ZERO

【日中歴史研究】南京

2010-01-31T22:02:00.000-08:00

Difference in perception of modern history a hurdle to Japanese-Chinese review panel

While a joint Japanese-Chinese panel comprised of academics released a report on the history of the two countries on Sunday, a section addressing the post-war period has not been disclosed due to strong objections from the Chinese members. This turn of events has exposed the limitations and complexities of a project meant to bridge the rift between Japan and China. Meanwhile, portions penned by Chinese academics have shown signs that Chinese academia is moving away from the interpretation of revolutionary history as dominated by the Chinese Communist Party, to a more positivist approach.

Release of the report came over a year later than the initial plan of 2008, which marked the 30-year anniversary of the peace and friendship treaty signed between Japan and China. "The delay was caused by a difference in perception of modern history," one Japanese panel member said. "The Chinese side feared addressing issues that could challenge the legitimacy of the party leadership, such as the Tiananmen incident."

Plans to release notes on the debates held throughout the writing of the report have also been shelved. Some observers see the repeated failures to reach an agreement as the result of pressure applied to panel members from the Chinese government, which considers historical research an important pillar of its "patriotic education."

Both sides agreed that they would undertake the second phase of the joint project, but it has yet to be seen how the Japanese and Chinese public will respond to the latest report. "Stable public sentiment on both sides is imperative to continuing this project," says a diplomat involved in Japan-China relations.

Popular Chinese sentiment toward Japan has improved since the 2005 anti-Japanese demonstrations, which was the catalyst behind the project. It is impossible, however, to include anything in the report that would suggest that China made concessions to Japan regarding the Nanjing Massacre, especially when surviving family members of those who were killed in the incident still live in China.

The section on the Nanjing Massacre includes not only the number of victims, but also a detailed description of the killing, rapes, and pillaging that took place. The extensive explanation of the massacre -- which is in stark contrast to the perfunctory depiction of Unit 731, which carried out germ warfare attacks -- is believed to have been written in response to the existence of Nanjing Massacre deniers in Japan.

Hints of Chinese historians' departure from the "Chinese Communist Party as revolutionary history" line are evident in the report's description of the relationship between the Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the war against Japan. "There was friction between the two parties, but the more important objective of cooperation in the fight against Japan remained consistent."

In China, there has been a trend to re-evaluate the role of the KMT in the war against Japan as China's relations with Taiwan improve. The joint report, too, dedicates a significant number of words to the negotiations the KMT conducted with major powers on behalf of China and an elaboration on the global state of affairs at the time, and captures the Sino-Japanese War from a broader perspective.

In addition, the report refers to Japan's defeat in the war as "a turning point in history," and that Japan began taking "a step toward peace and development." Such an interpretation clashes with the view held by Chinese "patriots" comprised primarily of youth, who accuse Japan of increasing militarization.

There is a possibility that such historical interpretations will arouse great controversy, and it is likely to be some time before they are reflected in history textbooks and television dramas.

日中歴史共同研究：中国側に変化の兆し　世論への浸透未知数

　３１日に公表された初の日中歴史共同研究報告書は、中国側の強い要請で戦後史部分が非公表となり、両国の歴史認識の溝を埋めるために始めた事業の限界と複雑さを露呈する結果となった。一方で、中国側の論文には、中国共産党の役割を軸とする革命史観から脱却して実証主義的に記述する試みもみられ、宣伝色の強かった歴史研究の変化の兆しもみられた。【中澤雄大、北京・浦松丈二】

　研究成果は当初、日中平和友好条約締結３０周年に当たる０８年中の発表を目指したが、１年以上遅れた。ある日本側研究者は「現代史部分の認識の差が原因。天安門事件の評価など、共産党指導部の正当性を揺るがす問題に触れることを中国側が恐れた」と指摘する。

　論文執筆過程の討議要旨の公表も見送られた。再三の合意不履行は、歴史研究を「愛国教育」の重要な柱と位置づける中国政府が委員に圧力をかけているとの見方も出ている。

　両国は第２期共同研究として継続することで一致したが、両国の国内世論が今回の報告内容をどう受け取るかは未知数だ。日中外交当局者は「継続には双方の国民感情の安定が不可欠」と指摘する。

　中国国内の対日世論は、共同研究のきっかけとなった反日デモ（０５年）当時よりは好転している。だが、国内に遺族が生存する南京虐殺事件で日本に譲歩したと受け取られかねない記述は不可能だ。

　南京虐殺については、犠牲者数の根拠だけでなく、虐殺や強姦（ごうかん）、略奪の実態を詳細に描いた。細菌戦を展開した７３１部隊について簡単に触れた程度なのとは対照的で、日本国内に虐殺自体を否定する意見が存在することを念頭に置いたものとみられる。

　中国側の革命史観にとらわれない記述で注目されるのは、抗日戦争での共産党と国民党との関係性だ。「国共両党の間にいろいろ摩擦が起きているが、両党が協力して日本に抗戦する大局は一貫して変わらなかった」と記述した。

　中国では中台関係改善の流れを受け、抗日戦争での国民党の役割を見直す動きが進んでいる。報告書は、国民党が中国を代表して行った列強との交渉や当時の国際情勢にも多くの紙幅を割き、日中戦争をより広い視野からとらえている。

　日本の敗戦についても「歴史の転換点」と指摘し、「平和発展の道を歩み出した」と評価した。これは日本の「軍国主義化」を警戒する中国の若者を中心とした「愛国世論」とは異なっている。

　だが、こうした歴史研究は国内で論議を呼ぶ可能性もあり、革命史観に基づく歴史教科書や大衆向けドラマに反映されるには相当な時間がかかりそうだ。

【日中歴史研究】南京事件の日本側論文（要旨）
2010.1.31 22:59
　昭和１２年１２月１０日、日本軍は南京総攻撃を開始し、翌１３日、南京を占領した。
　この間、中国政府高官は次々に南京を離れ、住民の多くも戦禍を逃れ市内に設置された南京国際安全区（「難民区」）に避難し、日本軍に利用されないために多くの建物が中国軍によって焼き払われた。
　中支那方面軍は、上海戦以来の不軍紀行為の頻発から、南京陥落後における城内進入部隊を想定して「軍紀風紀を特に厳粛にし」という厳格な規制策（「南京攻略要領」）を通達していた。しかし日本軍による捕虜、敗残兵、便衣兵、市民に対して集団的、個別的な虐殺事件が発生し、強姦（ごうかん）、略奪や放火も頻発した。日本軍による虐殺行為の犠牲者数は、極東国際軍事裁判における判決では２０万人以上（松井石根司令官に対する判決文では１０万人以上）、１９４７年の南京戦犯裁判軍事法廷では３０万人以上とされ、中国の見解は後者の判決に依拠している。一方、日本側の研究では２０万人を上限として、４万人、２万人などさまざまな推計がなされている。犠牲者数に諸説がある背景には「虐殺」（不法殺害）の定義、対象とする地域・期間、埋葬記録、人口統計など資料に対する検証の相違が存在している。
　日本軍による暴行は外国のメディアによって報道されるとともに、南京国際安全区委員会の日本大使館に対する抗議を通して外務省にもたらされ、陸軍中央部にも伝えらた。３８年１月４日には、閑院宮参謀総長名で、松井司令官あてに「軍紀・風紀ノ振作ニ関シテ切ニ要望ス」との異例の要望が発せられた。
　宣戦布告がなされず「事変」にとどまっていたため、日本側に、俘虜（ふりよ）（捕虜）の取り扱いに関する指針や占領後の住民保護を含む軍政計画が欠けており、また軍紀を取り締まる憲兵の数が少なかった点、食糧や物資補給を無視して南京攻略を敢行した結果、略奪行為が生起し、軍紀弛緩（しかん）をもたらし不法行為を誘発した点などが指摘されている。戦後、極東国際軍事裁判で松井司令官が、南京戦犯軍事法廷で谷寿夫第６師団長が、それぞれ責任を問われ、死刑に処せられた。一方、犠牲が拡大した副次的要因としては、中国軍の南京防衛作戦の誤りと、それにともなう指揮統制の放棄・民衆保護対策の欠如があった。（筆者は、波多野澄雄筑波大教授、庄司潤一郎防衛研究所第一戦史研究室長）

【日中歴史研究】南京事件の中国側論文（要旨） (1/2ページ)
2010.1.31 22:53
　日本軍が上海を占領した後、３つのルートから南京攻略を開始し、１２月１３日、南京は陥落した。敗退した中国軍の大半は捕虜となり、集団で日本軍に殺害された。第１６師団の中島今朝吾師団長は１２月１３日の日記で、数千人の捕虜を処理したと記述した。日本軍の南京における戦闘の報告は敵の数の羅列が多く、捕虜数はほとんど触れていない。日本軍は上から下まで徹底的に捕虜を殺害する方針を実施したことがうかがえる。
　多くの中国兵士が軍服を脱ぎ難民区に隠れたが、日本軍は顔だけで敗残兵を随意に判断し、多くの平民が軍人として殺害された。１２月２４日、金陵大学の難民所のテニスコートから、一日だけで２００～３００人が五台山と漢西門外に連れて行かれ、殺害された。
　日本軍が南京郊外の農村部でも市民への虐殺を実施した。金陵大学教授が１９３８年に行った調査では、南京郊外の一部地域では、被害者総数は３万９５０人。平均して住民の千人のうち２９人が死亡し、７世帯に１人が殺害されている。
　捕虜と平民に対する虐殺以外に日本軍の中国女性に対するレイプも大量に行われ、国際安全区にいた米国人宣教師の記述によれば「私のドイツ人同僚の推測では２万件のレイプ事件があった。私は少なくとも８千件はあると思う。金陵大学周辺だけで１００以上の例を詳しく知っている」。その後、性病が軍内で流行することを恐れた日本軍は南京で慰安所を設立し、強制的に多くの中国人女性を日本軍の性の奴隷にした。
南京市内での暴行を見た米国人記者が欧米新聞で報道し、国際社会に大きな衝撃を与えた。１９３８年２月、華中方面軍司令官の松井石根大将が日本の参謀本部に呼び戻された。だが日本軍が南京占領した翌日、東京では４０万人が南京陥落を祝った。南京のニュースは日本では封印され、戦後の東京裁判で日本国民は初めて真相を知った。
　戦後、同盟国と中国が東京と南京で南京大虐殺に関する裁判を行った。東京裁判の判決は「南京占領後の一カ月の間、南京市内と近郊で２万件のレイプ事件が発生。占領後６週間で、南京市内と近郊で殺害された平民と捕虜は２０万人以上」と認定した。南京で行われた中国国防省の軍事法廷では「南京大虐殺の中で、集団で殺害された人数は１９万人、個別で殺害されたのは１５万人余り、被害者総数は３０万人以上」と認定している。（筆者は栄維木・社会科学院近代史研究所「抗日戦争研究」編集長）

【日中歴史研究】私はこう読む　現代史家の秦郁彦氏　「日本弾劾色」に変化
2010.2.1 00:10
　南京事件について、中国側の報告書は典拠を明らかにした事実関係の記述にほぼ終始しており、日本の弾劾から始まるプロパガンダ色が強かった従来の歴史論文と比べると、大きく変わったという印象を受ける。
　事件の事実経過に限れば日本側とほぼ同じと言っていいが、大きく違うのは「３０万人以上」とする被害者総数だ。報告書では中国側の軍人参戦者を計１５万人とし、市民の被害者については、ほぼ唯一の推計である「スマイス報告」から約３万人とする数字を挙げている。しかし、これだと軍人が２７万人殺されたことになり、１５万人の参戦者をはるかに超えてしまう。
　従来の「３０万人」を撤回しにくい中国側が、矛盾を承知で報告書を出したとするならば、中国における歴史研究と公開の自由度はかなり高まってきているといえるのではないか。（談

日中歴史共同研究の報告書要旨＜２＞…南京事件など
　１月３１日発表された、日中歴史共同研究報告書要旨は次の通り（中国側要旨は読売新聞社訳）。

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　【満州国の実態】

　日本側　抗日ゲリラ活動がなかなか下火にならず、関東軍が徹底的弾圧を加えた。満州国は通貨統一の強力な実現を図り、経済の近代化を促した。鉄道や道路を整備し、石炭、電力、鉄鋼などの生産が大きく伸びたが、住民の生活水準向上を目指すものではなかった。「民族協和」もスローガンに終始し、日本人と満州国人の格差が拡大した。

　中国側　（日本による）通貨改革は実質的には強行された金融略奪だった。日本は（日中戦争後に）満州に対する施政の重点を経済略奪の強化に変えた。満州国は鉱工業に対する統制を実行し、民族業者の参入を厳禁した。日本は太平洋戦争勃発（ぼっぱつ）後には東北地方の経済資源をほしいままに略奪した。

　【日中戦争】

　日本側　中国に深い傷跡をのこしたが、原因の大半は日本側が作った。（発端となった）盧溝橋における最初の発砲事件は「偶発的」であった。しかし、この事件を好機とみなした関東軍などは蒋介石政権の打倒と華北占領という構想を実行していく。現地軍の行動を抑制できなかった理由の一つは陸軍内の「拡大派」と「不拡大派」の対立にあった。近衛内閣も行き詰まっていた中国政策打開の好機ととらえて容認し、現地解決の努力を押し流した。

　中国側　盧溝橋事件自体の発生は偶然性をもっているかもしれないが、事件はたちまちに日本の全面的な中国侵略戦争を引き起こした。歴史の推移からみれば、事件は必然性をも帯びている。日本には「拡大派」と「不拡大派」との論争があったが、内閣が「華北に対する派兵声明」を公布してから「不拡大派」の声は完全に「拡大派」の主張にかき消されてしまった。

　【南京事件】

　日本側　日本軍による捕虜、敗残兵、便衣兵（ゲリラ）、一部の市民に対する集団的、個別的な虐殺事件が発生し、強姦（ごうかん）、略奪や放火も頻発した。被害者数は日本側の研究では２０万人を上限として、４万人、２万人など様々な推計がなされている。原因について、日本側に捕虜の取り扱いに関する指針や占領後の住民保護を含む軍政計画が欠けており、軍紀を取り締まる憲兵の数が少なかった点などが指摘されている。副次的要因としては、中国軍の南京防衛作戦の誤りと、それに伴う指揮統制の放棄・民衆保護対策の欠如があった。

　中国側　南京軍事裁判所は南京大虐殺で虐殺された人数は１９万人以上にも上り、ほかにも散発的に虐殺された者が１５万人以上おり、被害者総数は３０万人余りと認定した。極東軍事裁判（東京裁判）の判決書によれば、占領後１か月で、南京城内では２万件近い強姦事件が発生した。日本軍は捕虜の数が多すぎて安全面を憂慮し、大量の中国軍人が捕虜になった後、集団的に虐殺された。民間人虐殺の暴行も猛威をふるった。（ある地域の）サンプリング調査によると民間人１０００人あたり２９人が死亡し、７世帯あたり１人が殺害されている。

　【毒ガス・化学兵器】

　日本側　１９３８年の武漢・広東攻略戦を通じて毒ガスの効果が実証され、参謀本部は「特殊煙」（あか筒、あか弾、みどり筒）の使用を認めることを各軍に指示し、中国戦線での毒ガス使用が一般化したと言われる。

　中国側　関東軍７３１部隊と第１００部隊は中国人を利用して人体実験を行い、生体解剖まで行った。関東軍はさらに、化学兵器の人体実験を行った。今日もなお東北地方の民衆は日本軍が遺棄した化学兵器の毒物の影響を受けている。１９４２年、日本軍部隊が金華一帯に出動して細菌を散布し、コレラの流行を引き起こした。

　【中国の犠牲者数】

　日本側　国民政府軍の死者は約１３２万人、負傷者は１８０万にのぼる。中国共産党軍の死傷者＝失踪（しっそう）者を含む＝は５８万人を超えると推定されている。

　中国側　完全な統計ではないが、戦争期間中に中国の軍人、人民３５００万人余りが死亡、負傷した。

　【終わりに】

　日本側　日中全面戦争は、双方の軍人だけではなく、特に中国の非戦闘員に多くの犠牲を強いた。犠牲の多さや日本軍による様々な「非違行為」は、戦後の日中両国民に、新しい関係構築を妨げる深い傷跡をのこした。日本軍による戦争犯罪を問い、戦後補償を求める運動が世代を超えて展開され、日本政府を相手とした裁判が今日まで続いていることは、そのことを物語っている。

　中国側　中国人民は粘り強く抵抗した。抗日戦争における中国人民の偉大な勝利は、中華民族の同胞全体が団結して奮闘した結果で、反ファシズムの世界とともに努力して同盟国の人民と戦った成果だ。戦争は日本の転換点でもあった。日本のファシストが徹底的な敗北を喫し、日本人民も軍国主義を排除し、平和発展の新たな道を歩み出した。戦争終結は、日中両国に真に新たな平等関係を形成する可能性を与えた。

（2010年1月31日23時40分読売新聞）

Korea's Historical Amnesia

2010-01-22T02:33:00.000-08:00

The Korea Times

01-21-2010 18:33
Korea’s Historical Amnesia

Korea's Historical Amnesia
By Lee Cheun-heui

I couldn't help but laugh at the historical inaccuracies in the opinion piece ``Promoting Historical Amnesia" regarding the ongoing and futile effort of former so-called ``comfort women" to extract compensation from the Japanese government over their alleged ``hellish situation" during the Japanese army's colonization of Korea up until the end of World War II.

First, let me mention that my grandmother, who now lives in Japan, used to be a ``comfort woman," and she says the Japanese army never coerced anybody into having sex with the soldiers.

Sure, a few rogue soldiers did indeed rape some of the women of the territories it occupied, but my grandmother says the Japanese army never collectively forced women into performing sexual acts.

What the Japanese army did was negotiate a deal with the owners of local brothels to have them bring a group of girls to the army barracks to perform sexual favors for the soldiers who were either lonely or in need of a morale boost.

The women were paid handsomely, and my grandmother says that any woman who felt any kind of aversion to sleeping with a Japanese soldier was not required to participate in any sexual junket, though that meant they were forfeiting any opportunity to earn money from the Japanese army.

Now let's shift the focus to the issue of compensation. If you read the Basic Treaty signed by the Japanese and South Korean governments in 1965, you will notice that the Japanese government did indeed offer to provide compensation to individuals who had legitimate claims, but the South Korean government refused and instead requested that the Japanese government pay a lump sum to the Korean government to completely resolve the issue.

What did the South Korean government do with the money? Instead of giving it to the so-called ``victims" as they were supposed to, they used it to kick-start the ``Miracle on the Han River."

Legally speaking, based on the Treaty of 1965, anybody who feels they deserve compensation from the Japanese government for any wrongdoing committed by that government doesn't have a case because in the Treaty of 1965 the Korean government absolved the Japanese government from any further liability.

So if these comfort women who spend day after day protesting in front of the Japanese embassy really are serious about receiving ``compensation," legally it is the Korean government that needs to answer to their claims.

Here's another thing. Korea was not the only country that Japan occupied during the Second World War. China, and most of Southeast Asia, from the Philippines in the West to Burma (now Myanmar) in the East were also occupied and women from these nations also provided sexual favors to the Japanese soldiers but these ``comfort women" don't seem to have any problem with the Japanese government now.

Only the people of Korea seem to be unable to come to grips with the reality that there never really was a ``hellish situation" for these women. My grandmother, who made lots of money from her work as a prostitute servicing Japanese soldiers, and her friends (yes, they are Koreans, too) all say they never were forced and they were all paid very well.

Here in Korea it's more fashionable to blame things on the Japanese instead of the Park Chung-hee government, where the real blame lies. The Japanese government does not need to wait until all the comfort women are dead.

The treaty of 1965 is evidence enough of their compensation. I remind everybody who is still under the silly impression that Japan still owes favors to Korean victims, that in the treaty of 1965 the Japanese government did indeed offer to deal with each and every individual who claimed compensation was owed to them, but that the South Korean government declined the offer.

Don't believe me? Read the treaty for yourself; it's available for public scrutiny since it's now an official public record.

So I say to the editorial staff at The Korea Times, read the treaty, and after having read and understood it, please be kind enough to tell the readers exactly who it is that has this so-called ``historical amnesia."

The writer is a financial advisor in Yongsan, Seoul.

Interview with Enola Gay crew member

2009-08-11T18:10:00.000-07:00

Interview with Enola Gay crew member Morris Jeppson (Pt 1)

Morris Jeppson is pictured in an interview with the Mainichi at his home in Las Vegas. (Mainichi)
The following are excerpts from a recent Mainichi interview with Morris Jeppson, 87, one of two surviving members of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. The interview, conducted at Jeppson's home in Las Vegas, also contains comments from Jeppson's wife, Molly. (Interviewed by Takayasu Ogura, Mainichi New York Correspondent)

Mainichi: How did you join the U.S. military?

Jeppson: I was about 19 years old. There was a world war going on, so I enlisted in the Air Force, hoping I could be a pilot.

Mainichi: You wanted to be a pilot?

J: Well yes. Actually that was not my career objective. I wanted to be a physicist. And I ended up becoming a physicist but flying in World War II was a small section of life so I enlisted in the Air Force to become a flyer, but I ended up becoming more of a physicist.

Mainichi: What kind of role did you take during the Hiroshima mission?

J: Well, I was trained for that role -- at Harvard and MIT in electronics, (and) at MIT in radar engineering -- and there were four small radars built into these bombs. There was an antenna for one of them, and there were four of them. They were very simple -- all they detected was firing an electronic signal to the ground which bounced back up and measured the time delay, and that measured the height of this bomb as it was falling above ground.

So my role -- six of us ended up from the Harvard and MIT electronic schools, Air Force schools. We were hired by Los Alamos to work with the Air Force on the fusing -- the radar fusing and all other stuff that was built in the bomb.

I was a weapon test officer and we worked with Los Alamos in the Air Force. I was in the Air Force during the evolution of the electronics fusing system of the bomb. And then I was chosen to fly the Hiroshima mission and it was still experimental, so I was to test the electronics on the bomb during the flight to Hiroshima. If there was a problem with the electronics, I reported the problem to this man (and) he told the pilot of the airplane to take the bomb back. In fact, I was instructed to tell him to take the bomb back to (the Pacific island of) Tinian if it wasn't working right.

Mainichi: When were you informed you would be assigned to be part of the Hiroshima mission?

J: Well, that's a very good question. There were six of us who went through this training program at Harvard and MIT. At that time, we didn't know we were going to be assigned this program. But the six of us -- when we got to this program and went over to the airbase in Utah -- we were all trained to do the same job.

Of those six -- I think it was the day before -- we had a lieutenant, the first lieutenant in the Air Force assigned to oversee our little group of six. It turns out he was a security man, and he was to monitor our group to make sure we didn't make any mistakes. He didn't know electronics or anything, but it was a security matter.

The day before the mission, this security man said OK, we've narrowed it down to two of you. We'll flip a coin and figure out which one of you is going to fly the Hiroshima mission. And so, he flipped a coin, and they said, "Jeppson, you're flying on a security mission."

Mainichi: Like that?

J: Yeah.

Molly: Just like that.

J: He said it's got to be one of you two people. Anyway I ended up on the airplane. Not that I wanted to be. August 5. The day before Hiroshima.

Mainichi: Just a day before Hiroshima?

J: Several of us were trained to do this job. But --

M: But you were chosen.

Mainichi: Just a day before the bombing.

J: Yes. Now if I'd been sick, the other guy would have got on.

M: It was just luck. He (Jeppson) took a separate flight with (J. Robert) Oppenheimer (Scientific Director of the "Manhattan Project" to develop the first atom bomb) one time down to Southern California and Los Alamos. On the plane, he talked to Oppenheimer about how he wanted to be a physicist and everything. So I think Oppenheimer had something to do with him being chosen for this particular flight.

J: Whether or not they flipped the coin, evidently --

M: That's what they told him -- that they flipped the coin -- but he doesn't know.

J: But four of the six people that were trained this way lived in this tent. They wanted us separate from the 509th (composite group), where there were 1,500 people, and we were not supposed to talk to the other crew members anywhere, anytime about what we were doing.

M: They were in the middle of the airfield, which was a long way out. There was barbwire around the whole thing, and they were in a building there and they were not allowed to talk to anybody else on the air base, because they were working on this. Nobody else knew about it.

J: This was in Utah.

Mainichi: When did you move to Tinian Island?

J: In June, 1945.

Mainichi: At that time you were trained?

J: We were all trained and ready to go. Yes. Flying missions just like Hiroshima.

Mainichi: During that time, did you want to be chosen as a crew member of Enola Gay?

J: I've never heard that question before; that's a good one. I knew this was to be a uranium bomb -- a super bomb.

M: Because he was a physicist and he looked in the library at Los Alamos and figured it out. But he didn't say a word to anybody because they would have gotten after him and kicked him out. So he just kept it in his head.

Mainichi: You knew that this would be a nuclear bomb?

J: Most people in the 509th knew it was going to be a super powerful weapon, but they weren't supposed to know it was uranium. I'd figured out that it was a uranium bomb. People have asked, "Didn't it make you nervous -- having worked with one of these on the Hiroshima flight?" The answer is, "No, it's just the same kind of flight we'd done before."

M: It was just a job.

Mainichi: So all of your crew members felt so, too -- that the Hiroshima mission would be just the same kind of mission?

J: No. (They knew) that it would be a super powerful explosive, but not that it would be a nuclear explosive. Nobody had heard about nuclear. But I knew it.

Mainichi: You knew it because you were a physicist?

J: Yes. This man certainly knew it -- (weaponeer William Sterling) Parsons, who flew on the mission. He was in charge of this bomb. And my boss, of course, knew it. And this man was an official historian of the Manhattan Project, so he was out there to kind of oversee it, and he had the exclusive right to the story.

M: But nobody told anybody else.

J: He didn't know it was a nuclear explosive. I don't believe he did. But I'm not sure.

Mainichi: In this tent, nobody talked about uranium bombings?

J: Not uranium. They talked about the bomb and the electronics. But remember we had this Air Force guy overseeing us and if we'd been talking about Uranium 235, even he wasn't supposed to know what it was, but he would have found out that we were not authorized to talk about it. Security was incredibly tight.

Mainichi: But of course (Enola Gay pilot) Mr. (Paul) Tibbets knew?

J: Tibbets knew.

Mainichi: How about Robert Lewis, co-pilot?

J: No, he didn't know.

Mainichi: He didn't know this was a uranium bomb?

J: No, he wouldn't know that.

M: Nobody knew, really.

J: He knew it was going to be a super powerful bomb, but he didn't know it was going to be nuclear.

Mainichi: How about the bombardier?

J: (Thomas) Ferebee? He didn't know. He knew it had to be a very powerful bomb; otherwise he wouldn't have detonated it up high above the ground. If it had been detonated -- let's say the plane was flying at a low altitude like all of these hundreds of B-29s -- it would have destroyed the B-29 because they normally flew at six or seven thousand feet. This one flew at 30,000 feet. So the blast was like a shockwave -- it was a shockwave, but it didn't damage the airplane.

If it had been lower down, where they normally flew missions like this, the plane would not have survived.

Mainichi: There was a very famous photo of a big mushroom cloud. Who took the photo from the Enola Gay?

J: There was one gunner on the plane, the tail gunner. Why they left a tail gunner and took all the rest of the guns off, I don't know. But somebody gave him a camera, and he took the picture that you see.

M: After they dropped the bomb, Colonel Tibbets said he turned the plane really fast because he had to turn around and get away.

J: He didn't want to be above the bomb when the cloud came up.

Mainichi: So he had to --

J: Yeah. Get out of the way. So by the time the explosion took place, I think the airplane was 11 miles away, but I don't know for sure.

Mainichi: So your mission to Hiroshima involved only one airplane, the Enola Gay, not several?

J: Well, actually there were three that went to Hiroshima. First of all, early in the morning, they sent three weather reconnaissance planes to check out three different targets -- Hiroshima being one, Kokura, was another one, and Nagasaki was the third one. The weather planes reported that Hiroshima was open for bombing and then there were three active planes that flew over Hiroshima.

They were flying alongside, together at 30,000 feet. The third one was a photo monitor. This is an interesting story. The man that had the gear -- a nice camera to take pictures of this event -- he forgot his parachute, and they wouldn't let him on the airplane. They wouldn't let him on the third airplane. So he just flew with no assignment.

M: And no pictures. There were no other pictures of the bomb going off.

J: Except the one the tail gunner took.

Mainichi: He (the photographer) failed to take photos?

M: He failed.

J: He failed. Yeah. His part of the mission didn't work. And he was very agitated because he said "I don't need a parachute; what good is a parachute when you're at 30,000 feet?" If the plane blew up at 30,000 feet, even with a parachute, you don't survive.

M: But you were the only one who put on a parachute in your plane; nobody else did.

J: All of the crew, when they got onboard the airplane, the nine members, and (radar specialist Jacob) Beser, dumped their parachutes in a pile -- they are nice comfortable things -- so Captain Parsons sat on the pile of the parachutes. He was right behind me, and I was monitoring the electronics, and I was to tell him if there was something wrong, but here is this big-time guy sitting on a pile of parachutes -- that's OK.

Mainichi: Who pushed the button of the bomb?

J: The bombardier over the bomb bay, Ferebee.

M: He's dead.

Mainichi: Just before the bombing, you were informed that you are going to be a member of Enola Gay. So you were told about the mission Aug. 4?

J: Probably either the 4th or 5th. I am not really sure.

Mainichi: How did you feel?

J: I've faced that question before, and I don't recall anything about it, other than it was to be a mission identical (to other missions) -- and I'd never flown on combat missions in Germany or in Japan or in any place.

Mainichi: Never?

J: No, I've never flown any combat missions. I only flew one. Only one.

Interview with Enola Gay crew member Morris Jeppson (Pt. 2)

Morris Jeppson is pictured in an interview with the Mainichi at his home in Las Vegas. (Mainichi)
The following are excerpts from a recent Mainichi interview with Morris Jeppson, 87, one of two surviving members of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. The interview was conducted at Jeppson's home in Las Vegas. (Interviewed by Takayasu Ogura, Mainichi New York Correspondent)

Mainichi: Just before the bombing, on Tinian Island, what were the crew members talking about?

Jeppson: There were a few of us that lived in this tent. There were special secure areas where we set up the test equipment so there could be more bombs if necessary. But we were not allowed to communicate with people. The rest of the Air Force had all these B-29s. We didn't communicate. The 509th had their own barracks.

However the crews and the people that worked in the 509th and that had the 15 airplanes, they were exposed to the people with the regular Air Force flying B-29s. So there was a lot of kind of bad publicity of "What are you guys doing here? We are doing the job of 400 B-29s here and 400 on Guam" "What are you guys up to?" And it was a kind of a bad feeling between the regular Air Force out there and the 509th group. But they were only there for a couple of months.

Mainichi: What kind of feeling did you have right after dropping the bomb?

J: Just after -- well, first of all -- [takes out pictures].

Col. Tibbets, who later became Gen., Col. Tibbets, the pilot, this fellow in the picture, came on the intercom and said, "You all know that we are supposed to be carrying a super bomb. But what you have just witnessed is the first atomic bomb used in warfare.

It was a few minutes after the bomb was dropped, he turned the airplane then headed for home.

Mainichi: Are these pictures inside the Enola Gay?

J: Yeah, we were still at 30,000 feet with 5 hours to go before we get back to Tinian.

He said that was the first atomic bomb.

Mainichi: What did you feel when you listened to that?

J: Well, I can tell you several feelings. On the trip to Hiroshima, the plane flew at a lower altitude like 7,000-8,000 feet. The reason for that is these bomb plugs here are significant. In the bomb when it was loaded into the B-29 back at Tinian Island, there were three green plugs. This is actually one of them that was in it. And I got to keep that one and later sold it. But anyway, I got to keep it. But there were three of those plugged into the skin of the Hiroshima bomb. The purpose of those three was to disconnect the thing that fired the explosive in this one from the fusing system. So that I can test the fusing system on the way to Hiroshima everything from batteries to time clocks and radar sets and so on.

So in order to do that, a very important point, so at a low altitude, I was able to test the circuit of the bomb, but the bomb has to be dropped from a high altitude at 30,000 feet. So about half an hour before Hiroshima, I climbed into the bomb bay and I put three of these red coated plugs, took out the green ones, which were for testing plugs, and these we call firing plugs, that hooked the fusing system to unable this to detonate when it's say 1,800 feet above the ground. So those plugs were critical -- it allowed you to test on the way to Hiroshima, but also allowed once you switched the plugs, the bomb to do what it was supposed to do.

J: We are all still inside of the Enola Gay, moving from let's say 7,000 feet. Okay, at 7,000 feet, if you ask me my impressions, one impression is when I pull out those plugs, and put in the firing plugs, this bomb is live. And I already know it's going to be equivalent of tens of thousands of tons of TNT and I have had my hand on this thing. Well, that's very interesting but not a fright or anything because it will blow us up? I don't know anyway. So I had a feeling -- well this thing, it's now armed, and supposed to work. And then flying over Hiroshima or toward Hiroshima, Ferebee announced he said he is on the bomb-run, he flips open the bomb bay doors and then at a right point, an aiming point, the plane jumps up because it's released five tones of weight. And it's gone ...

Mainichi: It was very heavy?

J: Five tons, 10,000 pounds. The plane jumps up because it lost -- I don't know -- 10 percent of its weight or something. Maybe more.

So the bomb is gone, and it's a freefall. And it only takes 43 seconds to go from 30,000 feet to the point where it supposed to explode high above Hiroshima. Okay. I count 43 seconds in my head, I didn't have a watch to count them with. So I count the 43, and the one point in this mission when I was scared -- at 43, nothing happened. There was supposed to be a flash at 43. Well, I counted too fast because 2 or 3 seconds later, the flash comes in through this window, I'm sitting back here. The flash comes through the window. I couldn't see the explosion because I'm back here with no window. The flash comes through the window, so I knew I fast-counted. But I also knew that it had detonated above ground. Well, I pretty much knew that. And then approximately a few minutes later, there is a shockwave. It shakes the plane. The crew, and most of them had been in combat missions, said "Flak" -- being the explosion nearby from an anti-aircraft. So everybody thought it was an anti-aircraft saying -- but I knew the shockwave had to come from the explosion.

But it's real proof for me and very important, I wanted a reassurance that this thing will work. So there came another shockwave. That surprised everybody. "What is that shockwave?" It was smaller, and being trained in physics I knew what it was. It was a reflection of the primary shockwave from the ground back to the airplane.

Mainichi: Agh like that.

J: Exactly. You know exactly what I'm talking about. So I could estimate the time between the shockwaves would tell me just about how high above ground the explosion had taken place. To me, that proved that the radar system had worked, the electronic fusing system had worked, my job had worked, therefore, I can relax -- my job was done. My job forever was done.

Mainichi: So at that moment, you felt very relaxed because you succeeded in your mission.

J: Yeah. Until I knew that the bomb had done what it was supposed to do -- exploded at the right altitude and it would look like it's big. My role was totally over from that point on -- getting home because these planes after dropping a big bomb like that, didn't have much reserve gas. So that's why they built a reserve, emergency station on Iwo Jima as a way back.

Mainichi: You went back to Iwo Jima?

J: No, we flew over Iwo Jima. They figured there is enough gas to get all the way back to Tinian. But if there had been a problem, we'd have stopped on Iwo Jima.

Mainichi: Were you able to imagine at that time how enormous the ...

J: Yes. That was, that was a difficult thing. And that's what I've written up in lots of places, how bad that was. Because we got to get a look at this window -- we can see -- I hate to talk about it to even somebody that grew up in Japan. You can see the cloud and the fire spreading out from what was obviously the target. And that meant lots of people are dying, lots of destruction. And that's not a happy thing. But the good thing about it is only two weeks later, Emperor Hirohito said let's end this, and it ended. That's the good thing.

Mainichi: When did you get the information on the result of Hiroshima?

J: Of course, reconnaissance planes went over immediately afterwards. It took more than a day before the clouds had cleared up enough you could even see Hiroshima. I am out of the picture. This was not the Air Force at work. There was even -- what they call -- some kind of mission after a mission. Everybody involved gets together and discusses it trying to evaluate how effective it was. And I wasn't invited to that, so I went back to my tent. And at this point, the work we did was still very classified. People would know I was on that airplane, but they didn't know what I did. And that didn't come out for 50 years.

Mainichi: Before dropping the bomb, did you imagine the extent of the damage was going to be enormous?

J: Yes.

Mainichi: You could imagine that?

J: Yes. And the reason I could is I had read in a book I discovered on the trip to Los Alamos -- we had to go to Los Alamos once in a while for technical conferences. The tech area where the fusing system was in a secure area of Los Alamos, was in the same tech area where the nuclear physics people were. And it turns out there was a library that was used by anybody in the tech area. So I had a badge, but couldn't go in where nuclear physics people were, but I can go to the library. I went into the library and found this physics book, a text book, which have been removed from all libraries by the FBI because it reported on the research done in Germany in 1938, the research work on the fusion of uranium, and the uranium splitting up into smaller pieces, and losing weight and the weight had been converted by Einstein's theory to energy. The speculation in that book says this energy could be used for weapons or for nuclear power someday, maybe. That's when I surmised.

Mainichi: You could imagine about 105,000 people can die?

J: Yeah. If this bomb was used on a city, I could imagine that there was going to be a lot of loss of life and a lot of destruction. But the destruction were these planes flying everyday from Marianas, the destruction everyday was bigger than that. The only reason for being sympathetic at all to this mission was the hope it would stop this. And it did.

Mainichi: You think your mission ...

J: Was to stop the war. And now you ask about "Did I realize it could be as big as it was?" I can do a little arithmetic and I had to do some guessing. But I guess that the efficiency of this type of weapon had to be very low. It could have been much more efficient and it could have been five times as big. But it wasn't. That's one of the reasons -- only one of these was ever used. It's not as efficient as the plutonium bomb, which was Nagasaki.

Mainichi: This year in April President Obama made a speech in the Czech Republic. That said that the U.S. has a moral responsibility to the fact that it used the atomic bomb.

J: I don't believe in Barack Obama. I think he ... is on the wrong track. The U.S. weapons, nuclear weapons, I think have forced all nuclear war. The fact that we had them in the U.S. and that enabled Japan not to have them. Now we have Japan under threat both from North Korea and China. And North Korea is a renegade state. You can't trust them. They are not going to do what Obama would like to have happened. And China is already there, so they are not going to do that ever in our life time. So I think it's naive what's going on in the world today. There's Iran and think of Pakistan, Pakistan already has the weapon. If they see people who wanted to use them, they would. They would have deterred enough, they wouldn't use them. Okay, so, it's not a safe world. And so Obama is moving against nuclear power and against nuclear weapons. Now if he succeeds, here is Japan, it's defenseless. All these years, depending on the U.S. to step in if there was a real problem that threatens Japan.

So I've always endorsed Japan's position of let's not go for nuclear weapons. But I don't believe that anymore. Japan is already -- I brought something I wanted to give to you, but I'll get it later.

As you can tell from something I wrote about -- a big dirty bomb. It's already out there -- they could be used -- the threat is there that they could be used and we don't know how to stop it. Obama is not going to stop it. The only thing that worked before now is deterrent. So if Obama gets us out of nuclear weapons, and Japan is sitting there with no nuclear weapons, Japan is at the mercy of North Korea and China, we are defenseless against North Korea and China and Iran. We already have a weapon and I trust they'll keep them under control. But Japan is heavily into the nuclear power industry, more than the biggest nuclear power in the whole world. When you generate nuclear power, I'm kind of on the fringe of that. You manufacture plutonium -- that's the Nagasaki-type bomb. So that's why North Korea wants it, Iran wants it, China has it, Pakistan has it. I think Japan with super technology could very, very quickly produce nuclear weapons and be prepared to use them if they had to.

Now that's what I am going to ask you -- that's my point of view for where Japan should go. Now I need to ask you -- how do you think Japan would be over the long range, of being a protectorate of nuclear weaponry? Would it not use it unless there is a good reason to use it? For me, I'd like to be reassured that Japan is a democracy and a world power and will protect what it has -- nuclear power and nuclear weapons if it can get nuclear weapons. Getting nuclear weapons would hold off North Korea for sure -- that would stop North Korea from ever using them -- that would involve Japan. I think it might be a deterrent to hold back China.

Mainichi: You said Obama's policy -- no nuclear weapons around the world, could be a little bit naive -- but this could be one of the dreams of human beings.

J: Yes.

Mainichi: But maybe we want to step forward and talk with North Korea, Beijing, Iran?

J: Yes. That would be a wonderful first step. And that would be a talk directed toward -- okay if you all are going to start cutting back, like Obama said he would like to do, and we've been trying to do that in this country all along against Russia. If those guys don't cut back, we have no choice but to get prepared to defend ourselves.

Mainichi: What do you think about this point? This is the first remark by the U.S. president -- using the atomic bomb -- the U.S. has a moral responsibility to act because only the U.S. has used the atomic bomb.

J: Yes.

Mainichi: What do you think about his remark, "moral responsibility"?

J: I think that is naive also. Suppose that question had been answered in 1945 -- in 1945, it's getting ready to the point where those weapons could be used. Okay. Here is President Truman sitting up here and he says we've got this weapon and already in the mill. Is this a giant invasion of Japan? You know, I don't know if you learned this in history, I hope you did. Japan is getting prepared to defend itself against this invasion. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are nothing compared to the loss of life and property -- not only American armed forces but Japanese military and civilians because the invasion was going to be larger than the invasion of Normandie. And the history book unearthed all this information -- the army, as I understand it, was being withdrawn from China to Japan for defensive purposes. And those armies were upwards of about a million -- well-experienced military people. So the invasion is going to be -- I'll tell you, this is a private opinion, I haven't heard it from anybody else, but I think the reason Truman made a decision to use these weapons and you can quote me on this -- I think it needs to be sent because I think it's partially an answer to what you have here.

Mainichi: So Obama's remark of "moral responsibility" ...

J: Is naive in today's world.

Mainichi: Maybe back then in 1945 Obama could not say such kind of things ...

J: No because I didn't finish what I was going to say. Truman faced this problem. I think his decision -- he had two choices. One is to hold off on the nuclear weapon and I'm sure it would do a lot of soul searching to do that. He said I'll do the invasion. And he had been briefed -- there was another invasion of Europe. I don't know what your history book told you, but it's called Dunkirk. Dunkirk failed. It was terrible in the news. You weren't even alive there. They had to withdraw all those armed forces from Dunkirk in Europe because the invasion failed. I think Truman saw, he got all the reports for the preparations to defend Japan. This is defending the homeland now. The Japanese are going to defend strongly. So I think Truman thought, well, if we go ahead with this invasion we are facing, the invasion will probably fail. So then he made a decision. I think.

Mainichi: So you think for the U.S. the only choice in order to stop the war was the bombing by using a new type of weapon.

J: Yes. To do it quickly. And it was going to cost a lot of lives and lots of destruction, a lot of heartache. But the invasion would have been far, far, worse.

Mainichi: Did you know the remark of "moral responsibility" before I met you today?

J: Yeah, but I discounted it. I discount everything Obama does.

Mainichi: What did you feel when you got the information that Obama said about moral responsibility -- just naive?

J: I've already concluded he is naive economically, also recognizing what the real world is out there. Everybody is struggling to get nuclear weapons. Everybody is needing nuclear power. If you get nuclear power with all that's been revealed about weapons, it's just a matter of dollars before you can make it (the weapon). And so to me, he is not going to be able to manage to do what he says he'd like to do.

Mainichi: I know many American people think just like what you said -- in order to stop wars immediately, quickly, they chose the atomic bomb.

J: Yes.

Mainichi: Just after that, the Japanese concurred. Hirohito decided the war is over. But on the Japanese side, there are lots of opinions. Back then, in 1944, the Japanese military lost battles all over the world in the Pacific and China and many other places. They were losing their power. They didn't have energy, oil, they didn't have anything. After the war, an American group that studied military strategy issued a report saying that Japan must have had to surrender in several months even without dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Do you think using the atomic bombs were necessary to end the war?

J: Yes.

Mainichi: These 64 years, your thoughts were --

J: Still convinced. Yes.

(To be continued)

Interview with Enola Gay crew member Morris Jeppson (Pt 3)

Morris Jeppson is pictured in an interview with the Mainichi at his home in Las Vegas. (Mainichi)
The following are excerpts from a recent Mainichi interview with Morris Jeppson, 87, one of two surviving crew members of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. The interview, conducted at Jeppson's home in Las Vegas, also contains comments from Jeppson's wife, Molly. (Interviewed by Takayasu Ogura, Mainichi New York Correspondent)

Mainichi: Since the U.S. used the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many countries have developed nuclear weapons -- Russia, China, now India, Pakistan, North Korea and elsewhere. What is your opinion of nuclear weapons? Should they be used in order to end wars?

Jeppson: Not anymore. ... But that doesn't mean it isn't going to happen. Go back to 1942 or '41. Then Germany was actively pursuing the development of atomic bombs. (In Germany's case), the leader of the country, Hitler, said 'we are going to go more conventional.' So, had he put a little more effort behind it, his scientists ... would have been there first. That was always the concern for Los Alamos.

Mainichi: That Germany would have nuclear weapons first?

J: Yes. Had they done that, the whole world would be different. Now if the rest of the world today says we are not going to have nuclear weapons ... then the rest of the world will sit at the mercy of some new dictator that is willing to use all the weapons he can. And if he finds out the rest of the world is disarmed, he gets a free hand.

Mainichi: What is your position on nuclear weapons now?

J: I would like to see a gradual withdrawal of nuclear weapons everywhere, and that's been under way. There's been a big effort to get Iran and North Korea to come along with (disarmament), but it hasn't happened. Pakistan is arming itself. I'm afraid that as much effort as is going in around the world to try to (reduce) them to lower and lower levels, there is going to be somebody that is going to say, "No, I'm not going along with it."

Mainichi: So you think people have to step forward and aim for a non-nuclear world gradually?

J: I don't think you can do it now because there are too many countries. France and England have them, Pakistan, India and I'm sure Brazil is coming along. Most of their programs are secret. If there can be a gradual pullback, I would certainly favor that. But I don't think they can be eliminated.

Mainichi: You said you don't think nuclear weapons should be used any more in order to stop wars. But you also said you never regretted using the atomic bomb to stop the war with Japan. Please explain that.

J: Well, I've just explained it. Your history apparently disagrees with it a bit, but if those two weapons hadn't been used, that war wouldn't have ended in two weeks (after they were dropped).

Hirohito stepped forth, but the military, as I understand it, was not ready. The military in Japan wanted to make an invasion costly enough that the Allies, the U.S. would leave Japan alone to make its own destiny. And I would like to believe the destiny that Japan has achieved has been assisted by the way the U.S. handled affairs after the war. So that's about all I can say.

Mainichi: I think what you said is an historic remark, since many in the bomber crews have passed away.

J: Well, of course from the Manhattan Project a lot of people are still alive, but they were manufacturing explosives. And I guess you know that there was apprehension about Los Alamos -- that's one of the reasons why when we as the Air Force went over to Los Alamos, we would stop along the way and change our insignia from the Air Force to Army ordinance, because they didn't want the scientific group at Los Alamos to know that the Air Force was seriously considering using their weapon. And there were a lot of scientists at Los Alamos who took that same opinion of "moral responsibility."

Mainichi: President Obama plans to visit Japan next November, and may visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How would you feel if he visits Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

J: Badly, probably.

Mainichi: Why?

J: Well, you could go visit any bombed-out city, of which there were many around the world, in Japan and in Germany. War is bad. It kills people. It destroys property. So it's a matter of saying: Was it necessary? What were the choices you had? If you had made these choices, how much worse would it have been, or better?

Mainichi: If you have a chance to meet Obama, would you advise him not to go to Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

J: I would say that's his business because he is going to do what he wants to do.

Mainichi: You understand what he said about the moral responsibility of using the atomic bombs. If he visits Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he may apologize to Hiroshima's citizens. If he apologizes, what would you feel?

J: I would be indignant.

M: Yes, because it saved a lot of Japanese lives, too. Because the invasion could have killed thousands and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of the Japanese and Americans, and dropping the bomb ended the war. That saved a lot of people. I think the Japanese should realize that, that it saved a lot of them. You know a lot more people were killed with firebombing ... than were killed at Hiroshima. So if you think about that, that bomb was really not so bad. It was just part of the war, right? I mean, that the way we feel about it.

J: No, I think the statement that you quoted from Obama's speech is ... saying that the U.S. is guilty of using those weapons.

Mainichi: Moral responsibility?

J: That's called guilt. Isn't that guilt?

Mainichi: You think the U.S. President should not make such remarks?

J: Definitely not, no.

Mainichi: If you are invited by the citizens groups in Hiroshima or other relevant people, would you like to visit Hiroshima?

J: No.

Mainichi: You've never been to Hiroshima? Will you ever go?

J: No, I'm too old. I wouldn't want to.

Mainichi: You said you have visited Japan.

J: Yes, several cities.

Mainichi: At that time, six years ago in 2003, did you think about visiting Hiroshima?

J: No.

Mainichi: Why not?

M: Why? Why should we go?

Mainichi: Because you have a relationship with Hiroshima from the bombing, so perhaps you would want to know the situation in Hiroshima now?

J: Well, I read about that, so I don't have to go there to see it. ... But I'm not interested in going to Normandy either. War is war. It's past. We don't like wars.

Mainichi: Do you want to forget?

J: I'm not really forgetting. You've listened to me talk.

Mainichi: If it was possible, would you want to forget the experience of the war?

J: I don't think that's exactly the way I'd put it. It's a part of history that was a war. It was uncomfortable, and it's in the past and there are other things to be done in the world; preventing war being a good example.

M: I don't think he really liked dropping the bomb. Any kind of bombs.

J: Gosh. Nobody does. Nobody likes to do that.

M: He's a peaceful man.

Mainichi: On Aug. 6, 1945 you thought that dropping an atomic bomb was the only choice to end the war?

J: Yes that's right. Well at that point, we knew there was an invasion underway.

M: Well the emperor didn't want to end the war, you know.

J: Well, he made the decision. It's like Truman making his decision. Truman felt he had to make it, and Hirohito obviously felt he had to make (his decision). As I understand it was against the advice of his military supporters. Is that right? Is that the way you understand it?

Mainichi: Even on Aug. 15, some groups inside the Army didn't want to surrender. But everyone at the ministerial level wanted to surrender.

J: But they couldn't make the decision. And I remember the history of this -- the Japanese leaders were warned strongly that major destruction was coming if (a surrender) wasn't signed. And they could have made the decision. So if there is any blame of moral responsibility, it would be with the inability of the Japanese leaders to make up their minds. Because they knew for sure the invasion was going to take place. That's really probably the most significant point here. The invasion was going to be very, very difficult for Japan and knowing that it was coming, the Japanese leaders should have been strong enough ... to have surrendered. Then (the bomb) wouldn't have been dropped.

Mainichi: Stopping the war was the most important thing?

J: The most important.

Let's ask this question: Suppose Truman had decided, "Oh we can't do this atomic bombing thing." (The bomb) was demonstrated down at Alamogordo, though, (so the world would know) it's possible to make big explosions even if there had been no Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So all of the world would be clamoring to make big nuclear weapons, probably more so than they are now. So what would the world be like -- with everybody be clamoring to get something like they tested down at Alamogordo. I don't like to sound that, either.

Mainichi: You knew it was an atomic bomb even though very few people knew about it. At that time, did you know about the effects of atomic radiation?

J: Radiation? I don't think I knew that there was such a problem. I was pretty young.

M: All these people were young. They really didn't realize what the radiation would do to people because I know for years afterwards, Dick said, "You know, it's just so sad." I mean, he was really sad about the Japanese people that the bombing had injured. He didn't know at that time. He didn't have any special knowledge.

J: For the most part, I don't think Los Alamos really had much of an understanding of the radiation effects.

Mainichi: You think most of the people didn't know?

J: That's right. That's right. ... I think in general, the people of who were working fairly close (to the bomb project) didn't know (radiation) could be a serious problem. And the American people didn't know anything about it, of course.

Mainichi: In Hiroshima, still now some elderly people and some of their descendants suffer from the effects of radiation. How did you feel about that?

J: The information came too late. I never heard (radiation) as a subject of discussion ... in 1945 as being a byproduct of nuclear weapons. I think everybody thought in terms of blasting fire; a typical weapon.

Mainichi: When did the physicists get information about the radiation in Hiroshima?

J: Well, when a study group from the U.S. went to Hiroshima. That's where they learned that there had been a radiation problem.

M: None of us knew (at the time). People on the plane didn't even know.

Mainichi: So even the American physicists were a little bit surprised with the effect of radiation?

J: Absolutely, yes. It was an unknown factor. I had no idea. Of course, the Hershey report and things like that came out and that was the first knowledge that the people who went in could see there had been radiation burns among survivors.

Mainichi: If President Truman had known about the effects of radiation, do you think his decision to drop the bomb would have been different?

J: That's an interesting question. I don't know how to answer that question.

Mainichi: What have you been doing since the end of the war?

J: Well, I went to graduate school at Berkeley. And then as a graduate student, I worked for the North American aviation on a classified program looking towards nuclear powered aircraft and rockets.

Mainichi: In the military?

J: No, I'm a civilian. I've gone to graduate school. I got out of military as fast as I can get out and then I had a career. ... I worked for a radiation laboratory for two or three years building accelerators for accelerating protons. And I started a company called Applied Radiation in 1954 I think. We built linear accelerators which are used to make radiation for cancer therapy.

M: So he turned to healing.

J: Another aspect of nuclear physics.

Mainichi: I searched Japanese media sources, but I found very few interviews with the bomber crew members. Why? Did the bomber crews hesitate to speak with the Japanese media?

J: Some of them died of course. As far as Paul Tibbets is concerned, he wouldn't spend much time with you because he was strictly military and he had a job to do. He said we did a job and that's it.

Mainichi: In thirty or forty years, when those who experienced World War II have passed away, if the American President or many ordinary Americans decide the U.S. should apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how would you feel about that?

J: I think that one's easy to answer. If it's done once for an apology for something like that, think of all of the other things over history that should be apologized for, applying the same rule. It's just not necessary. War is war. There was a good reason for it, put it into history books or whatever. But nobody down the road has any right to apologize for something that happened in the past.

This question comes up in the U.S. all the time. ... (Like slavery,) it's history. It's all laid out. Why should anybody today apologize for anything that happened 150 years ago? It isn't necessary. It's giving somebody 150 years later a right to make this apology. No, they don't have a right to make an apology.

Mainichi: So you think that even in the future, American presidents should not apologize.

J: No. Never.

Mainichi: But if any American president apologized in the future, you would not like it?

J: I would be indignant. It's a matter of what right does he have to (apologize) for something that all these people fought for and died for on both sides. The Japanese thought (the war) was the right thing and doing good for them. It wasn't the right thing for anybody. But it happened, and you don't apologize for history.

Comfort Women in LA Times

2009-05-05T00:42:00.000-07:00

LA Times Features Korean World War II Comfort Women(ROKDrop)魚拓

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Continuing controversy of 'comfort women'

By JEFF KINGSTON
（Japan　Times)
魚拓

Durham Stevens

2009-03-30T08:21:00.000-07:00

Durham Stevens

On Steven JoonAng Daily on March 23 2009 tells us

当時の米国紙が「国民はこの人物のように自国を愛するべきだ」と報道するなど、米国社会の共感も得た。

A newspaper at the time was very sympathetic, telling people to love the country as this man.2009.03.23　JoongAng Daily

　
魚拓

Here is an an article at the time on Stevens

Korean Boody Race;Attempt assasination Mr Stevenson not an isolated case March 25 1908 NYT

via 日本の評判

China's internet 'spin doctors'

2009-01-12T17:57:00.001-08:00

China's internet 'spin doctors'

By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7783640.stm
http://s01.megalodon.jp/2009-0113-1050-32/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7783640.stm

Jukdo; old and new

2008-09-05T01:33:00.000-07:00

Dokdo-or-Takeshima?
Korean antique detail map of "USANDO" superimposed upon jukudo on google earth

Fifty cents gang--China’s growing armies of Web commentators

2008-08-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

China's 50-cent Twitter censors

They have been called the “Fifty Cent Party,” the “red vests” and the “red vanguard.” But China’s growing armies of Web commentators—instigated, trained and financed by party organizations—have just one mission: to safeguard the interests of the Communist Party by infiltrating and policing a rapidly growing Chinese Internet. They set out to neutralize undesirable public opinion by pushing pro-Party views through chat rooms and Web forums, reporting dangerous content to authorities.

By some estimates, these commentary teams now comprise as many as 280,000 members nationwide, and they show just how serious China’s leaders are about the political challenges posed by the Web. More importantly, they offer tangible clues about China’s next generation of information controls—what President Hu Jintao last month called “a new pattern of public-opinion guidance.”

It was around 2005 that party leaders started getting more creative about how to influence public opinion on the Internet...

Comfort women exploited by Korean men in In Mongolia

2008-08-02T01:39:00.000-07:00

South Koreans’ sex tourism to Mongolia remains widespread. According to an investigative report by The Hankyoreh, Mongolians accused South Korean tourists of spawning a culture of buying sex in their country. In 2002, a South Korean opened the first karaoke bar in Mongolia’s capital city of Ulan Bator and most karaoke bars in Mongolia are owned by South Koreans. The number of karaoke bars in Mongolia has increased to include some 50 bars.

A 35-year-old South Korean businessman, who is only identified by the surname Park and lives in Mongolia, told The Hankyoreh, “When men visit, their purpose is obvious, so the number of bars has increased significantly.”

A Mongolian tour guide, identified only as Matha, said, “Regardless of age, more than 70 percent of male tourists on group tours buy sex.” The tour guide showed a list of business cards that he had received from South Korean tourists, who included a manager of a well-known securities company and a local government official.

Some South Korean nationals who live in Mongolia say they have seen older men who have a 20-something local woman as a mistress. A female South Korean national in Mongolia, who is only identified by her surname Park, said, “Korean men here have the worst behavior. For instance, a 70-something (Korean) man had a Mongolian woman as a mistress. When she got pregnant, he abandoned her and ran away.”

The South Korean embassy in Mongolia said, “Sex tourism is undermining the image of South Korea and its people.” At the end of 2007, there were some 3,000 South Korean nationals in Mongolia. Last year, the number of South Korean tourists to Mongolia stood at some 40,000 people.

With the practice remaining widespread, the Mongolian government stepped up its crackdown on sex tourism by passing new anti-prostitution laws last year. However, the effect was nothing more than a reduction in a few number of karaoke bars.

Perhaps even worse is there are signs that the crackdown has had an adverse effect on the industry. To avoid the crackdown, prostitution has spread to horseback-riding schools, massage parlours and others. An official at a Mongolian horseback-riding school, which is only identified by the letter “G” and is located an hour’s drive from the city center, said, “When (men who are here as sex tourists) arrive at the airport, they are escorted here. Local women arrive here in a different van. When they move off to the grassland, (the women) are accompanied by the men.”

The increase in sex tourism by South Korean male visitors has been a source of rising anti-Korean sentiment among Mongolians, according to South Korean nationals in the country. A 38-year-old South Korean national, who is only identified by the surname Lee and has lived in Mongolia for three years, said the number of assault cases against Korean people is on the rise.

A 42-year-old local tour guide, who is only identified as Temuchin, said, “Anti-Korean sentiment is high because (Korean men) buy sex from (local) women.”

With the recent emergence of a right-wing organization in Mongolia, the damage to Korean people is growing further.

Erden Birk, the head of the country’s biggest right-wing organization, Daiyar, said, “There have been cases in which four 60-something men spent time with one 20-something woman in a room until morning and others in which tourists go directly to an underground karaoke bar at their hotel as soon as they arrive from the airport, without even unpacking their baggage. If these things continue to happen, it will be difficult to stop the violence.”

Last year, South Korea’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family revised a passport law and the government is now allowed to ban

people who have been arrested for buying sex from being issued new passports or passport renewals. However, the effect of the ban has so far been negligible. Bae Lim Sook-il, the head of the Incheon Women’s Hotline, said, “Prostitution (in South Korea) isn’t even being punished properly. So the government can’t punish people for soliciting prostitution in foreign countries.”

Lee Na-young, a sociology professor at ChungAng University, said, “The mindset and culture of Korean males, which view females as objects of entertainment, needs to be fundamentally changed.”The Hankyoreh

via世の中を生暖かく見守るブログ

Internet censorship in China

2008-07-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

www.greatfirewallofchina.org

Japanese Nationalism

2008-07-30T23:33:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Nationalism isn't an issue in Japan

By ROBERT DUJARRIC
Special to The Japan Times

As Japan renews its claim on Takeshima (Dokdo to Koreans) and prepares to mark the Aug. 15 anniversary of the end of the Great East Asia War, we can expect more Asians — and some Americans — to warn against the dangers of rising Japanese nationalism. What is striking, however, is the absence of nationalism in Japan compared to its Chinese and Korean neighbors and its American ally.

Regardless of the metric used, Japan scores very low on nationalism. Its investment in its armed forces as a percentage of national income is small, especially for a country living in close range of two potential war zones (the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan).

Moreover, in the past two decades the offensive capabilities of North Korea against Japan, namely its ballistic missiles and nuclear program, have grown significantly.

China, another potential adversary for Japan, clearly has a much stronger military than 20 years ago. But Japan continues to keep its military investment at around 1 percent of national income (perhaps a little more if other expenses are included).

The phenomenal waste in Japanese procurement programs also shows that the military budget is as much a funding mechanism for Japanese businesses as a tool to build up a strong military.

Moreover, when it comes to dealing with the outside world, Japanese diplomats are as unlikely as those of the Holy See to resort to threats of force. There are no John Boltons in the Japanese Foreign Ministry. This peaceful, low profile reflects a basic fact often ignored by outsiders: Japanese voters favor candidates who care about bread and butter issues over those whose concern is Japan's greatness and military might.

The origins of this phenomenon are that Japan, unlike other players in the region, tests negative on risk factors for aggressive nationalism.

Nationalism often arises out of a sense of national victimization. A major cause of Chinese and Korean nationalism is a belief that foreigners preyed upon and humiliated their countries. As a result, many Chinese and Koreans want to see no insult to their national dignity go unpunished, however insignificant.

A case in point is South Korea's quixotic campaign to rename the Sea of Japan the East Sea. In Japan's case, however, there is no sense of victimhood. Yes, Japanese either experienced or know about U.S. terror bombings during the war. But, with a few exceptions, this pushes them toward pacifism. It fuels their contempt for the Japanese militarists who led the nation on a war that destroyed the country. It may also make them dislike the alliance with America, but it does not make Japanese long for a new Imperial Japan armed to the teeth ready to conquer lost territories.

Another foundation of nationalism is a belief that one's country has a destiny to lead the world, or at least its region. This helps explain the support of Americans for military intervention and the conquests of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Though Chinese nationalism lacks the universalistic ambitions of America's, many Chinese think that history gave China a right to regional primacy.

In Japan, however, there is none of the messianic urge found in Western cultures. Nor do Japanese have the same sense of civilizational and historical greatness that is common in China.

There are also domestic factors that energize nationalism. One is fear for the country's territorial integrity and/or a belief that there are still unredeemed provinces. In the Chinese case, anxiety about Tibet, Xinjiang (Chinese Turkestan), and Inner Mongolia fuel Han nationalism. Moreover, for most Chinese, Taiwan is a Chinese island that must be brought back into the motherland.

In the Korean case, national division can only encourage nationalism, even though South Koreans are lukewarm toward actual unification. Memories of Japanese aggression in both nations also generate a nationalist reaction in China and Korea. In Japan, however, there is no domestic separatism to be afraid of. And, despite the pro forma Japanese claims on the Northern Territories and Takeshima, few Japanese care about them.

A second domestic issue is nationalism as an alternative tool to confront the government. In autocratic China, nationalism is an indirect way to oppose the ruling party. When demonstrators throw rocks at the U.S. embassy or attack Japanese diplomats, they are also criticizing their rulers for being weak-kneed. Moreover, simply by marching through the streets, or gathering virtually on the Internet, they demonstrate to the Communist Party that the people can mobilize on their own.

Though South Korea is now a liberal democracy, many of its leftwing nationalists came of age when anti-American (or anti-Japanese) nationalism was fused with the fight against the military regime. Japan, however, has been a free society for well half a century, if its citizens are unhappy they simply go to a voting booth rather than seek alternative forms of mobilization.

Japanese society may have problems but nationalism is not one of them.
Robert Dujarric is director of the Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies at Temple University Japan in Tokyo

via Japan probe

Global Peace Index

2008-07-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

Global Peace Index Rankings

Global Peace Index Rankings

The table below provides the GPI rankings for the 140 countries analysed in 2008 and the 121 countries analysed in 2007, as well as year-on-year comparison. Countries most at peace are ranked first. A lower score indicates a more peaceful country. You can click on a country to see the detail of its peace indicators and drivers.

Global Peace Index 2008

* Compare
* 2007
* 2008

Country
Rank
Score
Iceland Iceland
1
1.176
Denmark Denmark
2
1.333
Norway Norway
3
1.343
New Zealand New Zealand
4
1.350
Japan Japan
5
1.358
Ireland Ireland

comfort women Sexual enslavement by Nazi Germany in World War II

2008-07-21T03:33:00.000-07:00

Forced prostitution by the Nazi state for sexual gratification of German soldiers and members of other Nazi controlled organizations became prevalent in occupied Europe during World War II.[1] It is estimated that a minimum of 34,140 women from occupied states were forced to work as prostitutes during the Third Reich.[2] The brothels established by the Nazi state were for use by the soldiers of the Wehrmacht, SS officers, and foreign laborers working in the German Reich (including those working within the concentration camps).

The subject of forced prostitution and camp bordellos has remained largely taboo in studies of Nazism until recently, when the new publications by women researchers broke the silence. [3] [4]

Usually organized in hotels confiscated from their rightful owners, they also served travelling soldiers or those withdrawn from the front. Usually they also included a bar, a restaurant and a brothel. [5][6] In most cases, especially in the East, the women were forced to serve as prostitutes after being caught at random on the streets in Łapankas (Nazi German military kidnapping raids against civilians in Poland). [5] [6] [1] The authors of a 2004 German documentary on the victims of forced prostitution in Nazi Germany[1] estimate, that in 1942 alone there were over 500 such brothels for German soldiers all over Europe.[7][1] It is estimated that at least 34,140 women were forced to serve as prostitutes in Nazi brothels for soldiers, SS and Nazi officials, but also in similar institutions for slave laborers and privileged German concentration camp inmates[4] even though many more women remained silent about the experience after the end of the war.[2] According to a Gestapo report on one of such brothels located in Łódź in occupied Poland, there were roughly 4,000 visitors a month, including more than 3,000 soldiers of the Wehrmacht[8]

The hotels/brothels in question were known as German Soldier's Houses (German: Deutsches Soldatenhaus), DSH, or in German Militärbordelle or Wehrmachtsbordell.

Thomas Gaevert and Martin Hilbert, authors of a documentary called "Women as trophy" (made for ARD)[1] claim that Eastern European sex-slaves in the hands of German military were the most perfidious form of slave-labor of World War II. The revealing of the extent of their abuse is not always desirable, because many victims remain afraid of being wrongfully accused of collaboration with the occupier. [9]wiki

Economic background

2008-07-19T02:50:00.001-07:00

The rivalries between empires which lay behind much of the international conflict of the first j half of the 20th century drove forward many of the features of managed capitalism,・・・As international competition increased after industrial capitalism spread from Britain to other countries, free trade came to be eventually displaced by a protectionism that reached its peak in the 1930's . Markets could be protected, and the supply of cheap raw material maintained , by constructing empire and fencing it off from competitor nations.
page 45

By the middle of the 19th century Japan was a highly commercialized and entrepreneurial society but not yet an industrial one. After Meiji Restoration, Japan's 19th century revolution, industrialization was directed by the state as part of a programme to build a strong and independent country that could stand up to the the Western empires that were encroaching upon Japan. page 72

These empires took the form not only of colonial territories but also of spheres of influence that divided up areas of the world no under direct colonial control. While Europe first created overseas empires, the United States constructed its own less formal empire in the Pacific and Latin America, and in the last quarter of the 19th century Japan began to follow the European model and acquire its first overseas territories.
page 83

When domestic production faced a crisis, it was hard to resist the temptation to protect the national economy against foreign competition and as soon as action of this kind was taken by one country , others followed.・・・・・・the 19th century division of the world between competing empires provided the industrial societies both with an illusion of self-sufficiency and ready-made structures within which they could shelter. The result was culminate decline of world trade that made the depression worse.・・・・John Maynard Keynes argued that government could counteract tendencies towards depression by injecting demand into the economy, by borrowing and spending or lowering taxes. These 'Keynesian' policies began to make an impact in some countries in the later 1930's , though it was above all the huge state expenditure generated by the Second World War that hauled the global economy out of the depression.
page 113

Capitalism: A Very Short Introduction

The first, if limited, attempt to apply Keynes's ideas was undertaken in the USA during Roosevelt's New Deal'. However Roosevelt's commitment to a balanced budget and his consequent refusal to allow increased government spending on public works projects to exceed taxation revenues resulted in only a very gradual decline in unemployment. The Great Depression was in fact brought to an end by a widespread and substantial expansion of military spending in preparation for war, rather than a deliberate attempt to cure unemployment.　page 64 Political Ideologies: An Introduction
Andrew Heywood

The survey of hoteliers from around the world

2008-06-11T16:12:00.000-07:00

'Ugly American' still fits, hotel survey finds

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, June 8, 2008

By SUZANNE MARTA / The Dallas Morning News
smarta@dallasnews.com Suzanne Marta

It seems the "ugly American" stereotype of U.S. travelers overseas is a tough one to shake.

[Click image for a larger version] DOMINIC FAVRE/The Associated Press
DOMINIC FAVRE/The Associated Press
The Dutch soccer team, if true to the country's reputation, should be well-behaved at a hotel in Lausanne, Switzerland, where members are staying this month for the European championship games.

The United States didn't make the top 10 in nations recognized for having the world's best travelers, according to a survey released by online travel agency Expedia last week.

The survey of more than 4,000 hoteliers from around the world measured several factors, including behavior, manners, generosity, tidiness, willingness to learn the local language and a propensity to complain.

Hoteliers rated Japanese travelers the best, followed by visitors from Germany, Britain and Canada.

Travelers from the U.S. ranked 15th, with a score of 42 out of 100.

Hotel managers reported that Americans were among the worst-behaved and worst-dressed, left the messiest hotel rooms and were the most likely to complain.

That's not to say we don't have our selling points.

Hoteliers also said Americans were some of the most generous and were more likely to learn the language or sample the local cuisine.

Among other findings:

• The most popular tourists in their own country are the Canadians, Belgians and Swiss.

• The least popular tourists in their own country are the Spanish, Mexicans and French.

• French tourists are viewed by hoteliers as the most "fiscally conservative," followed by the Dutch and the British.

• German, Japanese and British tourists are considered the tidiest hotel guests.

The survey was conducted March 18-27 by online marketing research firm TNS Infratest.http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-p2tourists_08bus.ART.State.Edition1.465f61b.html

Global Peace Index Rankings

2008-05-22T02:06:00.000-07:00

Global Peace Index 2008

Walt's take on the U.S. attacks on Japanese civilians during WWⅡ

2008-05-10T12:09:00.000-07:00

Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy
by Stephen M. Walt

The United States deliberately attacked thousands of civilians during World
War Ⅱ (including dropping two atomic bombs on Japan), and it did so with the explicit aim of sowing terror among the civilian population. Japan had started the war, of course, but the victims of these attacks were no more responsible for their government's policies than the victims in the World trad Center were responsible for the conduct of U.S. policy in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Yet , like most counties, the United States rarely acknowledges any moral similarity between its own "regrettable but necessary" actions and the "brutal and unwarranted " acts of its foes.
My purpose is not to shine a spotlight on America's past sins; it is simply to recognize that the United States often adopts one standard for its own behavior while demanding a different standard from others. As one would expect, the gap between what the United States prescribes for others and what it demands for itself has not gone unnoticed.
A hypocritical foreign policy creates several problems for the United States.....(page 100).........

But the problem is even broader than the ways in which U.S. leaders justify specific applications of military force. As in most countries, U.S. textbooks and public rhetoric tend to glorify our past achievements, give the United States too much credit for positive international developments, and omit or minimize the nation's worst foreign policy transgression. As a result, U.S. leaders----and the general public---are simply unaware of what the United States has actually done to others.
The consequence of this sort of historical amnesia can be severe,....(page106)

June 26, 2009
Britain considered chemical attack on Tokyo in 1944
gyotaku

Korean comfort women today

2008-05-08T03:13:00.000-07:00

“Internet centrist” on Sparkling Korea

”Why I Left Greenpeace”　By PATRICK MOORE

2008-04-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

At first, many of the causes we championed, such as opposition to nuclear testing and protection of whales, stemmed from our scientific knowledge of nuclear physics and marine biology. But after six years as one of five directors of Greenpeace International, I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs. Ultimately, a trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas forced me to leave Greenpeace in 1986.

The breaking point was a Greenpeace decision to support a world-wide ban on chlorine. Science shows that adding chlorine to drinking water was the biggest advance in the history of public health, virtually eradicating water-borne diseases such as cholera. And the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. Simply put, chlorine is essential for our health.

My former colleagues ignored science and supported the ban, forcing my departure. Despite science concluding no known health risks – and ample benefits – from chlorine in drinking water, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have opposed its use for more than 20 years.By PATRICK MOORE
April 22, 2008; Page A23・WSJ

魚拓

Chinese natinoalism outside China

2008-04-18T04:17:00.000-07:00

DURHAM, N.C. — On the day the Olympic torch was carried through San Francisco last week, Grace Wang, a Chinese freshman at Duke University, came out of her dining hall to find a handful of students gathered for a pro-Tibet vigil facing off with a much larger pro-China counterdemonstration.

・・・・・・

The next day, a photo appeared on an Internet forum for Chinese students with a photo of Ms. Wang and the words “traitor to your country” emblazoned in Chinese across her forehead. Ms. Wang’s Chinese name, identification number and contact information were posted, along with directions to her parents’ apartment in Qingdao, a Chinese port city.

Salted with ugly rumors and manipulated photographs, the story of the young woman who was said to have taken sides with Tibet spread through China’s most popular Web sites, at each stop generating hundreds or thousands of raging, derogatory posts, some even suggesting that Ms. Wang — a slight, rosy 20-year-old — be burned in oil. Someone posted a photo of what was purported to be a bucket of feces emptied on the doorstep of her parents, who had gone into hiding.

“If you return to China, your dead corpse will be chopped into 10,000 pieces,” one person wrote in an e-mail message to Ms. Wang. “Call the human flesh search engines!” another threatened, using an Internet phrase that implies physical, as opposed to virtual, action.NYTBy SHAILA DEWAN
Published: April 17, 2008

Chinese strategy on history

2008-04-17T19:39:00.000-07:00

NYT・By JIM YARDLEY
Published: April 17, 2008

BEIJING — Not far from National Stadium, the city’s mammoth, just-finished Olympic arena, another construction project is still facing an Olympic deadline. The building, sheathed in a green construction tent, will house Beijing’s first museum exclusively dedicated to Tibet.
Inside, curators will display antiquities, dynastic records and reproductions to demonstrate China’s dominion over Tibet as far back as the 13th century. Many experts question China’s historical claims, but few clouds of doubt are likely to darken the museum. Even the Dalai Lama is being edited out of the narrative.

“He will not appear after 1959,” said Lian Xiangmin, a Chinese scholar involved in the museum, referring to the year the Tibetan spiritual leader fled to India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. “This is a Tibet museum, and we don’t recognize him as part of Tibet anymore.”

History is often interpreted to meet the political objectives of whichever government is doing the interpreting. The historical relationship between Tibet and China is replete with claims, disputes and caveats. But the ruling Communist Party does not hesitate to eliminate any uncertainty and use history as a political tool to validate its hold on Tibet.

Yet if the party’s unflinching line on Tibet’s historical status has effectively quashed any domestic dissenting views, it also has fueled Tibetan resentment. The authorities are now suppressing the largest outbreak of anti-Chinese unrest in Tibet in two decades, a violent uprising that many Tibetans trace, in part, to seething anger over cultural and religious repression.

Buddhist monks who led initially peaceful protests last month outside Lhasa were partly complaining about the “patriotic education” campaigns that required them to denounce the Dalai Lama and submit to history lessons about China’s rightful control over the region. Last week, monks at Drepung monastery outside Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, reportedly protested a new round of patriotic education.

Across China, schoolchildren are taught that Tibet is an inalienable part of the country. Tour guides in Lhasa must follow approved versions of history. Dissenting scholars have been marginalized, censored and, in a handful of cases, imprisoned. Questioning official history can expose scholars to accusations of separatism. A Tibetan scholar, Dolma Kyab, has been jailed since 2005 after writing an unapproved history of Tibet.

“History is linked to legitimacy,” said Tashi Rabgey, director of the Contemporary Tibetan Studies Initiative at the University of Virginia. “The problem for Beijing is that their presence on the Tibetan Plateau has never been legitimized. And their attempt to control history is an effort to do that.”

Many scholars say that narrative oversimplifies history to support contemporary political and territorial claims. Historians generally agree that the relationship between China and Tibet became fully intermingled during the Yuan Dynasty, from the 1270s to 1368. The dispute is over the nature of the relationship.

The Tibetan government in exile says Buddhist lamas established a “priest-patron” relationship under which they became spiritual advisers to the Yuan rulers without sacrificing Tibetan self-rule or independence — an arrangement replicated in the last imperial dynasty, the Qing, which lasted from 1644 to 1912.

Chinese scholars say this logic is disingenuous. They point to records detailing how Tibet was subject to certain laws of the Yuan and Qing rulers — a paper trail they say proves not just that Tibet is an inalienable part of China but also that Chinese emperors had the authority to select the Dalai Lama.

Elliot Sperling, a leading Tibet specialist at Indiana University, said both sides massage their interpretations. He said Tibet cannot be regarded as truly independent during the Yuan and Qing dynasties, given that records show Tibet as subservient to Chinese rules and policies.

But Dr. Sperling said China’s claim to unbroken control of Tibet was also dubious. During the Ming dynasty, from 1368 to 1644, Tibet had scant connection to Chinese rulers, he said. And describing the Yuan and Qing dynasties as “Chinese” overlooks the fact that each took power after what was at the time viewed as a foreign invasion: Mongols established the Yuan; Manchus invaded and founded the Qing.

“What China doesn’t want to deal with is the fact that the Mongols had an empire,” said Dr. Sperling, director of Tibetan Studies at Indiana University’s department of Central Eurasia Studies. “It wasn’t a Chinese state. It was an empire.”

In this context, some scholars consider Tibet’s past relationship with China more akin to that of a vassal state. China’s government relinquished any remaining control over Tibet after the fall of the Qing in 1912. The current Dalai Lama, and his predecessor, ruled Tibet until 1951, when Mao invaded in what China maintains was a “peaceful liberation” that freed Tibetans from a feudal theocracy.

“We know that Tibetans and some Western scholars say that Tibet was an independent state during this period, but we don’t agree,” said Mr. Lian, the scholar with the research center.

Wang Lixiong, a dissident scholar in Beijing who has challenged some of the Communist Party’s historical claims, said imperial China regarded itself as the center of the world and had little concern about the political status of subservient neighbors like Tibet. But he said modern political needs had made this approach an inconvenient legacy.

“Now we are in a Westernized political situation,” said Mr. Wang, who is married to Ms. Woeser and is now banned from being published in China. “We have this definition of sovereignty, so we fight over every inch of territory.”

Robert Barnett, a Tibet specialist at Columbia University, said Tibet scholars inside China often did excellent work. But he said many scholars in China avoided specializing in Tibetan history after the 13th century because of the political overtones — and potential risks. He said one book was banned for including a sentence that questioned the official view that an eighth-century Tibetan king was half Chinese.

Mr. Barnett said that passengers arriving at the Lhasa airport from Nepal sometimes had their bags searched for unapproved books or photographs. “Managing accounts of history there and eradicating any sign that Tibet was separate from China is an official industry,” Mr. Barnett said in an interview conducted by e-mail.

Mr. Lian, the scholar at the Tibetology Institute, said plans were still evolving for the new Tibet museum complex. Officials are aiming for a pre-Olympic grand opening, but he noted that the project had hit delays. “We’re not going to rush it,” he said.

Asked about the importance of history, Mr. Lian paused.

“Why is history important?” he repeated. “By looking into history, we can see the future.”

NYT/Matthew Forney, a former Beijing bureau chief for Time, is writing a book about raising his family in China.

As is clear to anyone who lives here, most young ethnic Chinese strongly support their government’s suppression of the recent Tibetan uprising. One Chinese friend who has a degree from a European university described the conflict to me as “a clash between the commercial world and an old aboriginal society.” She even praised her government for treating Tibetans better than New World settlers treated Native Americans.

It’s a rare person in China who considers the desires of the Tibetans themselves. “Young Chinese have no sympathy for Tibet,” a Beijing human-rights lawyer named Teng Biao told me. Mr. Teng — a Han Chinese who has offered to defend Tibetan monks caught up in police dragnets — feels very alone these days. Most people in their 20s, he says, “believe the Dalai Lama is trying to split China.”

Educated young people are usually the best positioned in society to bridge cultures, so it’s important to examine the thinking of those in China. The most striking thing is that, almost without exception, they feel rightfully proud of their country’s accomplishments in the three decades since economic reforms began. And their pride and patriotism often find expression in an unquestioning support of their government, especially regarding Tibet.

The most obvious explanation for this is the education system, which can accurately be described as indoctrination. Textbooks dwell on China’s humiliations at the hands of foreign powers in the 19th century as if they took place yesterday, yet skim over the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s as if it were ancient history. Students learn the neat calculation that Chairman Mao’s tyranny was “30 percent wrong,” then the subject is declared closed. The uprising in Tibet in the late 1950s, and the invasion that quashed it, are discussed just long enough to lay blame on the “Dalai clique,” a pejorative reference to the circle of advisers around Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Then there’s life experience — or the lack of it — that might otherwise help young Chinese to gain a perspective outside the government’s viewpoint. Young urban Chinese study hard and that’s pretty much it. Volunteer work, sports, church groups, debate teams, musical skills and other extracurricular activities don’t factor into college admission, so few participate. And the government’s control of society means there aren’t many non-state-run groups to join anyway. Even the most basic American introduction to real life — the summer job — rarely exists for urban students in China.

Recent Chinese college graduates are an optimistic group. And why not? The economy has grown at a double-digit rate for as long as they can remember. Those who speak English are guaranteed good jobs. Their families own homes. They’ll soon own one themselves, and probably a car too. A cellphone, an iPod, holidays — no problem. Small wonder the Pew Research Center in Washington described the Chinese in 2005 as “world leaders in optimism.”

As for political repression, few young Chinese experience it. Most are too young to remember the Tiananmen massacre of 1989 and probably nobody has told them stories. China doesn’t feel like a police state, and the people young Chinese read about who do suffer injustices tend to be poor — those who lost homes to government-linked property developers without fair compensation or whose crops failed when state-supported factories polluted their fields.

Educated young Chinese are therefore the biggest beneficiaries of policies that have brought China more peace and prosperity than at any time in the past thousand years. They can’t imagine why Tibetans would turn up their noses at rising incomes and the promise of a more prosperous future. The loss of a homeland just doesn’t compute as a valid concern.

Of course, the nationalism of young Chinese may soften over time. As college graduates enter the work force and experience their country’s corruption and inefficiency, they often grow more critical. It is received wisdom in China that people in their 40s are the most willing to challenge their government, and the Tibet crisis bears out that observation. Of the 29 ethnic-Chinese intellectuals who last month signed a widely publicized petition urging the government to show restraint in the crackdown, not one was under 30.

Barring major changes in China’s education system or economy, Westerners are not going to find allies among the vast majority of Chinese on key issues like Tibet, Darfur and the environment for some time. If the debate over Tibet turns this summer’s contests in Beijing into the Human Rights Games, as seems inevitable, Western ticket-holders expecting to find Chinese angry at their government will instead find Chinese angry at them.

China’s persistent Japan syndrome (IAN BURUMA - The Financial Times)
April 15, 2005 中国の執拗なる日本症候群（イアン・ブルマ）

A review of "THE JAPANESE POLICE SYSTEM TODAY:"

2008-04-16T19:08:00.000-07:00

To all outward appearances, the Japanese law enforcement system is a paragon of community-based, service-oriented policing: Police officers make house visits, offer directions, arbitrate neighborhood squabbles, and even counsel distraught mothers. So, what has gone wrong? According to this respected American criminologist, very little. "No system in the world is without its flaws . . . I do not believe that these abuses and missteps, regardless of their widespread, well-publicized notoriety, are symptomatic of a systemic breakdown."

In comparison, his evaluation of the situation in the U.S. is decidedly negative. According to Parker, the U.S. law enforcement system is an eight-cylinder car chugging along on six cylinders. "We currently have a fragmented patchwork of inefficient, marginally trained and poorly equipped police forces," he writes.

Nevertheless, Parker is not totally uncritical of the Japanese police force, citing the 1999 case of Stephen O'Toole as an example of how its overzealousness for convictions can lead to gross violations of civil liberties.
Sunday, April 21, 2002
By PHILIP ZITOWITZ

Read on yourself

Who Are the World's Most Influential People?

2008-04-16T03:48:00.000-07:00

TIME　ON LINE

Who the hell is Miyamoto?

And who the hell is RAIN?

Reviews of "Human Smoke"

2008-04-14T22:52:00.001-07:00

Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization /
Nicholson Baker (

Baker shows that the Japanese, as early as 1934, were complaining that Roosevelt was deliberately provoking them. In January 1941, Japan protested the U.S. military buildup in Hawaii. Joseph Grew, our ambassador to Japan, reported rumors that the Japanese response would be a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet according to World War II mythology, America was blissfully sleeping, unprepared for war, when caught by surprise by the dastardly "sneak attack." (Isn't it curious that Asians carry out "sneak attacks," whereas Westerners launch "preemptive strikes"?) A year earlier, Baker shows, Roosevelt began planning the bombing of Japan -- which had invaded China, but with which we were not at war -- from Chinese air bases with American planes and, when necessary, American pilots. Pearl Harbor was a purely military target, but Roosevelt wanted to bomb Japanese cities with incendiary bombs; he'd been assured that their cities would burn fast, being made largely of wood and paper.

Roosevelt evinced no desire to negotiate. In fact, Baker writes, in October he "began leaking the news of his new war plan," with $100 billion earmarked for airplanes alone. Grew again warned Roosevelt that he was pushing Japan toward armed conflict with the United States, but the president continued his war preparations. Finally, the night before the Japanese attack, Roosevelt sent a message to Emperor Hirohito calling for talks. He read it to the Chinese ambassador, remarking that he thought the message would "be fine for the record."lattimes /By Mark Kurlansky
March 9, 2008

“Human Smoke” deliberately has no argument, but Churchill appears as more of a warmonger than he is usually portrayed, and there is far more than in most textbooks about pacifist opposition to the war in the United States and Britain and to Britain’s pre-Blitz bombing campaign of German cities.

“I came to the Second World War with a typically inadequate American education.” Mr. Baker said, “and I was surprised to discover that Churchill had this crazy, late-night side. He was obviously thrilled to be in the midst of this escalating war. This is a man who wanted Europe to starve — he wanted to starve it into a state of revolt.”NYT/March 4, 2008
A Debunker on the Road to World War II
By CHARLES McGRATH

Franklin Roosevelt, now a lawyer in New York City, noticed that Jews made up one-third of the freshman class at Harvard. He talked the problem over with Henry Morgenthau, Sr., and he went to the Harvard Board of Overseers, of which he was a member. "It was decided," Roosevelt later explained, "that over a period of years the number of Jews should be reduced one or two per cent a year until it was down to 15%." It was about 1922.

The Royal Air Force announced the staging of a mock bombing exercise at its annual air pageant in Hendon, north of London. It was June 11, 1927.

The New York Times described the Hendon event in advance: "The 'town,' which will be built largely of airplane wings, will be bombed to bits. Airplanes will drop food and ammunition to the European 'refugees,' who will be fl eeing after having escaped from the citadel in which they have been 'beleaguered' by the town's native inhabitants." The town was located in the imaginary land of Irquestine.onlinewsj

05/04/2010

The Horror of D-Day
A New Openness to Discussing Allied War Crimes in WWII

By Klaus Wiegrefe

D-Day may have been the beginning of the end of Germany's campaign of horror during World War II. But a new book by British historian Antony Beevor makes it clear that the "greatest generation" wasn't above committing a few war crimes of its own.

According to the findings of German historian Peter Lieb, many Canadian and American units were given orders on D-Day to take no prisoners.

In his 2007 book "The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1934-1944" Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rick Atkinson described various war crimes committed by the Allies. And now we have the same thing with Normandy.

Is Japanese love color blind?

2008-04-07T00:47:00.000-07:00

The vast majority — 85 per cent — of interracial couples counted in the 2006 census involve a white person and a visible minority. But in a country where visible minorities are on a steep incline, so too are marriages among couples from two different visible minority groups (15 per cent).

The Japanese are most likely to enter a mixed union, the census showed, at 74.7 per cent. The second and third groups most likely to be involved in an interracial relationship are Latin Americans (47 per cent) and blacks (40.6 per cent).

In contrast, South Asians and Chinese are among the least likely to form a union outside their group. lifewise.魚拓

Anger as Seoul aims to reclassify dogmeat

2008-04-04T19:47:00.000-07:00

Wed Apr 2, 9:41 AM ET

SEOUL (AFP) - The Seoul city government is seeking to classify man's best friend as livestock in order to set food safety standards for South Korean lovers of dogmeat, officials say.
ADVERTISEMENT

Somewhere between two and four million dogs are estimated to be consumed in South Korea every year but the slaughtering and processing is carried out in dirty environments and poses a risks to diners' health, they said.

Since dogs are not currently classed as livestock there are no hygiene regulations on their slaughter, officials said.

"Dogs are consumed in their millions in this country every year. That's a fact. We have to take care of this situation," said Lee Hae-Woo, head of the city government's department of food safety.

"We plan to recommend to the central government that dogs are classified as livestock," he told AFP. "This is like a hot potato but we don't pretend the issue does not exist."

South Korea's capital has always been ambivalent about dogmeat. To avoid adverse publicity before the 1988 Olympics, the city banned dogmeat and snakemeat as "abhorrent food."

The order is now largely ignored and an estimated 500 dogmeat restaurants operate in Seoul alone.AFP 魚拓

Tibet and West

2008-03-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

By Adrian Croft - Analysis

LONDON (Reuters) - When it comes to speaking out on Tibet, China has just got too much economic clout for western powers to talk too loudly.

In contrast to western condemnation of a crackdown on demonstrations in Myanmar (Burma) last year, western criticism of China's handling of protests in Tibet have been much more muted, analysts say.

"There's a tendency in Washington to make a China exception'," said John Tkacik, China expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative U.S. think tank.

"Things we would whack Burma, Sudan or Uzbekistan for, we want to ignore when China does them," he said.

The United States and other western nations called for restraint after a crackdown on anti-government protests in Tibet in which Chinese authorities said 13 had been killed, while exiled Tibetans put the death toll at around 100.

But expressions of concern have stopped there.

"There's a general unwillingness of governments to speak out on human rights violations involving China," said Corinna-Barbara Francis, a China researcher at human rights group Amnesty International in London.

"A lot has to do with this perception that has emerged of an all-powerful, influential presence of China which I think is exaggerated and goes beyond its economic clout," she said.
With economic growth of 10 percent or more a year since 2003, China now has the world's fourth biggest economy and may be on track to overtake the United States as the world's largest economy within a couple of decades.

It has been doing deals around the world to secure supplies of oil and metals -- notably when state-owned Aluminum Corp of China teamed up with U.S. aluminum producer Alcoa in February to buy a $14 billion stake in mining giant Rio Tinto.

Analysts argue that Tibet, which Chinese troops marched into in 1950, has never enjoyed much international support even when it launched a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, prompting the flight of its spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Then, long before China's economic boom, the west saw Beijing as a potential Cold War ally against the Soviet Union.

And although Tibet's ancient Buddhist culture won sympathy from many individual westerners, its remoteness and poverty gave it no international clout.

But a traditional western "hands off" approach to Tibet has been underscored this time around by the increasing economic interdependence between the United States and China.

CREDIT CRUNCH

The anti-government protests in Tibet come at a particularly delicate time, as Washington battles a credit crunch and a falling dollar, and looks to China to bail it out.

China has about $1.5 trillion of foreign exchange reserves, a large proportion of which are in dollar-denominated bonds. If China stopped buying, the dollar would likely fall sharply.
China's new investment fund pumped $5 billion into Morgan Stanley in December after the U.S. investment bank posted $9.4 billion of losses in subprime mortgages and other assets.

The economic interdependence is not however only one-way. China relies on U.S. and western markets to buy its exports which underpin its healthy trade surplus. The U.S. trade gap with China soared to a record $256 billion in 2007.

This has prompted some to argue that the United States and others could take a tougher stand with China.

Gerrit van der Wees, from the Formosan Association for Public Affairs in Washington, which lobbies for Taiwan's separate identity in international affairs, said the United States felt it had to be more accommodating to China.

"But, in our view, that doesn't mean giving in to what China says and does, which is what the U.S. has been doing a little bit too much over the past year," he added.

China's economic lure, however, seems to be strong, not just for the United States but the European Union.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on a visit to China in January that Britain was open to Chinese trade and investment and pitched for China's new $200 billion sovereign wealth fund to open an office in London.

French firms sealed $30 billion of deals during President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to China last November. Tue Mar 18, 2008(Ruuter)

comfort women Korean comfort women in increase

2008-03-14T05:15:00.000-07:00

Modern Korean comfort wmen are in increase abroad, according to OneKoreannews.net.
According to the article, it is due to the fact the strict law against prostitution's was enacted a few years back in Korea. Some women are deceived by brokers, but others go voluntarily abroad such as to Australia and Japan for quick money.

onekoreanews

現代版　人身売買 2008年3月12日発行

　

０４年「性売買特別法」施行後
学生ら安易な考えで海外に

　韓国人女性の売春が韓国国外で急増している。韓国では０４年に、売春行為を取り締まる「性売買特別法」が施行された。これによって居場所を失ったゆえの “海外遠征売春″なのか。売春行為が法で認められているオーストラリアなどのほか、近距離の日本でも急増している。“遠征売春″は金銭トラブルなどで人身売買につながるケースもあるようだ。韓国側の取締当局は、「それ以上に問題なのは、プロではなく学生や主婦が売春を承知で海外に出かけていることだ」と頭を抱えている。
（崔世一）
　今月８日、オーストラリアのシドニー市警に１０人の韓国人女性が保護された。彼女たちは１日２０時間以上も売春行為を行っていたという。
　ＡＦＰ通信によれば、売春組織は甘い労働条件で女性たちを誘い、偽造旅券を与えてオーストラリアに入国させたとみられている。入国すると彼女たちは旅券を取り上げられた上、想像以上の過酷な条件を押しつけられたという。
　韓国の警察庁外事局関係者は、「性売買特別法」で国内に居場所をなくした売春婦だった可能性が高いとみている。
　「たくさん稼げるという甘い話に乗って遠征売春に出かけても、密入国にかかった偽造旅券などの“斡旋料”や、現地で思いのほかかかった生活費などがかさみ、売春組織からの借金が雪だるま式に増えていく。だが、それこそがブローカーの真の狙いで、彼女たちを底なし沼に誘う。早い話が現代版の人身売買だ」
　韓国の警察庁関係者は、こうしたケースは逆にめずらしいという。
　「確かに、性売買特別法の実施により、国内の売春婦が海外に流れたのは事実だ。しかし、最近は、外国語取得とカネ稼ぎを目的に、売春を承知で海外に出る女子大生や主婦のほうがはるかに多いのではないか」
　韓国の警察庁外事局国際犯罪捜査隊は２月、これまで１５００人もの韓国女性に海外での売春をあっせんした組織を摘発した。ブローカーたちは「働きながら外国語を学べる」という言葉で女性たちを募っていた。
　韓国の女子大生が好む国は、英語圏のオーストラリアやカナダ、米国などだ。最近ではしかし、カネを稼ぐ目的で日本にやってくる学生や主婦が急増しており、彼女たちは売春が手っ取り早い稼ぎ手段と簡単に割り切っているようだ。日本はターゲットになりやすい。距離的に近いことや、オーストラリアなどに比べてブローカーの仲介料が安いからだという。
　都内のある韓国デリバリーヘルスの店長の話だ。
　「昔はブローカーに騙され売春をさせられることがあったかもしれないが、今は自ら望んで日本にやってくるケースが増えている」
　ビザを必要としない日本への渡航。不法滞在で取り締まりに遭ったことがなく、犯罪歴もない学生や主婦は、入国には何の問題もない。密入国する必要もなければ、偽造旅券を所持する必要もない。ブローカーの仲介料はしれている。店の紹介料や空港まで迎えにきてもらう手数料くらいだ。
　「１週間働いてブランド品を購入して帰国する人もいれば、３カ月で１年間の学費を稼ぐ人もいる」と言うのは、前出のヘルス店長だ。
　問題は、韓国や日本政府が、こうした実態を把握しきれていないことだ。今年３月、警察庁が発表した「来日外国人売春防止法違反検挙状況」をみると、韓国人の場合、０７年の摘発件数はわずか２５件にすぎない。前年比では、６７．９％も減少している。警察庁関係者は「増加しているとの認識はない」との見方を示している。現代版人身売買ともいえる実態に、日韓両国の警察が迫りきれていないのは事実だ。

　性売買特別法　売春斡旋などの行為の処罰に関する特別法。０４年から施行されている。人身売買、売春の強要、売春の広告行為に対する厳しい処罰を主な内容としている。特別法は暴行や監禁、人身売買などにより売春を強いられていた被害女性たちを救うために制定されたが、売春婦からでさえ歓迎されなかった。彼女たちは「売春を職業として認め、生存権を保障せよ」と訴えていた。

「短期間で稼げる」

　これまで、韓国人女性が短期間のうちに稼げるところといえば、“コリアンクラブ”だった。今では店舗を持たない“デリバリーヘルス”で働くケースが多い。駐在員など韓国人がよく訪れるコリアンクラブに比べ、人目につくことも少なく、摘発されるリスクも小さい。万一、摘発されても、“恋人同士”で通せる。韓国人女性に限った話ではない。日本では最近、主婦やＯＬの“援助交際”が盛んになっており、ビジネスホテルが頻繁に利用されているという。統一日報

Donation to South Korean　Namdaemun

2008-03-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

Japanese media reported that South Korean Namdaemun, national treasure in the heart of Seoul was reduced to ashes last month. Although Korean government will reconstruct it with her budget, the donations from Japanese and Koreans in Japan were made to All Korean Residents' Organization in the hope that they will be of help. And now it amounts to 30000000 yen. Some people wrote the letter to the effect that it pains me to see the South Gate collapse, or my husband began to study Hangule and I was fond of Korean drama, we really wish that it would be restored. It was the first time all Korean Resident's Organization received the donation this much from non-member of the organization. The person in charge of the organization says, "Japan-Korean communication has been developed well, and many Japanese has seen it once. I am glad Japanese and Koreans share the sentiment of sadness to lose something important." The organization will send this money to K government through Korean civil organization.

先月１０日、ソウル中心部にある韓国の国宝第１号の崇礼門（スンネムン）、通称、南大門が全焼した火災は、日本でも大きく報じられました。南大門の復元は、韓国政府が国の予算で行う方針ですが、在日韓国人で作る民団・在日本大韓民国民団には「復元に役立ててほしい」と火事の直後から募金が寄せられ、これまでにおよそ３０００万円に上っています。なかには、手紙を添えて現金を送ってくる日本人もいて、「南大門の崩れ落ちる姿を見て胸が痛みました」とか「夫がハングルを習い、わたしも韓国ドラマで韓国に興味を持ち始めました。元どおりに復元されることを祈っています」などと書かれています。これほど多くの募金が、日本人を含めた民団組織以外の人からも寄せられるのは初めてだということです。民団の担当者は「日韓の交流が進み、南大門が、日本人にも一度は目にしたことのある身近な建物になっていたのではないか。大切な物を失った悲しみを共有できて、ほんとうにうれしい」と話しています。民団では、寄せられた募金を市民団体を通じて韓国政府に贈ることにしていますNHK

魚拓

Military Power of China

2008-03-08T23:47:00.000-08:00

ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS
Military Power of the
People’s Republic of China
2008
Office（PDF）

Comfort women 'Sex Slaves' Freed in Sydney

2008-03-08T19:39:00.000-08:00

10 Korean 'Sex Slaves' Freed in Sydney

2 days ago

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — Police have rescued 10 South Korean women who were forced to work in a Sydney brothel by a sex slavery syndicate that lured them to Australia with promises of legitimate jobs, officials said Friday.

Four Australian men and women and a South Korean woman were arrested early Friday and charged with multiple offenses relating to a sex trafficking business that was making $2.8 million a year, Australian Federal Police and the Immigration Department said in a joint statement.

The victims, who were rescued by police Thursday, were receiving counseling and government support, immigration official Lyn O'Connell said. She said no decision had been made on whether they would remain in Australia as prosecution witnesses.

Police allege the syndicate recruited women in South Korea by deceiving them about the jobs on offer and then organized their work visas, the government statement said. It did not say what type of jobs the women were offered.

Once in Australia, the syndicate took the women's passports and forced them to work as prostitutes in a legal brothel for up to 20 hours a day, the statement said. It did not say how long the women had been enslaved.AP

魚拓

さらに

China’s Views of Sovereignty

2008-03-01T01:07:00.000-08:00

....Sovereignty Consolidation.

China’s East China Sea boundary dispute with Japan provides a good example of its efforts to consolidate its sovereign claims in its maritime periphery. The focus of the maritime boundary dispute between China and Japan in the East China Sea is an expanse of nearly 70,000 square nautical miles of water space that constitutes the overlap between China’s claim―which reaches from the mainland eastward to the Okinawa Trough just west of the Ryukyu Island chain--and Japan’s claim along a line equidistant from the coastlines of each state.......Significantly complicating factors in the delimitation of the maritime boundary in the East China Sea are the dispute over the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyutai to the Chinese) and the unique status of Taiwan. The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands are a group of 5 small uninhabited rocky islets, the largest of which is 3.6 square kilometers in area. Historically, they were known to the Chinese and mentioned in official documents as early as the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), but there is no evidence they were ever taken under effective administration and control by the Chinese.....The tension between China and Japan over resources, boundaries and sovereignty in the East China Sea―and especially the confrontation over Japanese administration of and claim of sovereignty to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands--provides to the PRC government a lever of nationalism to use to divert the attention of the Chinese people from domestic difficulties and to shore up support for the central government during times of domestic political competition.
Peter A. Dutton
Associate Professor, China Maritime Studies Institute
U.S. Naval War College
Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission
China’s Views of Sovereignty and Methods of Access Control
February 27, 2008USCC 魚拓

via 世の中を生暖かく見守るブログ

Japan lost to Korea

2008-02-29T03:22:00.000-08:00

Last December, Chinese Internet's community conducted the poll.
Here is some interesting result.

Out 20 neighboring counrties, which country do you like most?

1 Pakistan
2 Russia
3 Japan

Out 20 neighboring counrties, which country do you dislike most

1 Korea
2 Japan
3 Indonesia
魚拓

We have contradictory attitude toward Japan. Historicaly we have reason to hate her, but there are a lot of things to lean from Japan. ....I can't respect Korea, despite the fact she is influenced by China and Japan, she is ultranationalistic, .... arrogant.

魚拓
魚拓

Diamond on line

The film"the most beautiful night in the world"

2008-02-27T01:50:00.001-08:00

2008年02月27日

　少子化問題とエンターテインメントを織り交ぜた作品が公開される。出生率が日本一高い架空の村の謎を描いた映画「世界で一番美しい夜」（５月公開予定、天願大介監督）で、見どころは２５組５０人のセックスシーン。これまでにないユニークな視点に注目だ。主演は田口トモロヲ（５０）。文化庁が支援する。

nikkansports

A new entertainment film trying to stop the low birth rate will come out. The most beautiful night in the world is it;it is about the mysterious Japanese village where the birth rate is highest. The hightlight is the scene where 25 cuples are making love. This is unique perspective that we've never known. The ministry of Cultural Affairs supports it

AFTER THE REICH

2008-02-26T06:12:00.000-08:00

How three million Germans died after VE Day

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 18/04/2007
A hellish peace
Rape, execution, and torture were among the wounds inflicted on a conquered Germany by Allied forces
Brutality didn't end when World War II did

By Bruce Ramsey

Special to The Seattle Times
From The Sunday Times
April 8, 2007
Casualties of peace
Max Hastings

AFTER THE REICH: From the Liberation of Vienna to the Berlin Airlift by Giles MacDonogh

J Murray £25
The Squall After the Whirlwind
A British historian takes Americans to task for their role in the post-World War II occupation.

Reviewed by Andrew Nagorski
Sunday, August 26, 2007; BW11

AFTER THE REICH

The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation

By Giles MacDonogh
via太田述正ブログ

How three million Germans died after VE Day

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 18/04/2007/Telegraph

Japanese people have started donation for Korean national treasure, "Namdaemun

2008-02-24T07:53:00.000-08:00

People working for preservation of Himeji castle are raising funds for Namdaemun, a national treasure of Korea, which was burnt down by arson, saying that as one who feel obligation to preserve national treasure, it is not someone else's affair.

韓国：南大門焼失　復興募金を　姫路城登閣口に支援箱　／兵庫

　韓国・ソウル中心部の観光名所「南大門」（崇礼門＝韓国国宝１号）の全焼を受け、世界遺産で国宝・姫路城（姫路市本町）の保存活動に取り組んでいる市民団体「姫路城を守る会」（会長＝米田徳夫・ヤマトヤシキ会長）などが１５日から、南大門復興募金を集める。５月末までで、集まった募金は韓国に送ることにしている。

　同会は６８年に設立され、市民ら約６００人が城の清掃活動などを行っている。火災を知り、「国を代表する文化財を守る者として、他人事ではない。復興の手助けになれば」と募金活動に乗り出すことにした。

　姫路城管理事務所の協力で１４日夕、登閣口に募金箱を設置。火災を伝える新聞記事なども掲示し、１５日の開門時から観光客らに募金を呼び掛ける。受け付け時間は午前９時～午後４時。【久野洋】

〔播磨・姫路版〕

毎日新聞　2008年2月15日
Mainichi

Let's play fair, China

2008-02-20T17:35:00.000-08:00

Japan beat hosts China in East Asian football

AFP（Cashe)
I don't care which wins, but China, let's play fair.

Japanese flag was set on fire while the plastic bottles and booing were aimed at the visitors.

jiji(cashe)
Asahi
魚拓
中国ラフプレー問題、罰金４５００ドル　サッカー日本戦

2008年02月23日19時02分

　東アジアサッカー連盟は２３日、中国・重慶で理事会を開き、東アジア選手権の日本戦などでラフプレーが問題になった男子の中国に対して、大会規定などにより罰金４５００米ドル（約４８万円）を科すと決めた。また北朝鮮も罰金１５００米ドル（約１６万円）の処分となった。審判の改善を求めた男子日本代表からの文書も取り上げられ、大会前の研修を徹底するなどの改善策が示された。

　１試合に４回以上警告を受けたチームには罰金が科され、中国は１７日の韓国戦で５回、２０日の日本戦で４回、北朝鮮は第２戦の韓国戦で５回の警告を受けた。
2008.2.23 13:56
このニュースのトピックス：サッカー日本代表
２０日の日本－中国戦で後半、中国・ＧＫ宗磊と交錯し、飛び蹴りされる安田＝重慶（共同）２０日の日本－中国戦で後半、中国・ＧＫ宗磊と交錯し、飛び蹴りされる安田＝重慶（共同）

　東アジア・サッカー連盟は２３日の理事会で、中国の重慶で行われている東アジア選手権男子でラフプレーが目立つ中国に計４５００ドル（約４８万円）の罰金を科すことを決めた。

　中国は１７日の韓国戦で５度、２０日の日本戦で４度の警告を受けた。理事会では、国際サッカー連盟（ＦＩＦＡ）などの懲罰規定にのっとって、韓国戦について１５００ドル（約１６万円）、日本戦について３０００ドル（約３２万円）の罰金を決めた。（共同）

Interview with Gerry On Sanin Ctyuou shinpou

2008-02-16T09:17:00.000-08:00

HT to a reader.

The excessive anti-Japan movement that took place on March 2005 in Korea has died down now. Shimane prefecture established "the day of Takeshima that year.
Mr. Gerry Beaver, a teacher of English at the University near Seoul, who studies the history of Takeshima analyzes the change as follows.

" I think part of the reason for that is that many Koreans have turned their
attention toward China and the historical disagreements that exist between
China and Korea, but I also think that the Korean government has realized
that talking about the history of Takeshima (Dokdo) has done more harm than
good since the history supports Japan's claims on Takeshima."

He posted articles on the Internet about the Korean old documents and maps that were not in favor of Korean claim, which led him to get fired from the university last year.

" I now have a teaching job at another Korean university that I am very
satisfied with. I enjoy living in Korea because Koreans are very friendly
people, but the problem is that Koreans seem to think that anyone who
disagrees with them on Dokdo (Takeshima) are anti-Korean. That is simply not
true."

Lee Myung-bak will take office as new President on 25th of the next February. He
will place more importance upon the relation with Japan.

" I think Lee Myung-bak is a pragmatic politician that wants to improve
relations with Japan, and will, therefore, try to avoid making Takeshima
(Dokdo) an issue by continuing to pretend that there is no dispute with
Japan over the islets. However, there are still anti-Japanese groups in
Korea that he may sometimes have to appease in someway, so the issue may
still come up."

While anti-Japan movement has died down, Korea still seems to assert her claims on
Takeshima by doing such things as sitting up polling booths,
. On the other hand, Japanese government hasn't done anything to speak of.

"There are hardcore anti-Japan advocates in Korea.

Old documents and maps clearly support Japan’s historical claims on
Takeshima, so the Japanese government needs to stop being so passive about
this issue and start translating and writing the books and brochures that
will prove their claims to the world because I am almost positive that
Korean historians will continue to distort the facts to support their false
claims. However, telling the truth about the history and settling the
dispute are two different things."

Gerry has studied the history of takehsima for 3 years since he felt something wrong with anti-Japan sentiments in Korea.
He is confident that there is no evidence that Takeshima belongs Korean territory.

" I have pretty much answered all the questions I had about the
Takeshima-Dokdo issue, so I am not really doing any new research right now.
What I want to do now is to review and organize the information I do have
because I am thinking about writing a book. I think I have learned the truth
about Takeshima, and I want others to know it, too. "

Florida--Metal in Candy imported from China

2008-02-16T02:44:00.000-08:00

Lakeland, FL (AHN) - Shards of metal were discovered in about 20 lollipops at a local elementary school in Lakeland, Florida.

The metal, found inside Pokemon valentine lollipops purchased at a Dollar General, was discovered at the Kathleen Elementary School Thursday afternoon.

According to ABC News, the blades were first found by a mother whose child was eating the lollipop discovered the metal inside her child's candy. According to the woman, she bought the candy from the Dollar General Store a week ago.

The candy was turned over to local detectives Wednesday. The metal was found in only one of the entire bag of lollipops.

The additional tainted candies found in the elementary school were discovered the day after.

Dollar General announced Thursday that they have removed all "Pokemon 10 Valentine Cards and Pops" from the store shelves all over the country.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that the product was imported from China by Sherwood Brands in Maryland.

AHN 魚拓

How Japanese take pictures.

2008-02-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

via linkinnand パルプンテニュース

Finally arrested

2008-02-08T00:04:00.000-08:00

Arrests made in death of sumo wrestler

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Masanori Fujii, one of three arrested wrestlers, enters Inuyama Police Station in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, on Thursday.

NAGOYA--A former sumo stablemaster was arrested Thursday on suspicion of assault resulting in the death of a 17-year-old wrestler in June, police said.

The former Tokitsukaze stablemaster, whose real name is Junichi Yamamoto, was arrested along with three wrestlers from the stable over the death of Tokitaizan, whose real name was Takashi Saito, after apparent hazing. The three wrestlers are Yuichiro Izuka, 25 (known as Doto), Masanori Fujii, 22 (Tokiomaru), Masakazu Kimura, 24 (Akiyutaka).

Yamamoto, 57, became the first person to be arrested over a sumo-related incident that took place when he was a stablemaster.

According to the Aichi prefectural police and Inuyama Police Station, Yamamoto, the three arrested wrestlers and four others assaulted Saito during training sessions between 12:40 p.m. on June 25 and 11:30 a.m. on June 26 at the stable's temporary lodgings in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, where they were staying ahead of the Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament. Saito collapsed after full-contact practice called butsukarigeiko on June 26. He was sent to the hospital but died later the same day.

Yamamoto allegedly hit Saito over the head with a beer bottle on June 25 after the wrestler tried to flee the stable's lodgings. Yamamoto also allegedly told the three wrestlers to assault Saito. During the butsukarigeiko, he allegedly hit Saito with a wooden stick.

According to the police, Yamamoto admitted to hitting Saito with a beer bottle, but he denied it was because Saito had tried to escape. Yamamoto also denied having instructed the wrestlers to assault Saito.

Izuka and Fujii basically admitted to the allegations, but Kimura said he believed he was disciplining Saito.

The police plan to send papers on four other wrestlers suspected of taking part in the assault.

The police initially said Saito died from illness, but an autopsy at Niigata University found he died from traumatic shock. Later, an examination by Nagoya University specialists of Saito's body tissue also found a connection between the assault and his death.

Butsukarigeiko involves a wrestler repeatedly pushing an inert opponent, who is in a brace position, across the ring. It is designed to build stamina and usually occurs at the end of training sessions. Normally lasting for a maximum of five minutes, it is not uncommon for wrestlers to vomit after such training. Police say Saito was forced to undergo the training for about 30 minutes.

Yamamoto was dismissed by the Japan Sumo Association in October over the scandal.

JSA Chairman Kitanoumi lamented the arrest of Yamamoto and the three others Thursday night. "It's so regrettable that sumo wrestlers have been arrested," Kitanoumi said at a press conference held at Tokyo's Ryogoku Kokugikan.

The chairman said he hoped the four would cooperate with the police investigation. Referring to a possible punishment by the JSA on the four, he said, "We'll take measures that we think necessary while looking at a future judicial judgment."

He added that the JSA committee set up after the incident to examine ways to prevent a recurrence will take measures to handle the case.
(Feb. 8, 2008)
National
go
Yomiuri

力士傷害致死、元時津風親方と兄弟子３人を逮捕　

　大相撲の時津風部屋の序ノ口力士だった斉藤俊(たかし)さん（当時１７歳）＝しこ名・時太山(ときたいざん)＝が急死した事件で、愛知県警捜査１課と犬山署は７日、制裁目的で２日間にわたって暴行を繰り返して斉藤さんを死亡させたとして、元時津風親方の山本順一容疑者（５７）（元小結双津竜）と兄弟子３人を傷害致死容疑で逮捕した。また、県警は同署に特別捜査本部を設置した。大相撲にかかわる事件で当時の親方が逮捕されたのは初めて。
Click here to find out more!

　逮捕された兄弟子３人は、伊塚雄一郎（２５）（しこ名・怒濤(どとう)）、藤居正憲(まさのり)（２２）（時王丸(ときおうまる)）、木村正和（２４）（明義豊(あきゆたか)）の３容疑者。県警は、暴行に加わったほかの４人の兄弟子も同容疑で書類送検する方針だ。

　調べによると、山本容疑者と兄弟子３人は、ほかの兄弟子４人と共謀し、昨年６月２５日午後０時４０分ごろから死亡当日の２６日午前１１時半ごろにかけて、愛知県犬山市の宿舎裏やけいこ場で、制裁しようと企て金属バットや木の棒で斉藤さんを殴打するなど、複数回にわたって暴行を繰り返し、外傷性ショックで死亡させた疑い。

　山本容疑者は２５日夕、食事の席で斉藤さんの額をビール瓶で殴打したうえ、兄弟子らに「お前らも教えてやれ」「鉄砲柱に縛りつけとけ」などと指示。２６日午前も、通常５分程度が限界とされる「ぶつかりげいこ」を約３０分続け、兄弟子たちはこの中でも殴るけるの暴行を加えたほか、山本容疑者が木の棒で殴った。

　調べに対し、山本容疑者はビール瓶で殴ったことは認めたが、「脱走したから殴ったわけではない」と供述。伊塚容疑者らに自らが指示したことなども否認している。兄弟子３人のうち、伊塚、藤居両容疑者は容疑をほぼ認め、木村容疑者は「しつけと教育のつもりだった」と犯意を否認している。

　当初、斉藤さんの死因は病死とされたが、出身地にある新潟大の組織検査で外傷性ショック死と判明。さらに名古屋大での再検査結果や兄弟子らのこれまでの証言などから、県警は２日間にわたる暴行と死亡の因果関係が立証できると判断した。
（2008年2月7日23時38分読売新聞）（2008年2月7日23時38分読売新聞

Debito's article and Global Voices Online

2008-01-31T19:56:00.000-08:00

Oiwan Lam introduced Debito's article to her readers on Global Voices Online But in respond to the comments, she edidted her article. I think
she has been fair on this issue.
魚拓
Note Debito has banned the innocent comments contradictory to Debito's account which Oiwan Lam rightly let publicized.

Nanjing massacre and Korea

2008-01-25T00:55:00.000-08:00

1937.12.24 Donga ilblo report the big cities such as Daegu, Busan, Incheon,celebrate the fall of Nanjing to Japanese army.

via 杉野洋明極東亜細亜研究所

The Dong-a Ilbo (literally East Asia Daily) was founded in 1920 by Kim Sung-soo who also founded Korea University during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Later, Kim also served as the second vice-president of South Korea in 1951. DongA Ilbo started as a nationalist paper

Timeline
DongA Ilbo's Traditional Logo
DongA Ilbo's Traditional Logo

* 1920-04-01 : Published the first issue along with the civilization policy of Governor-General of Korea
* 1920-09-25 : The first suspension for indefinite period of time: for printing the article "Discussing the Problems with Rituals" which were critical of three items sacred to Japan
* 1926-03-06 : The second suspension for printing a message celebrating the March 1 uprising (Civil Movement)
* 1930-04-16 : The third suspension for printing "The Dong-A Ilbo Plays an Important Role in Chosun's Current Situation" which was a letter sent by a press in US in support of Korea
* 1931-03-21 : Held the 1st Dong-A Marathon Games, Korea's first marathon race
* 1936-08-29 : The fourth suspension: for erasing the Japanese flag from Korean born Olympic gold medalist
# 1940-08-10 : Forced closure by the Japanese government
# 1945-12-01 : Re-opening of DongA Ilbowiki

A girl from Norway in Japanese

2008-01-20T03:05:00.000-08:00

youtube
Wow, she is so cute, and she speaks Japanese.
I am sure she will be popular in Japan.

Evil Japan---the videos from North Korea.

2008-01-17T17:04:00.000-08:00

link1
link2
via日本の評判（the way people look at Japan)

The Japanese are mixture of many races?

2008-01-17T16:57:00.000-08:00

Oniazuma
has an answer.

Japanese Robot walks like monkey

2008-01-17T02:21:00.000-08:00

It may walk like a Japanese robot, but it's thinking like a monkey in the United States. Japanese and US researchers said Wednesday they have created a humanoid robot that acts according to the brain activity of a monkey all the way across the Pacific.

The experiment was part of efforts to develop prosthetic limbs which can be mentally controlled by people with disabilities.

A laboratory in the western Japanese city of Kyoto unveiled a 155-centimetre (62-inch) tall humanoid, with a friendly-looking face including bulging black eyes, who walked via signals coming into its legs through wires.

Researchers said the robot was responding to the cortical brain activity of a monkey that was walking attached to wires on a treadmill at Duke University in North Carolina. The signal was sent via the Internet.

"We were able to detect the monkey's brain activity while walking on the treadmill and relay the data from the United States to Japan," the state-backed Japan Science and Technology Agency said in a statement.

"For the first time in the world, we were then able to make our humanoid robot in Japan walk in real-time in a similar manner as the monkey," it said.

The robot was designed by the Japanese agency and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh to move by responding to brain activity signals. AFP

Does the author mean what the title literally means, or does he suggest more than what it literally means?

Is the robot just Japanese Robot or isn't it Japanese and American robot?

"Yankee robot thinks like monkey?" might be okay as well?

Culture of comfort women still alive in Korea

2008-01-16T21:39:00.000-08:00

U.S. Still Rates S.Korea as Sex Tourism Destination

The U.S. Congressional Research Service still rates South Korea as a major Asian destination for organized sex tours in a recent report entitled "Trafficking in Persons: U.S. Policy and Issues for Congress.魚拓

Korean sex workers are moving abroad after new anti-prostitution laws made the world’s oldest profession more difficult at home, police say.
They are heading for the U.S., Canada and Australia, but some settle for countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan better known for export rather than import of sex workers. In North America, they apparently work in smaller cities and towns as well as big urban centers like Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC and Toronto. Hong Kong and Europe have recently been added to the list of destinations魚拓

Hige change

2008-01-11T13:28:00.000-08:00

Do you want to know how you look with beard or mustache?
Try this site.It is fun to see your face move with mustache.

Sony--- because caucasian is too damn tall

2008-01-07T01:44:00.000-08:00

Sony-- because Caucasian is too damn tall(youtube)
Discuss whether it is racist video or not.

Incidentally discuss why being 3 cm taller than Japanese matters to Korean people.

Japanese kids thinking up the solutions to troubles Gaijin are having.

2008-01-06T10:42:00.001-08:00

I came across this video.日本で暮らす外国人スピーキング・アウト授業
This is about en elementary school classroom in Japan, trying to make Japanese students think up the solutions to the troubles Foreigners have in Japan.

A Chinese woman; People sometimes look down on me saying, you are Chinese, I am Japanese.

an Argentine man:When I disagree with Japanese, some Japanese say, you are an Argentine, so you don't understand.

A kid 1 : We should set up schools to teach different customs, culture.
A kid 2; We should not discriminate if we don't want to be discriminated when we go abroad.

Laws concerning pretection of the privacy

2008-01-04T03:35:00.000-08:00

In 2007 the survey found surveillance "endemic" in nine countries - compared to five in 2006.

The nine were - England, Wales, Malaysia, China, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the US.

bbc EPIC

Japan
PHR2006 - Country Reports

Some references to the equality clause.

2008-01-03T07:52:00.000-08:00

Article 14. All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.
Peers and peerage shall not be recognized.
No privilege shall accompany any award of honor, decoration or any distinction, nor shall any such award be valid beyond the lifetime of the individual who now holds or hereafter may receive it.Constitution

It is generally accepted that the protection of rights and freedoms under the Constitution extends to foreign nationals resident in Japan insofar as the nature of of the given right allows it. .....
Generally, Japanese nationality is a prerequisite to holding public office . Some local governments now allow foreign nationals to be appointed to public office which does not involve the exercise of prerogatory power......
.....The Supreme Court ruled that the Government is allowed to give priority to Japanese nationals in providing social welfare under limited sources.
It should be noted that after the ratification of the Treaty on the Status of Refugees, relevant laws on social security were amended and the requirement of Japanese nationality removed.
pp. 432-433 Japanese Law second edtion Hiroshi Oda, oxford

ryokan-gyou-hou (Hotel Business Law) Article 5.
“Article 5
Hoteliers may not refuse accommodation unless one of the following applies.
1. It is clearly recognized that the guest is infected with contagious disease.
2. The guest is likely to indulge in gambling or illegal or immoral activities.
3. The hotel has no vacancy or such condition as may be stipulated by local government ordinance holds.”

It is absolutely illegal to refuse accommodation because the guest is a foreigner.

If an hotelier does not comply with the law, the government may suspend hotel license, in addition to levying petty fine of 5000 yen.(stereo/japanprobe.com/?p=5874)

(Equal Treatment)
Article 3. An employer shall not engage in discriminatory treatment with respect to wages, working hours or other working conditions by reason of the nationality, creed or social status of any worker.
(Principle of Equal Wages for Men and Women)
Article 4. An employer shall not engage in discriminatory treatment of a woman as compared with a man with respect to wages by reason of the worker being a woman.Labour Standards Law,

Article 5.With regard to the recruitment and hiring of workers, employers shall provide women equal opportunity with men.

Assignment, Promotion, and Training

Article 6. With regard to the assignment, promotion, and training of workers, employers shall not discriminate against a woman worker as compared with a man by reason of her being a woman.

Fringe Benefits

Article 7. With regard to loans for housing and other similar fringe benefits as provided by ordinance of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, employers shall not discriminate against a woman worker as compared with a man by reason of her being a woman.

Mandatory Retirement Age, Retirement, and Dismissal

Article 8.With regard to the mandatory retirement age and dismissal of workers, employers shall not discriminate against a woman worker as compared with a man by reason of her being a woman. Law on Securing, Etc. of Equal Opportunity and Treatment between Men and Women in Employment

男女共同参画社会基本法　Basic Law for a Gender-equal Society

The supremecourt acknowledged that Article 1 of the Constitutionincluded a right not to be forced to have fingerprints taken butdound the fingerprinting under the Aliens' Resistration Law to be sufficiently reasonable and necessary. Page 126

Date of the judgment

1995.12.15

Case number

1990(A) No.848

Title

Ruling concerning impression of fingerprints

Case name

Violation of the Alien Registration Law

Result

Judgment of the Third Petty Bench; dismissed
[The Court of First Instance] Kobe District Court

Court of the Second Instance

Osaka High Court

Summary of the judgment

1. Any person shall have the freedom not to be forced to impress his fingerprints as one of the freedoms in individual private life, and it shall not be permitted according to the purpose of Article 13 of the Constitution for state organs to force people to impress fingerprints without any reasonable ground.

2. Article 14, para. 1 and Article 18, para. 1, item 8 of the Alien Registration Law (before revised by the Law number 75 of 1982) requiring aliens residing in Japan to impress fingerprints shall not violate Article 13 of the Constitution.

References

Article 13 of the Constitution, Article 14, para. 1 and Article 18, para. 1, item 8 of the Alien Registration Law (before revised by the Law number 75 of 1982)Judgments of the Supreme Court

男女同一賃金
同一労働同一賃金

HO Says:
July 24th, 2009 at 6:31 pm

debito.org/?p=3895#comment-180534

Wage disparity is hardly peculiar to Japan.
http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/report2008.pdf
According to the above report, ratio of women’s wage to men’s who do similar work is,
France 50%, Italy 54%, Germany 57%, Japan 59%, UK 62%, US 69%, Canada 71%.

Discrimination against foreigners at workplace is also prohibited by Labor Standards Act. The punishment is 6 months in prison per article 119.

Labor Standards Act
Article 3　An employer shall not engage in discriminatory treatment with respect to wages, working hours or other working conditions by reason of the nationality, creed or social status of any worker.

Japanese Air Law, Article 105, Paragraph 2, clearly states that “no specific passenger or consigner will be unfairly discriminated against

更新

教育基本法第四条　すべて国民は、ひとしく、その能力に応じた教育を受ける機会を与えられなければならず、人種、信条、性別、社会的身分、経済的地位又は門地によって、教育上差別されない。
労働基準法第三条　使用者は、労働者の国籍、信条又は社会的身分を理由として、賃金、労働時間その他の労働条件について、差別的取扱をしてはならない。
地方公務員法
第十三条　すべて国民は、この法律の適用について、平等に取り扱われなければならず、人種、信条、性別、社会的身分若しくは門地によつて、又は第十六条第五号に規定する場合を除く外、政治的意見若しくは政治的所属関係によつて差別されてはならない。
生活保護法
第四十七条　２　保護施設は、要保護者の入所又は処遇に当たり、人種、信条、社会的身分又は門地により、差別的又は優先的な取扱いをしてはならない。
電気通信事業法
第六条　電気通信事業者は、電気通信役務の提供について、不当な差別的取扱いをしてはならない。
熱供給事業法
第十四条　四　特定の者に対し不当な差別的取扱いをするものでないこと。
石油パイプライン事業法
第二十条　四　特定の利用者に対して不当な差別的取扱いをするものでないこと。
有線テレビジョン放送法
第十四条　四　特定の者に対し不当な差別的取扱いをするものでないこと。
卸売市場法
第六十一条の二　開設者又は第五十八条第一項の許可を受けた者（以下この章において「卸売業者」という。）は、地方卸売市場における業務の運営に関し、出荷者、買受人その他地方卸売市場の利用者に対して、不当に差別的な取扱いをしてはならない。
貨物自動車運送事業法
第二十五条　３　一般貨物自動車運送事業者は、特定の荷主に対し、不当な差別的取扱いをしてはならない。
電気事業法
第十九条　２　四　特定の者に対して不当な差別的取扱いをするものでないこと。
下水道法
第二十条　２　四　特定の使用者に対し不当な差別的取扱をするものでないこと。
水道法
第十四条　２　四　特定の者に対して不当な差別的取扱いをするものでないこと。
ガス事業法
第十七条　２　四　特定の者に対し不当な差別的取扱いをするものでないこと。

The dignity of the Nation.

2008-01-02T02:54:00.000-08:00

The book,
the dignity of the Nation is sometimes cited as an indication of Japan's resurgence of militarism. In particular, the rivial of Samurai spirit is said to be dangerous. Here are some quotes from the book.

Originally bushido comprised the rules of battle for the Kamakura period---a sort of declaration of the spirit of fair play on the battlefield. But in the course of the 260-year-long peace of the Edo period, bushido-was reined into the samurai spirit,...
From Buddhism , particularly Zen came the quiet acceptance of one's destiny , a disdain for life and friendless with death. From Confucianism bushido took the five moral relations---between the governing and the governed, father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, friend and friend ---as well as the merciful benevolence of the statesman for the people. From Shinto , bushido adopted the virtue of loyalty to one lord, respect for one's ancestors ,and piety toward one's parents.
Most central to bushido is sa way of thinking indigenous to Japan since days of old. Not just from era of Manyoshu, but even imagines from the Jomon period , the Japanese have instinctively possessed a moral view and code of conduct that decrees anything base to be wrong, and that the strong must not bully the weak....
The samurai spirit went into freefall after World War Ⅱ、but it was already starting to face at the start of Showa period. This decline was one of the primary factors behind Japan's beginning to behave basely, as it did invading China after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The folly of forging an alliance with Hitler, the author of Mein Kampf, was another result of the samurai decline.
Seen in the historical context in which they occurred, the Russo0Japan War and the Pacific War against the United States had to be fought, I believe, for the sake of our independence and survival as a nation. It was wrong , however, to create situations in which war was the only option available to Japan.
The second sino-Japan War was different. Japan may have been egged on by the arch-schemer Stalin and by Mao Zedong, but invading China was nonetheless an utterly meaningless act of bullying. Contemplated in the light of samurai ethics, it is a wholly base and shameful act.....
Had Japan invaded China in respond to provocation, then it had no reason to lose. China , after all, did not even have an air force. had Japan taken advantage of its air supremacy to make aerial bombardments before sending in the army, it would have been sure to win in any engagement. .....The whole thing was a meaningless and embarrassing episode, with the Kanto Army simply running out of control. that is why the emperor,the government , and the army were all opposed to getting deeply involved.
Our having bullied a weak opponent like this is a stain on the history of Japan.
pp164-172)

What do you think? Is it a sign of revival of Japanese militarism?

See　also Hanami web

Happy New Year!

2007-12-31T13:23:00.000-08:00

Cute Japanese rocker kids

2007-12-26T08:47:00.000-08:00

Japan sugoi

Akiba　Christmas

2007-12-23T19:05:00.000-08:00

　Instead Maid cafe, Akiba has created "sister cafe"
Sakei

Machimura' and UFOs

2007-12-18T21:30:00.000-08:00

#

A senior Japanese government official has said that he believed in UFOs. “Personally, I absolutely believe they exist,” said Nobutaka Machimura, the chief cabinet secretary.

He added there was no other explanation for how the Nazca Lines were drawn in the Peruvian desert.

Mr Machimura’s comments followed a government rebuttal that it had official knowledge of UFOs.

“The government has not confirmed the existence of ’unidentified flying objects believed to have flown from outside the Earth’,” it said in response to a question from an opposition politician.

Questioned later on the issue, the prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, stuck to the official line. “I have yet to confirm (that UFOs exist),” he replied. telegrhaph

I like this kind of comment.

2channel kids have won

2007-12-13T08:05:00.000-08:00

......We selected 20 of the best submissions and after a week-long online poll the sunglasses-dragon has emerged as the overwhelming favourite, with 55 per cent of the vote......The Norwegian designer, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he intended the flag to represent the union of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in a modern, cool light.

The dragon itself was inspired by a Japanese anime television series.....Telegraph

天元突破グレンラガン

イギリスの高級紙「Telegraph」(テレグラフ)が新しい英国国旗のデザイン案を募集し、人気投票を行った結果、「2ちゃんねる」発信の作品が2位を獲得した、と同紙の電子版が2007年12月12日付けで報じた。作品は、日本アニメの主人公がドラゴンに乗り、ユニオンジャックを持っている、というもの。ちなみに、1位も日本のアニメーションから影響を受けた作品だった。

■ドラゴンの背にアニメの主人公が乗りユニオンジャックを持っている

　「テレグラフ」が英国国旗のデザイン案を募集した背景は、同国の一部の閣僚や議員から、英国旗ユニオン・ジャックにウェールズ旗の赤いドラゴン「ウェルシュ・ドラゴン」が描かれていないという強い抗議が出たため。それならばどんなデザインがいいのか、として一般公募した。

　日本では「2 ちゃん」にスレが立って、思い思いのデザインをアップ。「テレグラフ」は「日本が『英国国旗問題』を解決する、と動いている」と「2ちゃん」にアップされた新英国国旗デザインやカキコミを紹介。そんなこんなで「2ちゃん」から多くの作品が応募されてきたそうなのだ。

　新国旗デザインの選考で、最終20作品が残り、07年12月5日からネットに公開。1週間にわたって人気投票が行われた。20作品の中には、明らかに日本のアニメ、キャラクターを使ったものが数点含まれていて、例えば、アニメ「苺ましまろ」の英国人キャラクター「アナ・コッポラ」が描かれていたり、歌うバーチャルアイドル「初音ミク」が持っているネギ、のようなものがあった。そして投票結果では、「2ちゃん」から応募された作品が2位になった。

　この作品は、ドラゴンの背にアニメ「ゼロの使い魔」の主人公「ルイズ」が乗りユニオンジャックを持っている、というものだった。他国の国旗デザインの2位に選ばれたのはある意味、名誉なことだが、「2ちゃん」の反応は異なっていた。「1位も日本のアニメ」、というのだ。ちなみに1位のデザインは、ユニオンジャックの中央に、サングラスをかけたドラゴンの顔が描かれている。

　「2ちゃん」ではこんなカキコミが出ている。

　　「外人は一位の元ネタが分かってないのか」
　　「この(1位を取ったデザイナー)ノルウェー人は日本アニメオタなのかよ」

■1位も2位も日本のアニメじゃないか

　何かというと、サングラスをかけたようなドラゴンの顔が、日本のアニメ「天元突破グレンラガン」の「グレン団旗」のデザインとそっくりだというのだ。J-CASTニュースが「グレン団旗」と1位の作品を比べてみると、本当に似ていることが分った。
yahooheadline魚拓

A radish that looks abashed

2007-12-11T16:29:00.000-08:00

　A radish that looks like a man and a woman.
A radish that looks like a man is not uncommon, said the farmer, but it is the first
time to see a radish that look like a woman. The farmer especially likes the way the female radish's legs look---it express the shyness, she said.

「曲線に恥じらい」　男女の形した大根評判に　秋田

2007年12月12日03時17分

　秋田県北秋田市の会社員佐藤梅子さん（５３）が、人間の男女のような形の大根２本を自宅そばの畑から収穫した。２本はすぐ近くで見つかった。「夫婦大根がある」と近所で評判になり、地域のお祭りにも展示された。「縁起がいい」などと人々が手を触れて帰ったという。

　７０年以上農業をする義母のヨシヱさん（８２）も、男性の形の大根はよく見かけるが、女性の形は初めてという。「脚の曲線に恥じらいがあっていい」とお気に入りの様子だった。

Asahi

Another aspect of Japan's invasion to Manshuria

2007-12-08T20:47:00.000-08:00

Manchuria

apan’s security policy until recently has been similar to that she followed after the grand bargains struck at the Washington Conference of 1921-22, in which China came to the international table for the first time as a full equal and saw her territorial grievances, notably in Shandong, remedied, the presumption being that she had now become a fully-fledged and responsible international player, while at the same time Japan was forced to abandon her bilateral alliance with Britain, in return for promises of consultation among the Powers should conflict emerge, and multilateral security (i.e. everyone agrees to protect everyone else) in place of the tangible tie to London. Japan then planned for peace guaranteed by a concert of Asia.

Of course things did not work out as planned: within ten years of the end of the Conference (to this date still the most comprehensive and thorough attempt to deal with Asian issues) Japanese troops had occupied Manchuria and were menacing China. The outbreak of the full Pacific War, ended only with nuclear weapons, was only five years away.

Something had gone terribly wrong; something that should be noted very well today. Some historians have argued that blame for Japan’s new aggressive policies was to be found in internal developments: hunger, economic down turn, autocracy, eventually the Japanese version of fascism—an argument that, whatever its merits for explaining the 1920s and 1930s is clearly irrelevant to the solidly constitutional Japan of today. So perhaps we should listen to other historians, less well known than those who concentrate on Japanese domestic history, stressing instead a series of completely unexpected developments in the region that even the most liberal Japanese leaders saw as threatening to their country’s security.

Most important of these was a strong but erratically guided rise of Chinese power that saw that country’s government, goading and reacting to the resentments of her people, flout many of the undertakings she had made at Washington. Almost simultaneously came political splits and then civil wars in a China that at the time of the Conference had seemed politically stable and set on a course of peaceful economic development. These wars threatened continental interests that Tokyo considered vital, and when the allies who had promised at Washington to consult on such threats and act to protect legitimate interests failed to do so, Japan attempted to do so herself—in a catastrophic way that saw both democracy and millions of Japanese people perish.Japan Emerges

by Arthur Waldron, Ph.D
Published on March 31st, 2005
LOOKING FORWARD

一般的に、満州事変は関東軍（特に石原莞爾）にその責任が求められるが、本書に収録されているメモランダムの著者マクマリーは「日本をそのような行動に駆り立てた動機をよく理解するならば、その大部分は、中国の国民党政府が仕掛けた結果であり、事実上中国が＜自ら求めた＞災いだと、我々は解釈しなければならない」（180頁）としている。すなわち、「列強諸国の文字通り真摯で誠実な努力―各国が中国と協力して不平等条約の状態を解消させ、ワシントン会議の精神に具体的な成果を与えようとする努力―を挫折させてしまったのは、ほかならぬ中国自身であった」（112頁）とし、ワシントン体制の崩壊の原因を中国の姿勢―国際法を全く遵守しようとしない姿勢―に求めている平和はいかに失われたか―大戦前の米中日関係もう一つの選択肢 (単行本)
ジョン・ヴァン・アントワープマクマリー (著), アーサーウォルドロン (著), John Van Antwerp MacMurray (原著),

Japan to take steps to regulate the Internet

2007-12-06T10:27:00.000-08:00

The government is set to regulate the Internet by integrating current laws concerning information, telecommunications and broadcasting, it was announced on Thursday.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications unveiled its plan to submit a bill to the regular Diet session in 2010 aimed at unifying the Telecommunications Business Law, the Broadcast Law and other relevant laws.

The move is aimed at paving the way for the government to regulate the contents on the Net, which has enormous influence on society.

The new legal measures could also affect the distribution of newspaper articles on the Internet.

Cut it out. JG has no power to regulate the content on the Net. It is against the Constitution.

Korea: war time Propaganda movie

2007-11-27T23:58:00.000-08:00

Gusts Of Popular Feeling
It was an interesting post. You might want to take a look at it.
And also interesing was the comments.

n the final shot of the film, Bun-ok’s face is just as mysterious. Again, she’s neither happy nor sad, though perhaps the beginning of a smile can be discerned. Is this failure to cheer of bemoan his departure an example of sullen resistance to the Japanese propaganda effort (and censorship)? Or does it reflect a time when people were less likely to show emotion in public?

Iguess the blogger is young. Or may he is projecting his hope that Koreans did resist into the woman's face. My reading is that the woman had a mixed feelings: she'll miss the man, but she cannot express it at the time. That all happened to Japanese women at the time.

Whatever might explain the above shot, this shot is worth looking at:
The Japanese character (the one who told Choon-ho about the opening of the military to Korean volunteers) would likely be termed a caricature of a Japanese person today, except that this film was made at the height of the Japanese military control over every aspect of society in the Japanese empire. What the censors missed was this: in the final shot showing the Japanese character, he’s standing next to the crafty Kim Deok-sam and his sons, who were so clearly identified as the ‘bad guys’. Perhaps, in 1941, that was as much resistance as anyone could hope for.

Here again probably the blogger is reading too much.

The films are all so full of aspects and nuances that are fascinating from a historical perspecitve. For instance, did you notice that all the characters have Korean names. Except for a few in HOMELESS ANGELS who have Western names (Baptized names, I guess). Whatever happened to the Japanese forcing Koreans to change their names?

Right . What happened to the Japanese forcing Koreans to change their names?

Protest with hatredーーーDebito san's tactics revealed ---Japan ura file

2007-11-23T18:27:00.000-08:00

Let me make myself clear on this issue. I think that the inconvenience should be cleared for the finger printing system. I don't want to wait for hours to enter Japan, or the U.S. In particular, I don't think there is a need to fingerprint every time people enter the country:if you record once, that'll be sufficient. I reserve the judgment whether the system per se is justified or not:I want to examine pros and cons more carefully.
And I think Gaijin has every right to protest against this system:it helps Japanese to understand the issue, and it helps JG to improve the system.
Now here is Mr.Arudou Debito's way to protest against the finger printing system.
Debito.org cashe

I am receiving links to angry diatribes on the Fingerprint policy in the Blogosphere. Two that leave a lasting impression:

And here is the one that is problematic.

Oppose Japan’s bid for The Olympics
http://nofj16.googlepages.com/home

cashe
Now I happen to be opposed to Japan's bid for The Olympics.
But just look at the site.
To me it is just a site filled with hatred, lies, half-truth.

"DON'T!"

Don't visit Japan.

Don't do business in Japan.

Japan is a fascist police state, intent on ethnic cleansing & racial purity.

Your crime is being a foreigner!

Welcome to the land of Government sponsored xenophobia!

Meet Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara......Let's meet his personal friends!

These are his extreme right wing neo-nazi supporters longing for a return to the glorious days of the Japanese Imperial Army.

I don't approve ishihara's remarks on Gijin, but the statement above will constitute the crime of libel.

Japan is the sick man of Asia now

Any favour you want, from having a railway stop put in near your house, to having laws passed in the Diet, to having your political opponent eliminated, is available for a price.

D: Dango (Public Works Bid-Rigging) Corrupt politicians get 3% of the bid price as a favour for rigging the bid. Dirty business indeed!

E: Education (Failed System) The Ministry of Institutionalized Incompetence. Students learn "how to be Japanese" at school. That's all! Obedience, marching and conformity!

F: Fuji-san (The World's Biggest Toilet) 900,000 People a day climb Mt. Fuji in July and August. There are no chemical toilets, so all the effluent stays on the mountain surface. Someone who fell last year got tetanus from a scrape on the ice.

G: Gaijin (Foreigners: NOT Japan's Main Problem) Whenever there has been a crime committed the racists shout "foreigners!" The jails are 99% full of Japanese, many on death row for mass-murder. Foreigners are NOT the problem!

H: Health Care (System In Trouble) 55% of the population is over 65 years of age. Hospitals are closing down daily. Doctors move overseas for better working conditions. Drug companies push snake oil medicines. Government is "studying the problem!"

I: Ijime (Bullying At All Levels Of Society) Overseas bullies are punished. Here the bullied are the bad guys. many children commit suicide because of being bullied. Company workers are also bullied by their superiors

M: Money Politics (Government-Wide Corruption) Cash is preferred, as it can't be traced. At least in China they get a bullet behind the ear. In Japan they get promoted.

P: Pornography (All Day Every Day Everywhere) Modesty is given lip-service here by little fuzzied out parts on porn pictures. But magazines depicting violent, S & M acts, shown done to children are sold everywhere, and are read on the trains and buses by salary-men and school children. And we wonder why we have horrible copy-cat crimes against children!

And Debito san was impressed.

You can read on and judge on yourself. But I'll tell you, as far as I know, they are half-truth and mostly lies and filled with hatred. Notice that Debito san knows it.

Asked if these are true statements, Debito san's answer is

NOW TRY TO EMPATHIZE WITH THE NJ FOR A CHANGE–DON’T FALL INTO THE VICTIM COMPLEX ALL OVER AGAIN.

Asked if this is justified,

SOMETIMES I REALLY MISS THE FACT THAT THERE IS A DEARTH OF IRONY IN THIS SOCIETY.

What do you think?

To me, it is just as bad as gaijin Ura　file. Debito san used to accuse.
Why the hell he picked up this site which protests against the bid for The Olympics
with lies and half truth and hatred in order to protest against the fingerprinting system is a mystery.
Anyway, gaijin-san, sorry, next time you hear unfounded accusations about gaijin, complain it to Debito-san and he'll tell you----if he is logical, that is,--- " NOW TRY TO EMPATHIZE WITH THE Japanaese FOR A CHANGE–DON’T FALL INTO THE VICTIM COMPLEX ALL OVER AGAIN, DON'T YOU MISS THE FACT THAT THERE IS A DEARTH OF IRONY IN THIS WORLD？."

If he indirectly approves the fabrications to counter unfounded accusation, who will believe his posts?
If he indirectly approves hate-speech to let people empathize with the vicitms, how can he blame somebody who uses hate-speech to gaijin and Debito-san himself.

It is really regrettable, because his basic message was right, and it will make people sad that it seems, ,he is being possessed by the dark force.

...............................................................................
この件に関して有用な情報がございましたらメールでも結構ですのでお知らせください。

Comfort women; Still another evidences to show Japanese police regulated illgal agent for the comfort women

2007-11-18T04:18:00.001-08:00

The followings are the newspaper articles at the time that says the local agents abducted Korean women to sell them to the private brothels and the comfort stations for the military men and Japanese police regulated the illegal agents.
via 杉野洋明極東亜細亜研究所　

（1939,3.9「東亜日報」

most Americans do not understand how sensitive the abduction issue is in Japan

2007-11-16T22:12:00.000-08:00

Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo, says most Americans do not understand how sensitive the abduction issue is in Japan.

Washington's decision not to sell the advanced F-22 aircraft to Japan is highlighted by some as evidence that the US does not "trust" Tokyo.

Others suggest that US efforts to enlist China to "co-manage" Asia with the Japanese has upset those in Tokyo who fear that they are being taken for granted.

"We have politicians who cannot resist grovelling when they meet up with their American partners and I think Japanese people are starting to be irritated," she says.

"It is not that they have anything against the Americans as such," she says. "I think what the Japanese want to see is a more intelligent set of people willing to speak their minds towards their best friends in the world." BBC

BBC has a good point , which it seldom does.

China's ambition

2007-11-13T21:34:00.000-08:00

Chinese sub pops up in middle of U.S. Navy exercise, leaving military chiefs red-faced
By MATTHEW HICKLEY - More by this author » Last updated at 00:13am on 10th November 2007

He said: "It was certainly a wake-up call for the Americans.

Mr. Jenkin sells Sado rice.

2007-11-10T20:26:00.000-08:00

U.S. Army deserter Charles Jenkins, right, shakes hands with a girl as he joined a sales event in Tokyo on Friday for rice from his Japanese wife Hitomi Soga's hometown Sado island, Friday, Nov. 9, 2007. Jenkins, who spent nearly 40 years in the North after fleeing his Army unit in 1965, served a month in jail after arriving in Japan from North Korea in 2004. (AP Photo/Kyodo News)

Keep　itup, Mr.Jenkin.I'll support you!!

The biggest fan of Japanese perverted culture.

2007-11-10T04:31:00.000-08:00

We will welcome the fan of Japanese culture.
Marmot hole
This Korean American gentleman seems to be an expert on Japanese pervert culture.
I would like him to tell us what Japanese equivalent of the full salon is.

Update;This blog is honored to be mentioned in The Marmot's hall.

Room Salon, Sexy Bar, Racing Girls, AV Girl, Dae Dal Bang, Yu Ri Bang, I these English words that don’t exist in the English world, but exist in Japan and Korea only…connect the dots

This Korean American expert on Japanese pervert culture says he knows the Japanese equivalents of those term mentioned above .
Now I would like to ask Japanese people if you know them.
Room Salon?　ルームサロン????
ソウルでルームサロンといえば、韓国人も時々行きますが
　　　値段が高くて一般の方はほとんど行けません。

　　　　カラオケのルーム（個室カラオケ）とあまり変化はありませんが
　　　もっと広くてきれいな造りでゴージャスな雰囲気を持っていて
　　　韓国女性が侍っているところです

Room Salon is where Korean people visit, but average people cannot go because it is too expensive. It is similar to Karaoke room but it is bigger and beautiful and the atmosphere is gorgeous;Korea women are waiting for you.

Sexy bar セクシーバー?
「セクシーバー」とは、アメリカのストリッパーなんかが、つかまったり脚を絡めたりしてるあのポールだ。
Sex bar is a poll that a stripper wind her legs in American movies.

Racing Girls .....レースクイーン（race queen)?

AV Girl.....AV女優（AV　actress)?

Anyway I am sure he must be an expert on the subject in Korea and American culture, and I am also sure, judging from his earnestness on the subject, he will get more accurate knowledge of Japanese pervert culture. Welcome to Japan!

Teachers of NOVA needs help

2007-11-02T02:49:00.000-07:00

The union said in Tokyo that it has also started accepting donations to help Nova teachers who find themselves destitute and face being evicted from their homes, said Bob Tench, president of the Nova branch of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu.

"Why are we doing this? People have no money . . . they have no food," Tench told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. "This is a crisis that is rapidly turning into a tragedy."
JT

Let's do what we can do and pay attention to the next notice they'll make.

The decline of American Empire

2007-10-29T17:48:00.000-07:00

The embassy had paid the Japanese government an annual 2.5 million yen ($21,897) for the 13,000-square-meter plot in the Akasaka district of Minato Ward in the central part of the capital.

But in 1998, the Japanese government proposed to gradually raise the rent to around 10 times that level.

Washington strongly objected, and has since refused to pay anything. Asahi cashe

Sir, I know a friend who has a cheaper building for rent. Are you interested in that?

Don't worry JSDF has Gundam.

2007-10-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

Toward the realizaion of Gundam (研究発表会プログラム(PDF)】)

Not only that, Japan hast kinetic missile
system.

via
JGNN
面白きこともなき政治を面白く

S. Korea to apologize to Japan for Kim Dae Jung abduction

2007-10-27T18:20:00.000-07:00

(Kyodo)

A team play with the U.S.

2007-10-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

As for Mr. Ozawa, if Americans would listen carefully to his arguments, they would find that he seeks to expand, not contract, Japan's global security role.

csmonitor com
I think he is quite right about Ozawa

Nationalism is China's new ideology

2007-10-26T06:25:00.000-07:00

On the practical level, western countries have to decide how hard a line to take when China threatens Taiwan, or Russia squeezes Georgia. How much of a fuss should we make about human rights?

It is too soon to answer these questions definitively. China and Russia once again pose an ideological challenge to the west. But authoritarian nationalism, backed by massive foreign reserves, may turn out to be simply a phase on the long march to liberal democracy. Or it may turn out to be something more durable – and Orwellian.FT

今日の覚え書き、集めてみました。

Looks happy.

2007-10-25T09:08:00.000-07:00

Lingerie maker Triumph International Japan's new promotional girl Yuko Ishida enters a news conference as reporters look on in Tokyo October 25, 2007. Ishida will take part in various events to promote the lingerie maker until October 2008. REUTERS

Japanese comfort women

2007-10-24T01:48:00.000-07:00

Fucked Gaijin

"Do you need a moose?" A moose* was a kept girl. Not a street whore, but one who was maintained by a soldier and (supposedly) slept with only him. There were advantages to such a set up. I said, having been several months without female companionship, "Yes, I do." He said that his moose had a girlfriend who needed a Sergeant, and would I like to go meet her that night. I told him that I didn't have a uniform, that what I was wearing was all I had to the world, and he said he would get me a uniform. So less than 24 hours out of Korea, I was in the arms of a pretty Japanese girl, and sipping on Asahi beer. I thought, life ain't all bad. I didn't stay with her long, though, because I was more of a rogue than I was a steady man...
link

Do you say that is different from comfort women?

Do you remember the former Korean comfort women who fell in love with Kamikaze pilot?
Hey, what is the difference?

Japan used the local agents to recruit the women. In Korea most of the agents were Koreans.
The U.S used the local agents to recruit the women. In Japan the agents were Japanese .
Did the US order Japan to recruit the women. Hell, no. She blackmailed Japan to do so.

Japanese festival in Korea

2007-10-20T18:20:00.000-07:00

Speaking of a example that a cooporation between Japan and Korea is greater than it appears, here is a new
article that introduce the Japanese and Korean festival in Souel, Korea.

A　Filipino comfort woman's lonely protest

2007-10-19T08:06:00.000-07:00

When she got to the club, she learned that it was a place of prostitution for GIs. She would even have to service Koreans looking for “2-cha” (i.e., sex). After about a month, she left the club, and drifted from job to job, including a stint at a food product factory, before meeting the GI. The two would live together, and she would have his son.

The soldier would get a US passport for his son, but in the meantime, he left the mother for another Filipina.Hankyore

via Marmot

Explaining her case, she said she wants to make US soldiers realize that they mustn’t have sex with women and leave them without fulfilling their duties. She wants to do this, she said, because many US soldiers are doing just that.

So far, no human right activists who worked for the Korean comfort women under Japanese rule demand apology from the U.S. and Korean governments.

Mr. Robert Koehler, the writer/translater of this article , who vehemently criticised Japan for the similar case during WWⅡ, has made no comment on it so far.
This is a story from Korea.

Impressive video on Chinese people in Japan

2007-10-19T04:39:00.001-07:00

Oniazuma

Comfort women for UN soldiers.

2007-10-18T02:57:00.000-07:00

The UN army registered Korean comfort women.

The UN army had 800 Korean comfort women take a lecture on "culture" and VD.

via 杉野洋明【極東亜細亜研究所　　　　　　　　～韓国企業での勤務経験を持つ著者の呟き～

Korea blocked a Korean Japanese from entering Korea

2007-10-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

O Seonhwa, a Korean Japanese, was temporarily blocked from entering Korea at the airport. She was rejected because she was pro-Japanese. She was visiting the funeral for her mother.

cashe

China banned sexually provocative sounds or tantalizing language

2007-09-27T01:07:00.000-07:00

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has banned "sexually provocative sounds" on television and pulled the plug on a show reconstructing infamous crimes by women ahead of a major Communist Party meeting next month.

"Commercials containing sexually provocative sounds or tantalizing language as well as vulgar advertisements for breast enhancement and female underwear are banned, effective immediately," said the SARFT notice.
The watchdog also ordered an end to programs with titles including the names of "sex-related drugs, products or medical institutions."Reuter cash

What is the tantalizing language in Chinese letter? 欲欲？

［北京　２６日　ロイター］　中国の国家ラジオ・映画・テレビ総局（ＳＡＲＦＴ）は２６日、５年に１度の共産党党大会の開催を来月に控え、「性的に挑発的な音」のテレビ放送を禁止した。また女性が犯人の破廉恥な犯罪についての再現番組を打ち切った。　　

　ＳＡＲＦＴはウェブサイトで「性的なものを連想させる広告やシーン、女性がいかに犯罪に手を染めるかを見せることは、社会にとって有害である」と指摘。犯罪ドキュメンタリー番組「Red Question Mark」の打ち切りに言及した。

　また、性的に挑発的な音や、欲求をかき立てるような言葉を含むコマーシャル、豊胸治療や女性の下着などについての低俗な広告も即時禁止すると発表した。link

Korean ultar-nationalist organization VANK is pissed off by kimchi insulting youtube

2007-09-26T17:25:00.000-07:00

Naver(Korean)

If you want to look at the videos in question, here they are.

Of Kimchi and Tapestries (English)

South Korean food culture.(Japanase)

UPDATE

Marmot and Foreign dispatches picked up the vide. Look at the commment section of Maromot.See how exciting to live in Korea?

(ソウル=聨合ニュース)世界最大動画シェアリングサイトであるYoutube(www.youtube.com)
にキムチを侮辱する内容の映像が広がって問題になっている。

26日サイバー外交使節団バンクによればYoutubeで検索語「キムチ(kimchi)」を入力した後、
一番多く見られた動画のヒット数(再生回数・ViewCount)をクリックすれば「Of Kimchi
and Tapestries)」というタイトルの動画が出る。

この動画は日本に住んでいるアメリカ女性が、日本を説明しながらキムチに対して否定的
に世界の人たちに紹介する内容だ。動画では「日本に住む韓国人たちは、キムチを食べる
けど、私はキムチが嫌い。臭いがひどくて気分が悪くなる、臭いを嗅いだら拷問を受けて
るようだ」(01:24-01:40分)という侮辱発言がつながる。

この映像は2007年8月21日登録され、一月後の現在、ヒット数が13万6千351件に達して'キ
ムチ'関連ヒット数1位に登録されている。またYoutubeに上げられている動画の中で、「韓
国、腐った材料で食べ物を製造」も韓国の食品文化を侮辱している。

この映像は2004年、韓国のごみ餃子騒動を報道した日本の放送ニュースを編集したものだ。
この動画はYoutubeで'Korean food'で検索する場合、もっぱら下の方に載っており、ヒッ
ト数も2007年8月14日の登録後、2千90件を超えた。

検索エンジン会社であるGoogleの運営するYoutubeは利用者が作るコンテンツという意味の
新造語'UCC'を作り上げたほど、Web2.0時代の先頭走者に数えられている。朴起台（パク・
キテ）バンク団長は「全世界の人の生活に莫大な影響力を及ぼす代表的なUCCに、韓国の食
べ物文化が奇形的に広報されている。拒否感を与える映像より親しくて好感のある映像を
製作して積極的に広報する必要がある。」と述べた

Fukuda has something to learn from Merkel

2007-09-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

herald tribune
Cashe Tribune via 今日の覚え書き集めてみました

Spiegel Online [September 18, 2007]
by Andreas Lorenz in Beijing

His Holiness the Dalai LamaAngela Merkel has invited the Dalai Lama to engage in a “private exchange of thoughts” at the Chancellery. The Chinese authorities are not pleased and German businessmen are worried too.
Tibetblog

The situation is the same here in Japan. Japanese businessmen are worried not tojeopardizes Japan business interests but not worried about human rights.

Xenophobia? Foreigners 'commit fifth of crime.......in London, reports Telegraph

2007-09-23T01:41:00.000-07:00

More than one crime in five in London is now committed by a foreign national, raising fresh fears over the impact of immigration.
Telegraph：23/09/2007
cashe

I guess Debito has something to say about it.

via 今日の覚書、集めてみました。

U.S. embassy instigates hate-Korea wave among Japanese?

2007-09-21T01:44:00.000-07:00

Update
A commenter kindly told me that she was not a fervernt supporter of DPJ. She was just thought by many to be a supporter of DPJ. She herself thinks she supports social democratic party.

そんなワケで、未だに、あたしのことを「民主党の関係者」だとか言ってる大バカもいるみたいだけど、これほど何度も何度も何度も何度も「あたしはオムライス党を支持してる」って書き続けて来て、みずほたんとのメールの内容まで公開してるってのに、どこをどうしたら、あたしが「民主党の関係者」ってことになるんだろう？link

And the comment reads,

She supports Socialist Party.
This makes you look like a real fool.

Thank you (^_-) I have corrected it. How do I look now? (^_-)

[The original post]

The one of the most popular Japanese blogger,Kikko's blog reports that U.S. embassy instigates the hate-Korea wave among Japanese by rewriting the article about Korean history;IP identified as U.S. embassy deleted the title "Korean history" and wrote that Korea has no history it has been a client state of China or Japan or barbarian states.

Supposing that U.S embassy wrote that, I don't understand the logic why it means U.S. embassy is instigating the hate-Korea consciousness among Japanese.
BTW. Kikko is a fervent supporter of DPJ.

Aceface' insigt on foreign journalists

2007-09-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

If I had to do a report on defense policy of the U.S,I probably would not to go to Noam Chomsky or Michigan Militias to ask them what they think threatens America’Microsoft,Black choppers from UN).But when it comes to Japan,foreign people do just that,and they call themselves serious journalists,and mouthfed public would accept that.Aceface/Ampontan

Well said.

Comfort women; How was it Korean parents sold their daughter

2007-09-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

　July 16 1934 Donga Daily
Korean girl of 11 years old asked for help, crying. She claimed that she was sold by
her adoptive father.
2 May 25 1939 Donga Dailly
The governenment prohibits adoption by Chinese in Korea to prevent human traficking.
3 March 23 1932 Donga Dailly
Korean former police man was arrested for kidnapping, working with the agent.

via 杉野洋明極東亜細亜研究所
杉野洋明極東亜細亜研究所

see also how a Korean woman became a comfort woman

why can't the U.S. say no to China?

2007-09-15T21:11:00.000-07:00

"As a leader in the community of democracies, why can't the U.S. say no to China?" he asked. "Why can't the U.S. openly say that you can't hold a gun pointing at the head of the 23 million people of Taiwan and use the other hand to choke Taiwan?"

It is simple. The U.S. has been playing the power game .

"For past decades, the U.S. has supported the people of Taiwan, but now our democracy is being locked in a birdcage,"

"I'm convinced that the United States would rather improve relations with North Korea than Taiwan," Chen said. "The U.S. also believes Kosovo will be independent eventually. If you support Kosovo, why can't you support or at least care about Taiwan? Are we that unworthy?"CNN cashe

Yes, people are watching how the U.S. acts toward the voice of deomocray and liberty from the world.
Keep it up, Taiwan!!

update

Speaking via video to an audience in New York, Chen Shui-bian said he believes the U.S. opposes the referendum because of China's opposition, intimidation and threat of military action.

Chen said the referendum is the best way to show the world that the majority of Taiwanese favor the island gaining a U.N. seat. While polls show three-quarters of people support U.N. membership, he said, opinion surveys cannot substitute "a formal democratic procedure."

(Xinhua

Korean soul seraching on education

2007-09-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

chosun.com(Korean)/cashereports that the rate of rape in Korea is twice as that in the U.S. and ten times as that in Japan. The report attributes the cause to the inappropriate education in Korea.

米FBIと日本の国立警察学校、我が国の最高検察庁が2000年から2005年まで5年間の10代青
少年強姦の発生推移を調査した資料によると、2000年には日本が人口10万人当たり2.1人、
アメリカが6.4人、韓国が7.3人の発生頻度を見せた。2002年には日本が1.7人、アメリカが
6.7人で似た水準だったが、韓国は14.5人に急増した。2005年には韓・米・日共に減少した
が、日本が1.1人、アメリカが6.0人の一方、韓国は11.5人で日本の10倍、アメリカの2倍を
越えることが明らかになった。

どうして我が国でばかり、強姦事件がたくさん発生するのだろう？これは、何より公開的
で持続的な教育の不足が原因である。まだ我々の社会は性の問題を歳月が経てば自然に分
かるようになる事で、公開的に討論するには不便な主題だと思っている。我が家庭と学校
では、学生の学業成績だけ最優先して単に‘気を付けなさい’と被害者の立場でばかり教
育が行われている。

同時に被害にあった人を被害者と見るのではなく、身体の障害を負ったかのように見る社
会の雰囲気のせいでもある。未熟な人間関係で、相手の心を正しく読めずに発生するセク
ハラと、個人はもちろん家庭や社会を病ませる性暴行の予防のためには、学校や職場で使
い捨ての特講を脱して、持続的な教育が行われなければならない。

少なくとも無知の招いた結果から、セクハラと性暴行を行う場合は、消えなければならな
い。そうするためには、人間尊重、人格尊重の文化、他人に迷惑をかけない礼節教育とと
もにセクハラ・性暴行に対する教育が家庭で、学校で、そして職場で討論され、教育され
なければならない

The next PM =Fukuda

2007-09-13T23:21:00.000-07:00

Fukuda is getting the largest support among LDP factions, and reading the following blogs, I have a strong feeling that he will win.
Okuma
Ban
Abiru

But he is extremely boring and the way he deal with politics is the old LDP way, and that will not get support from Japanese citizens. I don't think the next election will work in favor of LDP.

How the U.S. see Japan's role as an ally

2007-09-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

"Japans reliability as an ally" would also be questioned if the anti-terror law was not renewed, warned Michael Green and Kurt Campbell, Asian experts who had served in the Republican and Democratic administrations respectively.

The point is what will happen if it is not renewed.

But some experts believe the US-Japan alliance is rock solid and cannot be shaken by a single issue.

"Japan's retreating from a mission like that will be very unfortunate, sends a bad signal and certainly be a disappointment to the US but with continued engagement between the close allies, I think they will find a way to move ahead," said Nicholas Szechenyi of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"My sense is that Japan in the long run will continue to maintain its leadership role," he said.

Bruce Klingner, a Northeast Asian expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, cautioned against using Japan's military mission in Afghanistan as the sole benchmark to gauge bilateral ties.

"Although it certainly is an important test, I think if the US places too great an emphasis on it, given the DPJ's opposition, that overemphasis may hurt the relationship more than the legislation itself," he said.

"Washington needs to be cognizant of the new political paradigm in Japan and realize that securing a victory in renewing the legislation may come at a cost of straining relations with Japan," Klingner warned.

P. Parameswaran Thu Sep 13,

I am inclined to think that the U.S. consider Japan an essential ally in the East Asia.

South Korean strong candidate for the next President

2007-09-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

Lee Myung-bak　one of presidential candidate in South Korea says,

Japan hasn't done to amend the past as the economic giants should do.

Compared with German, I think Japan is　tight-fisted

I think South Korea can build an new relation with Japan if Japan shows the sincere attitude toward amending the past.nocutnews/Korean cashe

In a nutshell, for Japan, the next South Korean Presindent is as wonderful as the present President Roh.

viaThe truth of Asiaアジアの真実

李明博「日本、経済大国らしい歴史清算すべき」ノーカットニュース（韓国語）　

　李明博(イ・ミョンバク)ハンナラ党大統領候補は韓日過去清算問題と関わって「これまで韓国と日本の歴史清算において、経済大国らしい措置をしていないと思う。」と述べた。

　李明博候補は10日、ソウル新羅ホテルで開かれたJ-フォーラム基調演説に続いた日本側記者の質問に対して「日本は世界第二の経済大国で、そんな日本が極東アジアにあるという点は誇らしく思う」とこのように言った。

李候補は特に「ドイツが被害国家にしたことを見れば、日本は歴史清算問題においてちょっとけち臭くないか思う」「日本が過去の歴史を清算する真摯な姿勢を見せれば、次期政権は日本との新しい関係を開いて行くことができる」と強調した。

Hatoyama on foreing nationals

2007-09-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

“Cutting the number of illegal immigrants in half is also a goal for this administration. We must tighten up immigration management to achieve that,” he said, referring to the growing perception that more crimes are being committed by foreign nationals.

But he disagreed with some of Nagase’s proposals to open the market and accept manual laborers and unskilled workers.

“Considering Japan’s culture, I must question whether that is a good idea,” Hatoyama said. “This may not be the right thing to say, but that could provoke an increase in crimes by foreign nationals.”

via Debito
I have expressed an disagreement with Debito several times, but this time I agree.

I agree with Hatoyama that we need to create a brain drain into Japan with encouragement of skilled labor. But he’s barking up the wrong tree (as is the JT article’s claim of a “growing perception” of rising foreign crime, which is unsubstantiated and debatable given last season’s quietly-announced drop in NJ crime) when it comes to claiming that bringing in foreigners will result in more illegals and proportionally more crime. The historical record suggests the opposite.

I thought Hatoyama of LDP looked stupid compared with his elder brother of DPJ---his elder brother looks intelligent like E.T. I was right Hatoyama was stupid.

BTW Debito's newest post, to be exact, the comment to it, is interesting.

feitclub Says:
I have an opposite problem regarding my identity. I did go to Hebrew school and I had a Bar Mitzvah, but since I no longer practice I don’t identify myself as Jewish, much to the confusion of other people who insist I’m a Jew. I suppose I might be “culturally Jewish” if I had some idea of what that meant. Does that make my friends who grew up celebrating Christmas but not going to church “culturally Christian?” How does one separate the culture from the practice of a religion?

That’s one of things I love about Japan. No one seems to care about any religion one way or the other. Sometimes people ask me about how I celebrated Christmas in America and I explain that I didn’t, and the biggest reaction I might get is naruhodo. Meanwhile, I’ve had Americans look at me like I’m a monster when I tell them I don’t celebrate Christmas.

The three traits of Asahi

2007-09-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

I am not necessarily against Asahi shimbun, but I've found this author's perspective on Asahi's article intereting. He says there are three fundamental principles on which Asahi's articles are written.
They are, roughly,

The socially week is always right. Defend them no matter what.
Don't offend other countries (probably except for the U.S.) no matter how their claim is wrong.
Blame Japan every time you have a chance.

It is not exactly true, but can't say it is totally wrong.

Princess Masako

2007-09-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

It seems a controversial book,Princess Masako was translated into Japanese and published finally.
According to Ikeda, reading the book, there is nothing new, nothing controversial, nothing scandalous.
If you have to pick up somehow scandalous,

Masako's family was not happy with the marriage.
She is depressed disorder.
There is an alternative that she might leave the royal family.
Akishinomiya, the brother of the prince, had an affair with two women, and one woman pressed him to take the responsibility. That is his present wife.

But these are, as it were, an open secret.

Though Imperial Household Agency blames the book, saying there are mistakes in every page, in fact there was only one substantial mistake, the author claim the royal family are not concerned with a controversial event such as seeing the patient of Hansen's disease, which is false.

Ikeda attacks the Imperial Household Agency for the violation of Masako's human right; she is depressed because she has been "imprisoned" by the Imperial Agency, and still the people concerned are only worried about not losing face and an inheritor.

Asian excutives will be increasing in Japan

2007-09-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

Koube shiunbun/ 2007/09/09
The article says the reason is the population of Japanese are decreasing and that they are essential in the trade strategy abroad.

The necessary and important condition for them to be the would-be executive, of course, is that they can speak Japanese fluently.
It is great that Japanese companies begin to employ Asian people as a executive. I hope they will also bridge the cultural differences.

...............................................................................

　日本経済と密接な関連を保つアジアからの留学生を将来の幹部候補生として採用する企業が目立ち始めた。人口減の日本で確保しづらくなった技術者や、海外戦略に不可欠の人材を確保する狙いで、各国の“頭脳”を集め国際競争力を高める狙い。政府も留学生の採用増を国家戦略に位置づけており、兵庫県内の企業でも同僚や上司が外国人という職場が増えそうだ。（西井由比子）

　神戸大学（神戸市灘区）は二十九日、外国人留学生向けの就職説明会を初めて開く。「優秀な外国人を求める企業が増えている」と担当者。当日は情報技術（ＩＴ）、化学系企業など十社が集まる予定だ。

　神戸製鋼所系のシステム開発会社・コベルコシステム（神戸市中央区）もその一社。成長事業のＩＴだが、国内では開発技術者が不足気味。人件費が安い点も考慮して、同社は将来的にはアジア各国での開発も検討している。その際、本社との橋渡し役になる人材を確保する狙いだ。

　現在、中国や台湾から日本に来た社員が七人おり、最高位はプロジェクト支援部長を務める趙永健さん（４８）。「日本人と違い、問題点をはっきり指摘する。発想もちょっと違うし、いい刺激を受ける」と周囲の評価も高い。酒井哲夫社長は「世界レベルで競争するには、人材も世界レベルで確保する必要がある」と話す。

　二月に中国に進出した化粧品メーカー、ノエビア（神戸市中央区）も、神大の説明会に参加する。「今のうちに留学生に会社の概要を知ってもらい、将来の採用につなげたい」（国際管理部）という。

　採用の数値目標を掲げたのは家電首位の松下電器産業。二〇〇八年度から三年間で、計百人の外国人を幹部候補として採用する。三年間で海外売上高を１０％以上伸ばす計画で、「国籍に関係なく活躍できる組織風土であることを明確にするため」と同社広報グループ。

　　　　◇

　経済産業省と文部科学省は今年秋、国内企業にアジア留学生の採用を促す「アジア人財資金構想」を始める。

　全国で千人程度の留学生を対象に、各地の大学が企業と合同で日本語会話や日本の商習慣などを二年間教える。インターンシップも実施し、参加企業が採用の受け皿となる。近畿では京都大と立命館大が核となり、各十社・団体、七社・団体が参画する。

　さらに十月には、「初めて外国人の就業促進を明文化した」（厚生労働省）改正雇用対策法が施行される。

　日本で就職する留学生は増え続けている。法務省の調べでは、二〇〇六年に就職目的で在留資格を変更した留学生は八千二百七十二人と、前年比４０・７％の増加。十年前の三倍に増えている。

　経済産業省の「アジア人財資金構想」担当者は、「日本の人口が減れば国内需要が落ち込み、企業の海外進出は不可欠。加えて、優秀な人材は地球規模で移動する時代だけに、もっと留学生を採用しないと世界競争から取り残される」と力説する。

　　　　◇

　コベルコシステムは近く中国人留学生三人、韓国人留学生一人に内定を出す。外国人採用は今後も拡大する方針だが、重要な条件は「日本語ができる」ことだ。

　英語を操れる社員が豊富な企業は一握りだけ。国際化を急ぐ企業にアジア留学生が人気なのは、日本企業の海外現地法人がアジアに多いのに加え、日本語を使える人の比率が高い点も要因と言えそうだ。

Multipolarization

2007-09-08T17:09:00.000-07:00

People often talk about multipolarization and endorce the similar concept.
What is the multipolarization? Googling it, we find

multipolarization is the contemporary phenomenon that various regional arrangements take shape and interact with one another. The days are gone when a couple f mighty powers decided the destiny of the rest of the world. link

The analyst Tanaka claims,

The United States' power is declining militarily, diplomatically, and economically. It is predicted that the international system will be established in which the countries such as China, Russia, and India will be key players, resulting in multipolarization. .....The multipolarization is necessary for the world to keep
developing:It is necessary to replace the existing system in which the United States subordinate Europe and Japan.

アメリカは軍事的、外交的、経済的に衰退する傾向にあり、アメリカに代わって中国、ロシア、インドなどが台頭する国際体制の「多極化」が進むと予測される。....先進国以外の国々の経済成長を誘発するには、アメリカが欧日を従えて形成している従来のアメリカ中心の体制を壊し、世界を多極化する必要があるlink

masa_the_man agrees that the multipolarization will take place in the domain of economic and politics, For instance 6-way talks with North Korea is the case in point.But he argues that the multipolarization is buck passing in disguise and in view of military, the US dominance will continue.
I find Masa's argument more convincing:The US needs to back up economic stability (the free market and the stability of dollar as a key currency etc.) with its strong military and she will not allow the regional hegemony.

The multipolarization is all right:for instance, Japan should welcome China's economic rise. But the we should not disregard the fact Masa pointed out; The US primacy in military will continue. Besides, Japan needs to keep saying to China that Japan upholds the liberal democracy in which an individual right has priority and that we can not support the policy of whatever country that will violate the individual rights.How and how much we use the political power to influence China's oppressing policy is another story, though.

..................................................................................
references
Back to the Future/Mearshimer
バックパッシングの応用Masathe man
米軍撤退論Masatheman
多極世界と門戸開放
Asia's future seen in Sydney/observing Japan

Finally---the end of Korean war?

2007-09-07T09:20:00.002-07:00

the two leaders agreed that depending on the progress made in North Koreas nuclear disablement, the idea of signing a peace treaty between the two Koreas could be considered.

Chosun Ilbo
Actually some analysists have predicted it.
Tanaka
Edajima
Edajima

I am not convinced of Tanaka's argument, but North Korea as a pivotal point in relation to China and Iran in the U.S. strategy is an interesting and persuasive perspective.

Sato

update

Bush's talks with Roh focused on the six-nation negotiations to get North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions. Soon after the mini diplomatic incident, Christopher Hill, the U.S. envoy handling the talks with Pyongyang, announced that nuclear experts from the U.S., China and Russia will travel to North Korea next week to survey nuclear facilities due to be shut down.

Bush said that during his talks with Roh, he reaffirmed the U.S. position that Washington will consider the war formally over only when North Korean leader Kim Jong Il actually dismantles his nuclear program.

Whatever Roh heard Bush say through his translator, it wasn't good enough.

``I think I did not hear President Bush mention the - a declaration to end the Korean War just now,'' Roh said as cameras clicked and television cameras rolled.

Bush said he thought he was being clear, but obliged Roh and restated the U.S. position.

That wasn't good enough either. ``If you could be a little bit clearer in your message,'' Roh said.

Bush, now looking irritated, replied: ``I can't make it any more clear, Mr. President. We look forward to the day when we can end the Korean War. That will end - will happen when Kim verifiably gets rid of his weapons programs and his weapons.''

The White House immediately downplayed the testy exchange and said the meeting went smoothly.

``There was clearly something lost in translation,'' National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a rushed e-mail to reporters.

``I really think the interpreter must not have conveyed the president's comments entirely clearly,'' Johndroe said. ``The president made clear in his opening remarks that he told Roh that the U.S. is committed to a peace agreement once North Korea complies.''

The photo-op began with the usual diplomatic pleasantries.

Bush said he and Roh had a ``friendly and frank'' discussion. He thanked South Korea for providing support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and spoke optimistically about negotiations that the United States, South Korea, Russia, China and Japan are having to pressure the communist regime in Pyongyang to end its nuclear programs.

The president noted Roh's upcoming meeting with the communist leader and urged him to tell Kim that he needs to honor his agreements. link

Probably I was wrong. It was Roh who was willing to make the US to cut the deal and it seems Bush is ambvalent on this issue. It seems Korean media like even Chosun Ilbo welcomed it. Does that mean it was Roh's political show for domestic viewers?

ZERO

【日中歴史研究】南京

Korea's Historical Amnesia

Interview with Enola Gay crew member

Comfort Women in LA Times

Durham Stevens

China's internet 'spin doctors'

Jukdo; old and new

Fifty cents gang--China’s growing armies of Web commentators

Comfort women exploited by Korean men in In Mongolia

Internet censorship in China

Japanese Nationalism

Global Peace Index

comfort women Sexual enslavement by Nazi Germany in World War II

Economic background

The survey of hoteliers from around the world

Global Peace Index Rankings

Walt's take on the U.S. attacks on Japanese civilians during WWⅡ

Korean comfort women today

”Why I Left Greenpeace” By PATRICK MOORE

Chinese natinoalism outside China

Chinese strategy on history

A review of "THE JAPANESE POLICE SYSTEM TODAY:"

Who Are the World's Most Influential People?

Reviews of "Human Smoke"

Is Japanese love color blind?

Anger as Seoul aims to reclassify dogmeat

Tibet and West

comfort women Korean comfort women in increase

Donation to South Korean Namdaemun

Military Power of China

Comfort women 'Sex Slaves' Freed in Sydney

China’s Views of Sovereignty

Japan lost to Korea

The film"the most beautiful night in the world"

AFTER THE REICH

Japanese people have started donation for Korean national treasure, "Namdaemun

Let's play fair, China

Interview with Gerry On Sanin Ctyuou shinpou

Florida--Metal in Candy imported from China

How Japanese take pictures.

Finally arrested

Debito's article and Global Voices Online

Nanjing massacre and Korea

A girl from Norway in Japanese

Evil Japan---the videos from North Korea.

The Japanese are mixture of many races?

Japanese Robot walks like monkey

Culture of comfort women still alive in Korea

Hige change

Sony--- because caucasian is too damn tall

Japanese kids thinking up the solutions to troubles Gaijin are having.

Laws concerning pretection of the privacy

Some references to the equality clause.

The dignity of the Nation.

Happy New Year!

Cute Japanese rocker kids

Akiba Christmas

Machimura' and UFOs

2channel kids have won

A radish that looks abashed

Another aspect of Japan's invasion to Manshuria

Japan to take steps to regulate the Internet

Korea: war time Propaganda movie

Protest with hatredーーーDebito san's tactics revealed ---Japan ura file

Comfort women; Still another evidences to show Japanese police regulated illgal agent for the comfort women

most Americans do not understand how sensitive the abduction issue is in Japan

China's ambition

Mr. Jenkin sells Sado rice.

The biggest fan of Japanese perverted culture.

Teachers of NOVA needs help

The decline of American Empire

Don't worry JSDF has Gundam.

S. Korea to apologize to Japan for Kim Dae Jung abduction

A team play with the U.S.

Nationalism is China's new ideology

Looks happy.

Japanese comfort women

Japanese festival in Korea

A Filipino comfort woman's lonely protest

”Why I Left Greenpeace”　By PATRICK MOORE

Donation to South Korean　Namdaemun

Akiba　Christmas

A　Filipino comfort woman's lonely protest