then 44-year-old man was late by about 50 seconds in pulling out from Kyoto Station.

Bereaved family members sued JR West for compensation. The father claimed that bullying was the cause of his son's suicide.

In February, the Osaka District Court rejected the plaintiffs' request for compensation on the grounds that JR West could not have foreseen that the man would kill himself.

But the court did state that the re-education program caused the suicide.

According to the ruling, the man was forced to write up to seven reports a day about his mistake. He was told by the deputy head of his train district that he was being paid to "just study."

There's no mention of any other suicides in the Asahi article, but there is evidence that the desire to avoid re-education causes drivers to push their trains to the speed limit if they feel they're losing time. Drivers on the Takarazuka Line have apparently developed a practice of charging down the straightaway at full tilt toward Amagasaki Station and then jamming on the brakes so they can make the curve where the derailment happened Monday. It's likely that Takami was attempting such a maneuver and didn't make it.

The number of deaths from Monday's train derailment has reached 91. The Mainichi English edition has a good roundup of the rumors that are flying around about possible causes of the accident. From the very beginning, reports have emphasized that the driver was young (23) and that, having overrun the platform at the previous station and had to back up to let passengers board and get off, he might have been speeding to stay on schedule. Also (I didn't see this in the Mainichi article), he was driving a relatively old train with an emergency brake system that's somewhat less sensitive than those on newer models. That doesn't mean it was substandard, but it could mean that it was part of the combination of factors that made this a disaster rather than a close call.

As to questions by Western reporters about whether this shakes Japanese people's faith in the rail system--well, I doubt it. If one of the major airlines had a crash (especially JAL), I think there would be a real hue and cry. Air safety violations have been in the news a lot lately, so there's an existing sense that there's something wrong with the system. An accident would validate that.

The last train crash--actually, it was more like a sideswipe--happened five years ago. There are way, way, way, way more commuter rail departures than airline departures in Japan, and my sense is that people just figure that, even in the best-run systems, there's going to be an accident some time. Of course, it could come out that JR West was skimping on safety measures in order to keep to schedules. I haven't heard any evidence of that, mind, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. In that sort of case, there might be something of a fuss raised, though the only way for the market to punish the company would be for lots of people and businesses to move off its rail lines. (Is that the best way to say 沿線?) Such a mass movement seems unlikely.

My guess is that most people are hoping that the first suggested factor turns out actually to have been the decisive one: the driver, who had a history of overruns and other little problems, tried to catch up with the line schedule by speeding and unfortunately chose exactly the wrong stretch of track to do it. That would let just about everyone off the hook. We'll have to see.

One of the more well-known Japanese escapees from North Korea has gone to the DPRK embassy in Beijing and asked to return:

The return to North Korea of a Japanese woman who came back to Japan in 2003 for the first time in 43 years has raised questions over whether her moves were voluntary or part of a political "game" played by North Korean officials.

The woman, Fudeko Hirashima, 66, appeared at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing on April 18 and held a news conference, saying "evil people" had deceived her into going to Japan. She headed back to North Korea, where her grandchildren are, after throwing her hands in the air and saying in a tearful voice, "Long live the great general Kim Jong Il!" referring to the North Korean leader.

Hirashima said she wanted to be reunited with her children and grandchildren, who are still living in North Korea.

The Japanese government figures that DPRK agents got to her:

Hiroshi Kato, secretary-general of the Life Funds for North Korean Refugees said North Korea appeared to be involved in Hirashima's return.

"It's a perfect game by the North Korean side," he said. "It's a commonplace method for North Korea to use family love against people. They will probably use Hirashima as an example and say that Japan abducts people, too."

That last part is almost a certainty. How much of a push Hirashima needed is debatable, though. You can imagine how bewilderingly different Japan is from when she left in 1959. She may have little family left here (and she may not have departed on the best terms with them--when Japanese marry Koreans, family approval is frequently not forthcoming from either side). Her son has died, her daughter and grandchildren are still in North Korea, and she has little money to live on. Perhaps she decided it was worth proclaiming her love for Kim Jong-il in order to spend her final years where she would be happier.

Like a lot of North Koreans, she has reason not to like the regime much. The Japanese version of the Mainichi article gives a timeline of her years there with wrenching terseness:

14 December 1959: Went with husband, a North Korean living in Japan, to North Korea through cooperative repatriation project

December 1969: Husband taken away by authorities, not heard from since

May 1970: Domicile moved to village along China-Korea border

November 2002: Escaped northward into China

The Japanese version also contains a run-down of what she said at the press conference. She refers to the DPRK as 共和国 (kyouwakoku: "the Republic").

Kelvin is guest-posting at Simon World and wrote yesterday about how Chinese news sources are discussing Prime Minister Koizumi's remarks the other day. Kelvin doesn't want to get into a lengthy discussion about what constitutes a sufficient apology, so I'll just pause to clarify a single point: Koizumi did not, unlike many past Japanese politicians, use the formulation 遺憾に思う (ikan ni omou: "I regard it as regrettable"), which is a way of saying that something is unfortunate without taking responsibility. The word お詫び refers to an acceptance of responsibility, though it can be debated whether the level of abjectness is fitting.

As for the whether actions and words are in harmony, this is translated with my customary awkwardness from the Yasukuni Shrine's official website. There is an English page, too:

Among the spirits enshrined here are these: Men who fell while standing on the front lines fighting fires ignited by bombings of Japanese cities by enemy planes. Military nurses, who stoutly wore the Red Cross insignia and were adored like mothers and sisters on the battlefields. Sailors who sank to the bottom of the sea on their supply ships while heading toward the battle zones to the south. Reporters and cameramen in the press corps accompanying the armed forces who were felled by enemy fire while gathering information on the battlefield. All these people offered up their lives for their ancestral land of Japan and, because of that, they are enshrined with great reverence as exalted spirits. Also, there are those who, after the Great East Asian War* ended, shouldered all responsibility for the war and gave up their lives. Furthermore, after the war, the Allied Powers that had fought Japan (the US, the UK, the Netherlands, China, and others) unilaterally declared 1068 persons "war criminals" in perfunctory trials and pitilessly executed them on false charges. At the Yasukuni Shrine, they are referred to as "Showa Martyrs" and are all enshrined as spirits. The Yasukuni Shrine is a shrine to which all citizens can make pilgrimages. We hope that you have come to understand here what kinds of spirits are enshrined at the Yasukuni Shrine. The spirits at the Yasukuni Shrine offered up their precious lives in battle, seeking for Japan's independence and peace to continue forever and for Japan's glorious traditions and history, left to us by our ancestors, to continue until the end of time. The peaceful and prosperous Japan we know today exists thanks to those enshrined at the Yasukuni Shrine and others like them.

A commenter--another blogger who knows Japan well--put it to me several months ago that it really isn't the business of the Chinese or Koreans who goes to what shrine in Japan. I agree in principle, but I hope it's a little more clear from the above why any affiliation with this particular shrine could be seen as provocative.

Westerners learn that shinto is Japan's native religion, which is basically true but also kind of misleading. The purification rites and ancestor worship developed by early agrarian Japanese were largely displaced in official life after Buddhism arrived, though the two were practiced side-by-side. During the Meiji Restoration, there was a push for Japan to reclaim its Japaneseness, and a campaign began to dislodge Buddhism and replace it with shinto. Doing so required thinking of shinto as an actual system rather than just a hodge-podge of ancient rituals, and that was, in fact, a change. (This is true of many elements of Japanese culture that we're taught to think of as parts of its history. The Japanese "warrior code" didn't really exist in any coherent form until it was retrospectively given one during the Meiji Period, either.) In shinto, everyone who dies becomes a 神 (kami: "spirit"). There are good or bad kami, depending on how the person lived, so calling the kami in general "gods," as people frequently do in English, fails to translate the idea very well.

I don't believe that Koizumi or most other high officials visit the Yasukuni Shrine in the spirit of full agreement with the shrine's administrators. I can't read minds, but I imagine that most politicians want an opportunity to honor those who really did sacrifice their lives in good faith and, perhaps, to pray that the bad spirits have been dealt with justly in the next world and have as little chance as possible to influence the affairs of this world from here on.

There was a train derailment in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture (where Kobe is), this morning. A commuter train slammed into an apartment building, and there have been 25 people killed and over 200 injured according to NHK. The driver and some other passengers are still trapped in one of the cars, so there's a good chance there will be more fatalities. There's been no information about the cause of the derailment yet.

Added at 13:00: NHK is now reporting 37 fatalities. The worst train accident since the 60s caused 42 deaths, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that today's could displace it. (I must have misheard NHK before--there was an accident in Yokohama in 1963 that killed almost 200 people.)

Added at 17:15: Up to 50 fatalities. One thing that's good is that the weather is clear and pretty warm today, and the derailment happened at about 9:30 in the morning. Up to just a week or two ago, or on a rainy day, or at night, the rescuers wouldn't have had a seven-hour cushion of relatively good conditions in which to work. The footage is horrifying; the second car is flattened and wrapped around a corner of the apartment building like tin sheeting, and two of the other cars are on top of each other.

What Amritas says and links to in this post about interpreting squares with my understanding from those I know who do it. Coincidentally, I ran into a guy who was still in school learning to interpret when I last saw him five or six years ago. The training sounded absolutely hellish--in the sense of being repetitious, since your brain basically needs to be rewired to think in both languages at once, which is harder than it sounds. That's especially true, as Amritas notes, of languages such as Japanese and English, in which both word order and the principles that govern expression of thought are often at loggerheads.

I can only imagine what Amritas's unfiltered reaction, as a linguist, was to this page on the history of Japanese. In 1500 BC, the only markings the Japanese were making were decorative rope imprints on pottery. The Japanese kana system is a syllabary, not an alphabet; and while there were some spelling simplifications around the end of the nineteenth century (we no longer write よう as やう), kana themselves have existed since the Heian Period. Really a startling display of ineptitude.

You have got to be kidding me (Japanese, English):

Postal workers' jobs are to be safeguarded in the privatization planned for 2007, with the new postal entities to keep the same employment levels, government sources said.

After all, that is the point of privatizing an inefficient government organization--improve operations by not changing anything.

Regarding the establishment of a fund to maintain universal postal savings and postal services in remote areas, the postal services holding company will save a portion of its revenues each fiscal year, as stipulated by an ordinance, until the sum reaches 1 trillion yen.

The bills state that the fund cannot be tapped, with the exception of a situation in which the revenues alone cannot support the holding company's universal service obligation, the sources said.

The six bills are designed to privatize postal services, establish a postal services holding company, a mail delivery company, an over-the-counter service network firm, and an independent administrative organization for postal savings and kampo life insurance, and to pass laws related to the privatization.

Increasing the number of organizations involved sounds like a great move toward streamlining, too, though that structure's been part of the proposal forever. Good grief.

PM Koizumi spoke today in Jakarta:

Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi spoke at the Asia-Africa Summit that began in Jakarta 22 April. He cited the talk given in 1995 by then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama to commemorate the end of World War II, in which he apologized for past actions such as the way occupied territories were governed. "We must humbly absorb all the facts of history, and keep always etched on our souls a sense of keen self-reflection and regret."

There's an English translation of some of Murayama's remarks here, and there's a further discussion here. I do think it's important to bear in mind that mutual hostilties in this region are as old as the hills. From that perspective, every Japanese government worker down to the Diet Building janitors could apologize for the atrocities of World War II, and the Chinese might very well still be complaining. At some point, it's unreasonable to expect Japan to keep asking to be forgiven.

At the same time, it's not hard to understand where the ire comes from. Simon linked to this terrifically-done list of Japanese politicians' apologies to Korea, and the one of apologies to China is now up, too. I have rarely heard any of these politicians accused of being insincere, though some of them are on the vague side. The point that's usually made is that, given things like the treatment of Iris Chang's work, the pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine, and the repeated controversy over history textbooks, it's pretty clear that there are other people in positions of power over how the War is semi-officially depicted who are very frequently successful in making sure that no wrongdoing is ascribed to the Japanese. That raises questions over the extent to which those issuing the apologies are speaking on behalf of the Japanese government.

Whichever side you come down on, the PRC has transparently taken a have-it-both-ways-at-once approach to the protests: it condoned them while people's rage was directed at Japan and deflected away from the CCP--and the minute they got enough out of hand that there was a danger the protestors might start remembering how much they dislike about their own government, too, the serious warnings started. Not surprisingly, the Japanese ambassador to Beijing is still warning Japanese citizens that China may not be safe, despite officially stating that there is no information to indicate that demonstrations will continue within the jurisdictions of large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Being an ambassador, he's chosen the most tactful possible wording: "In such a large country as China, it is impossible to guarantee that nothing will happen." Gotta love that litotes.

Added at 22:38: Oh, yeah, almost left this out: 80 Diet members decided to visit the Yasukuni Shrine today.

The LDP will ask the government to provide 2 trillion yen to ensure that universal service is maintained. This is double the previous recommended amount:

The government will accept a request from the Liberal Democratic Party to increase a fund to maintain universal banking and insurance services by at least 1 trillion yen in negotiations on postal privatization bills, government sources said Wednesday.

The government also is expected to study the need to raise the amount to be stated in the bills from 1 trillion yen to up to 2 trillion yen.

The government also will not ensure capital ties among postal saving, kampo insurance and other new companies in the bills.

Fukuoka has had another strong earthquake--M 5.8. This one wasn't as strong as the one in March, but they're reporting multiple injuries already. Also, it happened at 6:11 on a weekday morning, so a lot of commuter lines have been affected. I haven't gotten a message from Atsushi saying he felt it in his city, though I assume he must have.

New US Ambassador to Japan certainly picked a nice, tranquil time to start his duties. He's understandably making the bland diplomatic best of things, according to the Nikkei. From his first press conference:

[On the anti-Japan demonstrations in China]: "The relations between the two are crucial with respect to the stability of the entire Asia region. It is our hope that they will aim to find a peaceful resolution through dialogue."

[On the reform of the UN]: "Complex issues have been piling up, and it is not desirable that we set a firm deadline at this point.... The US government, and I as an individual, do support Japan [in its petition for permanent UNSC membership]."

[On the first East Asia summit to be held at the end of this year in Malaysia]: "The US is a Pacific country. We would like to participate if it means that we will have a chance to have a hand in setting broad policies that will have an effect in the region."

The East Asia summit will feature the ASEAN members plus inseparable buddies Japan, the PRC, and the ROK. Australia has already been snubbed after hinting that it would like an invitation. Malaysia and China are (go figure) those who are are most hesitant over the participation of Australia, let alone the US. Incidentally, Schieffer's last post before Japan was Australia.

The Japanese do not permit themselves to be upstaged in the sly dig department, so the PRC's remarks that Japan may, perhaps, not have enough "respect" (for history or from the rest of Asia) to be a member of the UN Security Council have not gone unanswered. Shinzo Abe, head of the LDP, was in Sendai today and mused,

They [the PRC government] are supposed to host the Olympics and the World Expo. One wonders whether they'll really be able to manage, assuming the situation continues as it is now. Doubts cannot but arise.

The "situation" he's talking about are this weekend's repeat-performance protests, which were the headline news yesterday and today here. The news here has been stressing the violence of some of the protests, though it's hard to have a good sense of how out-of-hand things really got. Reuters's version is here:

China has come under fire for tacitly encouraging the anti-Japanese unrest but Beijing denies the charge. But authorities have pledged to protect Japanese businesses and nationals in China.

In the third weekend of violent protests, thousands marched Saturday to Japan's consulate in Shanghai, smashing windows, pelting it with paint bombs and eggs and attacking Japanese restaurants along the way.

Relations between the two Asian powerhouses are at their worst in decades and China's official Xinhua news agency put the number of protesters in Shanghai at 20,000.

"The students and citizens spontaneously took to the street to demonstrate and protest, expressing their discontent with the right-wing forces in Japan on violating the Sino-Japanese relations," it quoted Shanghai municipal government spokeswoman Jiao Yang as saying.

It's rather interesting how the PRC regime's ability to keep protestors in check varies. Personally, I find it improbable that the protests were engineered by the Chinese government--or even encouraged in the active way we usually think of it. All kinds of unrest have been building in China, though, and it seems likely that the PRC is taking advantage of the fact that this ill-feeling is directed outward and hoping to use it as a pressure release.

Japan itself is not a protest-heavy country, compared with its neighbors; but, of course, anti-Chinese feeling is never a really hard sell here, and there are small but real fears that some Japanese will get into the counter-protest act:

The violence has raised concerns about a backlash in Japan, and police have tightened security at the Chinese embassy, consulates and residences after several incidents of harassment.

A man hurled a bottle at the Chinese consulate in Osaka, western Japan, Sunday and set himself on fire when officers tried to subdue him, police said. Right-wing groups were driving around Tokyo in trucks fitted with loudspeakers, but riot police prevented them from approaching the Chinese embassy.

For anyone who doesn't know Japan, that "right-wing groups were driving around Tokyo in trucks fitted with loudspeakers" part is not, heaven knows, a distinguishing feature of this weekend; the exhortations to defend Japan's purity and honor are probably a bit less generalized in tone, though. Japanese foreign minister Nobutaka Machimura is in Beijing for a meeting with the Chinese foreign ministry.

Added on 18 April: Japan demands that China apologize for letting demonstrations get out of hand; China says it's Japan's responsibility to apologize first. At least the two countries' foreign ministers, meeting this weekend in Beijing, were able to agree on something: there should be a joint China-Japan center for historical research. That's the least likely issue to help resolve the immediate problems, but, hey--you have to start somewhere.

BTW, here's the original Japanese report on the Mainichi poll referred to at the end of the Reuters story. For once, the Japanese version doesn't contain much that was left out of the English story.

Oh, and this is what I really wanted to read the day before Atsushi flies in for the weekend:

In an astonishing admission aimed at explaining its troubled record in recent months, Japan Airlines on Thursday said safety had not been its top priority.

All efforts and attention were focused on punctuality. The airline was careless about safety, JAL said in a report to the transport ministry on steps it is taking to restore its tarnished reputation.

Anyone who flies out of Haneda knows that, whatever JAL is achieving by giving inspections short shrift, it ain't punctuality, so exactly what is really being prioritized, one would like to know? Perhaps all those little screw-ups lately have been a blessing in disguise. They haven't caused any fatalities, but they've been serious enough to get the attention of the government:

And in a case of worst-possible timing, part of the flap from the wing of a JAL aircraft that landed at Narita International Airport on Thursday was found to have fallen off in flight, officials said.

Flight 73, carrying 428 passengers and crew members, arrived at 5:10 p.m. from Honolulu.

Mechanics found the component had detached from the main left wing.

The airport's 4,000-meter runway that the aircraft used was closed for three minutes from 6 p.m. to search for the missing part. It was not found.

JAL said the mishap did not compromise flight safety.

Upon receiving JAL's report, officials of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said they will regularly inspect facilities and airports used by the airline to confirm that the company's safety measures are being observed.

The ministry also grounded a JAL pilot for one month beginning today for starting takeoff procedures without clearance from air traffic control at New Chitose Airport near Sapporo. The pilot of the Tokyo-bound flight was forced to abort takeoff at the last moment in January because another aircraft had just landed on the runway about a kilometer away.

In another incident, at Inchon Airport in South Korea, the pilot and co-pilot of a flight bound for Narita misheard the control tower's instructions to wait, and taxied onto the runway, forcing another plane to restart landing procedures.

Reprimands or warnings were issued in both incidents.

On March 17, a clearly fed-up transport ministry ordered JAL to improve its operations.

Yes, that would be most obliging.

The lower house of the Diet's exploratory committee on constitutional revision has come to a resolution:

On the morning of 15 April, the committee (Taro Nakayama, Chair), made up of members from the LDP, DPJ, and Komeito, approved by majority vote a finalized report summarizing 5 years of debate. They clarified in detail the necessity of revising the preamble and Article 9, in which Japan renounces war powers. This is the first time the Diet has demonstrated intent to revise the constitution since 1947, when the present constitution went into effect. Also manifested [in the proposal] are the intention to make reforms on a broad range of other issues, such as stipulating environmental rights and redistricting prefectures into larger administrative regions.

Bear in mind that this is the lower house committee, so there's no guarantee that the bill won't be nearly unrecognizable by the time it's voted on in the houses. The upper house committee, for its part, is expected to come to a resolution on 20 April.

Added on 16 April: The Nikkei evening edition had a chart I didn't feel like translating before going out last night, but there's an English article in the Mainichi that lists things pretty well. The part that's relevant to the SDF is here:

The principle of renouncing war as a means to settle international disputes, which is provided for in Clause 1, Article 9, should be retained, according to a majority opinion. The report says a majority of members "appreciate the role that Article 9 has played in ensuring Japan's peace and prosperity."

However, it does not rule out the possibility that the article will be amended to clearly provide for minimum use of force to defend Japan from possible military attacks.

The report shows that the commission was divided over whether Japan should be allowed to participate in collective self-defense arrangements.

Some demand that Japan be allowed to participate in collective defense arrangements without limitations, while other panel members said some limitations should be placed on Japan's involvement in such arrangements. Another group said the Constitution should ban Japan's involvement in it.

Japan's codified renunciation of war is one of the biggest sticking points in its bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

You know how the Japan Post privatization proposal was presented to the LDP last week? It's still, not unpredictably, stuck there:

A group of 101 Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers met Wednesday to reiterate their opposition to the government's postal privatization plan and ruled out any compromise on the issue.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi meanwhile renewed his pledge not to change the postal reform framework adopted by his Cabinet earlier this month.

The standoff between Koizumi and his opponents in the LDP, of which he is president, is making it increasingly difficult for the government to meet its goal of submitting its postal privatization bills to the Diet by the end of the month.

At Wednesday's meeting, organized and chaired by former House of Representatives Speaker Tamisuke Watanuki, the lawmakers adopted a resolution opposing the government's plan and released their own outline to reform Japan Post while keeping it a semigovernmental corporation.

Someday when my stomach is less on edge, we'll talk about Japanese semi-governmental corporations in all their resource-hoovering glory. Suffice it to say that, while "semi-governmental" sounds like a nice, friendly compromise, in execution it ends up increasing the number of people who have access to the goodies and decreasing the number of people who feel compelled to husband them. The Sankei did report that not everyone who went to Watanuki's "study session" last week symptathized with his anti-privatization position (one is cited as saying that because he'd received his invitation from the leaders of his faction, he felt unable to refuse it). But there were 96 Diet attendees there, and 101 who joined him in his resolution this week, so maybe he was pretty persuasive.

In any case, Prime Minister Koizumi has been adamant that the proposal not be doctored before officially becoming a Diet bill. The deadline he set was the end of April, so there's still plenty of time for fun.

There's been another mix-up of patient records at a hospital, with tragic results:

A 70-year-old man died in March following a misdiagnosis brought about when his CAT scan results were accidentally switched with those of another patient at a hospital in Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Tuesday. Hospital authorities have denied responsibility for the man's death.

The man, from Numazu, died of a cerebral hemorrhage two days after being taken to the hospital and given the CAT scan following complaints of difficulty swallowing. The results of his scan were accidentally switched with those of another patient who underwent the scan the previous day.

According to hospital officials, the cranial CAT scan was performed on the man immediately after he arrived at the hospital. The technician, however, accidentally gave the wrong scan results to the man's attending physician, leading to a misdiagnosis that the man had suffered a stroke.

This sort of thing is not at all uncommon--a famous mix-up at a Yokohama hospital led to heart and lung surgeries being performed on the wrong patients--and I wonder whether its roots lie in more than just the way health care, specifically, is run.

Everyone in Japan who works for a decent-sized company has found life somewhat reordered by the new laws, which went into effect this month, governing the handling of personal information. Because Japan is famous for order, carefulness, and semi-conductors, people often make the easy assumption that the handling of information here must be first-rate; but in many ways it's not. Japanese offices are full of clutter--folders and vertical files and post-it notes piled everywhere are a common sight. True, any office anywhere in the world that hasn't been prepped for a magazine shoot is going to look worked-in, and because space is at a premium here, separate rooms or closets to keep unattractive piles of paper hidden away are less easy to manage. It's still true, though, that most Japanese prefer the traditional use of paper documentation and name-stamp approvals to computerized MIS. Most documents go through many hands on their way to being approved or filed, and Japan has had relatively little crime since the war, so it's not uncommon for documents that contain personal information to be lying about all over the place because there aren't any policies to prevent it.

Oddly, while information tends to go through many people vertically up and down chains of command, it often isn't shared horizontally. The in-group consciousness can mean that marketing departments don't always know what their own R&D people are creating, or how to communicate to them what the customers would like it to do.

Of course, computers aren't perfect either, and territoriality is not a trait the Japanese invented, as we all know. But so many of the problems you hear about in Japanese health care seem to result not from garden-variety incompetence or questionable judgment but from a specific mishandling of documents: mixing up patients' charts, not reading warnings about an employee's conduct, not having received the crucial information in report A. Apparently, the hospitals are run less like the rest of the domestic economy.

So something has come of those plans for Japan to seek help from Israel in upgrading its defense capabilities (via Gaijin Biker). Good. Ever since it was first announced, I'd been hoping more information indicating that plans had materialized would be forthcoming. It's taken a few months, but I'm glad it's here. It looks as if equipment, as well as procedure, may be included.

This Yomiuri article doesn't seem to know how funny it is--unless the reporter who wrote it has the driest sense of humor in all of Japan. It's about former employees of private companies who move to government work:

Those who successfully make the leap from the private sector to the public sector are often troubled by a lack of coordination between ministries and agencies in implementing government policies. But they find their new jobs rewarding because of their public nature and the contributions to local communities.

He was appointed section chief before the city had clearly determined what the responsibility of the new section would be. He decided to work on something that had interested him since his student days--involving the public in the creation of a town. He invited younger employees and residents to a meeting to discuss the future of the town. Discussions at the meeting bore fruit and resulted in the improvement of cable television network services and the launch of a local bus service that passengers can use for just 100 yen. [after they pay for the rest of the running cost with their taxes--SRK]

...

Tanaka earns less than he did in the private sector and at times has felt at odds with the local government's bureaucratic ways. For example, the workload of every section is strictly predetermined and no one wants to take on extra work.

The article isn't what you'd call a revelation, but it does raise the hope that people with experience working in more results-oriented environment can (slowly) influence things when they move to government work.

Okay, I know that complaining about Salon's culture criticism is pointless, so this is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. Dead fish. But still, there's something unusually dunderheaded about this whine about how Gwen Stefani and others don't understand the Asian iconography they're appropriating:

They shadow her wherever she goes. They're on the cover of the album, they appear behind her on the red carpet, she even dedicates a track, "Harajuku Girls," to them. In interviews, they silently vogue in the background like living props; she, meanwhile, likes to pretend that they're not real but only a figment of her imagination. They're ever present in her videos and performances — swabbing the deck aboard the pirate ship, squatting gangsta style in a high school gym while pumping their butts up and down, simpering behind fluttering hands or bowing to Stefani. That's right, bowing. Not even from the waist, but on the ground in a "we're not worthy, we're not worthy" pose. She's taken Tokyo hipsters, sucked them dry of all their street cred, and turned them into China dolls. [Am I the only one who wants to blow groceries when people use words like hipsters and street cred with no irony?--SRK]

...

Stefani fawns over harajuku style in her lyrics, but her appropriation of this subculture makes about as much sense as the Gap selling Anarchy T-shirts; she's swallowed a subversive youth culture in Japan and barfed up another image of submissive giggling Asian women. While aping a style that's suppose to be about individuality and personal expression, Stefani ends up being the only one who stands out.

Sweetie? How 'bout you try this? Go to Harajuku. Watch the way Harajuku girls actually behave. You will see them acting just as giggly, catty, and coy around cute boys as teenaged girls anywhere else. They use the same helium voices as other good Japanese girls, too. In fact, you can think of it this way. Which of the following do you think Harajuku girls more aspire to be like?

1. Gwen Stefani, who has millions of fans, makes millions of dollars, is fawned over by stylists and journalists, designs her own line of clothes, and used to screw Gavin Rossdale
   
2. A leftish SF journalist who sulks that Asians aren't being presented soulfully enough in pop culture and seems not to have been sassy enough to put a bigot in his place when he condescended to her

Remember, Japan is a culture that really, seriously values surfaces. That's not to say that Harajuku girls' sense of style isn't fun and invigorating, but I think it's safe to say that it's mostly a fashion thing and really isn't about the sort of full-on punkish rebellion that it might be among teenagers in the West. (The really disaffected Japanese kids are either locking themselves in their rooms or attacking classmates with knives.) And there's just as much insider conformity visible among Harajuku girls as there is in any other Japanese group; that some of them have rejected the larger exam-hell scheme their parents might like them to stick with doesn't change that.

Personally, I find Stefani's new music and videos annoying. I think her use of her entourage is a rather witty way of making the same oddly-humble point Madonna made 15 years ago in the "Vogue" video, though: a star is a star because she's surrounded by people whom she depends on, utterly, to help make her one. Of course Stefani ends up being the only one who stands out. Pop music thrives on groups of anonymous backing singers and dancers whose sole duty is to magnify the charisma of the headliner. I'm sure her four back-ups are at least being paid pretty well for the job they do, and it probably beats temping or meat packing.

Making them speak only Japanese is a bit on the cute side (it's not geisha-like, either, since geiko were trained in multiple art forms and expected to make intelligent conversation on whatever topics their clients raised). Then again, I can see how the effect might be ruined if Love and Angel were seen slouching around and saying things like, "Oh, wow. That guy over there? With the press pass and the hair in his eyes? I think I know him? Uh, from sophomore year at Oberlin? Before I became, you know, a performance artist?"

Japan is set to begin the process of exploratory drilling in the contested East China Sea natural gas fields. Sort of:

The government officially resolved on 13 April immediately to begin proceedings to grant permits to private enterprises for exploratory drilling to open the natural gas fields in the East China Sea that have become an issue in Japan-China relations. The government's assessment is that, since China has proceeded with its own opening of gas fields close to the China-Japan boundary line (midline), Japan is in danger of losing access to critical natural resources if it delays the process any further. Resistance is expected from China, and the government is carefully weighing whether drilling should actually be permitted to go ahead [presumably even if permits are formally issued].

Minister of Foreign Affairs Nobutaka Machimura is to travel to Beijing for a meeting with Chinese officials and plans to raise the issue there.

He has also been quoted, for what it's worth, on the textbook issue:

If our Chinese counterparts agree, an effective way to go would be to establish a place for joint Japan-PRC historical research.

Japan and the ROK already have such a joint program. It doesn't seem to have had much effect on Japanese textbooks, political speeches, or pilgrimages to shrines, unless I'm missing something.

Added perilously close to the end of lunch: Okay, just one more thing. Here's CNN's latest article on the contretemps, including this quotation from PRC Premier Wen Jiabao:

In the latest flare-up between the two former rivals, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told reporters in New Delhi on Tuesday that Japan must "face up to history squarely" and that the protests should give Tokyo reason to rethink its bid for a permanent council seat.

"The strong responses from the Asian people should make the Japanese government have deep and profound reflections," Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.

"Only a country that respects history, takes responsibility for past history and wins over the trust of the people in Asia and the world at large can take greater responsibility in the international community," he added.

That's fine, but I'm not entirely sure China wants to be raising doubts about who's qualified for permanent membership on the UNSC, since the obvious flip-side question is, what does China do to justify its existing membership except sit there and, you know, be huge? You may not always like what the US, UK, France, and Russia do with their global influence, but you can't deny that they're involved in world affairs. China has a booming economy and sends a lot of people abroad, but you don't see it playing a key role in incidents of major international dispute or cooperation. I'm not, obviously, suggesting that it would be a good idea to kick the PRC off the UN Security Council, but respect for history and respect from the neighbors are hardly the only criteria worth considering here.

Simon has still more information on the anti-Japanese protests--well, in some places, they really are accurately called riots--so I won't write much on what others have been covering so ably.

One thing to bear in mind, though, is that not only aren't all these protests really just about the textbooks and the UNSC, they're also not really just about Japan. I'm not a China scholar, but back when Lu Xun was writing, he was ending stories with characters' crying on the beach and wailing, "Oh, China--why don't you prosper and strengthen?" China feels that it should, by rights, be the big cheese in Asia. That the country that trumps it economically is Japan is certainly a twist of the knife, and that Japan continues to take the maddening tack of skirting close to apologizing for its atrocities without ever actually doing so is a legitimate issue--but a lot of what's erupting is frustration that China's such a basket case in ways that, I think, are only indirectly related to Japan. I don't want to deflect attention from Japan's questionable conduct; much as I love this country and its people, it's let-bygones-be-bygones attitude toward its own sins upsets me. But there are reasons specific to China itself that these things are unfolding as they are, and that's important to remember, too.

Added at 21:37: And trust that ace diplomat Shintaro Ishihara, our Metro Governor here in Tokyo, to pour oil on the waters:

A fishing boat chartered by the Ogasawara Island Fishermen's Cooperative using a Tokyo Metropolitan Government subsidy left on Tuesday for the disputed Okinotorishima Islands to show the area is part of Japan's exclusive economic zone.

At the urging of Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, the metropolitan government allocated 500 million yen from its fiscal 2005 budget to subsidize fishing activities around Japan's southernmost islands to counter surveys Chinese research ships have frequently conducted in the area.

"We will prove that the area is Japan's exclusive economic zone," Ishihara said when the metropolitan government decided to subsidize fishing in the area.

Even though it remains to be seen whether fishing operations around Okinotorishima Islands will be profitable, the metropolitan government has offered to cover any possible losses. "The metropolitan government is prepared to make up for any losses from such operations," Ishihara said.

So it's not the fishing that's important, it's the f**k-you. Marvelous.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Man, what Tokyo could use more of is underpopulated hotels. And you are in luck. The latest wonder of pointless hypertrophied hostelry opened for business during this morning's rain:

Seibu Rail Group opened its new Tokyo Prince Hotel Park Tower (Minato Ward) on 11 April; the conglomerate has invested about 30 billion yen in the project. This is the 53rd Prince Hotel. The structure consists of 33 floors above ground, two floors below ground, and a total of 673 guest rooms.

The hotel is supposed to be a symbol of the rebirth of the Seibu Group, which has suffered an extraordinary number of scandals lately even for a Japanese conglomerate.

BTW, that little sentence about this being the 53rd Prince Hotel? Ha. That doesn't tell you the half of it. Here in Tokyo, there's a complex called Shinjuku Park Tower, home of the famous Park Hyatt Hotel. Of the Prince Hotels, possibly the best-known is the Shinagawa Prince Hotel, though there's also a Shinjuku Prince Hotel. Neither of these is to be confused with the grandiloquent Park Hotel Tokyo, which has towered over Shinbashi for the last several years. And don't forget the Hotel Century Southern Tower, officially in Shibuya Ward but considered part of the Shinjuku orbit. One begins to feel something like affection for the old Hotel Okura for at least having a name that you've got a fighting chance of remembering. The Seibu Group's strategy of simply stringing all the common words together into one super-nomen might prove to be pretty clever.

Actually, come to think of it, the same sort of rules govern the naming of apartment buildings here. I live in a building in the Park House chain; you commonly see things like Sun House, Sun Heights, Garden Heim...stuff like that. The strategy seems to be kind of like what happens in suburban housing developments in the States, where, after the meadow is ploughed under and paved over to build the neighborhood, the new street is un-ironically called Meadowview Terrace. All the Garden/Park/Sun buildings just serve as a constant, vicious reminder of how decidedly un-green and sun-deprived Tokyo actually is.

Then again, it's hard to imagine how the nomenclature could be made more honest without chasing people away. Who wants to live in a place called Rebar Villas or stay at the Hotel Phallic Boondoggle?

Can some of you people get it through your thick heads that civility is a value in its own right?

Just a second...something a little off about the tone there...[takes restorative gulp of plum-wine spritzer]...there we go....

There's a thread running through several of the blog posts that have gotten me exercised this week. That Riding Sun post that kind of annoyed me the other day may have sprung from a comment he made on this spot-on post of Japundit's, which I found through Plum Blossom. [Ooh, plum! Time for another sip!] Japundit says the following:

Talking about the weather or chopsticks may be trivial, but they [Japanese people] figure it's the easiest way to create and maintain a pleasant relationship without ruffling any feathers. Getting involved in a discussion about politics or any other subject that generates strong opinions could easily become unpleasant for both parties and nip the potential for a harmonious encounter in the bud.

I find that once you get to know Japanese people, they will lay out their opinions on just about any issue in startlingly direct terms. But that's once you get to know them. First, a relationship of trust has to be established--and you do that by demonstrating that you're capable of having lively but scrupulously polite conversations about things that don't really matter. Topics start with the weather or how hard it is to learn English--if you show yourself to be a gentleman there, things get more interesting. If you show yourself not to be a gentleman, your conversation partner can drop you without feeling embarrassed about having made some personal revelation that you can now hold over him. Polite society works this way in America, too, though it's hard to find.

Oh, yeah, speaking of which, Gay Orbit notes an exchange Another Gay Republican has had with a member of Sister Talk. The Sister says this:

We should be kissing conservative ass and playin' nice, according to the Republican homos; for them, it's our best chance at accomplishing anything for our team. SINCE WHEN? Since when has diplomacy ever won an oppressed group of people any damn thing?

AGR's response, in part:

I don't see how confrontation gets us anywhere. Railing against hypocrisy may make us feel better, but the people that aren't molesting their kids, beating their wives, divorcing, and running gay porn web sites, tend to get pissed off when they're tagged with guilt by association. Just like liberals get all worked up when they're accused of being the root of all evil. Once they're mad, they tend to shut their minds to anything you have to say.

How is it, I am frequently moved to wonder, that people have not figured this out? I'm talking about those who believe that every conversation must be seized on as an opportunity to Make a Point ("I actually am cool enough to know how to use chopsticks," "I speak languages that are actually harder than Japanese," "There are right-wingers who make a buck from behavior they condemn") in the most literal political sense, without recognizing that the subtext can be equally important. We all have to live with each other. I love Japan, but I'm American through-and-through--I like plenty of good-natured rough-and-tumble argument mixed in with my harmony. It keeps all of us alert and makes life interesting.

There are limits, though, and people who don't stay within them when it comes to political debate raise the suspicion that they won't in the actions of daily life, either. If all you ever do is criticize your political opposition while making excuses for your team, people start to wonder whether you're capable of mature self-criticism in your work and sex lives, too. If you hog the floor all the time, you might be the sort of person who takes a ME-ME-ME! approach to other resources, too. There's no law against being a pain in the ass, but there's no reason people should encourage you to be one, either.

You don't have to be a pushover to be polite; I certainly don't think I am. You just have to be willing to give people a chance unless they've put themselves outside the bounds of civility from the get-go. You can always distance yourself later if they prove to be jerks. It's hard to undo the damage of dismissing them out of hand if you later realize you should have been more sympathetic, though.

Demonstration going on in Beijing, says the Nikkei:

A demonstration was being held on the morning of 9 April in the western part of Beijing to call for boycotts of Japanese goods. The reasons given were opposition to Japan's possible permanent membership in the UN Security Council and dissatisfaction with Japan's history textbook approval system. Participants numbered in the several thousands, many of whom were shouting their criticisms. The organizers, who had called for participants over the Internet, had predicted that between 10,000 and 20,000 people would gather.

Protesters have also named a disputed island chain--there are a lot of them in Asia--as an irritant. The area in which the demonstration is being conducted has a lot of places that deal in Japanese electronics.

It's up on Reuters, also.

Added on 11 April: Simon, naturally, has a whole lot of links about the demonstrations, which were held across China. I was going to update this post, but he and his folks have pretty much got it covered.

Ah, socialized medicine. No one gets extravagant care, no one gets inadequate care--we all get good, solid, top-of-the-line care delivered as cost-effectively as possible.

Except when we don't:

The deaths of four patients at Tokyo Medical University Hospital as a result of coronary artery bypass operations performed by one of its surgeons has highlighted the fact that the hospital failed to properly operate a system under which the surgeon's skills could improve.

An external committee investigating the hospital on suspicion of malpractice pointed this out at a press conference on March 30 in Tokyo following its probe of the hospital's second surgery department, to which the 45-year-old surgeon belonged.

The independent committee was established in December and comprises five heart surgeons from outside the hospital.

One of the committee members said at the press conference: "The surgeon was unskilled. He hadn't acquired the basic knowledge required for heart surgery."

Do be sure to click on the link and keep reading--it gets worse from there. Bear in mind that Tokyo Medical University Hospital is not some little backwater institution, either. And heart surgery, in a first-world population that is rapidly aging, is not an obscure little specialty. And screw-ups in the health-care system have been news for at least the near-decade I've been here.

Of course, Japan's nationwide certification systems--not just those of the hospital--may need review:

Japan has about 260,000 doctors, but there are about 300,000 specialists as some doctors hold more than one specialization, an indication of how easy they are to get.

I don't really know what to make of this--maybe the US is as bad. I'd have no trouble believing that it isn't, though. The Japanese, in all fields, love certifying boards, but that doesn't necessarily mean high standards are consistently maintained.

*******

In related news, a committee of the Japan Society of Intensive Care Medicine has proposed guidelines for treatment cessation--again, a very sticky issue in an aging society (English version, which differs in small points from my translation, here):

The committee proposed strict conditions as grounds for cessation of treatment: (1) multiple doctors have administered the highest-level of treatments currently available [for the patient's illness], (2) the medical facility has informed the family that it has the option to seek a second medical opinion from a different hospital, (3) doctors with the fullest available experience and specialized knowledge have confirmed repeatedly that it is impossible to save the patient.

In addition, the proposal establishes four options that a medical facility must offer to the family [of a patient whose case meets the above conditions]: (1) intensifying of treatment, (2) maintenance of the current course of treatments, (3) decrease in amount of medication or treatment, or (4) cessation of treatment. However, in the case that cessation of treatment is chosen, it is forbidden to detach the patient from an artificial respirator, oxygen supply, or minimal supply of water and nutrients.

Mercy-killing is an issue that's started to bubble through the Japanese medical system, erupting most recently in the conviction of a Kawasaki doctor for murder:

Suda has insisted that she removed the tube and instructed the nurse to give him muscle relaxant without attaching a respirator in a bid to help him die in a natural way at the request of his family in November 1998.

...

Presiding Judge Kenji Hirose denied her claims.

"There was a possibility of recovery. The court doesn't find that she provided the best treatment," the judge said.

As for Suda's claims that the patent's family approved of her actions to help him die naturally, Hirose said that the doctor misunderstood the family's mindset.

As reasons for suspending the sentence, Hirose said that Suda tried to help the patient die naturally for the sake of his family although she misunderstood his family's sentiment at that time.

In this case, the tragedy was pretty clearly a misunderstanding. The patient was comatose; the prosecution acknowledged that he was expected to live only a few weeks. The doctor claimed that she had given him not a lethal dose of muscle relaxant but just enough to try to keep his airway open after the tube was removed. I've seen no medical evidence to prove or disprove that; if it existed, I think it would have come out in the two or three years the case has been around.

However, health care costs are skyrocketing in Japan, for obvious reasons. For now, Social Insurance still makes it possible for the four options enumerated above to be equally feasible, I think, for most people. It's not hard to imagine that triage-minded doctors, constrained by funding and resource shortages, will in the not-too-distant future gradually begin more frequently urging family members to approve cessation of drug and surgical treatments, with only nourishment provided.

*******

I know that American readers will be reminded of a recent, similar (thought not entirely parallel) case in our own country. I haven't said a public word about that case in two years, and I'm not going to make it a topic here, because I've found that no one on either side of the debate has been able to do so without speculation about who really loves and understands whom, within a family most of us don't know at all. So if anyone is inclined to comment, be it known that any comment mentioning that case explicitly will be deleted. I don't care whom it's from.

Riding Sun seems like a good guy, but he and a few of his commenters have an all-too-common reaction to one of the irritations of living in Japan:

So, over time, I've developed a standard response I use whenever someone comments favorably about my ability to use chopsticks:

Why, thank you for noticing my chopstick technique! It didn't come easy, let me tell you. I studied under a chopstick sensei every day for five years. My father took a second job to pay for the lessons. I even withdrew from school at one point to devote myself full-time to chopstick mastery. Long into the night, I would practice picking up dried peas until my fingers ached...

I carry on in that vein until the other person realizes I'm being sarcastic. It usually takes longer than you'd think.

Personally, I find that the reply "Well, you know, it's like everything else--it just takes a little practice" works better than sarcasm. If you're with people you know from work, you can deliver it with that cringey little bow you give when being complimented, to convey gratitude along with the gentle message "Japanese language and forms are learnable skills if you apply yourself; they're not as hocus-pocusy as you may think." If you're with your new landlord, you can deliver it with an extra-respectful cringe to convey, "I'll be sure to learn which garbage goes out which night so you'll never see bags sitting there for days." If you're with a guy who's flirting with you, you can deliver it with The Look to convey, "I'm an all-around quick study, baby."

The problem with sarcasm in these situations is twofold. For one thing, it's a no-no in formal Japanese interaction with near-strangers, so using it kind of casts doubt on the idea that you understand the culture here more than your interlocutor thinks you do. (If Japanese people seem not to be picking up on it, it may be that they're laboring to give you the benefit of the doubt rather than just leaping to the obvious conclusion that you're being ungentlemanly.) For another, sarcasm deflects goodwill. Yes, it's trying to be constantly informed how especially special Japan is. But when people compliment your ability to do Japanese things, they're saying, "I'm proud of my heritage, and I'm honored that you're learning to navigate it." What's the harm in acknowledging that and letting it drop?

The Yomiuri has taken a poll and found that 61% of respondents (all eligible voters) favor revision of the constitution--mostly centered around Article 9. (Thinner English version here.) More than half of those who agreed the constitution should be revised stated (or chose from a list--it doesn't say), "New problems have arisen in the world that the existing constitution cannot address." That included privacy and environmental issues as well as Japan's role in world peace. The percent of DPJ supporters who endorsed constitutional revision (67%) was actually higher than that of LDP supporters (64%). Even when the issue of Article 9 was broken out, LDP (50%) and DPJ (49%) supporters were nearly even.

The editorial in this morning's Nikkei was about Japan Post reform and addresses several sticking points:

Prior [to the release of the plan] the LDP compiled a document called "Modes of Thinking for Japan Post Reform." In it, there were several problems with the government's proposal indicated, including (1) the corporation that will be financed by the government will be state-owned and privately-managed, and so there are fears that its projects will fall prey to corruption, (2) the division of Japan Post into four companies simply increases the number of positions available for 天下り (amakudari: lit., "descent from the heavens"), (3) it has not been proven that the four new companies (posts, savings accounts, insurance, and counter services) will really be independent.

Amakudari is similar to what we'd call a revolving door: the system in which high government officials retire to semi-public management or "consulting" jobs in which they can use their accumulated connections and influence to manage resources. Civil servants make less than they could with equivalent credentials in the private sector because the assumption that they'll retire in their mid-50s and take more-lucrative jobs related to their fields. Government officials have complained about attempts to reform the system because--and it's hard not to sympathize with them to some degree--they've all gone through their entire careers with the understanding that things would work this way. On the other hand, the number of redundant positions boggles the imagination, and attempts at reform are seen as suspect by the Japanese people.

Those planning the privatization of Japan Post talked this weekend about selling off in stages the remaining government-held stake in the two new firms that will handle postal savings and life insurance. Some were still balking at the idea of offloading the entire government stake in ten years, but an agreement appears to have been reached: all government shares are to be sold by the end of March 2017. The government will unveil its basic proposal tomorrow after presenting it to the leaders of the LDP and Shin-Komeito.

BTW, people occasionally ask me how much money we're talking about here. The answer: a WHOLE LOT OF MONEY. There are about ¥230 trillion (US $1.9 trillion) in postal savings accounts. That's between one-third and one-half of the personal savings in Japan, and the "bankers" that manage it are in a special department of the Ministry of Finance. Much of it has been invested in government bonds that no one else is buying, much of the remainder serves as a sort of slush fund for favored government projects, and the rest is invested elsewhere. This Q&A-style piece from The Japan Times last fall gives some of the figures and major problems (consider that I haven't discussed the insurance money). I'm in favor of privatization, but--like bank, pension, health care, and social insurance reforms--it's going to be painful.

Added at 19:20: PM Koizumi has announced his joy over the completion of the proposal. Something I've kept forgetting to mention, though it's at the bottom of most articles about the issue: if the new computer systems aren't ready in time, the beginning of the switchover will be delayed by up to six months.

Added on 5 April: The Ministry of Internal A