Japan's Political Parties

I’ve been living in Japan long enough that I know almost all of these political parties.

I can even remember some of the faces behind them, one of whom was Ozawa Ichirō (小沢一郎). Ozawa left the Liberal Democratic Party in the early 93 to form the Japan Renewal Party (新生党, Shinshintō). It was dissolved in December of the following year and merged into the New Frontier Party (新進党, also pronounced Shinshintō, but with a different Chinese character in the middle). The second Shinshintō was created from the merger of like-minded, or rather like-ambitious, politicians from five different parties only to splinter three years later into the New Fraternity Party (新党友愛, Shintōyūai) and Liberal Party (自由党, Jiyūtō). Neither lasted very long and both would, I believe, merge into the Democratic Party of Japan (民主党, Minshutō), which came to power in 1998. Minshutō split into two other, now forgotten parties, plus the Democratic Party (民進党, Minshintō), which finally fizzled in 2018. Many of those former Democratic Party pols jumped ship, joining one of two emerging parties—the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (立憲民主党, Rikken Minshutō), which is now the largest opposition party, and the Democratic Party for the People (国民民主党, Kokumin Minshutō), which is currently in talks with the LDP to form a coalition government.

Phew.

Keio JR High School’s Entrance Exam

Are you smarter than a 6th grader?

An on-again, off-again student of mine recently entered Keio University. A Keiko U. High School student, he didn't have to take the entrance exam as all students are guaranteed a place at the prestigious university. As a result, he didn't really study that much in junior and senior high. He couldn't, for example, name any of Natsume Sōseki's novels when we talked about the author the other day.

He did, however, study his nuts off in elementary school. From the fourth grade to the sixth grade, he attended juku (cram school) seven days a week. He said, he would wake up early in the morning study for a few hours at home, then go to school where he played with friends. Immediately after school, he would run off to the juku to attend several hours of classes. Upon returning home in the evening, he would have dinner, take a bath, then resume studying until he conked out at midnight.

All the effort paid off--he got into Keio Jr High and was set for the rest of his life.

Pictured are some of the questions from Keio JH's entrance exam. For an adult, they are not that difficult. If you have a lot of different experiences and have read books and been curious, you can solve them. (I could, at least.) For a 12-year-old, however, they must be staggeringly difficult.

Shinburyo

Note: This is a very rough translation of a Wikipedia entry on Shinburyō (振武寮). I will try to clean the text up and add more information/links later.

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Shinburyo was a facility located within the Imperial Japanese Army's 6th Air Force Headquarters in what is now Chuo Ward, Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, and was said to have housed surviving kamikaze pilots until their next sortie. . It was established by requisitioning the dormitory of Fukuoka Girls' High School (currently Fukuoka Jogakuin Junior and Senior High School), which was located across the road from Fukuoka Girls' High School (currently Fukuoka Prefectural Fukuoka Chuo High School), where the military headquarters was located. After the war, the Fukuoka City Kyuden Memorial Gymnasium was built at the location, but it closed on March 31, 2019. It was managed by several air staff members from the headquarters of the 6th Air Force (commander was Lieutenant General Michihiro Sugawara), one of whom is said to be Major Kiyotada Kurasawa. Although it remained unknown for a long time after the war, its existence was revealed after the movie “Summer of Moonlight'' was shown in 1993.

There are also kamikaze members who went out as kamikaze members of the Shinbutai (the name of the special attack unit under the command of the 6th Air Force located in western Japan), but for some reason returned to their base without being able to attack, It is said to be a facility where special attack pilots who were unable to deploy for various reasons were kept until their next deployment. There are various factors, including external factors such as bad weather, engine trouble, equipment trouble, and attacks by enemy aircraft, as well as psychological fear of death and the fact that soldiers turn back because they expect a certain outcome and feel sorry for the death of a dog. There were even internal factors such as . . .. In particular, during Operation Tengo during the Battle of Okinawa, when the crew members who went on a kamikaze sortie did not attack and returned home, some of them were labeled as ``cowards who feared death'' or ``intentionally boarded the aircraft.'' They were accused of returning home with damaged equipment, and are said to have been subjected to discriminatory treatment.

Furthermore, the existence of similar facilities in the Imperial Navy Air Corps is not known. However, in the Imperial Army Air Corps, on November 7, 1944, which was the first sortie of the Army's air special attack unit, five modified special attack aircraft (and model number) of the Type 4 heavy bomber “Hiryu” of the “Futake Corps” were deployed. Four of the aircraft failed to engage the enemy and returned home, and the remaining four aircraft sortied the next day and all returned. Some of them were unable to engage the enemy from the very beginning of the kamikaze attack, and due to weather problems, a large percentage of the kamikaze aircraft returned. Recognizing this, for example, it was also used in the textbook “Togo Air Duty Essentials”, which was compiled by the Shimoshizu Flying Unit in May 1945 for the education of kamikaze pilots before the Battle of Okinawa. It was assumed that the kamikaze aircraft would return for unavoidable reasons, such as the specific procedures and guidelines for the return of kamikaze pilots. In addition, articles such as the Asahi Shimbun have also covered the returnees due to equipment failure, and there were no restrictions on reporting or concealment from the public.

According to the “Shinbutai Formation Table” prepared by the 6th Air Force, which was kept by Major Kurasawa, 605 of the 1,276 suicide bombers listed remained on standby or returned after sortieing. Of these, 9 in 21 Shinbutai, 5 in 22 Shinbutai, 6 in 30 Shinbutai, 4 in 38 Shinbutai, 7 in 65 Shinbutai, 5 in 67 Shinbutai, 2 in 76 Shinbutai, In the notes section of a total of 40 members, 1 in the 111th Shinbutai and 1 in the 112nd Shinbutai, there are entries that appear to be handwritten by General Staff Kurasawa “in Fukuoka” (however, there are entries about the Second Army Hospital in Fukuoka, etc.) It is said that this means that they were sent to the 6th Air Force headquarters, but Shinbu-ryo only existed for about a month and a half from May to June 1945, and the special attack personnel who were housed there were There were approximately 50 to 80 people [9] to 80 people, accounting for around 10% of the returned crew members.[10] The official records of the Imperial Army contain no mention of Shinbu-ryo.

There is no mention of this in the diary written by Lieutenant General Sugawara, commander of the 6th Air Force. It doesn't exist. The kamikaze soldiers were hidden in a room called the “sewing room” and “Omorikan”, an inn in front of Hakata Station that was used as a military inn for the kamikaze members who were on standby, but it was full, so they simply used the Fukuoka Jogakuin dormitory that had been taken over by the 6th Air Force, and were not forced to house them.” No. Major Hiroshi Kawamoto, who was on the staff of the 6th Air Force (and became the last mayor of Taniyama City, Kagoshima Prefecture after the war), also testified that there was a place in Fukuoka where kamikaze pilots with physical and mental disabilities could be given a “rest”. The leaders of the 6th Air Force either testified that they were not aware of the existence of “Shinburyo”' or denied it. On the other hand, some of the details have been revealed through the testimonies of the Kamikaze pilots who were detained.

However, the name “Shinburyo” refers to the air service quarters at Hofu Air Base in Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture (located near Mitajiri Station). It was revealed in the will written by Second Lieutenant Sai Hamada of the 179th Shinbutai to his parents that the 179th Shinbutai 2nd Lieutenant Sai Hamada had also called them “Shinbudyo”. It has been pointed out that “Shinbutai” was simply a general term for the dormitory where members of the “Shinbutai” stayed, and Kurasawa also said, “Since all Okinawa kamikaze troopers are Shinbutai, they (the kamikaze members) can do whatever they like. I think it was called Shinbu-ryo.”

Incidentally, there are scattered cases in various places where the military gave their own names to private inns such as “Kokuryo”, “Hakkoso”, and “Hiryoso” when renting private inns to accommodate aviation personnel. The name is not a special case. Reasons such as loss of aircraft (Personnel and equipment are supplied from the formation unit to the frontline units in the form of increased allocation, so it is difficult for junior officers and non-commissioned officers who lose the aircraft to procure replacement equipment on their own) The reason why the returning members headed to Fukuoka, where the headquarters was located, was that the Shinbutai units were under the direct control of the 6th Air Force headquarters (in terms of operational organization, they were directed to local flying units such as the 6th Squadron). It is necessary to look at this point from an unbiased perspective, as it is completely natural if it is considered as a quarters for airborne personnel attached to the Air Force.

Survival Japanese

Usui

Usui 雨水 Yǔshuǐ (19 February ~ 5 March)

According to the traditional Chinese calendar, which divides the year into 24 solar terms (jieqi, 節氣 in traditional Chinese; sekki, 節気, in Japanese), Usui (雨水, Yǔshuǐ in Chinese) is the second mini season of the year. Lasting from roughly February 19th to March 5th, Usui means “rain water”. It is the time when the first day of spring has passed and we begin preparing for the arrival of full-fledged spring. Falling snow becomes rain, and the snow and ice that have accumulated over the past several weeks melt and turn into water.

Kasumi 霞

The phenomenon in which distant objects appear blurry due to water vapor in the air and the faint cloud-like appearance that appears at this time is called kasumi, or “haze”.

Although similar to fog (霧, kiri), it is usually called kasumi in spring rather than kiri, which is the term usually reserved for the mist that occurs in autumn.

春なれや

名もなき山の

薄霞

Harunare ya

Namonaki yama no

Usugasumi

“Spring and the thin haze of a nameless mountain”

This is a haiku by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), the famous haiku poet from the early Edo period. Looking at the thin mist that hangs over the nameless mountain, you can see that spring is in the air.

The ethereal haze hanging over the foothills of mountains and lakes can sometimes appear otherworldly, magical.

Nekoyanagi 猫柳

The Pussy willow is a deciduous shrub belonging to the Salicaceae family, which produces dense silvery-white hairy flower spikes in early spring.The flower spike of the pussy willow resembles a cat's fur, which is—no surprise—how it got its name.

Known as neko yanagi in Japanese (猫柳, lit. “cat willow”), the plant is also called senryu (川柳, lit. “river willow”) because it often grows alongside rivers.

The haiku poet Seishi Yamaguchi (1901-1994) wrote the following poem.

猫柳

高嶺は雪を

あらたにす

Nekoyanagi

Takane wa yuki o

arata ni su

“Takane Nekoyanagi renews the snow”

The silver-white fur of the nearby pussy willow shines, and perhaps the high mountains in the distance are covered in fresh snow and shine brightly. This haiku conveys the signs of spring and the harshness of the cold weather that tightens the body.

Are Kinome and Konome the same?

Although written with the same kanji, 木の芽, konome refers to the buds of trees in general. Read kinome, it refers only to the buds of Japanese pepper (山椒, sanshō).

In recent years, the two are often used interchangeably, but in the past they were used separately.

Is “Doll’s Festival” an event for girls?

March 3rd is the well-known as the Doll's Festival, or Hina Matsuri (ひな祭り). It is also called Joshi no Sekku (女子の節句)

In ancient China, there was a custom to purify oneself in the river on the Day of the Snake in early March. This is known as Jōshi no Sekku, ( 上巳の節句) and is believed to be the root of Hinamatsuri.

It is said that this festival was introduced to Japan during the Nara Period. Over time, Japanese began transferring their impurity to dolls made of paper or straw and then sending them adrift in a river (流し雛).

As time passed, these dolls began to be displayed on doll stands, and the festival evolved into the Doll's Festival.

March in the lunar calendar is also the season when peaches begin to bloom, which is why the other name Momo no Sekku (桃の節句, Peach Festival) was born.

Today, the Doll's Festival is as an event to pray for the healthy growth of girls. Until the Muromachi Period, however, it was a festival to pray for the health and safety of not only girls but also boys and adults.

 Translated and abridged from Weather News.

Blue Bottle

Blue Bottle Coffee has opened their first outlet in Kyushu to great fanfare. On a pre-open event, the beautiful "influencers" were brought in to do their magic. A following day, the cafe was packed and a long line of customers snaked out the front door like poop out of a guppy's ass.

So odd, I thought. The hype.

Yes, Blue Bottle has good coffee. Not great, but good enough. That's really all a legal narcotic needs to be. Good enough. But what it may lack in flavor, it more than makes up for in shop design and location. I've been to half a dozen BBs from San Francisco to Tokyo to Kyoto and all of them are gorgeous. The ones in Kyoto, in particular, are worth visiting.

The shop in an old house in the Higashiyama District is my favorite. The first time I went, I just gawked and gawked. How on earth did a little coffee chain from Oakland go from having about three outlets to so many in Japan, I wondered.

I gnawed on this mystery like a chunk of old beef jerky for a while. Was this just another start-up gone bonkers thanks to venture capitalists throwing money at it? I've seen that kind of thing a lot. Go to a supermarket and you'll find a new brand of, say, potato chips you've never heard of before and behind it is a get-rich-quick scheme of sorts. But Blue Bottle seemed different. Something or someone had to be behind it.

Well, I spat that hunk of beef jerky out and snooped around the Internet until I found the answer: Nestle. In 2015, Fidelity Investments poured $70 million clams into the company. That same year, they opened their first outlet in Japan. It was sold as a case of gyaku-yunyu (reverse importing) as Blue Bottle was bringing back the hand-poured and siphon coffee making techniques that were inspired by traditional coffee shops in Japan.

Then in 2017, Nestle bought a majority stake (about 70%) in the coffee chain and then started opening up outlets in other Asian countries. And now things don't seem so mysterious to me anymore. All those gorgeous influencers and sheeple were lining up for Nescafe.

At least the shop designs are cool.

At the Blue Bottle in San Francisco’s Embarcadero in 2001.

Private Schools

What percent of junior high school students go to private schools?

Nationwide, about 8% do, but at the prefectural level there is a big difference. In Tokyo, over 25% of students go to private junior high schools. Here in Fukuoka, only 6% do. In the prefectures of northeastern Japan, less than 2% attend private schools. The prefecture with the lowest private junior high school attendance rate is Yamagata at 1.4%.

https://todo-ran.com/t/kiji/15306

Love Hotels

Hard to believe that Fukuoka has a less than average number of love hotels. Shame on us.

The number of love hotels nationwide is (or was at the time of the original post) 5,670, or 5.39 hotels per 100,000 adults.

Miyazaki Prefecture has the highest number, with 14.08 per 100,000 adults (deviation value: 72.4). Second place was Saga Prefecture with 13.28 houses. From here on, to be known as “Saucy Saga”. Third place and below are Fukushima prefecture (12.50), Kumamoto (12.21), and Tottori (11.70). Begs the question what is going on in randy old Kyushu.

On the other hand, Hyogo Prefecture has the lowest number of hotels—only 0.84 per 100,000 adults (deviation value: 28.8). This is followed by Kanagawa (1.78), Aichi (2.70), Tokyo (2.73), and Saitama (3.35). Sad.

Incidentally, the very first rabuho I ever went to happened to be in Kumamoto. It was called DINKS, a term I hadn't heard of before. I asked my girlfriend what it was supposed to mean and she replied matter-of-factly, "Dual-Income, No Kids". The poor girl’s English wasn’t very good, but for some reason she knew that term. It just rolled off her tongue like she had said it a hundred times before.

(By the way, "DINKWAD" means "Double income, no kids, with a dog". A lot of my friends are DINKWADs.)

According the site note, the number of lover hotels has been gradually decreasing every year. In 2018, there were 5,417 establishments, but in 2022 the number had fallen to 4,885. It is estimated that around 100 love hotels go out of business every year. There seem to be a variety of factors contributing to this, including population declines in local cities, young people moving away from cars, and stricter regulations by local governments.

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For more, go here.

Heiwa Desu Ne

In the wee hours one morning in November, I was woken by the sound of a police car siren. Living downtown, disturbances in the middle of the night are not uncommon, but this night was different. The police car sounded as if it driving slowly up and down the streets around my building, siren blaring on and off.

Unable to sleep, I got out of bed to see what the commotion was all about.

I stepped out onto the balcony and looked down at the street below, but couldn't find anything amiss. But then came wail of the siren again. This time from the west and only a block away. I went to the living room and looked out the window in the direction the sound had come, but was still unable to see anything.

What on earth was going on? I wondered. The siren had sounded so close.

Ah, there it was again. This time, I hurried out the front door to get a better look. The siren was growing louder.

Standing on the stairwell and looking down the narrow road that passed the rear of my building, I discovered a young man on a bicycle. He was riding one of those electric bikes with the fat tires that look more like off-road motorcycles than your typical mamachari. He headed down the road in my direction. A patrol car, its lights flashing, came around the corner in leisurely pursuit.

Judging by the way the bicycle was weaving, the rider was slightly drunk. When he turned onto a wider road, the patrol car pulled up even with the cyclist.

"Please stop!" the police officer called politely over the PA system.

The patrol car then pulled ahead, attempting to cut the cyclist’s off.



"Please stop!"

Did the guy on the bike stop?

Nope, he just pedaled around the front of the police car, then turned down a narrow alley and continued on his merry way. With its lights flashing, the patrol car sped down the road and was about to turn off onto a side road but ended up getting blocked by a taxi. 



I have no idea what happened after that, but judging by the silence, the drunk cyclist probably managed to slip away.

I couldn’t help but chuckle.

As long as I have lived here—thirty years and counting—the Japanese have been wringing their hands and fretting about the alarming trends the see on daytime wide shows and in the evening news. Perhaps it’s just part of the national character. But, you know, from my perspective, things are pretty darn good here.

Despite how people may feel about crime, the police’s own statistics paint a very different picture: “the total number of known cases of penal code offenses has decreased consistently since 2003. In 2021, the number was 568,104, the lowest since the end of the Second World War . . . In 2021, the rate of decrease was 7.5% over the previous year, which was lower than the level in 2020 when COVID-19 broke out.” (National Police Agency: “Crime Situation in 2021”)

Did the pandemic influence those numbers? Probably, but crime had already been on the decline since peaking in 2002. It was in the years leading up to 2002 that the “Dankai Juniors”, the cohort of Japanese born in the seventies were in their twenties and unemployment was over 5% — the Employment Ice Age (Shūshoku Hyōgaki), as it was known.

As for violent crime, why it’s so rare here that when it does on occasion happen, the more shocking cases tend to get ruminated on in nation's news shows for days if not weeks. On that sleepless morning back in November, America recorded its 500th mass shooting of the year. By comparison, there was only one shooting death in Japan in 2021. Murders, and violent crime in general, have fallen steadily since the sixties. There were 213 murders that same year, compared to over 21,000 in America. I know, apples and oranges. Then, consider England and Wales which has a population about half that of Japan’s and fairly strict gun laws. In the 2022/23 reporting year, 602 homicides were recorded, down from 697 in the previous year.

You don’t see homeless people camped out on the streets like I did all over California last spring. LA alone has some 50,000 people sleeping rough and over half a million (582,000) nationwide. In the UK, there are 365,000 homeless; in Germany, 263,000; and in Canada, 235,000. Among Japan’s neighbors, China has over 2.5 million homeless; Korea, over 11,000. In Japan, there are only 3,065, down 11.1% from last year. My adopted home of Fukuoka prefecture has just over 213 homeless, but you’d be hard pressed to actually spot any of them.

Although marijuana use among university “American football” players has been a hot topic in the news since last summer, the fact remains that drugs haven’t really been a serious problem in Japan since the end of WWII. There were, for instance, only a handful of arrests (3) in the most recent data related to heroin. Compare that to the opioid crisis in the US which has claimed over 645,000 lives due to overdoses and, well, there just is no comparison.

And because it’s so safe, stores in Japan needn’t worry about getting cleaned out by shoplifters or opportunistic rioters like they do in the US and last September in France. Cars rarely get stolen. (Bicycles, do, but if you report it to the police, they might find it in a few months just like they found my son’s bike, god bless ‘em.) Homes seldom get broken into. But, when they do, the culprits are usually found, occasionally perp-walked on national TV, then prosecuted and punished fairly swiftly.

No, Japan has the kinds of problems other nations wish they had.

Stepping back into my apartment, I discovered my wife at the genkan.

What happened, she asked sleepily. When I told her about the drunk cyclist playing cat and mouse with a patrol car, she laughed and said, “Nihon wa heiwa desu ne.” Japan’s a peaceful country, isn’t it.



“Ain’ it?”

And with that, I went back to bed and fell fast asleep.

Kotatsu Envy

What percent of homes have a kotatsu?

Ranking of those who "dream" of having a kotatsu.

1位　沖縄 (Okinawa)　　63％

2位　北海道 (Hokkaidō)　60％

3位　東京 (Tōkyō)　　53％

4位　神奈川 (Kanagawa)　50％

5位　愛知 (Aichi)　　48％

No. 1 is easy to understand. In Okinawa, it never gets cold enough to need one. When we were shivering in freezing weather with a windchill of -4℃ a few days ago, it was about 20℃ in Naha.

No.2 Hokkaidō is interesting. Why would they long to have a kotatsu? Well, the reason is because they don’t need really them. For starters, homes and apartments in the northernmost prefecture are built for the local climate—i.e. better insulation, double-glazed windows, etc.. What’s more, heating is subsidized. (Need to fact check that.) My wife, who used to spend her winter breaks near Sapporo every year, remarked that even the room the toilet was in was always nice and toasty.

Meanwhile here in Fukuoka, I’m wearing my “longjohns”, have got the heater and electric carpet on high and I’m still cold.

Popularization of the Washlet

Ah, 1992. Aye, those were hard times when only 20% of homes had toilet that lovingly squirted your fanny with warm water. Japanese kids today don't know how easy they've got it.

How Many Subs Does Japan have?

Just how many subs does Japan--a country that technically does not maintain military forces--actually possess?

"Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

"In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained."

Oh, never mind about that.

For some perspective, Japan started the Pacific War with 63 ocean-going submarines (i.e., not including midgets), and finished construction on an additional 111 during the war, for a total of 174. Three-quarters of these (128 boats) were lost during the conflict, a proportion of loss similar that experienced by Germany's U-Boats. For more go here.

Internecine Strife

Been dying for some northern African food, such as couscous, and have been meaning to make it myself if only I could find an easy recipe and ingredients. Well, yesterday, my wife came back from the supermarket with this retort set.

Starving, I threw it together, added extra cumin and black pepper and dug in.

For a retort-packed meal it was alright. Better than nothing and good inspiration to finally get off me arse and make the real thing.

Six hours later, though, I started feeling funny in my tummy. A small burp came up—cumin, chicken, and chickpeas.

Uh oh.

More burps.

This ain’t good.

Then my stomach started to hurt. Not too bad, but constant. I took some bioferomin, drank some water and went to bed to try and sleep it off.

Thing is I couldn’t sleep.

The box said the food had been made in Tunisia, packed in Japan. Tunisia. It was one of the few countries that managed to escape the instability and violence of the Arab Spring, if memory served me correctly. But it now felt like there was a coup d’état going on in my stomach.

After several hours tossing and turning, I got up, sat on the toilet and contemplated options. If I lie down I’ll probably chuck Tunisia up, her peace-loving citizens and all.

I got some yogurt, ate that, then sat down on the sofa and tried to keep my mind off of things.

When my wife found me, she asked what was the wrong. The cous cous, I said.

"Are you going to vomit?"

Don’t say that word!

"The other day when we had Chinese, I felt sick, too. I made myself throw it all up and . . ."

Stop talking!

"Just stick your finger in your throat and tickle . . ."

WOMAN!!! Leave me alone!

"Suit yourself."

I managed to fall asleep on the sofa, but woke up in a cold sweat an hour later. Sat on the toilet again, ruminating. I should have vomited Tunisia up hours ago. If I had listened to my wife, I’d be out of the woods by now, sound asleep in bed. Too late now, though: internecine skirmishes were already moving south

Don't know about you, but I can count the number of times I have vomited in my life: six. I just don’t spew cookies like others do. Even after eating Tunisian food that had gone bad.

And so, I went back to the sofa and fell asleep. Three hours later I woke up feeling fine. The struggle was over. Peace had been restored. But I vowed: NEVER again would I eat a retort meal from a northern African nation.

Best Day EVER

I find this in my neighborhood.

In the park.

Close to where all the love hotels are.

I picture a foreign man with a Japanese woman, both young and relatively good looking, leaving one of those hotels, slightly uncomfortable, yet holding hands. They walk to the nearby park where they hug one last time. The man takes out his card, writes this message on the back, and gives it to the girl before kissing her goodbye.

Now that he is gone, she turns to head home. It’s a long walk and she’s cursing herself for having missed the last train. The least he could have done was offer me money for a taxi, she thinks. Would she have accepted it, though? No, she wouldn’t have. She pauses, looks at the card. “Best day ever?” she asks herself. “Meh,” she answers and tosses it to the ground.

Language of Love and Hate

When learning a foreign language, and particularly when you're fully immersed in it, you may come to associate words with the places where the words were first learnt, or with the person who first taught you them. As the years pass and your circle of acquaintances or, in my case, roster of former lovers grow, you may start to notice that the mood or nature of a relationship can be characterized by the words that were acquired during the time when those people were in your life.

A rocky relationship with one woman taught me the words ayashii (怪しい, questionable, dubious, fishy, suspicious, unreliable), yabai (ヤバい, chancy, dodgy, touch-and-go, in hot water), and so on.

My first marriage was wellspring of words such as iyami otoko (嫌み男, sarcastic bastard), dasan-teki(打算的, calculating), sekoi yatsu (stingy bastard), and yôryô ga warui (要領がわるい, cack-handed). I also learned the word 慰謝料 (isharyô, “consolation money”, a.k.a. alimony) from that woman. Ah, the memories!

Less contentious lovers have taught me, among other things, toriko (虜, a slave to love), horeru (惚れる, be entranced, be taken with), and zokkon (ゾッコン, to be head over heels). Sigh.

For someone like me who enjoys reading and writing, who hungers for new words and vocabulary, to be in the company of someone who is a source for fresh vocabulary or novel ways of saying what has long become tiresome and clichéd can be as stimulating as the sex itself. Almost.

Boomtown Fukuoka

Several years ago, I stumbled across some interesting growth projections for the city of Fukuoka. The first graph (below) shows actual growth from 1975 to 2005.

Of the eight cities studied, Fukuoka (福岡 ■) has grown the most (over 150%) during those thirty years, followed by Sapporo (札幌 ▲ 145%+), Sendai (仙台 ▲ 140%), and Tôkyô (東京 ■ 130%). Much of the growth here, I suspect, has come from depopulation of areas outside of Fukuoka. Evidence of this can be seen in the steady decline of Kitakyūshū's population (北九州 ●) since the mid 80s. Similar declines have occured in cities throughout the area.

I visited the former coal mining town of Ômuta once and learned that in its heyday the city had over 200,000 people. Today, the population is half that figure and falling fast.

The next graph shows growth projections for a number of cities in Japan over the next twenty-two years. Using 2005 as the starting point, Ōsaka City (大阪) is expected to to see its population drop to about 85% of its 2005 population by the year 2035. The only cities predicted to maintain their 2005 population levels over the next two decades are Fukuoka (福岡市) and Tōkyō (東京). The greater metropolitan area of Fukuoka City (福岡都市圏) is also expected to maintain its 2005 population level.

According to the Nomura Research Institute, Fukuoka City was ranked number one among 100 Japanese cities in terms of its growth potential. Kagoshima City in the south of Kyūshū came in second. Kurume City came in fifth. Note that 6 of the top 10 cities are in the Kyūshū/Okinawa Region.

The following data from the Nishinippon Shimbun shows that the growth Fukuoka City has been enjoying is the exception to the norm among the cities of Kyūshū. (Note that ▲ represents a minus). Add up the population losses in the other cities (about 57,000) and you can see where much of Fukuoka’s growth is coming from. According the the article, Fukuoka is not only sucking up people, but money, too from neighboring cities and prefectures.

Field Marshal Crowe

A few months ago, I took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire and discovered, much to my surprise, that I had the same personality type as, among others, Maggie Thatcher and JP Morgan. If the results of the assessment test were to be believed, then the Iron Lady and business mogul and I were ENTJs (where ENTJ stands for extraversion, intuition, thinking, judgment). ENTJs are action-oriented extroverts who make decisions according to intuition and logic rather than feeling.

I didn't give the assessment much thought after that until I came across this graphic on The Washington Post's Wonkblog. I promptly retook the test, and, confirming the previous result, threw my hands up in triumph.

"I guess, I'm not hopeless after all."

ENTJs, I would go on to learn, belong to the subgroup known as the "Rationalist Temperament". Rationalists, according to the Keirsey Temperament sorter, "are the problem solving temperament . . . Rationals might tackle problems in organic systems such as plants and animals, or in mechanical systems such as railroads and computers, or in social systems such as families and companies and governments. But whatever systems fire their curiosity, Rationals will analyze them to understand how they work, so they can figure out how to make them work better." If you like, you can read more about the personality type here and here. 

The ENTJ variety of Rationalist, also known as the Fieldmarshal Role Variant, is rare: only 2% of the population is said to have this personality type. Isabel Briggs Myers, co-creator of a personality inventory named after her, called ENTJs "leaders of leaders". Other ENTJs include Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, and Hillary Clinton. Interesting company to be in, to say the least.

According to the Washington Post graph which shows average household earning for each personality type, ENTJs earn much more than the other sixteen personality types.

This got me thinking about a lot of things. For one, I wondered if I was living up to my earning potential, and, if not, who I might be able to screw over. Perhaps a coup d'etat is in order?

On a more serious note, though, having a better understanding what my personality type is has gone a long way in helping me explain why I am the way I am--why, for instance, I am not comfortable in subordinate roles, why I am constantly making lists of To Dos not just for myself, but for those around me (much to the chagrin of my poor wife); why, when helping with, say, an event, I get easily irritated when things are run in a half-arsed manner and am quick take over; why I am obsessed with order and a systematic way of executing tasks; and why I'm am constantly trying to find practical solutions to problems, not only in my life, but in the workplace, neighborhood, city, nation, and world. It may also help explain my penchant for war and mafia movies, the colors khaki and olive drab, and the choice of a confirmation name, based initially not on a saint, but rather an emperor. (Sorry, God.) I am Napoleon I on the island of Elba, scheming for a way off.

I suspect that my father also had the same personality type, or one similar. He was much more of an extrovert than myself, though. 

Selling Snake Oil

After cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, a fifty-something-year-old American man, someone I have never seen around town, taps on a microphone a few times then jumps right into his presentation.

From the get-go, it stinks of some multilevel marketing scheme and, looking around the room, I can see that it’s the same old crew that has come together to push it: guys who were doing Amway, then NuSkin, then Noni. And now they’re gung-ho about something called Rexall Showcase: a new name to the old scheme of pushing overpriced supplements and dubious weight loss products on family and friends and kicking the profits up the pyramid.

“This is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for, folks!” the speaker exclaims. “This is The Golden Opportunity! The chance to get into a business when it’s just getting off the ground. Amway, NuSkin, yes, they’re all good business models, excellent business models, in fact, but if you really want to make money with them, why, you should have gotten into the business twenty, thirty years ago. Folks, I’m tellin’ ya, Rexall Showcase is the opportunity you’ve all been dreaming about!”

As I listen to him, I must admit that what he is saying doesn’t completely lack merit. Imagine being able to have entered into a business like Amway when it was first taking off, before overeager fools irretrievably ruined its reputation. But today? Try to become a millionaire in Amway today and you’ll probably die trying. Your hair and skin will look fantastic, though. You might even feel fantastic, too, if you can manage to swallow their horse-pill sized megavitamins.

The American tells us he has been living in Japan for over thirty years, longer than anyone else in the room. “I’ve been here since Nixon was president!”

Laughter.

“And all these years, I have been running a business. Several businesses, in fact!”

He’s quite successful, he assures us, saying that he even supplies Fukuoka Airport with his products.

There are oohs and ahs.

“And, let me tell ya, folks, I know a good opportunity when it comes up from behind me and kicks me in the ass.”

More laughter.

The American talks like a snake oil salesman, but the others in the room eat it up; so eager they are to get their grubby little hands on cold hard cash that what he is saying must sound like the sweetest of music to their ears.

And then, he invites a long-haired douchebag by the name of Clive up to the front and says, “Clive has been blowing us away . . . Tell me again, how much did you earn last month?”

“Two million yen.”

There are whistles of astonishment and why wouldn’t there be? Two million yen for a month’s worth of work is a respectable amount of cash, twice what I am making, working what amounts to three jobs. But, why is this “very successful” guy dressed like someone who is only earning a tenth that amount? The Canadian, a former strip dancer at a “ladies’ club” that went bust years ago, is wearing ripped Levis, old cowboy boots, and a dowdy sports jacket. Any moment now I expect him to tear the jeans off and start jiggling his nuts.

“See, I told you it was fishy,” Akané whispers into my ear.

“Fishy doesn’t even begin to describe it. This is borderline fraud what they’re doing. Let’s get out of here.”

---

This is an excerpt from A Woman's Hand, a sequel of sorts to the novel A Woman's Nails. The novella was inspired by events which happened about fifteen years ago.

Bye, IMS

Today is the last day of the celebrated IMS, aka "The Golden Phallus". Lots of "memories" were started here, lots of money spent as well, but that's less important.

I'm going to miss Elizabeth Muffin, which is only one of two outlets in Japan. They will not be reopening again, so fans of the shop were lined up--I counted over 50 people winding out the building and up the stairs--hoping to get a taste of Elizabeth's dusty muffin one last time. The shop had a sign that I think said, "30 Years. Thanks fuh Nuthin', Losers!" and a balloon shaped like an outstretched middle finger. Coming soon: Crowe's Schweddy Balls.

The Mitsubishi Artium, a small gallery that had some pretty avant-garde exhibitions will also be missed. Not sure if it's going to relocate. Correct me if you know.

Tsukimiya, an import toy store will be moving, fortunately. I have dumped quite a few Marks on German holiday decorations there and picked up a Nutcracker for 70% off today.

The shop I visited the most was the former Sony Plaza that changed its name to Plaza a few years back. They have another shop in Solaria, so I'll still be able to find my overpriced Euro candy.

I always liked the upper floors with all the bars and restaurants. Can't say that I have been in years, though, so that big middle finger is pointing at me, too.

I still can't believe the building is going to be torn down. Yes, by all means get rid of the Aigan Building, but leave IMS. All it needs is for the interior to be upgraded.

Summer 1940

Mom's Memories of Summer:

When your grandfather worked for Locket, he had a week off every summer in mid-August. A week or so before the trip, my parents would take everything out of storage, open it all up and air it out. They’d put a big mattress in the back of the truck, which had 2’ high walls, and drive up to Sequoia National Forest or even as far as Yosemite. The year Margaret was born (‘37), we went to Big Bear Lake.

The drive north was always an adventure because I-5 hadn’t been built yet. Going up the steep and winding road over the Grapevine was hard on the cars which would vapor lock and stall.

Once at the campsite, we would back the truck in, and tie up some sheets for privacy. Mom and Dad slept on the mattress. We also had a canvas-like teepee with cots that we kids—your uncle Jim and I—would sleep on. In later years, Winford, who was 13 years older than me, lived by himself, attending Fullerton Junior College, so he couldn’t come with us. He would end up working for North American Aviation until the war started.

At the campsite, they hung glass lamps on the trees for lighting. I remember the lamps came from China.

In the morning, Dad would make a fire and brew a pot of coffee. Mom would cook baked beans and fry up some bacon which always smelled so good. Eggs would then be deep fried in bacon fat. It tasted great but couldn’t have been too easy on our arteries.

After Pearl Harbor was attacked and America entered the war, gas was rationed. To get it, you had to drive all the way to Orange which was five miles away. Still, Dad was able to get a bit more gas than most people because he worked on a farm. He’d save up the ration tickets to have enough gas for our summer trip. In 1942, we didn’t have enough gas to get all the way up into the mountains and ended up staying in the King’s River area in King’s Canyon.

My grandfather at work on the citrus farm