I See Japan...from L.A.

Old Style Japanese Gate

2012-01-29T20:41:00.000-08:00

I love Japanese gates. This is one of my favorite that came across while walking around Otawara in Tochigi-ken. I'm not sure if this is an old style but it looks like it.

I particularly like this gate because it is not solid, you can see through the slats into the beautiful inner garden. Also, the wall on each side is not high and imposing, further allowing visibility into the inner garden.

Koyasan Buddhist Temple Los Angeles

2012-01-12T19:08:00.001-08:00

A Fine Looking Alley

2012-01-02T19:27:00.000-08:00

I found this fine looking alley during one of my walks around the Otawara, Tochigi-ken neighborhood. What really caught my eye was the beautiful looking stone sidewalk or walkway. On one side was a fine looking wall that contained peoples yards or entryways.

Notice the interesting texture of the walkway with the white stone with red flecks and spots. Very pretty. On the left of the bottom photo is what is left of an older stone wall that collapsed during the March 2011 earthquake. The wall contains a cemetery.

Pub Snack Allure

2011-12-23T13:10:00.000-08:00

I like the name of this pub. Pub Snack Allure. This is in the pub district in Otawara Tochigi-ken.

Meat Shop

2011-12-14T13:33:00.000-08:00

Two meat shops in Otawara Tochigi-ken. These are both in the pub district neighborhood. But I don't think either of them sell meat. Someone lives above Meat Shop Torikin and when I walked by he was just opening the metal doors but I did not see any meat. The other meat shop appeared to be an abandoned haikyo building.

Meat Shop Torikin that doesn't sell meat.

Meat Shop Haikyo

Pub Alley

2011-12-08T16:13:00.001-08:00

Here is an alley, or very small street, full of small pubs and bars in the Otawara pub neighborhood. There were about 10 or 12 just in this little section that ends just up ahead. The one nearest sells Mackinlay's Old Scotch Whiskey.

The Economist on the Olympus Scandal

2011-12-01T16:02:00.001-08:00

Tribal Japan

Japan’s cherished loyalty system is part of the problem

Dec 3rd 2011

ON NOVEMBER 25th the venerable Foreign Correspondents’ Club
of Japan experienced a volley of camera flashes, jostling television crews and shouts of “heads down at the front!”—the sort of attention it has rarely enjoyed since the country began its gentle slide down the world’s news agenda. The occasion was the return to Japan of Michael Woodford, the former boss of Olympus, a Tokyo-based lens-maker, who had been fired in October after he started asking awkward questions about $1.3 billion in suspicious transactions. His subject, in a nutshell, was corporate governance—not something that, in the abstract, usually sets reporters’ hearts aflutter. But as the club pointed out, not even the Dalai Lama had drawn such a crowd.

Mr Woodford, who is adroit in the spotlight, says the whole saga has been like walking into a John Grisham novel. Having been sacked by the board and stripped of his office, home and company car on October 14th, the 30-year Olympus veteran—one of just fourgaijin to run a leading Japanese company—was told to catch a bus to the airport. The American Federal Bureau of Investigation, Britain’s Serious Fraud Squad and the Japanese authorities are all now on the case.

Mr Kikukawa, Mr Mori and the company’s statutory auditor have since resigned from the board of Olympus, accused of a huge cover-up of securities losses dating back to the 1990s. But other board members who supported them and who dumped Mr Woodford still have their jobs. The company insists that he was fired for failing to understand its management style, and Japanese culture, not for being an awkward whistleblower.

But in retrospect, he says, one of the most chilling moments came when he was still chief executive and had unsuccessfully challenged his chairman, Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, to explain the missing money. He found another director, Hisashi Mori, also seemed to be stonewalling him. “Mr Mori, who do you work for?” he recalls asking, expecting the answer to be Olympus. “Michael, I work for Mr Kikukawa. I’m loyal to Mr Kikukawa,” Mr Mori is said to have replied.

If every foreigner who didn’t understand Japanese culture were fired there would hardly be a gaijin businessman left in the country. The corporate ethos of every culture is in some sense unique. Japan’s is especially perplexing, not just because of its well-known emphasis on loyalty to the group, seniority-based pay and long-term job security. Firms are also doggedly clannish on the inside. As Mr Mori implied, loyalty to a manager or department can trump loyalty to the firm—even if that works against everyone’s long-term interests.

The other difficulty, which extends far beyond business, is a general suspicion in Japan of outsiders’ points of view. Take Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), operator of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear-power plant, wrecked by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. A recent report by Bloomberg, citing minutes of a 2009 meeting, revealed that TEPCO and its regulator, the Economy and Trade Ministry, dismissed scientific findings about the risks of such natural disasters that could have helped prevent the meltdowns of three of the plant’s reactors. The nuclear industry is deeply incestuous. Not only do bureaucrats parachute from their ministries into the utilities, but their sons and daughters occasionally marry each other too. Nicholas Benes, who founded the Board Director Training Institute of Japan, a non-profit organisation, says that having more outsiders on TEPCO’s board, whether independent nuclear specialists, foreigners or women, might have helped ring alarm bells. As it was, 18 of the 20 voting members on TEPCO’s board came from the company itself.

Tribalism extends to politics and the media too, frustrating debate, good policy, and the ability to call politicians to account. Members of Japan’s two biggest political parties acknowledge quite candidly that their first loyalty is to their faction’s boss, not to any policy. Hence the ruling Democratic Party of Japan often appears to be more at war with itself than with the opposition.

As for the media, senior reporters are assigned to cover factional power struggles within the parties, whereas complex policy questions are often covered by junior hacks. The mainstream media has a system, known as the Kisha Club, that tends to encourage complicity with official sources and conspires to keep trouble-making riff-raff out of press conferences. Financial journalists quietly acknowledge that one reason they buried Mr Woodford’s claims on the inside pages early in the Olympus scandal is that the story was broken by an obscure monthly magazine. Worse, Mr Woodford first spoke to the Financial Times, not the Nikkei Shimbun.

Time for a shake-up

In politics, there are encouraging signs that some of this is starting to change. The prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, has made policy front-page news for the first time in years, with his decision to push Japan gingerly towards negotiating a free-trade treaty with America and at least eight other countries, under the framework of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Meanwhile, on November 27th, a publicity-seeking former governor, 42-year-old Toru Hashimoto, dealt a severe cuff to both mainstream political parties. Beating a candidate they jointly supported, he won election as mayor of Osaka on a single campaign pledge: to unite the city and prefecture of Osaka into one large metropolis that would strengthen its finances as well as its bargaining power with the political establishment in Tokyo.

His appeal suggests one stark aspect of governance in Japan—the patience of voters with hopeless mainstream politics—may at last be weakening. But in the tradition-bound, loyalty-bound business world, there is as yet little such clamour for change, from employees or shareholders, however much Mr Woodford has rattled their cages.

The 99%

2011-11-29T07:42:00.001-08:00

This is Occupy LA.

Bee pub

2011-11-19T09:03:00.001-08:00

More pubs next door to the Dead Space pub building in the Chuo bar district in Otawara Tochigi-ken . We have Bee pub, Voila, Mirai, some lounge, and a couple other pubs I can't read. I did not get a chance to go here at night on the weekend. I wonder how busy these places are.

Club Palette, Mickey, Amigo and Dead Space

2011-11-16T21:13:00.001-08:00

I found a club and bar district in the small Tochigi city of Otawara. The neighborhood is called Chuo. There were dozens and dozens of bars and pubs within a small neighborhood. I will post photos of some of them. Here is Club Palette, Club Mickey, Club Amigo (I think) and Club Dead Space.

Manhole cover in Tochigi-ken - Fire in the Hole

2011-11-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

Manhole cover from Otawara, Tochigi-ken.

Takashi Miike's Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai

2011-10-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

Takashi Miike has remade one of the greatest samurai films of them all, Hara Kiri. The original is my favorite samurai film of the over 100 I've seen which include Seven Samurai, Ran and others. The brilliant Tatsuya Nakadai stars in the original so I am very curious how well Miike did in remaking this masterpiece, especially since he has chosen to make this film in 3D.

Occupy Los Angeles - Obama is a Douche Bag

2011-10-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

Occupy LA Hospital

They promote cannibalizing the rich. Yummy.

South side of City Hall

Down with the evil, lazy, greedy rich. Apparently all wealthy people did not work hard and earn their money.

They even have a university. Economic 101 - Occupy LA University

The 99% have fallen on hard times it appears.

Fight the power. The red star and fist is eerily reminiscent of the old Soviet Union if you ask me.

Fine dining at Occupy LA Restaurant.

Very nice likeness of Timothy Geithner. Bad teeth though.

You suck billionaires. And so do you Obama.

See, I knew it. It IS class warfare.

Occupy LA Library.

No one likes an ass hole.

Obama is a douche bag.

The prime evil doer. Actually, I do agree with this. Greenspan sucks.

Pile 'O Signs

Occupy LA wants a small footprint.

Occupy LA tent city South.

The Evil Doers

A very wide range of demands.

How Japan's Oldest Wooden Building Survives Giant Earthquakes

2011-10-05T14:47:00.000-07:00

Below is an interesting article on how Japan's ancient pagoda's survive earthquakes and weather.

How Japan's Oldest Wooden Building Survives Giant Earthquakes

BY ANDREW TARANTOLA OCT 5, 2011 11:30 AM

How Japan’s Oldest Wooden Building Survives Giant Earthquakes
Japan has been struck by magnitude 7.0 or greater earthquakes a staggering 46 times since the pagoda at the Horyu-Ji Temple was built in 607AD. So, how did the 122 foot tall structure stay upright through all that shaking?

Multi-story pagoda technology arrived in Japan during the sixth century alongside Buddhism from China. On the mainland, pagodas were traditionally built of stone. However given Japan's seismic instability and higher annual rainfall, that design was simply untenable. But, after much experimentation, Japanese builders figured out how to adapt them to the shaky conditions through three design changes: the use of wide and heavy eaves, disconnected floors, and a shock-absorbing shinbashira.

Japan is a wet country with roughly double China's annual precipitation. So, to keep rainwater from running off building and onto the soil surrounding the foundation, potentially causing the pagoda to sink, builders extended the eaves far away from the walls—constituting up to 50 percent or more of the building's total width. Builders employed a series of cantilevered beams to prop up the massive overhangs. Then, to combat the buildings' severe flammability, the eaves were then laden with heavy earthenware to prevent tinders from igniting the wooden structure underneath.

Side note: Boy are pagodas flammable. The Toji pagoda, Japan's tallest wooden structure, has burned to the ground after being struck by lightning three times since its first building in 824. Fire-by-lightning-strike is actually the primary way that pagodas are destroyed, hence the inclusion of the large metal spire on the roof that acts as a lightning rod. In fact, only two Japanese pagodas in the last 1400 years, the pair at Todai-ji temple, are known to have actually collapsed from shaking alone.

The wide and heavy eaves aren't only good for fire protection, they also act as enormous stabilizers with a huge amount of inertia that must be overcome for the building to begin swaying. And even with the strongest of jolts, the eaves will cause the building to gently sway rather than shake.

The Horyu-ji pagoda doesn't have any central load-bearing beams like you'd see in modern construction. Since the building tapers as it rises, no single load-bearing vertical beam connects to the one below it. The individual floors themselves aren't solidly connected to their neighbors either, just piled atop one another with loose-fitting brackets. This is actually a big advantage in earthquake country. During a shake, the floors will sway in a slithering fashion, with each floor moving in the opposite direction of the ones immediately above and below. This allows the building to more fluidly ride the seismic wave than a more solid building would.

To keep the floors from flexing too far, builders came up with an ingenious solution—the shinbashira. It looks like a large load-bearing column, but it doesn't actually support any of the building's weight (that weight is supported by a network of 12 outer and four inner columns). Built from a large pine trunk, the shinbashira is strung from the underside of the roof and hangs down a shaft in the center of the structure. Sometimes it's buried into the earth, sometimes it rests lightly atop the ground, and occasionally it doesn't even touch the ground—it just freely hangs. The shinbashira acts as a massive tuned mass damper, helping to mitigate the earthquake's vibrations. It also prevents the floors from swaying to the point of collapse and absorbs some of the momentum of the floors as they strike against it. Basically, it's a giant stationary pendulum with enough mass to prevent the lighter floors from freely swinging around.

This same damping technology is still in use today. The The Taipei 101 employs a massive 4-story, 730-ton steel pendulum hung from the 92nd floor to prevent the building from swaying in high winds. The Citicorp Center in New York, uses a 400 ton concrete block to prevent movement during hurricanes.

[Wikipedia 1, 2, 3 - Economist - Asia Times - National Information Service for Earthquake Engineering- Top image courtesy of (c)Tomo.Yun (www.yunphoto.net/en/) ]

Monster Machines is all about the most exceptional machines in the world, from massive gadgets of destruction to tiny machines of precision, and everything in between.

Simple Stone Lantern

2011-09-29T13:43:00.000-07:00

I love this stone lantern because of how simple and plain it is. This is in the front of a small neighborhood temple in Otawara Tochigi-ken.

The Beehive House

2011-09-26T07:58:00.000-07:00

This large lantern is located at the entrance of a very nice house in Otawara, Tochigi-ken. I bet you're wondering why I call this the Beehive House. It's because that's what the sign says. It says Hachisu or Hachinosu which means a beehive. The name of the family that lives at this house is named Hachisu or Hachinosu. Thanks to Takahiro Yamamoto who informed me of that.

Samurai Manhole

2011-09-17T21:12:00.000-07:00

This is a manhole photo in Otawara I posted this last year but I wanted to post it again since I found who I believe the samurai is. I believe this is Nasu no Yoichi. There is a statue in Otawara that also is Nasu no Yoichi so he must be a symbol of the city.

Nasu no Yoichi (那須与一?) (c. 1169 – c. 1232) was a samurai who fought alongside the Minamoto clan in the Genpei War. He is particularly famous for his actions at the Battle of Yashima in 1184. According to the Heike Monogatari, the enemy Taira placed a fan atop the mast of one of their ships, claiming it protected the ship from arrows, and daring the Minamoto warriors to shoot it off. Sitting atop his mount in the waves, his target atop the ship rocking as well, Nasu nevertheless shot it down with only one shot. (Wikipedia)

Nasu no Yoichi, as depicted in a hanging scroll in the Watanabe Museum. (Wikipedia)

Otawara Lord's Residence?

2011-09-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

While walking in Otawara in Tochigi-ken I came across this really interesting gate. When I saw it I thought it reminded me of a gate to the Edo residence of a minor Daimyo or some other Tokugawa official. But it is not in Edo but in a very average neighborhood in Otawara. I tried to peak through the gate and I think it's just someone's residence. I would love to live in a house with an entrance like this.

Never Forget

2011-09-11T00:14:00.000-07:00

Quake Damaged Cemetery

2011-09-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

On my recent visit to Otawara in Tochigi Prefecture, I noticed a fair amount of earthquake damage from the March 11 disaster, especially to the local cemeteries. I was a bit surprised as I would have thought this type of damage would have been repaired by now but I guess many of the residents just have not had a chance to repair the cemeteries yet. Of course this damage pales in comparison to the damage closer to the quake zone along the coast.

Why did Japan surrender? - Boston.com

2011-09-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

Why did Japan surrender? - Boston.com: "Sixty-six years ago, we dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. Now, some historians say that’s not what ended the war."

'via Blog this'

Fallen Torii Gate

2011-08-30T22:45:00.000-07:00

At the Otawara, Tochigi-ken Shinto shrine, this torii gate was destroyed by the March earthquake.

Demon of Otawara

2011-08-25T04:46:00.000-07:00

I came across this today during one of my many walks around Otawara. It was next to the door of some type of business. I am not sure what it is but it looks like some kind of a demon. So I call it the Demon of Otawara.

The Guardian of the Bar

2011-08-22T04:25:00.000-07:00

I think this is the guardian of the entrance to the Saito Asian Old Bar. This bar is one of maybe 30 or more in a small area of an Otawara Tochigi-ken neighborhood.

Otawara Archer

2011-08-11T20:01:00.000-07:00

This statue is in the city of Otawara in Tochigi-ken. It is on a two-lane busy street near my in-laws house. I don't know the background of this statue or who it is. Can anyone read the plaque on the base of the statue and tell me what it says? It is interesting that this archer is not in samurai attire so I am not certain what era it is supposed to be from or even if it is a warrior. The bow is a traditional bow used by samurai it appears. Samurai bows were asymmetrical. The samurai archer actually grasped the bow closer to the bottom rather in the middle of the bow. Some historians state one reason for this was that early bows were made from a single bamboo stalk that was narrower at the top, therefore the samurai grasped the bow lower on the wider and stiffer part of the bow. Later, samurai used composite bows but they continued to grasp the bow lower near the bottom, maybe to keep the long bow from tripping them or their horse up.

Japanese Playground

2011-07-29T10:02:00.000-07:00

For some reason most playgrounds in Japan are dirt rather than grass. I'm not really sure why. Below is a small neighborhood playground in Otawara Tochigi-ken where I take my two boys to often. Although it is dirt it is still a nice little playground for them to have fun at.

Japanese Bugs - I don't like them

2011-07-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

I am not a big fan of bugs in general but Japanese beetles are especially disgusting and freaky looking. But my two small boys love them just like the average Japanese child. I don't know why beetles are so popular in Japan. They look nasty. Below are a couple of beetles that my two boys had kept in a small box. Before we returned to America we let them go in a small park in Otawara.

There are also a lot of dragonflies in Japan. But unlike Japanese beetles, I think the dragonflies look pretty cool. Here is a dragonfly I tried to get close to before it flew away. Sorry for the blurriness. I was taking the photo quickly with my phone.

Daibutsu Crowds

2011-07-08T15:40:00.000-07:00

The last time I visited the Giant Buddha (Daibutsu) in Kamakura, there were ten thousand school kids there that day which I think is actually pretty common. It was still very fun and I hope to return someday.

Enoshima Cat

2011-07-01T08:23:00.000-07:00

A local cat at Enoshima Jinja shrine on Enoshima island near Kamakura. This photo was taken last summer.

This is my entry in this weeks Show Me Japan. Please click on the photo below to see more great Japan photos at Budget Trouble.

Green Buddha and Faceless Buddha

2011-06-23T13:22:00.000-07:00

I love how many old Buddhist statues in Japan become weathered or moss covered. It really adds to the character of the old statues. Below are two statues, possibly Jizo Bodhisattva's, from a temple in Otawara, Tochigi-ken. My favorite is the moss covered green Jizo.

This is my entry in this weeks Show Me Japan. Please click on the photo below to see more great Japan photos at Budget Trouble.

Stoned Buddha

2011-06-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

I love to walk around little neighborhood temples and there are several very near where I stay when visiting Otawara in Tochigi. One of the things I love about them are all the old statues around the temple grounds. Below are photos from the attached cemetery. I was very curious when I saw all the stones covering the statues. I believe these are Jizo statues because of the bibs they are wearing but I am not certain. If they are then technically they are not Buddha's but are bodhisattva's. If anyone knows the reason for the stones, let me know.

I love the stone on this little one's head.

This is my entry in this weeks Show Me Japan. Please click on the photo below to see more great Japan photos at Budget Trouble.

Rain...Rain, It's Rain Every

2011-06-13T16:01:00.000-07:00

Funny Engrish. I think she is trying to say it's always raining. Not entirely sure. I think even Google Translate would give a better translation for the phrases on this tissue box.

Pocket Park

2011-06-09T12:40:00.000-07:00

Below is what I call a "pocket park" because it is relatively small. This park in Otawara is where I often take my two boys when we visit Tochihi Japan. It is very close walking distance and is a great place to run around, look for bugs and generally have fun. As you can see the park has a wall with descriptions of various types of exercises people can do. I have never seen anyone exercising there though. This is the same park where we found the trash from an inconsiderate person but usually the park is very clean. There even is a restroom.

This is my entry in this weeks Show Me Japan. Please click on the photo below to see more great Japan photos at Budget Trouble.

Hey, pick up your trash

2011-06-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

Japan is fairly well known for being a very clean country. And overall especially in comparison to most American cities like Los Angeles , Japan is much cleaner when it comes to trash and litter and graffiti. But as many of those who have lived in Japan know, there is litter and graffiti. Below are a couple of photos from a nice little pocket park in Otawara Tochigi. I often take my boys to this little park to play but one day we found someone's lunch trash and cigarette butts on the table. Obviously an insensitive, careless and rude person. In spite of this I do feel Japan is far cleaner than where I live, Los Angeles.

This is my entry in this weeks Show Me Japan. Please visit Budget Trouble to see other great photos of Japan.

Japanese Warlord Played a Mean Game of Kickball

2011-05-31T13:42:00.000-07:00

Oda Nobunaga, one of the most feared and powerful warlords in Japanese history, liked a good game of kickball. "Kickball?" you say. "Did it even exist 450 years ago?" Well, apparently it did.

Oda Nobunaga 1534-1582

According to the book, Japonius Tyrannus, kickball had been an aristocratic pastime since the late Heian period (794-1185) and surprisingly Nobunaga, a passionate falconer and sumo fan, displayed an interest in this surprisingly ceremonial sport.

Nobunaga actively involved himself with the court such as in 1575 when he organized a match between leading court nobles at the grounds of the temple Shokokuji. Nobunaga used these matches as well as the Tea Ceremony to establish or strengthen political bonds, or to associate with people from outside the warrior class: with merchants in the case of tea, and with nobles in the case of kickball.

The kickball matches also allowed Nobunaga to famliarize himself with the various court nobles. At the time, one of the players, Asukai Masanori (1520-94), served as Crown Prince Sanehito's special envoy to Nobunaga. The Asukai family had earned a dominant position as 'masters of kickball' in the Muromachi period (1336 to 1573), thanks to the sponsorship of successive emperors and the Ashikaga shoguns. Nobunaga continued this shogunal sponsorship of the Asukai, even calling himself Masanori's 'kickball pupil' on one occasion.

I think it would have been pretty cool to have played kickball with the great warlord Nobunaga. I would be careful to always let him win of course.

As Toranosuke correctly pointed out below in his comment, the sport is not like today's version of kickball. The ancient sport is called kemari and is more like the game of hackysack or juggling a soccer ball. There were varying numbers of players, between 2 and 12, and the ball was passed between players. There was no tackling or vying for the ball and the game was not competitive apparently but was more dignified and ceremonious however it did (and does) require a great amount of skill.

Coolest Car in Otawara

2011-05-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

During one of my walks around a very quiet average neighborhood in Otawara in Tochigi Prefecture I came across something I would not have expected seeing, a beautiful red Ferrari. It was parked in the outdoor carport of a typical modest home in a very average (not rich) neighborhood. I wonder if this is the only Ferrari in all of Otawara. I even wonder how many there are in the entire prefecture. Very interesting to find this only a couple minutes walk from my Father-in-Law's home.

This is my entry in this weeks Show Me Japan Vol 1 Issue 27. Please visit Budget Trouble to see other great photos of Japan.

Japanese Spiders

2011-05-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

I don't like spiders much, especially big ones with really long legs. Japan has a lot of these so you really have to watch where you are walking, I mean really watch. The spider below I found on a really narrow little neighborhood street in Otawara Tochigi. The spider had built its web partially covering the road with support strands stretching about 6 or 7 feet (approximately 2 meters) to the other side of the road. It was high enough for small cars to go under. However, the main part of the web you see below was only about 5 feet off the ground and along the side of the road. Had I not been paying attention I would have had a face full of what you see below. It gives me goose bumps and shivers just thinking about it. AAAAHHHHHH!!!!

This is my entry for Show Me Japan Vol 1, Issue 26. Please visit to see more great photos of Japan.

Historical Ninja vs. Fantasy Ninja

2011-05-14T23:34:00.000-07:00

Many events and stories surrounding the samurai in Japanese history are as much myth as they are reality such as the story of the 47 Ronin. The ninja are no different.

I recently came across a short but concise article describing the difference between the real ninja of Japanese history and the more well known fantasy ninja. The article on Suite101 was written by Carmen Sterba, a periodic and knowledgeable participant on the Samurai Archives Japanese history forums. I love brief yet informative articles such as Carmen's that get right to the point and teach people about the various myths of the samurai and ninja from medieval Japan.

Crazy Utsunomiya Man

2011-05-13T18:14:00.000-07:00

Below are some photos a relative of my wife sent me several years ago. He lives in Utsunomiya and the photos are from his city. I call him crazy in a funny way. He's a really goofy and entertaining guy who enjoys to have a beer. :)

A park in Utsunomiya.

Here is a crazy man at a park in Utsunomiya.

Here's crazy Utsunomiya man enjoying some fine Utsunomiya water.

Here is crazy Utsunomiya man fishing at a local park. I wonder if he caught anything?

Here is crazy man's house. I wonder if he rides that scooter. If he does and you are ever in Utsunomiya, better watch out when you are on the street.

Here is crazy man's house in the summer.

Here is his house during the winter.

Takashi Miike: Why I am bringing Japanese classics back to life

2011-05-06T07:10:00.000-07:00

From the Guardian UK, the Japanese director explains why he has returned to the chanbara samurai films of his youth for his new film 13 Assassins and the up coming remake of the incredible film, Hara Kiri.

It was two years ago, when I was watching the classic 1963 samurai film 13 Assassins, that I was struck by the sheer power and energy the Japanese film industry possessed in its heyday. But I also immediately felt sad, because we have lost the ability to make films like that. I wanted to resurrect this creative spirit. That's why I decided to do a remake.

I was only three years old when the original came out. It's popular among samurai movie fans – a legendary film for my father's generation, among the many fine chanbara (samurai films) made at the time. Most of all, I love the Zatoichi series about the blind swordsman, especially the first one, from 1962. It's a masterpiece. Then there are the films of Hideo Gosha: Kumokiri Nizaemon (Bandits vs Samurai Squad, 1978) and Yami no Karyudo (Hunter in the Dark, 1979). They are a bit on the B-movie side, but they are interesting, cool and very stylish. And of course Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai has to make the list; I don't think any Japanese film-maker can escape the influence of Kurosawa.

I felt that all of us working on our remake of 13 Assassins had to honour the original director, Eiichi Kudo, and everyone else who created the original. It was important to avoid doing what most modern-day chanbara do, which is to insert a love story, or interpose modern-day mindsets. Over the years, people have remade Kurosawa movies, but failed every time because they have not been able to adapt the story into something young audiences can understand.

The story takes place in the 1840s, near the end of the Edo period. But some things never change: mankind is always in pain, no matter what the age, place or political system. I don't need to insert "contemporary themes" into the film – these samurai speak to us even though we are not samurai. That, for me, is the beauty of these period films. Perhaps the samurai genre is unique, even though we Japanese live in an international world where we share the same information and use the same products. But then again, you could compare samurai movies to westerns, in that they're both long-lasting genres in which the characters and the audiences are mainly men. As men, we want to see some kind of ideal of masculinity, even though modern society might restrict us in our own lives.

I wanted to make 13 Assassins in the old manner, to use old techniques and not to rely on modern-day ones such as CGI, or editing that changes the speed. We only had two weeks to film, and the weather up in Yamagata prefecture in the north, where we built the set for the village where the climactic battle takes place, was pretty bad. The actors did surprisingly well, considering that more than half of the main 13 had never held a sword or ridden a horse. They were fighting for their lives as actors.

Have I managed to resurrect the genre? Maybe 13 Assassins is the mortal agony and death rattle of a Japanese film industry that has abandoned its creative talent. But I've got another chanbara on the way, which I'm editing for Cannes right now. It's called Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, and is based on the 1962 film by the famous director Masaki Kobayashi. And it's going to be in 3D. As a film-maker, it's only natural to feel happy about new possibilities opening up. I picture myself 20 years from now, when 3D is the norm, telling my grandkids: "In the old days, we actually argued about whether 2D was better."

Takashi Miike was talking to Phil Hoad.

13 Assassins

2011-05-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

Here is the trailer for the AWESOME looking 13 Assassins that is now playing in the United States. Here is a listing of where it is showing. 13 Assassins is a remake of the original 1963 film and is directed by Takashi Miike. Miike also directed such famous films as Sukiyaki Western: Django, Ichi The Killer, and Yakuza Demon. Although a remake, this film has been getting some very good reviews, apparently the sword fighting and battle scenes are very impressive and violent. The director clearly wanted to give the feeling of the reality and horror of the actual combat, just like was done in the movie Saving Private Ryan. This is showing in Los Angeles so I will make every attempt I can to see this incredible looking samurai film.

Front Door Mini Garden

2011-04-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

I love the mini gardens next to the front doors of many homes, shops, and restaurants in Japan. Most homes and businesses in Japan have very little front space but many people make very good use of it with these pretty little gardens. This beautiful little garden is located in front of a home on a relatively busy street in Otawara, Tochigi-ken.

To see more great Show Me Japan photos, please visit Budget Trouble.

Witness. Disaster in Japan (2011)

2011-04-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

WOW. Just wow. Amazing, shocking and sad documentary produced by National Geographic. Forty-five minutes of unbelievable earthquake and tsunami footage.

YouTube - Witness. Disaster in Japan (2011)

Small Door

2011-04-12T16:07:00.001-07:00

I love Japanese walls for some reason. The texture of the various types of stone, the colors, the different styles with the top caps, etc. The wall below was interesting because of the door. The door is about 3 to 4 feet tall (0.9 to 1.2 meters). I really like the arched stone above this small door and the rough stone looks very nice. The stone lip about a foot from the ground also really makes this wall look nice in my opinion. This photo is one I took from Otawara in Tochigi prefecture in August 2010.

See more great Show Me Japan photos currently being hosted by ichigoichielove.

Peppers on a Post

2011-03-31T08:13:00.000-07:00

This is a photo from Otawara Tochigi-ken that I took last August. Along one of the streets there were potted pepper plants attached to posts along several blocks of the street.

Please visit Budget Trouble to see more great photos of Japan.

Quakebook - Relief for Japan

2011-03-30T07:32:00.000-07:00

Quakebook - A Twitter-sourced charity book about how the Japanese Earthquake at 2:46 on March 11, 2011 affected us all. All proceeds from the QuakeBook Book go to the Japan Red Cross.

The 2:46 Quakebook project started with a tweet and is on the verge of something great, a way that we can help all those hit by the the March 11th, 2011 earthquake and its aftermath.

Led by OurManInAbiko, a call went out across Twitter for contributors to create a book to raise funds for Red Cross Japan. The idea was to share the stories and experiences of people actually on the ground during the earthquake, whilst raising funds for the Red Cross.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by this event; from those directly in the earthquake zone, the path of the tsunami, in the evacuation area around the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, to those in many other areas of Japan, whose lives have been disrupted by rolling power blackouts, poor road conditions, food and water supply difficulties, and more.

The contributions have come from a wide variety of sources, and include photographs, personal accounts, drawings; each telling their own tale.

Every penny from sales of the book goes directly to Red Cross, Japan. We urge you to buy the book, buy a copy as a gift, promote it, share it, tweet about it, review it, blog about it, link to it, etc.

The tale of the evolution of QuakeBook can be found under the hashtag #quakebook on Twitter.

Click here to purchase Quakebook.

Video of Tsunami In Kesennuma Japan

2011-03-28T07:42:00.000-07:00

Video of Tsunami destroying the city of Kesennuma. Amazing composure of the person filming the tsunami. You can see people on the roof of the tall building across the way and at first I'm sure they felt safe on such a large building. But as the water becomes more powerful and other smaller buildings slam into the bigger one, you can see the people running around. Probably they were questioning whether their building would actually remain standing. It must have been horrifying.

2011 Tsunami Footage

2011-03-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

Amateur footage courtesy of TBS shows boats being overturned in the fishing port of Miyako, Japan and cars being carried away in Kamaishi city.

Video out of Japan shows ships being tossed about and pushed inland on a wave of water powered by the tsunami that was triggered by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake.

An 9.0 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that rolled into the Japanese port of Sendai, engulfing farmlands and carrying vehicles and buildings.

Video released shows the moment when the tsunami hit the small Japanese port town of Miyako.

Japan Earthquake Photos - Operation Tomodachi

2011-03-23T13:42:00.001-07:00

Photo from US Military Japan relief operation called Operation Tomodachi. Notice the large ferry on top of the building.

WAKUYA, Japan (March 15, 2011) An aerial view of damage to Wakuya, Japan after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated the area in northern Japan. Ships and aircraft from the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group are conducting search and rescue operations and re-supply missions as directed in support of Operation Tomodachi throughout northern Japan. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Alexander Tidd/Released)

Japan Earthquake Photos - Operation Tomodachi

2011-03-22T07:26:00.000-07:00

Photos from the US Navy's Japan earthquake relief operation - Code name Operation Tomodachi

PACIFIC OCEAN (March 13, 2011) A Japanese home is seen adrift in the Pacific Ocean. Ships and aircraft from the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group are searching for survivors in the coastal waters near Sendai, Japan. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Dylan McCord/Released)

What chance of a 'big one' in Tokyo?

2011-03-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

BBC News reports that some seismologists who study Japan believe that the recent 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Eastern Japan may have slightly increased the chances for a large earthquake in the Tokyo area. I pray it does not happen in our lifetime but unfortunately it will happen. People and governments should be aware of that. The map below shows the plate boundaries around Japan. As you can see, Tokyo is right at the juncture of three plates, the Pacific Plate, the Eurasian Plate, and the Philippine Plate. You could say that Tokyo is in the middle of a gigantic crunch zone.

Japan Tsunami photo - WOW

2011-03-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

This photo is from the excellent Japan blog Tokyo Five. Just WOW. This photo is from one of the video I posted a couple of days ago. So shocking and sad.

Dog Survives Japan Tsunami, Leads Rescuers to Friend

2011-03-17T09:32:00.000-07:00

Sad but nice also. Amazing.

Maybe most shocking tsunami video yet

2011-03-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Shocking video of 2011 Japan tsunami

2011-03-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

This is some very shocking and horrifying video of the tsunami that hit northern Japan following the massive 9.0 earthquake. You can see people driving on the nearby road not realizing there is a wall of water coming. Terrible.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Terrifying tsunami video

2011-03-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

2011 Tsunami Footage

2011-03-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

2011 Tsunami Footage

2011-03-12T09:50:00.000-08:00

Amateur footage demonstrates the frightening speed with which Friday's tsunami destroyed the city of Kesennuma, Japan.

Haikyo House

2011-03-10T07:49:00.000-08:00

This a haikyo (abandoned) house in a neighborhood in Otawara, Tochigi Japan. Due to the real estate bust of the 1990s and stagnant population growth, you will find a lot of these types of buildings throughout Japan. This one is right in the middle of an active neighborhood.

Please visit Budget Trouble blog that has plenty more great photos from Japan and where you can submit your own Show Me Japan photos.

Zen psychology: Daisetz Suzuki remembered

2011-03-09T14:32:00.000-08:00

Here is a very interesting article from the Japan Times about Daisetz Suzuki, a Zen Buddhist teacher, who died 55 years ago. D.T. Suzuki is one of the great Zen teachers in modern Japanese history.

Zen psychology: Daisetz Suzuki remembered

More than any other Eastern thinker in the 20th century, Suzuki catalyzed the rise of humanistic psychology, which has spurred today's interest in spirituality and well-being

By EDWARD HOFFMAN

Special to The Japan Times

Despite the gloomy global economy, the field of positive psychology is booming. Often described simplistically by journalists as "the science of happiness," it's actually a broad focus on our strengths and talents, virtues and peak experiences in daily living. The name for this specialty originated with Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania a dozen years ago. With amazing speed, it has spawned courses at hundreds of colleges, best-selling books, websites and workshops on topics like mindfulness, and wide-ranging research on the links between mood and wellness.

Zen sage: The works of Daisetz Suzuki have inspired many in the West to study and learn from Eastern philosophy and Zen Buddhism. AP PHOTO

Yet, amid this flurry of excitement, it's shameful that so little credit is given to a key figure who helped shift the focus away from Sigmund Freud's gloomy fixations to a more optimistic view of human nature: Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki. More than any other Eastern thinker in the 20th century, he catalyzed the rise of humanistic psychology in the post-World War II era — and, indirectly, today's mounting interest in spirituality and inner well-being. As 2011 marks the 55th anniversary of Suzuki's death, the time is right to remember the remarkable man born in what's now Kanazawa, western Japan.

Suzuki was descended from a long line of physicians of the samurai class. He was expected to follow in their path, but when he was only 6, his father died and this goal became financially impossible. Academically gifted, he taught English in several small towns before initiating higher education at Tokyo Senmon Gakko (the predecessor of Waseda University) and the nonregular course at the Imperial University in Tokyo. But by his early 20s, Suzuki felt drawn to spiritual matters, and became a novitiate at the Engakuji Rinzai Zen monastery in Kamakura.

What was his motivation? As Suzuki later reminisced, "My thoughts (had) started to turn to philosophy and religion, and as my family belonged to the Rinzai sect of Zen, it was natural that I should look to Zen for some of the answers to my problems (about losing my father and our family's resulting poverty)."

At Engakuji, Suzuki's mentor, the aged Roshi (Zen master) Imagita Kosen, bestowed the Buddhist name Daisetz, meaning "great humility" on his pupil. Suzuki spent long hours in zazen (sitting meditation) and immersed himself in classic Zen texts. He was especially inspired by the "Zenkan Sakushin" (Whips to Drive You Through the Zen Barrier), an anthology of writings on Zen discipline and advice compiled by a Chinese master of the Ming dynasty. Decades later, Suzuki would vividly describe these formative years in his spiritual memoir, "The Training of A Buddhist Monk."

As he later reminisced, "In the way of moral effort, I used to spend many nights in a cave at the back of the Shariden building where the Buddha's tooth was enshrined. But there was always a weakness of willpower in me, so that I often failed to sit up all night in the cave, finding some excuse to leave, such as the mosquitoes."

Suzuki may have been exceptionally modest by temperament, but he was a brilliant linguist. Recognizing this talent was Roshi Kosen's cosmopolitan successor — Shaku Soyen, who arranged for young Suzuki to work near Chicago as a professional translator of Eastern texts for the Open Court publishing firm. There for 12 years, Suzuki enthusiastically introduced Americans to classic Chinese, Japanese, Pali and Sanskrit writings — starting with Taoism's seminal text, the "Tao Te Ching." In 1907, Suzuki authored his first book, "Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism," and thus began his subsequent, nearly 60-year career as a teacher and interpreter of Zen Buddhism to the West. During his stay in the U.S., he traveled widely including a visit to Europe — expanding his translation work and connecting with Theosophists and others interested in mystical teachings for the modern world.

Training ground: Daisetz Suzuki studied Zen at Engakuji monastery in Kamakura. YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTOS

Late in his life, Suzuki insisted that he had never planned to spend so much time residing in the U.S., but "one year grew into the next and I wound up staying in America for more than a decade. After that, I traveled around Europe for a year before returning to Japan."

During this period, Suzuki also found time for romance. In 1911, he married Beatrice Erskine Lane, an American social worker eight years his junior drawn to Zen and Theosophy. By then, he was back in Japan as an English lecturer at the Imperial University, and they wedded in Yokohama. The two would adopt a son and collaborate on many literary projects until her death in 1939, for Lane was an accomplished scholar in her own right — whose lucid book on Mahayana Buddhism still remains in print after more than 70 years. Sharing her husband's interest in psychology, she devoted an entire chapter in this work to the Buddhist concept of personality — and poetically declared that "The only definite teaching to be found in Zen is that . . . every man is a sleeping Buddha. Consequently, (one) has but to awaken his heart of wisdom by meditation to gain a direct insight into the nature of reality."

The 1920s and 1930s marked Suzuki's most productive years. Joining the faculty of Otani University in Kyoto, he taught both English and Buddhist philosophy, and received an honorary doctorate in literature. During this period, his major books included "An Introduction to Zen Buddhism," "Essays in Zen Buddhism," "The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk," his translation of the ancient Sanskrit Lankavatara Sutra, and especially "Zen and Its Influence on Japanese Culture."

These works came to influence several major psychological thinkers of the 20th century including Carl Jung, Erich Fromm and Karen Horney. For example, Jung was fascinated by Suzuki's description of the Zen experience of satori(enlightenment) and argued that it showed that we have higher stages of consciousness beyond the ego. For Fromm and Horney, Suzuki's work pointed the way to an exciting new understanding of personality growth and psychotherapy based on the notion of a "real self" that can be nurtured through authenticity and "whole-heartedness."

Fromm admired Suzuki's Zen teaching that we grow spiritually in life not by mere words and intellect, but by involving our entire being. At the time, of course, Freudianism was the dominant approach in Europe and the U.S., and had nothing to say about such matters.

During the interwar years, Suzuki's writings also helped modern Japanese to appreciate the impact of Zen thought on their own culture. For instance, in his preface to "The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk," Suzuki asserted that "It is impossible, as I maintain, in the study of the Orient, especially in the study of Japanese character and culture, to neglect — much less to ignore — the influence of Zen. "In Zen and Its Influence on Japanese Culture," Suzuki described Zen's impact on four different, long-standing traditions in his country: painting, literature, swordsmanship and the tea ceremony. Each of these domains is worth noting, though space constraint here necessarily make these brief.

A temple room within Engakuji monastery where Suzuki is believed to have meditated.

Artistically, the Sumiye is a kind of sketch in black and white, involving ink composed of soot and glue, a brush of sheep's or badger's hair, and thin paper designed to absorb much ink. As Suzuki noted, such frail material was intentionally chosen to make sure that the artist's inspiration was transferred onto it in the quickest possible time — allowing for no erasing, retouching or remodeling. In this way, observed Suzuki, "Sumiye attempts to catch spirit as it moves" — thereby embodying the Zen principle that in life, "Everything becomes, nothing is stationery."

As for literature, the haiku is a special product of Japanese genius, according to Suzuki, developed in its highest form by the 17th-century Zen devotee Basho. How so? Because he freed haiku from mere wordplay and connected it to the experience of ultimate truth with such poems as "A frog jumps into the water. Hear the sound!"

As for swordsmanship, Suzuki contended that in feudal times, Japanese warriors were taught by Zen masters not to learn scholarly doctrines, but to develop a specific mental attitude: fearlessness before their possible death in battle. The 16th-century Zen master Takuan also taught his disciple Yagyu Tajima no Kami (swordsmanship teacher to the shogun of his day): "What is most important in the art of swordplay is to acquire . . . 'immovable wisdom.' 'Immovable' does not mean to be stiff and heavy . . . It means the highest degree of motility with a center which remains immovable . . . You must leave your mind free to make its own countermovement without your interfering deliberation."

Finally, Suzuki contended that the Japanese tea ceremony, so integral and favored part of its culture — and similar to other long-standing artistic activities as flower arranging — embodies the spirit of sabi by emphasizing such elements as simplicity, naturalness, refinement and "familiarity singularly tinged with aloofness and everyday commonness veiled exquisitely with the mist of transcendental inwardness."

Such insights by Suzuki helped to awaken broad Japanese interest in Zen Buddhism, especially as his reputation grew in the West.

When World War II erupted, Suzuki was under the suspicion of the Japanese government for his opposition to militarism. In his numerous wartime essays on Zen, he kept quiet about political matters, but in private letters as well as public speeches, he made clear his antiwar stance. For example, the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, the 71-year-old Suzuki plunged Otani University's faculty meeting into uproar when he contended, "With this, Japan will be destroyed. What will destroy it is Shinto and the militarists."

Such shocking words, of course, proved prophetic — and in 1949, he was made a member of the Japan Academy and decorated by the emperor with the Order of Culture.

The postwar era marked the heyday of American Freudianism and its humanistic offshoots — and Suzuki, teaching Zen Buddhism at Columbia University in the 1950s, was at the epicenter of creative psychological thought. Only months before Horney's death in 1952, she accompanied Suzuki and colleagues on a tour of Japanese Zen monasteries and emphasized the importance of his notion of "whole-heartedness" as a vital feature of mental health. Fromm became close friends with Suzuki, and in 1957, sponsored him as a guest speaker for a conference on Zen and psychoanalysis held in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Several years later, the two coauthored an influential book on this topic; like many others, Fromm was greatly touched by Suzuki's personal warmth and kindness.

Abraham Maslow, guru of motivational psychology, was another humanistic thinker inspired by Suzuki during these years. Maslow, who pioneered in studying what he called "peak experiences" — that is, sudden moments of joy and meaning — was excited by Suzuki's concept of sono-mama or suchness, as an element of mystical awareness. Sponsoring Suzuki's lectures at Brandeis University, Maslow also regarded Suzuki's Zen teaching of muga, or total absorption, as vital for a psychology of well-being and growth.

It is an historical irony, though, that Suzuki had much less impact on Japanese psychology than on its humanistic development in the U.S. and Europe. Why so? Because during the postwar years, Japanese psychologists were eager to establish their field as a rigorous experimentalist science, akin to biology, and looked askance at philosophical or spiritual thinkers. As the Jungian scholar Dr. Shoji Muramoto of Kobe City University of Foreign Studies comments, "Unlike in the West, Suzuki's relevance to modern psychology has hardly been appreciated in Japan outside of a few journal articles. Nevertheless, he was perhaps the first Zen philosopher to deal with Zen as an object of academic study in its philosophical basis and psychological aspects, as well as its history."

After retiring from Columbia University in 1957, the elderly Suzuki returned to Japan, where he kept up an active, international schedule of writing, attending conferences, lecturing and receiving awards for his lifetime achievements.

Until his death in 1966 at age 95, he influenced a new generation interested in the relevance of Eastern thought — particularly Zen Buddhism — for contemporary civilization. For instance, his writings on Zen meditation later contributed to mindfulness training for health care professionals as a valued therapeutic tool — and now sponsored by dozens of medical schools in the U.S. and elsewhere.

As Suzuki astutely saw, the world was hungry for Eastern spiritual wisdom. His final words? "Don't worry. Thank you! Thank you!"

Tour of Duty: Samurai, Military Service in Edo

2011-02-10T13:59:00.000-08:00

I recently read the book Tour of Duty by Constantine Nomikos Vaporis is professor of history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. An excellent book on the sankin kotai system, the duty of samurai to "attend" the Shogun in Edo period Japan (1603-1868).

Alternate attendance (sankin kotai) was one of the central institutions of Edo-period (1603–1868) Japan and one of the most unusual examples of a system of enforced elite mobility in world history. It required the daimyo to divide their time between their domains and the city of Edo, where they waited upon the Tokugawa shogun. Based on a prodigious amount of research in both published and archival primary sources, Tour of Duty renders alternate attendance as a lived experience, for not only the daimyo but also the samurai retainers who accompanied them. Beyond exploring the nature of travel to and from the capital as well as the period of enforced bachelorhood there, Constantine Vaporis elucidates—for the first time—the significance of alternate attendance as an engine of cultural, intellectual, material, and technological exchange.

Vaporis argues against the view that cultural change simply emanated from the center (Edo) and reveals more complex patterns of cultural circulation and production taking place between the domains and Edo and among distant parts of Japan. What is generally known as “Edo culture” in fact incorporated elements from the localities. In some cases, Edo acted as a nexus for exchange; at other times, culture traveled from one area to another without passing through the capital. As a result, even those who did not directly participate in alternate attendance experienced a world much larger than their own. Vaporis begins by detailing the nature of the trip to and from the capital for one particular large-scale domain, Tosa, and its men and goes on to analyze the political and cultural meanings of the processions of the daimyo and their extensive entourages up and down the highways. These parade-like movements were replete with symbolic import for the nature of early modern governance. Later chapters are concerned with the physical and social environment experienced by the daimyo’s retainers in Edo; they also address the question of who went to Edo and why, the network of physical spaces in which the domainal samurai lived, the issue of staffing, political power, and the daily lives and consumption habits of retainers. Finally, Vaporis examines retainers as carriers of culture, both in a literal and a figurative sense. In doing so, he reveals the significance of travel for retainers and their identity as consumers and producers of culture, thus proposing a multivalent model of cultural change. (University of Hawai`i Press)

Tour of Duty is one of nearly 200 books submitted for the 2011 International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) Book Prize. The book is currently in second place with online polling taking place until March 20th. If you read this excellent book and enjoyed it like me, please go to the ICAS website and place your vote for Tour of Duty by Constatine Vaporis.

Japan's Debt Crisis

2011-01-29T14:03:00.000-08:00

Below is a portion of a recent January 27, 2011 article from Time.com regarding Japan's debt crisis.

Standard & Poor's on Thursday downgraded Japan's long-term credit rating. Granted, the rating is still very, very strong, but the action does indicate how investors are growing nervous about the deteriorating state of government finances even in those economies considered to be the bedrock of the global economy.

Japan has been heading here for a while. Its government debt to GDP ratio, at around 200%, is already the highest of any industrialized country. Its economy has been in a slow-motion economic crisis for two decades, yet policymakers have proven incapable of undertaking the sort of reforms necessary to get growth going again. And despite talk of a hike in the consumption tax and other measures to shore up state finances, the latest budget, passed in December, is anything but austere, with borrowing expected to exceed tax revenues. Thus giant budget deficits are expected to continue. S&P noted all this in its statement on the downgrade:

The downgrade reflects our appraisal that Japan's government debt ratios--already among the highest for rated sovereigns--will continue to rise further than we envisaged before the global economic recession hit the country and will peak only in the mid-2020s. Specifically, we expect general government fiscal deficits to fall only modestly from an estimated 9.1% of GDP in fiscal 2010 (ending March 31, 2011) to 8.0% in fiscal 2013. In the medium term, we do not forecast the government achieving a primary balance before 2020 unless a significant fiscal consolidation program is implemented beforehand.

Nor are the underlying dynamics within the population and economy going to help Japan get out of its fiscal mess:

Japan's fast-aging population challenges both its fiscal and economic outlooks. The nation's total social security related expenses now make up 31% of the government's fiscal 2011 budget, and this ratio will rise absent reforms beyond those enacted in 2004. An aging and shrinking labor force contributes to our modest medium-term growth estimate of around 1%.

S&P, however, has little faith that the current administration running Japan can implement a serious program that could reverse the deteriorating trend in national finances:

In our opinion, the Democratic Party of Japan-led government lacks a coherent strategy to address these negative aspects of the country's debt dynamics, in part due to the coalition having lost its majority in the upper house of parliament last summer. We think there is a low chance that the government's announced 2011 reviews of the nation's social security and consumption tax systems will lead to material improvements to the intertemporal solvency of the state... Thus, notwithstanding the still strong domestic demand for government debt and corresponding low real interest rates, we expect Japan's fiscal flexibility to diminish.

To be clear here, Japan is not Greece or Ireland. S&P's downgrade doesn't mean Japan is spiraling into a debt crisis. Japan is still a creditor nation with giant foreign exchange reserves and high national savings. But at the same time, the downgrade shows the slippery slope all of the developed world finds itself on. As debt mounts and aging populations put more strain on government budgets, there is a rising possibility that investors will eventually lose confidence in countries like France, the U.K. or Japan in the same way they have with Greece, Ireland and Portugal. This isn't going to happen tomorrow, but it will happen unless governments fix their finances, and in an intelligent way that supports long-term growth.

Japan has no "coherent strategy" to tackle problems that have been decades in the makinge

2011-01-27T19:48:00.001-08:00

That is the report from credit reporting agency Standard & Poor's. That is a pretty harsh and depressing statement. Since the economic collapse in Japan in the late 80s, Japan apparently decided to solve the problem with massive government spending rather than to deal with their debt and undergoing massive restructuring. It appears that decision over 20 years ago and the lack of much willingness to change has only made Japan's problems worse. Will Japan ever realize their problems and deal with them in an aggressive way? I'm not sure.

Below is an article from Fortune.com describing S&P's recent and shocking downgrade of Japan's debt credit rating.

Japan downgrade: The beginning of the end?

Posted by Katie Benner

January 27, 2011 2:39 pm

What a downgrade of Japanese debt by S&P could mean for the country's future and for the rest of the world.

Tokyo still looks bright.

The timing of the downgrade of Japan's sovereign bonds by Standard & Poor's on Thursday came as a bit of a surprise to some. After all, Japanese government bond yields have been relatively stable recently, the yen fairly strong, and, as Citigroup points out, the government has vowed to address its sky-high debt load this year.

But S&P isn't convinced that's going to happen. "The downgrade reflects our appraisal that Japan's government debt ratios--already among the highest for rated sovereigns--will continue to rise further than we envisaged before the global economic recession hit the country and will peak only in the mid-2020s."

The agency has been concerned about Japan for months, issuing reports last October and November that said the country's debt, the highest in the developed world, threatened to destroy its credit worthiness. As it did then, S&P says today that the country has no "coherent strategy" to tackle problems that have been decades in the making.

When Japan's economy collapsed in the late 1980s, the government chose not to write down bad loans or take the pain of massive restructurings. Instead it launched a massive borrowing program in the hope of stimulating the economy enough to outgrow its rough patch. Government debt grew from 66% of gross domestic product in 1989 to 226% in 2009 -- by far the largest percentage of any industrialized nation. (The U.S. figure is 93%.) Despite the spending, Japan's economy never strengthened, and the country fell into a cycle of increased deficit spending.

Certainly Japan's woes are no secret. But perhaps paradoxically, because the country has stagnated for so long, many assumed the economy had bottomed out. Sure, a recovery may not be likely -- but a collapse? Hard to imagine, or so one might think.

The debt problem could push Japan's rating into the BBB category after 2015, S&P said in November, "and by 2025, the country's fiscal indicators might weaken to the extent that they would be more typical of the performance we currently associate with speculative-grade sovereigns (those rated 'BB+' or lower)." Today's downgrade pushed its long-term rating from AA to AA-minus.

While the move came as a surprise to some, a handful of investors and economists saw the downgrade as an acknowledgment of what they have believed for years: Japan is en route to a national debt crisis and a massive devaluation of the yen.

Kyle Bass, who runs the Dallas-based hedge fund Hayman Advisors, has been the most vocal prophet of Japan's doom, taking his message to conferences and the media for over a year. The genial southerner, who darkens at the mention of the country's finances, is wagering his investors' money (and his own) that, sometime in the next five years, the Japanese government will have to pay such high interest rates to sell its bonds that the government will effectively go bankrupt. "The Japanese have created the circumstances for the greatest financial failure in world history," he says. The worldwide impact will be "awful."

Money manager Vitaliy Katsenelson and Devin Stewart, a senior director at the Japan Society in New York and a Carnegie Council Senior Fellow, agree with Bass. The way they see it, Japan has never meaningfully flirted with a loan default because it has always been able to borrow money from its own life insurance companies, pension funds, and banks.

Indeed, these institutions own more than 90% of all of Japan's outstanding debt. Moreover, they loaned the government ever-larger sums and demanded almost no yield in return. That left the Japanese government much like a man who carries a huge balance on an ultralow-interest-rate credit card: His salary may never be large enough to pay the bill in full, but he can always cover the minimum payment.

Disastrous demographics

Bass, Katsenelson and Stewart say that this balancing act is being upended because of a simple shift in demographics. Seniors now make up about 23% of the country, according to estimates from the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation. That's nearly twice the percentage of retired citizens in the U. S. and three times that of the rest of the world.

The graying of the population is playing out in two ways that could have disastrous consequences for Japan. First, entities like life insurance companies and the Government Pension Investment Fund will be net sellers of Japanese government bonds going forward so that they can gather cash to support the new pensioners.

Meanwhile the population is in long-term decline -- the working-age group peaked in 2009 -- so there are fewer workers and a smaller pool of tax receipts to support the retirees. Japanese tax revenues have collapsed to levels not seen since 1985, both because of the demographic shift and the global recession.

That means Japan has to sell more bonds even as its traditional customers begin selling more than they buy. The rub: "The available pool of capital to buy bonds is no longer greater than the debt needs," says Bass.

Japan will someday have to entice new investors, mostly from other countries -- and it doesn't have an appealing story to tell. The government currently runs a deficit of about $500 billion a year and growing. And it has the highest corporate taxes and among the highest income taxes in the world. Attempts to raise the nation's value-added tax have been rejected by the people. Efforts to raise capital by liquidating the country's $2.8 trillion in financial assets (many of which are U.S. Treasuries) would send the sort of desperate signal that would hurt the price of Japanese bonds.

In short, if Japan wants to sell bonds to the rest of the world, it's going to have to offer higher interest rates. But if Japan paid what the rest of the G-7 pays, its interest costs would immediately exceed its revenues. Current debt payments are about $244 billion a year. Bass has calculated that every percentage point in higher yields adds another $125 billion in annual interest expenses. So if investors demand just an extra two percentage points above current yields -- bringing Japan in line with what Canada would pay to issue debt -- that adds $250 billion in annual interest payments to the country's debt figure. That eats up the nation's entire $489 billion in revenue.

Aaron Costello, a global investment strategist at Cambridge Associates says that the need to borrow from the outside would probably trigger a debt crisis, but it could be a long time before this happens. In some ways, Japan's fate is tied to the speed with which investor sentiment can change.

"Like all government debt, Japan faces a confidence game," Costello says. "Right now there's plenty of confidence, but the markets inside and outside of Japan may move in anticipation of stress. It could price in the need for incremental foreign purchases and you could see yields easily double to 3%."

The Japan of the future

Vice Finance Minister Fumihiko Igarashi said this week that his country must fix its budget problems or face a debt crisis that could trigger a global depression.

Bass says the scenario would mean the political chess game between debtor and indebted nations is on. "Central banks should be positioning themselves for this and playing out the endgame," Bass says. "How many times do you think the U.S. military has game-theoried a conflict between Iran and Israel? I'd be willing to bet countless times. But how many times do you think our Treasury has played out a Japanese bond crisis? I'm willing to say never."

Most importantly, the difference between Japan, which seems relatively sanguine, and the struggling EU nations, which seem to flirt with disaster everyday, is that no one has enough money to bail out Japan.

"If Lehman Brothers was too big to fail, then Japan would be too big to save," agrees Costello. "In some respects Japan is ahead of the curve, because Europe and the United States are eventually going to have to deal with this, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out."

The alarm bells of Nagasaki

2011-01-24T10:32:00.000-08:00

Below is an article from Economist.com about the population and apparent economic decline of Nagasaki. Nagasaki since the time of the Edo period has been one of Japan's most open and vibrant cities. While the rest of Japan was closed to foreigners during the Edo period, Nagasaki still engaged in limited trade with the Dutch and Chinese. Is the article's description of the decline of Nagasaki an accurate description of much of Japan today? I wonder if depopulation is necessarily a bad thing if managed right. I'm not sure if Japan will mange it's depopulation right however. The article

The alarm bells of Nagasaki

Japan’s “window on the world” is now a window on what ails the country

AT 60, Hiroshi Ikeguchi wryly describes himself as one of the youngest in his district. He has lived his whole life in Irifune, just above the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipyard. But like his ageing neighbours, the Nagasaki suburb is collapsing around him. A dozen houses have been left to rot after their owners have died. Some are piles of timber; in others, katsura trees grow through the roofs. Outside one is a new year’s offering of fruit left by a neighbour who still laments how the death of the “kind old lady” who lived there went undiscovered for a week. Peer through the letterbox, and in the gloom you see a calendar pinned to the wall. The date is September 1988.

In Mr Ikeguchi’s youth, when Nagasaki was rebuilding itself after nuclear devastation in 1945, the streets near his house rang with the sound of shipwrights walking to the Mitsubishi yard each morning. Now Nagasaki’s economy has gone still. The port city’s fortunes show how three forces sapping Japan’s energies—depopulation, overcentralisation and foreign competition—are hurting not just rural backwaters but once-prosperous cities on Japan’s fringe. The phenomenon remains partly hidden. Residents of luxury apartments across the bay complain about Irifune’s shabby appearance. If only they knew, Mr Ikeguchi says, how bad it really is.

The brain drain reinforces a demographic trend. The prefecture’s working-age population has shrunk from over 1m in 1990 to 874,000 in 2008, a result both of the exodus and a declining birth rate. The prefecture of 1.45m is shrinking and ageing so fast that one of Nagasaki’s main department stores, Tamaya, has closed down its children’s department and stocked up on undergarments and hearing aids. With shrinking investment, and fewer jobs and young families, new house-building has fallen by half in the past ten years.Nagasaki’s troubles are self-reinforcing, argues Takamitsu Sato, president of the Nagasaki Economic Research Institute. Since the 1960s a brain drain has sucked people towards Osaka and Tokyo. Young people who left to find jobs elsewhere never came back. Even now, seven in ten college students leave to study, and over half of young people find jobs elsewhere.

So now Nagasaki’s living standards are falling too, a shock in a country where economists said that individuals could be better off even if the overall economy shrank in size. Mr Sato’s institute reckons that if today’s trends continue, GDP per person will fall from ¥3.26m ($28,000) in 2007 to ¥3.14m by 2020. Everything, he says, is going downward.

Can Nagasaki pull out of the spiral? Historically, after all, the city is Japan’s most open, allowing in Dutch and Chinese merchants in the 17th-19th centuries when foreign trade with the rest of the country was banned. Nagasaki is one of the closest cities to China and South Korea, with opportunities for tourism and trade. The museum to the atom bomb and its victims is world famous. Nagasaki is the birthplace of Japanese Christianity. It was a cradle of insurrection against the last shogunate, helping to shove Japan into the modern age with the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

To reverse the decline, Mr Sato has drawn up a plan with local officials that looks for overseas revenues to make up for falling domestic ones. That is hardly revolutionary. Among the goals are doubling numbers of foreign students, to 3,000; turning the shipyard into a tourist site; and bolstering sales of kamaboko, a rubbery fishcake. But asked about bolder measures such as encouraging foreign investment and skilled immigrants, Mr Sato says there is “not the right environment” for that yet.

Meanwhile, Nagasaki’s once-mighty shipping industry has been keelhauled by South Korean and Chinese yards with lower costs and quicker thinking. And Mr Ikeguchi says that even modest government initiatives, like demolishing abandoned houses in Irifune to attract newcomers, take years to grind through city hall.

Like the elders of Nagasaki, the prime minister, Naoto Kan, realises that Japan must look abroad since its own markets are shrinking. At the start of 2011, he declared (143 years after the fact, some might say) that this was the “first year of opening Japan to the outside world” in the modern era. Nagasaki is a good example of why action needs to be swift and bold.

Sisters found dead in Osaka apartment fell from wealthy family into abject poverty - The Mainichi Daily News

2011-01-11T07:31:00.000-08:00

Sad story. Japan is not the country many people in the rest of the world believe where there is no poverty. This is probably more common then we realize.

Sisters found dead in Osaka apartment fell from wealthy family into abject poverty - The Mainichi Daily News:

Sisters found dead in Osaka apartment fell from wealthy family into abject poverty

TOYONAKA, Osaka -- The two women found dead in an apartment here, with no food and only a pittance in cash, are thought to be two sisters who fell from a wealthy family to such abject poverty that one apparently starved to death.

The two are thought to be Kiyomi Okuda, 63, and her sister Kumiko, 61. No food was in the room's refrigerator, and only a meager 90 yen were found in a purse. A bank book in Kumiko's name showed a balance of zero yen since June of last year.

Autopsies showed that the two died one after the other on around Dec. 22 of last year, the older woman from heart disease. The younger woman's cause of death could not be determined, but weighing only 30 kilograms and showing evidence of malnutrition, starvation seems likely.

According to a 67-year-old male relative, the two sisters were single. Their parents were wealthy landowners, but their father died about 20 years ago, and a few years later their mother died as well. Neighbors say that the two sisters worked at jobs including as school office clerks until their late 40s and lived in their parents' house across from the apartment complex, and they were even the apartment complex's owners.

However, their house was later put up for auction, and the two moved into the apartment complex, where many of the rooms were empty.

"Even though they owned land, they may not have had any income. They seemed to have been in debt, and after they could no longer depend on their father's income, things were probably particularly hard," said the male relative.

Around three or four years ago, a former classmate of the younger sister noticed her limping and recommended she go to a hospital, but she said she couldn't afford to go, even though she wasn't well.

Last year in October, the older sister went to a housewife who lived nearby and begged for a loan of 10,000 yen. The housewife says she lent her the money and the older sister thanked her and said she would try to make the most of it.

"I knew that they were very poor, but I never imagined they would die this way," said the housewife.

According to sources from the city of Toyonaka, the sisters told an Osaka District Court official who had told them they had to evict that they "didn't know what to do" about their lives. Electricity and gas to the sisters' apartment was shut off in September of last year. Unable to reach the two women, the court official asked for advice from the city on how to meet with them.

In response, the city suggested going with police and entering the women's apartment, but the city did not provide local welfare workers with information on the women or otherwise take active steps to intervene.

"It is a terrible shame that they did not contact us for help," said a city official.

Japan's population falls by over 100,000 for first time since the war - Telegraph

2011-01-06T15:52:00.000-08:00

Japan's population falls by over 100,000 for first time since the war - Telegraph: "Japan's population falls by over 100,000 for first time since the war
Japan's population has declined by more than 100,000 for the first time since the end of the World War Two, according to new government figures.

By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo 12:29PM GMT 06 Jan 2011
Famously home to one of the world's fastest ageing societies, Japan experienced a record population drop of 123,000 during 2010.
The decline is the fourth consecutive annual decline and brings the current population to 125.77 million, according to statistics released by the health ministry.
The nation's already ageing population combined with an extreme summer heatwave were believed to have caused deaths to hit a record 1.19 million, an increase of 52,000 compared to the previous year.
The rise in deaths overshadowed a slight increase in birth rates, with 1.071 million babies born in Japan last year, marking an increase of 1,000 from 2009.
Meanwhile, marriage and divorce rates both decreased by around 2,000, with 706,000 couples tying the knot and a further 251,000 formally separating."

Jizo Bodhisattva: Guardian of Children, Travelers & Souls in Hell

2011-01-05T10:31:00.000-08:00

The book, Jizo Bodhisattva - Guardian of Children, Travelers & Other Voyagers, written by American Zen teacher Jan Chozen Bays, provides an informative overview of the history of Jizo Bodhisattva or Ojizo-sama. For those who are familiar with or live in Japan, you probably have heard of Jizo Bodhisattva and you probably have seen many Jizo statues. It is a common sight in Japan.

I also had heard of Jizo but I did not know too much about what Jizo was or signifies. This book provided a good overview from a Zen Buddhist's perspective. The book also provided good information about some of the basic beliefs of Buddhism such as rebirth and the various hell realms.

Here are some of the interesting things I learned from this book.

A Bodhisattva is an enlightened being who vows not to enter nirvana, but instead works to free all others who suffer. Jizo's two most important vows are: "Only after the Hells are empty will I become a Buddha" and "Only after all beings are taken across to Enlightenment will I myself realize Bodhi."

Jizo is known to be the protector of children and travelers. You sometimes will see Jizo statues along roads or highways. At temples or cemetaries, a Jizo statue may be seen holding a child.

Statues of six Jizo's are often found at the entrance to cemeteries or temples. The six Jizo's represent the division of Jizo into six bodies, one to help suffering beings in each of the six realms. The six realms are the Hells, Hungry Ghosts, the Animal Realm, Human Realm, the Realm of the Asuras, and the Realm of the Gods.

There are actually many forms of Jizo. Below are some of them:

Emmei or Enmei Jizo - Jizo who prolongs life and provides benefits including watching over children and curing illness
Hara Obi Jizo - Stomach-wrapper Jizo who protects women during pregnancy
Hikeshi Jizo - Protects houses and harvests from fire
Indo Jizo - Saves humans after death and leads them to enlightenment
Meyame Jizo - Restores eyesight
Taue Jizo - Helps farmers plant rice
Mizuko Jizo - Water-Baby Jizo

There are many other Jizo's besides these above.

The popular Mizuko Jizo or Water-Baby Jizo is often portrayed as a monk with an infant in his arms and another child or two at his feet. In Japan, a ceremony called a Mizuko Kuyo is performed for grieving parents who have lost an infant either before birth or within the first few years of life. The Mizuko Jizo is a more recent creation. This Jizo and the Mizuko Kuyo ceremony arose in Japan in the 1960's.

The Jizo that is the special protector of Children arose during the medieval times in Japan. According to Japanese Buddhist beliefs, young children who have died are innocent souls who are unable to understand the teachings of the Buddha or to separate right from wrong. This also means that, through no fault of their own, they cannot become enlightened. They are stuck in a kind of limbo. Jizo protects the children in this limbo realm from demons.

Jizo statues often carry a pilgrim's staff. At the top are rings, usually four or six. Four for the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism or six for the six realms of existence such as the Hell or Human realms.

In the other hand of most Jizo statues is a cintamani jewel. The cintamani is the jewel that fullfills all wishes. The jewel is supposed to emit a warm brilliant light which illuminates the deepest reaches of the hells.

There were many other interesting facts I learned about the Jizo from this book. If you are curious about the many Jizo's located around Japan, I would recommend this book.

Is Japan all doom and gloom?

2010-12-28T08:18:00.000-08:00

Below is an AP article from MSNBC. It paints a pretty gloomy picture of Japan's future. My question, is this article just another typical gloomy Japan article based on exaggerations and oversimplifications or is this trull what Japan's present and future look like?

By MALCOLM FOSTER

TOKYO — Japan has been overtaken by China as the world's No. 2 economy. Its flagship company, Toyota, recalled more than 10 million vehicles in an embarrassing safety crisis. Its fourth prime minister resigned in three years, and the government remains unable to jolt an economy entering its third decade of stagnation.

Shizuo Kambayashi / AP

For once-confident Japan, 2010 may well mark a symbolic milestone in its slide from economic giant to what experts see as its likely destiny: a second-tier power with some standout companies but limited global influence.

As Japanese drink up at year-end parties known as "bonen-kai," or "forget-the-year gatherings," this is one many will be happy to forget.

Problem is, there's little to look forward to. With a rapidly aging population, bulging national debt, political gridlock and a risk-averse culture slow to embrace change, Japan's prospects aren't promising. And a tense, high-seas spat with China has intensified fears of its neighbor as a military as well as economic threat.

A few optimists hope Japan can harness its strength in technology and its "Cool Japan" cultural appeal — from fashion and art to "anime" cartoons. The country needs to shed its reliance on manufacturing, they argue, and find new growth areas such as green energy, software engineering and health care for its elderly.

But talk to university students, and their outlook is bleak.

Many worry about finding steady jobs and whether they can support families — concerns that have contributed to Japan's low fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman. Average household income has fallen 9 percent since 1993.

Makoto Miyazaki, a 22-year-old student at prestigious Keio University in Tokyo, senses forces outside his control — and Japan's — are going to dictate his future.

"Internationally, Japan is between big countries like China and the U.S. And Korea is becoming a major competitor — that's a big threat to Japan," he said. "I feel like we have fewer choices."

It's a startling contrast with the 1980s, when Japan was flush with cash and some experts believed its economy was poised to dominate the world.

Millions have given up the goal of lifetime employment at a major corporation and become "freeters," flitting among temporary jobs with few if any benefits. As companies cut costs, temporary workers have grown to a third of the work force, up from 16 percent in the mid-1980s.

Further, the population is projected to fall from 127 million to 90 million by 2055 — 40 percent of them over the age of 65. That's going to place a heavy tax burden on workers.

Economic difficulty is a chief reason more than 30,000 Japanese have committed suicide every year for the past 12 years.

Hopes for change from the Democratic Party, which toppled the long-ruling conservatives last year, have fizzled. The Democrats lost control of the upper house of parliament in July elections, setting the stage for political gridlock.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan has acknowledged Japan's declining status.

His prescription: "Open up the country." He advocates reducing trade barriers, loosening regulations and making the country a more attractive place to invest.

His Cabinet recently approved cutting the corporate tax rate by 5 percentage points to 35 percent and is weighing whether Japan should join a U.S.-led free trade zone, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that would slash tariffs on everything from electronics to food.

Business leaders say doing so is vital, but farmers fear a flood of cheaper imports would ruin them. Analysts say it could be a vehicle for economic revival but also lead to job losses and social dislocation, especially in rural areas.

"Merely unleashing the forces of competition and the free market isn't going to do the trick because people who feel vulnerable will crawl back into whatever they have," said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Nakano and others say sweeping changes are needed in both policy and mindset, from expanding the social safety net to overcoming a deep fear of failure that has constrained entrepreneurship and risk-taking — and Japan's economic potential.

About 77 percent of Japan's jobless aren't getting unemployment benefits, according to International Labor Organization data, in part because temporary workers don't qualify.

Shizuo Kambayashi / AP

Japanese will drink up at year-end parties known as "bonen-kai," or "forget-the-year gatherings," noting 2010 is one year many will be happy to forget.

Japan can be innovative: It is the world leader in hybrid vehicles and industrial robots. Nintendo's Wii gaming console is a hit in living rooms around the world. Entrepreneur Tadashi Yanai, Japan's richest person, built Fast Retailing Co. and its low-cost Uniqlo brand into one of Asia's biggest clothing retailers.

But Japan sometimes undermines itself by being insular. Its sophisticated mobile phone industry, for example, has failed to grow overseas because it operates on a network hardly used anywhere else — earning it the nickname "Galapagos Syndrome."

One optimist is Michael Alfant, an American who has worked in Japan for 20 years. He sees the country becoming more entrepreneurial and focusing on opportunities in service industries.

"Japan is reinventing itself," said Alfant, CEO of Fusion Systems, a startup software company, and the incoming president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. "I'm very confident Japan will get there."

Any change is likely to come gradually.

A conformist, consensus-based culture means Japan is generally slow to make changes or respond to crises — as seen in Toyota Motor Corp.'s handling of its safety woes.

"One would think there would be more of a sense of urgency here," said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University's Tokyo campus. "At best, Japan will muddle through, meaning it will avert catastrophe, but it is hard to see anything but bleak prospects in a country that should be doing better given its enormous strengths."

Tokyo residents the sleepiest people in the world

2010-12-21T10:08:00.000-08:00

If you live in Tokyo than I know this is very familiar to you. This is an article from CNNGo.com.

Two passengers end up at the last stop on the JR Yamanote line which runs a one-hour loop around the city.

City dwellers in Tokyo get the least shuteye in the world, according to a survey from food company Ajinomoto.

It's not that Tokyoites are rising early -- citizens of Shanghai, New York, Paris, Stockholm and Tokyo all get up at an average of 6.40 a.m. It's the late-night drinking culture that's making our citizens drowsy.

A father sits beside two children sleeping on a bench in the shade at Toshimaen amusement park in Tokyo.

Shanghai advantage

As the only ones staying up after the stroke of midnight, respondents in Tokyo are hitting the pillow at 12.19 a.m. on average, compared to 10.20 p.m. in Stockholm, 10.38 p.m. in Shanghai and in New York, supposedly the city that never sleeps, people are doing just that by 11.15 p.m on average.

That means Tokyoites are sleeping an average of just five hours and 59 minutes each night, one and a half hours less than their Shanghai counterparts.

Forty-nine percent of respondents in Tokyo said they were unhappy with the situation, a sign that many still feel obliged to join late-night drinking sessions with colleagues. Only 29 percent were happy with their sleeping habits, compared to 68 percent in Shanghai.

The survey also revealed that commuting times were not to blame with Tokyo and New York posting the same results.

Japan, manga, anime: Tokyo bans sales of sexually explicit comics to minors - latimes.com

2010-12-16T07:57:00.000-08:00

Hmmm, what took them so long?

Japan, manga, anime: Tokyo bans sales of sexually explicit comics to minors - latimes.com

Los Angeles Times

Tokyo bans sales of sexually explicit comics to minors

The ordinance also outlaws certain images, stirring a debate about freedom of expression.

By Kenji Hall, Los Angeles Times

December 16, 2010

Reporting from Tokyo

advertisement

The titles in one corner of Kinokuniya bookstore in Tokyo's Shinjuku district suggest the kind of themes that manga comics fans crave: romance, feudal-era adventure, betrayal.

But above the packed bookshelves a sign reads, "Adult manga."

It's the hard-core content within this genre of comics or cartoons, depicting rape, incest and sex crimes, that lawmakers in Tokyo want to keep out of the hands of minors.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly on Wednesday approved an ordinance that makes it illegal to sell or rent sexually explicit manga and anime that "unjustifiably glorifies" violent sexual acts to anyone younger than 18. The law, which goes into effect next year, also bans images of fictional characters that appear to be underage and are engaging in sexual acts. Publishers, retailers and artists who break the rules face fines of up to about $3,500.

"It's common sense.... This is the conscience of the Japanese," Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, who proposed the measure, told reporters after the vote. "Would they show that kind of stuff to their kids?"

The ordinance, which amends an existing law, applies only to the Tokyo metropolitan area, where about 13 million people live.

But opponents of the revised law said there already are regulations to protect youths and that the new rules were an attempt by politicians to rein in freedom of speech.

Some opponents of the changes say authorities could use the law to ban any book, movie or video game or block any website that they deem inappropriate. Others worry that the law might be used to crack down on sexually explicit content in theater, painting and other art forms.

"The governor and his supporters say that it's not about curbs on expression, but we think this will have a negative impact," said Yasumasa Shimizu, vice president of Kodansha, a major Tokyo-based publishing house.

Last week, 10 major Japanese publishers threatened to boycott the Tokyo International Anime Fair in March if the measure was approved. On Monday, Prime Minister Naoto Kan weighed in, pleading with both sides to keep the fair from being canceled.

On Wednesday, as the 127-seat assembly prepared to vote, about 200 people demonstrated against the new law at Hosei University in Tokyo.

Manga comics and anime films and TV shows are popular among adults and children in Japan. They run the gamut from sci-fi tales and historical classics to schoolgirl romances. The most well-known manga comics often have a second life off the page as mainstream TV dramas and films, and it's common to find characters in ads hawking products as diverse as watches and cars.

The issue involving sexually explicit manga has highlighted the predicament Japanese policymakers must wrestle with: Though manga comics and anime films rank among the top cultural exports, there has long been a darker side to the material that might tarnish the industry's image overseas.

Many critics of Tokyo's new rules acknowledge that the most violent and sexually explicit books and films should not be for children, but they also say the issue goes well beyond comics.

"Legislators should be focusing their attention on improving sex education, rather than targeting the manga and anime industry," said Meiji University professor Yukari Fujimoto, a former manga comics editor. "The worst thing that this law might do is stifle artists' creativity. Their imagination is the reason Japanese manga and anime have so many fans worldwide."

Hall is a special correspondent.

Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

7 Reasons Why Japanese Trains are Different

2010-12-15T13:53:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite posts from Muza-chan.

7 Reasons Why Japanese Trains are Different

Kirainet.com - A geek in Japan — Japanese Sleeping - 9

2010-12-14T07:49:00.000-08:00

Hilarious photos of Japanese sleeping in public from Kirainet.com.

Kirainet.com - A geek in Japan — Japanese Sleeping - 9

Two blogs of interest

2010-11-29T14:02:00.000-08:00

Spike Japan has a new post titled Amakusa: Islands of dread. It details the sad history of Amakusa Island which is situated west of Kyushu. Spike Japan reveals the aspect of Japan's depopulation in much detail including Amakusa's rapid decline.

The second is from Ichijoji and is called The Death of Saigo. This post talks about the famous "last samurai" Saigo Takamori and the myths and legends surrounding Saigo's supposed seppuku during his famous rebellion.

Shogun-ki: Samurai and Death in Battle - A Translation

2010-11-19T08:22:00.000-08:00

Shogun-ki: Samurai and Death in Battle - A Translation: "As another translation, I've (Kitsuno from Shogun-ki) picked out a section of a book called '日本の歴史・合戦のおもしろ話' (Japanese History - Interesting Tales of Battle). This translation deals with Samurai and death in battle. Everyone likes to think that Samurai were in love with the idea of death in battle and that they had no fear of death. Japanese historian Owada Tetsuo gives a much more reasonable explanation, which I hope everyone finds enlightening. This is the first of two sections I'll be translating. Due to the vague nature of Japanese, I've added some slight exposition here and there to clarify, but otherwise it is a direct translation."

Please do it again

2010-10-01T15:40:00.000-07:00

Like lemmings marching to their death. The salaryman in the gray suit looks very nervous with the suspicious looking punk behind him. Either that or he is showing him how to do the dance move they are all performing.

This poster would be laughed at and ignored in America. Unfortunately the idiots who ride the subway in Los Angeles pay no attention to train etiquette. People in LA start pushing to get on the train without letting passenger exit first. Morons.

Miniature Daibutsu in HDR

2010-10-01T10:29:00.001-07:00

This is a photo of a miniature Daibutsu using the HDR feature of my Android phone. This Daibutsu statue is only 4cm tall. I like how the HDR photo appears to give Daibutsu a glowing halo.

Trailer - The Last Chushingura

2010-09-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

From Nippon Cinema:

A 2-minute trailer was released for Shigemichi Sugita‘s The Last Chushingura, a new film adaptation of Shoichiro Ikemiya’s 1994 novel which was previously made into a 2004 NHK TV drama.

The film stars Koji Yakusho and Koicho Sato as the only two survivors of the legendary raid in which 47 ronin killed a corrupt court official named Kira Yoshinaka for the honor of their executed master knowing full well they’d be forced to commit seppuku afterward. Sato’s character, Terasaka Kichiemon, is a loyal retainer who’s secretly ordered to escape the raid by his leader, Oishi Kuranosuke, in order to relay the facts of the incident for the sake of posterity. Yakusho’s character, Senoo Magozaemon, is an “unworthy samurai” who flees the night before the raid and goes into hiding, establishing himself as a coward and a pariah. The two men cross paths 16 years later, and Magozaemon finally has a chance to explain his actions.

“Saigo no Chushingura” will be released by Warner Bros. in Japan on December 18, 2010.

Japan Photos - Something is Missing

2010-09-23T09:10:00.000-07:00

While walking around my local Otawara Tochigi-ken neighborhood I came across these two garage/storage buildings. Both of these buildings are about 5 minute walk from each other. Do you notice something missing in each photo?

Yes, both garage/storage buildings are missing the number four. The reason is the number four in Japan is an unlucky number. The number four is considered inauspicious because it is pronounced the same as the word for death (shi). Therefore, one should not make presents that consist of four pieces, etc. In some hotels and hospitals the room number four is skipped. It seems the owners of these garage/storage buildings did not want to bring bad luck on their cars or tools.

Pasadena teahouse sent to Japan for restoration, then returned to America

2010-09-15T07:22:00.000-07:00

I like to periodically post Japan related articles that I find especially interesting and this is one from the Los Angeles Times.

The Japanese tea ceremony has a long history and was also popular among some of Japan's greatest samurai warlords such as the powerful Oda Nobunaga and the great unifier Toyotomi Hideyoshi of the late 16th century. The great tea practitioner from the late 16th century, Sen no Rikyu, was also an influential political confidant of Hideyoshi. But Rikyu somehow angered the great warlord, most likely some sort of political intrigue, and Hideyoshi ordered Rikyu to commit seppuku, ritual suicide. This is interesting because seppuku was generally performed only by a samurai, which Rikyu was not. This shows the important place in society that Rikyu held.

A Pasadena teahouse, falling on hard times, will be sent to Japan for restoration, then return to grace a new garden at the Huntington Library.

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times

September 12, 2010

Japan's Grand Master of the Phoenix Cloud visited Los Angeles four decades ago and dedicated an exquisite teahouse to the public in the hopes of popularizing the sublime art of tea ceremony in the West.

Trained as a kamikaze pilot during World War II, the grand master saw tea as a way to promote peace, share Japan's cultural treasures and repair a national image battered by wartime militarism. The 400-year-old art expresses the values of harmony, respect, purity and tranquillity through the highly refined and ritualized making and serving of tea.

But the ceremony failed to catch on much beyond a small circle of Japanese Americans. The teahouse, given to the Pasadena Buddhist Church, declined in use. Termites began attacking the wood and paper structure, and the elderly couple who cared for the teahouse for decades no longer could do so.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino has stepped in to rescue the teahouse as part of an ambitious $6.7-million project to restore its Japanese garden and develop an authentic tea garden. In collaboration with the grand master's Urasenke School and the Buddhist church, the Huntington hopes to use the teahouse to expose the art to a broader swath of society and develop a premier program for Asian garden arts, including the tea ceremony, flower arranging, bonsai and stone viewing.

James Folsom, the Huntington's botanical gardens director, said the ancient Japanese art is as relevant to Americans today as it was to the Zen monks and warring samurai who practiced it four centuries ago.

"When life is so hectic, when you're rushing around looking at e-mails, how do you remind yourself to stop and be human again?" Folsom said. "The tea ceremony reminds us to step out of that, to appreciate silence and tranquillity in the presence of others and to enjoy the beauty of the moment. We would hope that tea helps lead people to a change in their own lives."

The Urasenke Tankokai Los Angeles Assn. offered a farewell bowl of tea to several guests in the Pasadena teahouse. The house, designed by the grand master's brother, Sen Mitsuhiko, is a light and airy structure featuring woven bamboo ceilings, white papered shoji screens, bamboo tatami mats and the all-important alcove displaying the day's carefully selected Japanese scroll, vase and flower arrangement.

The gathering's hostess, Soen Clarkson, performed the tea ceremony's ritualized acts: First, fold a silk cloth to wipe the tea caddy and tea scoop. Place the powdered green tea in a specially selected bowl. Pour in water heated over a charcoal brazier. Whip the mixture into a froth with a bamboo whisk. Then, offer it to the guests along with Japanese sweets.

As the guests sipped tea, Robert Hori, vice president of Urasenke's Los Angeles chapter and director of advancement at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, explained his choices in selecting the various accoutrements for the occasion. The careful consideration of such items is part of the tea ceremony's spirit of hospitality as the host aims to capture the gathering's treasured and irreplaceable moment.

The boat-shaped vase pointing outward symbolized the teahouse's departure from the Pasadena church, he said. A Rose of Sharon and bush clover, both short-lived blooms, reflect the transiency of life. The scroll of Japanese calligraphy was used when the grand master dedicated the teahouse, named the Arbor of the Pure Breeze, in Pasadena in 1965.

And for the day's tea scoop, Hori selected a utensil named "gratitude."

"We're really grateful for the opportunity to give the teahouse a new life," he said. "It's the end and it's the beginning."

Tea was first taken to Japan from China by a Buddhist monk in the 9th century. But it was not until the 16th century that Sen Rikyu perfected the Way of Tea by incorporating into it Zen elements of simplicity and oneness with nature. By designing a teahouse with an entrance forcing guests to lower their heads and crawl through, the tea master also sought to eliminate social distinctions.

Fourteen generations later, Sen's direct descendent, Tantansai — the Grand Master of Purity and Serenity — served tea to American Occupation forces in Japan. That, in turn, inspired his son Hounsai to move beyond his military training and lingering disdain for Americans and dedicate his life to international harmony through tea. In 1965, he visited the United States to officially dedicate the teahouse his father had bequeathed to the church.

Sosei Matsumoto, a 90-year-old tea master lauded for her accomplishments by President Clinton and the emperor of Japan alike, was the first to teach tea ceremony in the new Pasadena teahouse. The structure, she recalled Sunday, was used for classes every week, with special tea ceremonies for New Year's and the summer Obon festival honoring ancestors.

But the Pasadena tea group failed to expand and dwindled to about seven students, said Yaeko Sakahara, also 90, who took over the classes from Matsumoto more than three decades ago. One of the major obstacles, she and others said, is the traditional requirement to sit on bamboo mats with legs folded under, a position that can turn legs numb after a few minutes. Tea ceremonies can last from 20 minutes to four hours.

Another obstacle to sustaining interest in tea is growing acculturation among younger generations of Japanese Americans, said Irene Takemori, Pasadena temple president.

"The younger generation is more interested in sports and don't have a lot of time for this cultural stuff," Takemori said. "It's really a shame, because it's such a beautiful experience to drink tea and find peace of mind."

When health issues began to preoccupy Sakahara, the teahouse's future hung in the balance.

Enter the Huntington. The renowned cultural institute had been looking for a Japanese teahouse after one of its donors, Mary B. Taylor Hunt, bequeathed a $2.6-million endowment for an authentic Japanese tea garden and related cultural programs. The Huntington's nine-acre Japanese garden, designed by founder Henry Huntington and William Hertrich, reflects a Western interpretation of Japanese aethestics but is not considered authentic, Folsom said.

After months of consideration, the Pasadena Buddhist Church decided earlier this year to donate the teahouse, clearing the way for the transfer.

The Huntington plans to close the current Japanese garden next year for several months of renovation, including restoration of its ponds and a traditional Japanese house. The new two-acre garden will be installed behind the house, along with the Pasadena teahouse. The grand reopening is expected to occur in 2012, in time for the garden's centennial anniversary, Folsom said.

This week, carpenters from Japan are scheduled to fly to Los Angeles and begin dismantling the teahouse. The pieces will be shipped to Kyoto, restored, then sent back to the Huntington.

Folsom said the Huntington, working with the region's tea schools and the Buddhist church, will seek to popularize the Japanese art, possibly using more ceremonial forms that allow practitioners to sit in chairs rather than on folded legs, among other ideas.

For the longtime guardians of the teahouse, Sunday's farewell was bittersweet.

"The teahouse has been an integral part of the temple, so it's a little sad to have it depart," Takemori said. "But it's in the best public interest and for the best use of the teahouse."

teresa.watanabe@latimes.com

Japan Photos - A gate with no walls

2010-09-13T07:21:00.000-07:00

Nice gate entrance to this home.

But I don't see it really providing much security.
I have seen these types of wall-less gates on other Japan blogs from around Japan. Curious as to the point of the gates with no walls. Are they unfinished projects? Did the homeowner run out of money? This particular gate is in Otawara in Tochigi and has been this way since my first visit in 2002.

I Will Never Forget

2010-09-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

Japan Photos - Japanese Bugs

2010-09-09T14:27:00.000-07:00

I am not a fan of bugs although my boys love Japanese beetles. In my opinion, Japanese beetles and spiders are pretty nasty looking creatures. On my recent trip to Tochigi Japan I snapped a few photos from around the Otawara neighborhood.

Here are two Japanese beetles that my son collected. We let them go in the park before we returned to America.

This is an extremely nasty looking spider. It's web spanned a small road (about 7 feet or 2 meters wide). The web was just high enough for a small car to go under or if I walked in the middle of the road but had not been paying attention and walked along the side of the road I would have gotten a face full of the web below. Frightening.

This is a pretty cool looking dragonfly that let me get really close.

Japan Photos - Japanese Walls

2010-09-03T10:11:00.001-07:00

I just returned from a one week trip to Japan. Since it was such a short trip I did not do any sightseeing to places such as Kamakura or Nikko. I enjoyed the trip nonetheless and took many walks around a small neighborhood in Otawara in Tochigi prefecture where I took a number of photos which I will post over the next few weeks. I apologize for the quality of some of the photos. I am very much a novice photographer and I took these with my Android phone.

One of the things I like about Japan are the walls that surround most Japanese homes. They come in many different styles and sizes and are made with interestingly textured stone or cinder block. Below are some photos I took of some walls in the Otawara neighborhood during the last week of August.

Below is a newer wall surrounding a relatively new house. I prefer the older heavier looking Japanese stone walls versus this more modern wall but it still looks nice and a lot better than most walls I see around Los Angeles.

Below is my favorite type of stone. I love the texture and naturalness of the stone used in this wall as well as the cap stones placed along the top.

Maybe my favorite type of Japanese walls are like the one below topped with the tile roof. Very traditional looking. There must be a name for this type of style but I don't know what it is.

I love the old wood storehouse behind this wall.

This door is maybe only about 4 feet tall (1.2 meters).

Below is a newer wall. I don't like the newer walls as much as the old heavier looking walls.

I love the small columns on top of this wall below.

The simple style of the windows on this wall below really make a difference. Beautiful.

Dora-Heita

2010-08-21T16:58:00.000-07:00

Thirty-years after writing the script with fellow master directors Akira Kirosawa, Masaki Kobayashi and Keisuke Kinoshita, Kon Ichikawa brings the story of an unruly samurai (Koji Yakusho) to the screen. Nicknamed Dora-Heita ("Alley Cat") for his penchant for debauchery, the samurai is assigned to clean up a lawless small town. His reputation is well-known, so the local Yakuza thugs are in disbelief when the new magistrate (bugyo) gets down to business.

I just finished watching my 100th samurai flick which was one of the Zatoichi films. I'm now up to 102 samurai films after watching the first two from the Sleepy Eyes of Death series. Today I want to write about Dora Heita which I watched a few weeks ago. The film was actually planned many years ago by the famous directors Kurosawa, Kinoshita, Kobayashi and Ichikawa who formed Yonki-no-kai or The Committee of Four Knights in 1969 and wrote the script together. Only after three of them had died, Ichikawa could finally make his 74th movie out of their script. So even though the film was released in 2000 for me it really had more of a classic 60's samurai chambara film feel. What this means is that like most Kurosawa films, you won't see a 2 hour bloody samurai sword movie. There is one excellent sword fight scene but Dora Heita does not even confront the Yakuza until well into the film. The first 45 minutes of the film follow Dora Heita as he builds up his plan for taking down the powerful yakuza. The acting is very good in this film especially with Koji Yakusho as the streetwise magistrate sent in to clean up the yakuza infected town. This film coming from the mind of Akira Kurosawa does have a lot of similarity to Kurosawa's great films Yojimbo and Sanjuro. This film however is not in the same league as Kurosawa's Yojimbo flicks as it does not have the quality of a Toshiro Mifune. However, it is still a very good film as long you don't compare it too much to Yojimbo.

Apology for slight 600 years ago

2010-08-14T18:47:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting story I found in the Japan Times about a 600 year old apology.

Apology for slight 600 years ago

To offer apologies for an unkindly act committed by their ancestors 600 years ago, the people of Ayukawa, a village in Wakayama Prefecture, will offer mochi (dumplings of glutinous rice) to the Kamakuragu Shrine in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, dedicated to the memory of Prince Morinaga on Aug. 19, when the 600th anniversary of the prince's death will be celebrated.

Defeated in his battle against rebels, Prince Morinaga with a few retainers was obliged to hide, and on Oct. 15, 1331, he passed through the village of Ayukawa. The prince and his party were fatigued and hungry, having eaten nothing the whole day. At the houses of the villagers they asked for some food, but they were refused because of the disturbed state of affairs at that time.

Soon after that, the villagers learned that the person to whom they refused to give mochi was Prince Morinaga. Such a discourteous act toward an Imperial Prince was something that the villagers could not think of. So to atone for their wrong, they resolved not to make and eat mochi forever. Thus for more than 600 years the village people never made mochi even on New Year's Day.

This year the villagers have finally decided to make mochi on the occasion of the 600th anniversary of the prince's death — and to offer them in his memory at the Kamakuraga Shrine.

Future sushi chefs in Japan?

2010-08-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

This is a little freaky but also pretty cool. I love robots.

Please do it again

2010-08-03T08:18:00.000-07:00

That's very nice of the man in the geta and massive afro offering to carry the woman's suitcase up the stairs. At least that's what I think he is going to do. Maybe that's his suitcase and he's asking her to carry it up the stairs for him because he doesn't want to trip and fall in his geta sandals.

Taboo (Gohatto)

2010-07-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

From legendary director Nagisa Oshima comes a spellbinding samurai action-drama. In 1865, the Shinsengumi samurai corps is combing the new recruits for the next samurai warriors. Two are chosen: Tashiro Hyozo, a low-level samurai, and the dangerously handsome Kano Sozaburo. Rigid rules maintain order and unity, but the Shinsengumi finds itself wrought with rumors and jealously when Kano becomes the object of much fascination. (1 hour 40 minutes, 1999)

The famous and brutal Shinsengumi, the Shogun's last samurai police corps, responsible for a reign of terror against the bakufu's enemies, and infiltrated by homosexual samurai. Not what most people imagine when they think about the famed Shinsengumi of the 1860s but in reality homosexuality among the samurai was not all that uncommon. The Japanese name of the movie is Gohatto which roughly means taboo so with a name like that you pretty much knew what to expect with this film. Taboo is directed by Nagisa Oshima, one of the more highly regarded directors in Japan, and also stars Beat Takeshi. Beat Takeshi is excellent as usual in masterfully depicting the films meaning and the taboo of this time period.

This is really a quiet and plaintive movie, not a slashing sword fighting movie, but it does have an intense sword fight scene at the end. However, the plot of the movie really is rather minimal and essentially boils down to a lot of infatuated desire towards Kano. The difficulties and jealousies begin to emerge during the sparring sessions that highlight the sexual desires of a number of Kano's sparring partners. But maybe the film is deeper than it seems. A friend of mine from the Samurai Archives mentioned how she felt Kano's homosexuality was a smokescreen and I think I might agree. Maybe Kano's homosexuality and stunning looks are a tool he is using to gain power. Kano is no meek effeminate samurai. He is a bloodthirsty sword fighter who joined the Shinsengumi in order to have a license to kill. Kano is really using his beauty to gain power over the others in the organization. In reality, the meek and effeminate looking samurai exercises a much more subtle type of power in contrast to that of the power and authority held by Hijikata. Whether the homosexuality was a smokescreen or not, this was a decent film. Not amazing, not epic, not overwhelming, not shocking, but decent and I would recommend it.

Here is the trailer for the film.

Yes I can Use Chopsticks

2010-07-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

There is a website called Yes I Can Use Chopsticks that is from an American who teaches English in Fukushima Japan. I often read his online journal which describes his daily adventures and the silliness of certain aspects of Japanese culture. The way he writes about is daily experiences is often hilarious and below is a perfect example. I was cracking up at how he describes below how the school staff go crazy when the bread truck arrives at school.

"A truck selling bread just pulled up and everyone went F-ing crazy to go get some bread. SOME BREAD. Is it laced with heroin? I don’t know, but everyone truly goes crazy when this bread truck pulls up. They have come probably 100 times since I have been here and I have never understood it. They pull up, the office staff announces “the bread truck is here” and people literally scramble and trip over themselves to get out to it to buy…..bread. Simply bread that can be bought at the store. The only thing I can possibly imagine is they have some special contract with us and the teachers are showing their appreciation or something, but still it’s a bread truck. Now if the truck were made of bread, oh I’d run out to see that."

The Origin of Za in Japan

2010-07-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

Did you know that trade guilds in Japan originated as early as the twelfth century or earlier. Trade guilds derived from an early form of association called a za which means a seat and probably signified a place reserved at ceremonies or a market for a group of persons having the same interest. Early za were social groups that developed into occupational groups such as dancers, musicians, and other entertainers that performed for court nobles, powerful religious institutions, or manorial lords. This custom actually has persisted into modern times such as a company of actors, the Kabuki-za.

By the fifteenth century some mercantile za were organized by market rather than just commodity for example in certain towns. However, in the bigger cities such as Kyoto the za still tended to be organized by specific commodity and were usually concentrated in a special quarter of the city. This can still be seen today in certain cities in modern Japan such as the Zaimoku-za (timber merchants) quarter of Kamakura or the famous Gin-za (silver merchants) of Tokyo.

In their earlier forms, these organizations were not independent but were subordinate to a monastery, shrine, or a manor lord for which they served. But eventually these traders began to form quasi-independent za not only for their own protection but to increase their power and their profits. With this increasing power, many za began to have a monopolistic character by preventing competitors from obtaining raw materials within a certain area. A very powerful early za were the salt dealers of the Yamato province which controlled the salt wholesalers, retailers, and pedlars of the entire province. Eventually by the fifteenth century the za made powerful enemies by abusing their privileges and were forced to give way to other forms of mercantile organization such as "free" markets and guilds established by Oda Nobunaga.

Another famous za that I am sure most of you are familiar that has survived into modern Japan is the Yaku-za. This modern za has interests in many kinds of businesses and trades.

By the 18th and 19th centuries, the trade guilds and associations were transformed into more modern forms of business with the growth of the zaibatsu and keiretsu monopolies of the 20th century.

Reference:

Sansom, George (1961). A History of Japan: 1334-1615.

Please Do It Again

2010-07-12T08:32:00.000-07:00

The muscle man may be politely moving his bag so as not to bump the man behind him or he may actually be protecting his stash from theft. Looks like in the 3rd picture he is saying "look at my muscle little man. I will crush you if you touch my bag again." The guy with the book definitely looks a little terrified. Muscle head man kinda looks like a foreigner to me.

Love and Honor

2010-07-11T17:00:00.000-07:00

Unhappy with his food-tasting job, samurai Shinnojo Mimura (Takuya Kimura) dreams of opening a martial arts school for boys. But when eating toxic shellfish leaves him blind, his hopes for the future are dashed. Learning his wife (Rei Dan) has been forced into sexual favors in order to secure a stipend, Shinnojo works to revamp his sword skills and seek revenge. The film is the third in a series from director Yoji Yamada (Twilight Samurai and Hidden Blade).

This film fits in nicely with Yamada's other two films in this series, Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade, both good movies. The storyline in this film is not that original but Yamada and actor Kimura do a very good job in telling the story. The ending is straight out of a Zatoichi flick but the sword fight scene is performed superbly and I think realistically, much more believable than any Zatoichi sword fight by a blind man. Gee, what a surprise, Takuya Kimura is a former member of the pop group SMAP. It seems every samurai flick and taiga drama these days includes a present or former member of SMAP. But in reality the SMAP members including Kimura actually put on pretty good performances in their samurai roles. Kimura plays his blind character convincingly. Actress Rei Dan also does a good job as the wife. Mimura's loyal assistant Tokuhei adds a bit of humor and personality to this film. Tokuhei is played by one of my favorite Japanese actors Takashi Sasano who has been in dozens of films and TV shows including Departures and Katen no Shiro.

There is no sword action in this film at all until the end of the film and even then it lasts only about a minute or two so if that is what you are looking for this film is not for you. But it is still a good sword fight scene nonetheless. If you watched Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade and enjoyed them then you will probably like this film as well. I certainly enjoyed this film as I also did Yamada's other films in this series so I give this 2006 film my recommendation. (2 hours, 2006)

The myth of of samurai cavalry

2010-07-08T18:04:00.000-07:00

I am republishing this 2009 post because there is such a common misconception regarding medieval samurai cavalry.

This poster from the Akira Kurosawa film Kagemusha illustrates the classic view of early samurai cavalry. Great cavalry charges of thoroughbred looking horses.

But as Karl Friday in his book Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan reveals, the mounted samurai of the movies bare little resemblance to the actual mounted warriors from medieval Japan. Early medieval Japanese war-horses were actually much smaller and slower than the horses seen in classic samurai movies.

According to Friday, the mounts favored by early medieval samurai were stallions raised in eastern Japan and selected for their size and fierce temperament. They were stout, short-legged, shaggy, short-nosed beasts, tough, unruly and difficult to control.

In 1953, a mass grave at Zaimokuza near Kamakura was unearthed that is believed to contain the remains of men and horses killed during Nitta Yoshisada's attack on the city in 1333. The skeletons show the horses of the period ranged in height from 109 to 140 cm at the shoulder. Modern thoroughbreds by comparison range in height around 160 to 165 cm.

Also, these medieval horses could not sustain high speeds for long distance due to their size and the weight they were carrying, mounted samurai with full armor. Even modern racing horses can only go full out for 200 or 300 meters. Early medieval Japanese horses gave the samurai a rugged, stable, and comfortable platform from which to shoot their arrows, but it was a heavy beast not well designed for high speeds or long distance riding.

Horseman had different roles throughout the samurai era. During the Heian/Early Kamakura era they operated much like skirmishers with bows. They began to make greater use of hand-to-hand weapons like naginata and swords as time went by, ending up using primarily short yari during the sengoku. And by the late Sengoku with the advent of firearms, they did begin to function much like 'trucks'-there are many accounts where samurai were told to dismount before they reached the battlefield so as not to have their horses shot. Horses were rare and expensive, and no samurai was in a hurry to throw their horses lives and training away. (Samurai Archives)

In addition, the amount of dismounted combat in Sengoku jidai increased along with the increase with the number of guns. I think this was probably due to the fact that relatively few number of Japanese cavalry made it easier for concentrated fire of arquebus to defeat them. (Samurai Archives)

So the scenes in the movies with the cavalry charges that seem to go on forever are of course greatly embellished. But they make for an exciting movie.

Ugetsu Monogatari

2010-07-05T15:32:00.000-07:00

With 16th century Japan's feudal wars as a backdrop, director Kenji Mizoguchi's lyrical masterpiece delivers a profound message about the ephemeral nature of human life. Despite the conflict raging around them, a potter (Masayuki Mori) and a farmer (Saka Ozawa) -- two peasants with visions of grandeur -- journey to the city seeking wealth and glory. But their blind ambition ultimately takes its toll … on the families they left behind.

What an incredible film. A true classic film by director Kenji Mizoguchi. Filmed in 1953, this is film is part ghost story but not like any ghost story I have ever seen. Incredible. This film is on the same level as Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, another masterpiece of a film. I've read other opinions that Ugetsu is one of the top ten Japanese films of all time and I might have to agree. Aside from the story and the masterful directing, this film has magnificent acting and stunning photography, especially the eerie Lake Biwa scene in the fog. This film deals with both the devastation of war and the greed of the male dominated society and it's effects on the wives and family of the potter and the farmer. Mizoguchi (1898–1956) began his career in the silent era. Later, during the early 1940s, Mizoguchi was hampered by the nation's war propaganda effort, but in spite of that he did make a highly regarded two-part version of The 47 Ronin.

Japanese castle ramparts constructed in California

2010-07-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

I came across this website today called Stoneworld.com that has an interesting story regarding the construction of replica Japanese castle stone ramparts at a park here in California. The stone ramparts were constructed in January of this year in Ventura, a small city of about 100,000 people 2 hours north of Los Angeles. Master stonemasons came from Japan to California to supervise their North American counterparts in the construction of a traditional Japanese structure — castle ramparts — using ancient but still viable techniques.

They used nearly 400 tons of sandstone, a very common stone here in Southern California. This is different from the type of stone used in castle building in Japan which I believe is granite. If someone knows for sure the specific type of stone used in Japan, please let me know. The Japanese stonemasons used a traditional method of splitting the stones called mame-ya.

The article talks about Auchi castle, the magnificent castle built by the great warlord Oda Nobunaga at the height of his power. Azuchi was was of the grandest castles in Japanese history, rivaling or exceeding Osaka or Edo castle in grandeur. Oda Nobunaga is infamous for his destruction of the Buddhist temple complex on Mt. Hiei. The warrior monks from Mt. Hiei had long been a dangerous thorn in the side of Nobunaga. In 1571 Nobunaga dealt with the warrior monks in a most brutal way, laying waste to everything and everyone on Mt. Hiei, killing everyone who did not escape. However, Nobunaga did find something he truly appreciated on Mt. Hiei, very well built stone walls. The walls were apparently built by a community of stonemasons who lived at the foot of Mt. Hiei and known as the Anoh. The Anoh were originally brought from Korea to Japan in the 6th century and later it was the Anoh stonemasons who helped construct Nobunaga's Azuchi castle in 1579. Unfortunately for Nobunaga, he would be dead by 1582 and his beautiful castle burned to the ground after being completed only three years prior.

Azuchi Castle ruins

According the Stone World article, there still lives a family at the foot of Mt. Hiei who carry on the traditional way of stone working. Jyunji and Suminori Awata are father and son 14th and 15th generation stonemasons. The Awatas were even commissioned to help stabilize the stone rampart remains of Azuchi Castle according to the article. It was the Awata Construction Company that was incentive for the Ventura California project. The article has additional interesting information about the Awata's and their trade.

Arsenal Manager Wenger Labels Japan's Keisuke Honda the Player of the Tournament

2010-07-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

This is impressive coming from the manager of the English Premier League team Arsenal. Too bad the United States does not have an exciting striker like Honda. American strikers went scoreless in the 2010 World Cup. American Jozy Altidore has potential with his strength and speed but needs to mature as his inexperience leads him to do too much on his own.

From Goal.com

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has hailed Keisuke Honda as "a genius" and the star player at World Cup 2010.

The Japan international wowed supporters with his performances for the Asian challengers and grabbed three goals before dropping out of the competition at the second round phase. Comfortable up front or on either wing, this versatility made him hot property before CSKA Moscow scooped him up for £5 million in December.

Wenger had been believed to have been close to making a bid for his services, along with Tottenham Hotspur, Ajax, PSV and Twente. Speaking to Eurosport, he couldn't hide his admiration for the 24-year-old, who is also believed to be a target for Barcelona.

"This Japansese team is based on a solid and collective defence in which everybody knows exactly what to do," Wenger said.

"When they get the ball they can give it to Honda - and the magic starts.

"When they get that genius Honda playing up front, he has shown what a top class player he is. For me he's the best performer of the competition so far."

By Matt Monaghan

Jul 1, 2010 6:38:00 PM

Jolly stone Buddha

2010-06-30T20:50:00.000-07:00

This is another one of the Buddhas in my home. The jolly Buddha is based on a Chinese Ch'an (Zen) monk named Hotei who lived over 1,000 years ago. Because of this monk's benevolent nature, he became known as an incarnation of the bodhisattva who will become Maitreya (the Future Buddha). His large protruding stomach and jolly smile have given him the common designation "Laughing Buddha."

Jolly wood Buddha

2010-06-28T18:44:00.001-07:00

Thirteen Assassins film trailers

2010-06-26T19:04:00.000-07:00

From Nippon Cinema, here are two trailers for Takashi Miike's Thirteen Assassins, the 2010 remake of the original 1963 samurai film. Thirteen Assassins will be released in Japan in September.

The film stars Koji Yakusho as Shimada Shinzaemon, a samurai who gathers together a team of 13 skilled assassins to kill the younger brother of the Shogun, Matsudaira Naritsugi (Goro Inagaki). Naritsugi is innately cruel, and uses the power of the shogunate to commit mass atrocities against his own people. The assassins attempt to ambush Naritsugi as he makes his annual journey from Edo to his own domain. Unfortunately, he’s under the protection of a skilled military tactician named Kito Hanabee (Masachika Ichimura), and the assassins find themselves outnumbered four to one. Hanabee is a former colleague of Shinzaemon, and although he personally detests Naritsugi’s actions, his dedication to the samurai code of honor dictates that he must protect him at all costs. Nippon Cinema

This looks like a pretty good film based on the plot. I look forward to when this is released in the US. Unfortunately I have not seen the original since Netflix does not carry it. Damn you Netflix.

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