While doing some “research” into an izakaya I visited recently I came upon a review site, containing an article written in Japanese, that had a little “Google Translate” button. Curious to see how well the app would translate the article, I clicked the button to be confronted by this;
I visited there was something else to do work for lunch in Shibuya. 5 degrees minutes walk from Shibuya Station, fish in the mountains Masu Ban Palace Pavilion (Tsu’s imperial Gyo) is. Here, Miyazaki cuisine restaurant, lunch is lunch “cold soup”, “barbarian” Chicken Mountain “fish” There are three single meal. The six-store counter seats (about), Table 5, Taku (about) Ue, and (when I went) in the space in the room decorated with autumn leaves, and further narrow confined space (which, because of this object, the air feels to narrow …) Meals are “cold soup” Shinya £ 1200 order, the young “barbarian chicken] £ 1000 order. The amount of the common side dish chicken barbarian is no difference. “ Cold soup “and” barbarian “is the difference between soup the “cold soup” hot or “soup” is the only difference between houses. Summer “cold soup” good. The winter, “barbarian” Chicken soup is better for a warm meal. This shop is very narrow elevator hall 3F is a state of 5.6 people on a waiting ambulance. On the other hand if you go to lunch early hours and one-time or close to good.
Clearly Google Translate has its limitations. That said, it does make some sense. At least up until states of 5.6 people and ambulances at any rate.
Wikipedia explains,
Google Translate is based upon an approach called statistical machine translation, and more specifically, on research by Franz-Joseph Och...
Google used United Nations' (UN) documents to provide the linguistic data from which statistical models are developed to translate between languages. Apparently, Google Translate fairs better when faced with official UN languages, and stumbles somewhat when dealing with non-UN languages, such as German and Japanese.
My first encounter with Google Translate was certainly amusing, and indeed interesting, but mainly served to remind that there is (as of yet) still no real substitute for good old-fashioned study when it comes to languages.
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Rather late in noticing it - all the election excitement perhaps? - but there is currently an exhibition of Takehisa Yumeji's works being held at the Takashimaya department store in Shinjuku, running until September 6. From what I have been told the collection on display is comprehensive and well worth a look.
Interestingly, bottles of sake with his art work as labels are available.
Entry fee for adults - ¥800, university and high-school students - ¥600 and middle-school pupils and younger may enter free of charge.
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In the most recent edition (No. 43, August 13 – 27, 2009), titled “Safeguarding the nation, and safeguarding peace”, Asō makes mention of his visits last week to Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the memorial services for the victims of the atomic bombings of the two cities in the final days of WW2. Although he neglects to mention that he yet again publicly displayed his inability to read, and indeed caused hurt to those at whom the speech was aimed, he does note that meeting surviving victims of the bombs (Hibakusha) and witnessing their “cheerful” “vitality” he was impressed. Should we take this to mean he does not group them with others of the aged who, as he has previously asserted, are a bunch of "hobbling malingerers" who simply sit around eating and drinking all day whilst being a burden on the state and taxpayers?
He also notes that,
When I thought that it was the hard work of these people which sustained the prosperity that Japan enjoys today, I felt a renewed sense of gratitude.
Yes, in the postwar period those who are now aged did work hard to build a prosperous nation. Whether that prosperity is still enjoyed by all is of course questionable. Japan remains a wealthy nation, despite the best efforts of Asō’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to suck the nation dry and run the economy and people into the ground, but as far as I’m aware few Hibakusha have been able to share fully in enjoying such prosperity and, indeed, were actively excluded from participating in postwar society and nation rebuilding as they were ostracized by both companies and society at large. One can only assume that this nod in the direction of the now aged victims, and offer of more government aid to them, is actually intended to signal to all of Japan’s seniors that the LDP is the party that remembers and honours their suffering and hard work and will provide for them.
Clutching at US President Obama’s coat-tails, Asō then remarks that it is Japan’s “dearest wish” to realize a world free of nuclear weapons and to lead the way in global disarmament. This despite recent mumblings in conservative circles about the possible need for Japan to be armed with nuclear weapons, and “revelations” that Japan’s supposedly sacrosanct three non-nuclear principles had “secretly” been violated.
At this point the thoughts (provisionally translated though they may be) contained within the E-mail magazine become even more disturbing, with the prime minister proclaiming that,
We must not forget that the peace that Japan has enjoyed in the 64-year post-war period is built upon the precious sacrifice many people made during the previous world war.
Previous world war? To Asō and his kind that would be the Greater East Asian War wouldn’t it? Sacrifices made by many people? Who exactly? The victims of the atomic bombings? Or all Japanese as “Victims” of Western imperialism, racism and victor's justice? Maybe the sacrifices of the countless men, women and children of Asia who suffered cruelty, rape and death at the hands of the Japanese military? Maybe the American, Australian, British and Nigerian men and women, for example, who struggled to bring and end to Japanese imperialism?* Perhaps, although I doubt it, Asō is referring to the suffering and sacrifice of the Japanese people during the war, in which the state subjected them to oppression, hardship and pain even when any hope of victory was lost. Whatever the case maybe, it is unlikely that he was thinking of the sacrifice of POWs forced to labour in his family’s mines during the war.
At any rate, he asserts that,
We have a responsibility to firmly maintain this [current] peace and extend it to the rest of the world in order to respect the feelings of the many victims of the world war…
Laudable sentiments. Although I don’t seem to remember LDP conservatives being overly sympathetic towards the feelings of, say, Chinese or Korean victims of Japanese aggression when its members spout out-dated rhetoric or visit the Yasukuni Shrine to pay homage to war criminals fallen soldiers.
Finally, the prime minister calls our (well, really the voting Japanese citizens’) attention to the terrifying “reality” facing Japan and its people;
Meanwhile, Japan is facing a clear threat in the abductions, nuclear tests, and missile launches by North Korea.
Granted there is some threat in North Korea’s nuclear tests and missile launches, although the extent and viability of that threat is contested. As for the abductions, are they a threat and “reality” now? As far as I’m aware no abductions of Japanese nationals have occurred recently. Why bring this up in the same breath as nuclear and missile threats? As Tobias Harris, among others, has pointed out, the LDP, in its desperation to convince voters that it is the only party capable of not only governing Japan but also protecting Japan, is now resorting to scare mongering, playing on the fears of the populace in an attempt to convince them to stick with the devil they know in the upcoming national election. As such, Asō reassures that he and his government will strive to “fulfill the government’s most important responsibility,” that being “to protect the lives and property of the Japanese people.”
Admirable sentiments. Certainly the government should be responsible for providing some surety of protection of the lives and property of the populace. But, this protection need not only be against the threat of hostile militaries, terrorists, or despot’s kidnappers. What of the need to protect the lives, property and welfare of the people in a more domestic, economic and social sense? Aiming to provide stable employment and regular incomes, a social safety net, pensions, better education and “hope” for future generations of Japanese is also a requirement. Such protection is sorely needed. For over half a century the Japanese have had little or no protection from the ruling LDP and its allies in the bureaucracy and big business, and it has been a couple of decades since the benefits of acquiescence to the system have weighed more heavily than the negatives.
More than possible external threats, I would guess that most Japanese voters are more concerned with the “reality” of threats to their well-being that are closer to home.
* Depending on your point of view. The West was equally guilty of imperialism, and over a longer period of time.
]]>The quality of housing issue is indeed an interesting one, as the notion of houses that depreciate over time rather than increasing in value seems nonsensical. How "typically" back to front and "Japanese". Certainly the land is where the value is, and the flimsy structure hastily erected upon it has little true value. There are, however, more reasons than just earthquakes and the "old is dirty and thus bad" mentality / "culture".
Earthquakes play a part, of course, but in comparison to the situation in Japan homes in Italy, for example, seem much more robust despite also being at risk from earthquakes. Why is it that some of the only "decent" buildings remaining in Japan (after surviving US bombing of course) are old, stone and brick Western style ones? Think Tokyo station or the red brick Meiji era warehouses in Yokohama that everyone gets so excited about. Better built, longer lasting houses built with wood, stone, brick and steel are certainly practicable.
There are other issues to consider.
Why so small? A once large and booming population was being squeezed into the major cities to man the factories and power Japan Inc. Space was limited (blame this on political- and business-power being overly concentrated in Tokyo and other major cities and the Japanese fear of living in the mountains), land owners and landlords could make a killing cramming as many dwellings / rooms onto a plot of land as possible. This is also a reason behind "key money". Once upon a time, landlords were literally doing you a favour by letting you rent from them, so the gratuity was unavoidable. Even the practice of paying key money for rented property seems in decline, and no doubt will one day disappear as housing stock exceeds demand.
Crushing inheritance tax means that those lucky enough to be bequeathed land and / or property by mom and pop are usually forced to sell large chunks of it to pay the tax, and then what land remains is divided up further between siblings. Hence the ridiculously small parcels of land into which houses are squeezed. A problem now is those grass covered little plots of land left over all over the place that are too small to be used. Also landowners in possession of sizable plots stand to profit more by dividing it up into tiny plots for sale rather than large ones.
The "system" / Iron Triangle / Construction State benefitted from people's need to rebuild twice in a lifetime. Construction companies provided jobs. Lots of them. Furthermore the bread winner in a family is more likely to touch his toes for the corporation if, as well as feeding and schooling his kids and keeping his wife in Hermes bags, he is faced with the prospect of having to pay for a house twice over, or at the least paying to have it tarted up with a new skin of plastic brick-effect sheets stapled to it. Yet another example of wasted effort, yen and productivity. Indeed, this was also about keeping people poor. The State did not want individuals having too much wealth / assets. If the populace was too secure / comfortable they might not take so much crap from the powers that be, and might get uppity enough to start asking questions.
Will the situation change? There have been murmurs, and recent legislation, indicating that the government realizes this system is now dysfunctional.
If families have durable homes, people will be more secure in old age and have something, a real asset, to hand on to their children. That's quite a social safety net, and would offset some of the instability and exposure to risk faced by younger Japanese today and in the future.
As the population declines, the number of vacant "rabbit hutches" will increase. Eventually supply will come down to match demand more closely. Housing, indeed premises of all kinds, will become more spacious and be located in less cramped environs. Indeed, entire neighbourhoods might actually become roomier. Imagine real pavements, wider roads, no overhead cables, more trees and perhaps some real zoning and town planning.
To be fair, contemporary builds do seem to be improving. Despite rising vacancies and the recession, in my neighbourhood new houses are going up all over the place, and old ones are being torn down, rebuilt or refurbished. Very nearby, a huge complex of gorgeous new mansions, some going for around £1 million, has just been completed. The several hundred flats it contains sold out in just a few weeks. Across the road, several very attractive new houses have been built. Sure, underneath the facade they are just flimsy wood and chipboard, but at least they look better than the old concrete boxes. As Janne points out though, the climate here has a terrible effect on the appearance of buildings, and one can't help but wonder what state these better looking houses will be in after a decade or two.
Like so much in this Land of the Gods, the whole set up surrounding housing was rigged for a bygone time. It no longer fits the reality on the ground. Provide better quality, larger, more attractive houses and people might be happier (if they are given more free time to spend in them too of course). Unfortunately, a house does not a home make. Once better housing is available then better family life might be able to flourish. Perhaps then kids won't lock themselves up in their rooms for years on end and young women who get pregnant might not be so inclined to run away from home and give birth to their children in internet cafe toilet bowls...
]]>Marine Day was established in 1996 as Japan’s fourteenth national holiday, originally being held on July 20. Since a 2003 amendment to the National Holidays Law, however, it has been held on the third Monday of July under what is known as the “Happy Mondays System” (Happii mandei seido)*. The holiday ostensibly is a day of thanks for the blessings of the sea (all that endangered bluefin tuna) and one of hope for the prosperity of Japan as a maritime nation.
Japan has a history of marine-related holidays and observed dates. Naval Memorial Day, celebrated on May 27, commemorated Japan’s victory in the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War (1904 – 1905). Another, Marine Memorial Day, was established in 1941 and was also celebrated on July 20 although it was not a national holiday. According to The Nippon Foundation this day was supposed to increase “interest in the sea and using it to cultivate a spirit of embracing the world,” which at the time meant something more along the lines of being desirous of overseas lands and resources and attempting to bring them into the embrace of the Imperial Japanese Empire. Marine Memorial Day marked the anniversary of the return to Yokohama of the Meiji Emperor in 1876, on the ship Meiji-Maru, from his tour of the Tohoku and Hokkaido regions of northern Japan. In 1995 Marine Memorial Day became the national holiday Marine Day and was first observed as such in the following year.
While on a watery topic, yesterday was “Unagi Day” (Eel Day). Traditionally, one is meant to eat unagi** on that day in order to avoid the much-maligned summer sickness “natsubate,” which seems to afflict most Japanese, but is simply known as “being hot and a bit tired” where I hail from. Marketing, love of tradition and fear of ill health being what it is in Japan, plenty of unagi was consumed. Indeed, my mother-in-law (and no doubt millions like her) rushed to the supermarket to buy unagi despite not being particularly keen on it…
* Not, unfortunately, anything to do with burnt-out Ecstasy-addled Mancunian musicians.
** Freshwater eels, especially the Japanese eel, Anguilla Japonica.
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At some point in the spring of 2008 my fellow would-be Asia-based members of the global business elite and I attended a lecture by a guy visiting our institution from a British business association (Chamber of Commerce or some such thing) based in China. He had plenty to say, and forgetting the usual technical difficulties that seem to plague universities and professors whenever a PowerPoint presentation rears its ugly head, much of it was of interest. What particularly caught my attention was his explanation of the many problems faced by Western companies operating in China in terms of copyrights and trademarks. Despite improvements in laws and regulations, he explained, problems still abound. An extreme example being that someone could register their rights over, for example, the name or product of any company prior to its coming to China and then proceed to operate a business under that name. Put simply, imagine that before Starbucks set up shop in China I registered the name and trademarks, and all the various iterations of them possible in Chinese ideographs, and set up a chain of my own Starbucks coffee shops across the country. By the time the real Starbucks arrived they’d have a hard time fighting me as I would have already been operating under the name and had the rights and chain of shops to prove it. Crazy maybe, but I still lay awake at nights thinking about which name I can steal in order to make my fortune in China and set myself up as modern day Tai-Pan.
A Japan Times article of a few weeks ago covered an interesting, amusing, and no doubt for the parties concerned worrying occurrence in China whereby Chinese were attempting (and in some cases succeeding) in copyrighting and using as trademarks the names of Japanese celebrities. The name of Hamasaki Ayumi, a pop singer, has been registered as a trademark by a company in Guangdong province as a stationary brand and in Hunan province as the name of a fitness club. Applications have also been made for the name of venerable Japanese actor Takakura Ken (How dare they!) Isn’t capitalism with socialist characteristics great?
Image courtesy of HamovHotov.com
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Renowned psychoanalyst Dr. Doi Takeo, perhaps most well know in the West for his books The Anatomy of Dependence and The Anatomy of Self, passed away on Sunday 6th aged 89 of illness related to old age.
For any student of Japanese society those two books are required reading. The Anatomy of Dependence, first published in 1971, sought to illuminate the concept of amae, one not easily rendered in English, whereby individuals (read Japanese individuals) have an emotional dependency by which they both desire and require the attentions, love and often unconditional indulgence of those around them. According to Doi’s analysis such dependency was focused upon those in positions of authority or nurturance whether they be mothers, teachers, colleagues, bosses or wives. The need to amaeru is, as far as Doi was concerned, central to the Japanese need to be cared for and told what to do by some higher authority. His work on the Japanese psyche was well received, and his view of amae influenced social anthropology, sociology and psychology. Ezra Vogel, social sciences professor emeritus at Harvard University and author of the influential Japan as No. 1, considered Doi’s book to be the first “by a Japanese trained in psychiatry to have an impact on Western psychiatric thinking.”
Expanding further upon this theme, in The Anatomy of Self, Doi attempted to explain the importance of psychological and sociological distinctions between paired opposing opposites such as honne (true inner intentions) and tatemae (those shown to the outside world), ura (implied or hidden meaning) and omote (outward appearances), and uchi (home, family and in-groups) and soto (outside and people not belonging to family and in-groups). He believed that such distinctions, as well as the need of Japanese to amaeru, were central to Japanese individual’s psyche thus informing all their familial and social interactions.
Although Doi admitted that such traits were visible in other nationalities, he asserted that they were more pronounced and intricate among the Japanese. His work soon became labelled as Nihonjinron (discourse on Japaneseness) and as this genre of writing fell into disfavour his books began to be seen as just another attempt to prove and justify the uniquely unique nature of the Japanese.
Personally I remember finding his books extremely useful in trying to unravel some of complexities of Japanese familial and social interaction and in providing a construct with which to analyse Japanese society. (I also found that scattering a few references to his work throughout essays helped in attaining high grades) Certainly the concepts he dealt with play a prominent part in the lives of Japanese. Whether this is entirely natural or in part learnt through the work of Doi and other proponents of Nihonjinron is another matter. Upon first reading these books, what struck me most was that so much of the amae concept was applicable to many Westerners and other non-Japanese I knew, myself included. Were it not for Doi’s books, I may not have considered these tendencies within people, or have been provided with a way of understanding them.
This discovery quickly led to my graduating from the “Japan as unique” frame of mind that so many who become infatuated with the country initially adopt. Japan, and the Japanese are not uniquely unique, and Japan’s much vaulted Four Seasons are pretty much like the four seasons in countless other countries. A lot of rubbish has been written under the Nihonjinron banner, as well as by plenty of Western academics and Japan sympathisers. Equally, I believe, many have made successful careers out of an attempt to discredit any unique or differing traits in Japan. Such work is to my mind just as unhelpful as Nihonjinron. Sure, Japan is not uniquely unique. But, it is unique. Just in the same way as England, France, Thailand, Myanmar or the US are unique. No country, or people, is exactly the same and surely this is something to hoped for and indeed celebrated. Similarities in certain areas abound. We are all human after all. These similarities, common ground, are perhaps our chance to overcome conflict and suffering. As such, I often find it worrying that so many expend so much effort in trying to iron out any differences between nations and peoples. During the Second World War US propaganda claimed that Japanese were all prints from the same negative. Why is it that some now wish that were true of us all?
Image courtesy of AP via CBS News
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