Japan

I saw this in the news this morning, Cameron's next movie could be about Hiroshima:

After Pandora, director James Cameron's next film could be about a new book that follows a handful of Japanese who were lucky – or unlucky – enough to survive both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.

Charles Pellegrino, author of The Last Train From Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back, said the survivors' shocking story could make it to the big screen in 3-D. It is the result of lengthy research, including extensive interviews with the survivors and those who dropped the weapons towards the end of the Second World War.

He and Avatar director Cameron met one such person, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, not long before he died earlier this month aged 93, and Pellegrino believes it is their duty to commit his story to film. "Mr Yamaguchi called us to him, literally to hold hands with him and gave us each this assignment [of making the movie]," he said.

This is rather interesting, but I have mixed feelings about it. There has been more than one movie that has covered this in Japan. I don't have anything specific in mind, but usually around the time of the anniversary there are both movies and animation that deal with the topic on TV in Japan, just like Moses used to always be shown on TV in America before Easter.

When I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum many years ago, there were very young elementary children outside being instructed to draw pictures that gave their impression of the museum. There were a lot of really grotesque pictures based on recreations that they had seen in the museum. These children will probably never be taken to a museum in China and shown what Japanese did while they were there, and then subsequently asked to draw pictures about it. (Think about it, should Japanese children be asked to draw pictures of comfort women being raped or people being massacred in Nanking?)

In the museum the actual articles, like melted bicycles and so, just looked old to me, and not particularly terrible or impressive. There were several wax figures that showed people with skin peeling off of them and so on. There were videos of interviews and footage taken after the explosion.

When I left the museum there was by chance a reporter there doing a story for the local NHK affiliate in Hiroshima. I was asked what I thought about the atomic bombing. You know, sort of standing there in the middle of a bunch of young kids drawing gruesome pictures of what America had done to Japan. I was well aware of the various controversies and different viewpoint surrounding the bombing, but had never studied the issue carefully. I didn't want to commit to any particular viewpoint. So I deferred and said all war is bad, and we should all strive to avoid it. It was a pretty evasive and weak answer, but I was told I'd be on the news at 6:00.

One thing that strikes me is to what degree many individuals view these issues through a nationalistic lens. Through a nationalistic lens we all remember the sins committed against us by them, but those committed by us against them are quickly forgotten (or explained away -- justified). If we view these happenings through the lens of individualism, very quickly the blame falls on the institution of the state itself. Nationalism and nationhood great games to be waged by those who should know better. Maybe some day we'll learn.

Glancing at the morning Asahi things don't look so good for chief secretary Ichiro Ozawa. The main headlines says 67% of people surveyed want him to resign. The next line notes that support for the Hatoyama cabinet has fallen to 42% and the disapproval rating is 41%. That's in the upper right, being the top news. If you move to the upper left there's an article detailing all the shady dealings and listing the various large numbers of unaccounted for political contributions and so on and so forth. This is complete with a complicated chart!

Poking around, I see the headline article in online here. Take a look at the Asahi's graph, the blue line slopping down is approval, the red line slopping up is disapproval:

 

The Yomiuri has a similar story online here. According to them, 70% of the people they surveyed want Ozawa to step down. Here's there graph showing approval (red line sloping down) and disapproval (blue line slping up) of the Hatoyama cabinet:

And if that's not bad enough, this morning Bloomberg can't even get Ozawa's name right (they'll probably have this fixed by the time you check the link):

Seventy percent of people surveyed by the Yomiuri newspaper said Ichiro Suzuki should resign as the secretary-general of the governing Democratic Party of Japan after the arrests of his current and former aides.

The survey also shows that Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s approval rating fell to 45 percent from 56 percent earlier this month. The DPJ has public support of 34 percent, compared with 20 percent for the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, the newspaper said.

The Yomiuri took the telephone survey Jan. 16-17 and obtained 1,146 valid responses. The newspaper didn’t provide a margin of error.

Should be an interesting week.

A doctor of neurology has an interesting editorial in today's Asahi, he argues:

Fears of a breakdown of the nation's health-care system are rising, with critics questioning the overall quality of medical services.

As someone in clinical practice with long experience working in both Japan and the United States, I wish to propose a system that would require doctors to renew their medical licenses on a regular basis.

Such a system would improve the quality of medical treatment through the efforts of doctors working at self-improvement.

In Japan, once a doctor graduates from medical school and passes a national qualifying examination, he or she is set to work for life. That is, unless one commits a serious transgression, such as misconduct that warrants administrative punishment. There is no requirement for doctors to renew their licenses.

Few countries allow such a state of affairs, especially among industrialized nations.

That's quite interesting. We all want good health care, and certainly I'm sure we would all prefer a doctor that is up to date in the latest techniques as opposed to one that isn't. However, if it's the case that there is a shortage of doctors in Japan, will this create yet another impediment?

If doctors are not already doing what is suggested above, I think we have to ask why? After all, if there were two doctors, one up to date and the other not, wouldn't we prefer the up to date one? So wouldn't he then make more money? Doe this not happen in Japan?

In general, I do think that private organizations can be created to handle these situations. There could be a private organization that issues its own seal of approval for different doctors depending on whether they qualify or not. Doctor's who have this seal of approval might be thought of as safer and thus be favored in the market place.

I think one possible impediment to the market solutions I am mentioning is national health care and centralization of authority. I guess this just reflects my own prejudices. Without investigating the matter more carefully I can only speculate.

 

From the Daily Yomiuri:

Meanwhile, referring to the next upper house election, Ozawa said, "We have achieved a change of government, but the battle of liberation hasn't ended yet."

"In summer, we'll have a final battle [the upper house election]. I'll leave the government administration to Prime Minister [Yukio] Hatoyama, and devote myself to the battle as a supreme commander of the people's liberation army's field battle unit," Ozawa added.

Okay, so Ozawa sees himself as the supreme commander of the people's liberation army's field battle unit. An interesting choice of words. And he said this because he was in China?

 

The Yomiuri editors are upset that Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping requested to see the emperor with only 20 days of advance notice. The rules state he should have given at least 30, but apparently Prime Minister Hatoyama pushed through the request himself. The Yomiuri says:

It is quite understandable that Shingo Haketa, grand steward of the Imperial Household Agency, expressed grave concern at a press conference Friday about the decision process that led to an audience with the Emperor being hastily arranged for Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping. Breaking with convention, Haketa said, could lead to political exploitation of the Emperor.

Xi is scheduled to visit Japan from Monday and meet the Emperor a day later.

According to Haketa, the agency received a request from the Chinese government for a meeting with the Emperor through the Foreign Ministry on Nov. 26, which was less than 20 days before Xi's planned visit.

Government regulations state that an application for a meeting with the Emperor by any visiting foreign dignitary must be received at least one month in advance. Therefore, a day after receiving the petition, the agency told Beijing it could not accept the request in accordance with this rule.

However, the matter did not end there.

According to Haketa, he was phoned on two occasions by Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano, who asked that Xi be exempted from the rule.

The top government spokesman pressed Haketa to accept his request, saying on his second call that he was making it "on the instruction of the prime minister."

Hm. I'll have to think about this. Does this mean China can push Japan around? Or does it mean Japan is very hospitable to important neighbors? Or does it mean absolutely nothing at all?

I've been commenting here and there on the Savoie case in Japan, where the father is now in jail under suspicion of having abducted his own children. I hadn't seen it as useful to comment here because there were so many other people commenting about it, it seemed superfluous. But I've gotten some specific questions from someone, so here are my answers for those who have an interest.

I saw your posting on Community in Japan...for a guy into philosophy I am surprised at your post....

Hm. So if I'm into philosophy, I should know better. Okay. That's cute.

... of course the Savoie case is beneficial to all. It has clearly brought to light Japans backwards Family Law System and inequity in "justice" But it is a difficult situation with Chris Savoie. We are stuck on this one. It has the most media coverage to date, but has issues. And all divorces have issues. There is no pretty divorce.

"There is no pretty divorce." I would have thought the same. But actually reading this at mutant frog changed my mind. I guess just like most of us aren't murderers or thieves, most divorces aren't so bad. Perhaps we need the law most when things break down ...

Here's the deal... None of us has any desire to condemn a fellow American who is facing the same level of hopeless desperation, as each one of us have faced since the first day we understood the reality of the Japanese policy on this issue. But Chris was intending to break the law in Japan, and was intending to do something that would be against the law here in the US. Abduction or re-abduction is wrong.

Okay, you're straddling the fence here between what's moral and what's legal. Think about it. That's basically what the whole book_A Time to Kill_ is about, right?

If I had to decide about the morality in this case, that is who should be with the children and how much, I tremble because it's a vast murky swamp.

However my main point is this. The mother of the children had entered into very detailed legal proceedings in America. In the context of these proceedings she undoubtedly agreed to many very specific things, probably under oath. To the degree that no one coerced or physically *forced* her to make these commitments she should be obligated to fulfill them. Despite that, the state of Japan is actually *protecting* her from having to fulfill these agreements. Why is that appropriate?

The father's actions are legally questionable to say the least. However, they do serve to highlight that the state of Japan is protecting the mother from fulfilling her own agreements. His actions highlight what I stated above. In a lawless situation, people behave unlawfully.

Put this in your philosphy-check machine...If we are to take a principled and objective stand against Japan on our issue, we cant be seen to CONDONE what Chris did.

I'm not necessarily into this *we* thing unless you can define it more specifically. I have mixed feelings about what Chris did. Ultimately, I don't know him, his children, his ex-wife, his new wife, nor all their combined life experiences. So I can't really condone or condemn him. I can merely point out that if there was a legal way to pursue this issue, people would be less inclined to do stupid or desperate things. His actions certainly highlight that.

We totally understand his feelings and empathize with him entirely. My heart goes out to him entirely. This thing has to end up focused on how far out of sync Japan is with the rest of the major industrialized societies of our world on social justice, family law, children and human rights, and a whole host of other facets. AND NOT focused on us allowing Chris a free pass to break the law, even though we would like to give him one. We cant have it both ways. Its a bitter pill, but we all must take it.

I'm not at all sure he broke the law. I guess if he physically harmed his ex-wife, then that's a serious issue. However, I'm not even clear on if he was divorced in Japan. If you're at the playground and your children refuse to come home, so finally, you pick them up and carry them to the car, are you "abducting" them from the playground? What if you wife wants them to play some more? How terribly confusing.

Who knows what's really correctly legal here? That's just the problem. Japan doesn't have any structure in place for dealing with this problem.

There's a really good article by Robert Higgs online at the Independent Institute where he discusses excess reserves that American banks currently are keeping and the impact this could have on the money supply once they start lending again. He notes:

At matters now stand, by far the greater threat is rapid inflation, notwithstanding the ongoing recession.

According to Nikkei Net, the yen will probably range between 87 and 92 yen to the dollar this week. Trading will again be thin, and large fluctuations are possible. There is still a strong sense that the yen could appreciate considerably, especially as more negative data appears about the American economy. The initial jobless claims report on 12/31 might be important, as well as the ISM Manufacturing PMI due out on 1/2.

From Bloomberg:

Japan should write-off its holdings of Treasuries because the U.S. government will struggle to finance increasing debt levels needed to dig the economy out of recession, said Akio Mikuni, president of credit ratings agency Mikuni & Co. The dollar may lose as much as 40 percent of its value to 50 yen or 60 yen from the current spot rate of 90.40 today in Tokyo unless Japan takes “drastic measures” to help bail out the U.S. economy, Mikuni said.

According to the Nikkei Shimbun, trading will be slow this week as Europe and America celebrate the Christmas holiday. However, those participating in the market forecast the yen to range somewhere between 85 to 90 yen to the dollar. The yen is expected to continue strengthening, but if it strengthens too fast it is likely that Japan's central bank will interfere to try and slow things down.