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The New Year is getting less and less new, so here we go with the 2nd 'Empty Seat' of 2005. However, the year hasn't progressed enough for the weather to improve, and so the skies remain mostly grey and filled with gloom. However, nil desperandum!  This is still a safe and prosperous country, one that keeps its racism to non-violent forms. However, it does seem to be a bit shy when  it comes to self-criticism, and that's where 'The Empty Seat' comes in. So don't look upon this as being an anti-Japan diatribe, rather an effort to redress the Panglossian media imbalance that exists here. So here we go with another round-up of the sort of news that maybe doesn't reach the overseas newspapers . . .

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The newspapers here occasionally mention the shortage of volunteer firemen throughout Japan, adding that although some long-term foreign residents are interested, they are prohibited from applying due to a law that makes it illegal for any foreigner to be in a position to give orders to a Japanese. Typical Japanese racial equality, of course! However, in Tokyo, that same principle has been used to prevent a South Korean resident from taking a managerial promotion examination. You see, if she passed, she would be over her Japanese colleagues, and the incredibly insecure locals can't stomach that. The lady in question is a 54-year-old public health nurse employed by Tokyo City, and she protested this obvious racism in court. Now a Tokyo High Court ruled that the Tokyo metropolitan government had to pay her ¥400,000 (US$3.858) in compensation, but in line with the grand old local tradition that the government can do no wrong, the Yomiuri Shimbun recently reported that the Supreme Court had turned down this decision, claiming with supposedly straight faces that it was neither unconstitutional nor unlawful to have prevented her from taking a managerial promotion examination because she is not Japanese. The court ruling, which was a 13-2 majority judgment, said that "Only Japanese are allowed, in principle, to serve as 'local officials who exercise public authority on the principle under which the sovereignty resides with the people,'" and the country's "legislation has not taken into account the appointment of foreign nationals" to such posts. Now somehow, the judges claimed (with bizarre logic) that this policy did not violate either Article 3 of the 'Labor Standards Law', which bans discriminating against workers on the ground of nationality, or Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees "equality before the law." In other words, racism is OK so long as it is pro Japanese! To be fair, two of the justices did disagree and said that the metropolitan government's refusal was "an illegal act of discrimination," and that rejection of the plaintiff who has special permanent resident status from the first round of promotion exams was "unconstitutional." Now it should come as no surprise to anyone that Tokyo's master, Governor Ishihara, has lived up to his usual 'liberal' standards by claiming that the rule is perfectly OK and that he supports it. Then again, if he supports a law, I tend to think that law must be suspect! Meanwhile, various jobs (like volunteer firemen) go empty and the mistreatment of Koreans, even those born here (like this nurse) because their relatives were brought over as slave labour, will continue -- now with official blessing!
Footnote: Just in case you think the Supreme Court is out of step with Japanese popular opinion, think again. Following this ruling, the Yomiuri Shimbun (the newspaper with the highest circulation in the world) applauded it as "appropriate," and the Sankei Shimbun described it as "a decision of great common sense." Like a voice crying in the wilderness, the (relatively) liberal Asahi Shimbun criticized the top court as having made a "downright backward ruling."  Well done, Asahi!

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Talking of racist, think about this. You're a Korean. You are abducted by the Japanese occupation and forced to go and work as slave labourers in the port city of Hiroshima. Then along come the Americans and they drop the A-bomb! How lucky can you get! But history isn't finished with you yet. Years later, you try to get compensation from the Japanese Government -- totally unrealistic, of course, but what the hell! However, the Hiroshima High Court actually overrules a lower court and agrees with you (no, you're not dreaming), and orders the state to pay ¥48 million (US$453,600). However, that's when the Government seeks a return to the usual script and appeals to that bastion of fair play, the Supreme Court. Can you believe that? It's not enough that they try to hide history, or that they never even consider saying sorry. Now, regardless of how this will look to the outside world (who cares what gaijins think, anyway!), they go and try to stop paying you anything at all! Out of court settlement is obviously not in their vocabulary, but then again, when it comes to the Hiroshima bomb, the prevalent attitude seems to be one of being hard done by. "What did we do to deserve that?" Let me see now . . .

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What do you do to help you pass exams? For some of you, that might be a memory-taxing question, but many folks have many ideas about what helps one to get through an exam. Some old fashioned types study, whilst others pray at the Yushima Tenjin Shrine (dedicated to the god of study), and others rely on luck or last minute cramming. However, here in Japan, there is a new way to prepare for studying -- have a Kit Kat! For those of you poor souls who don't know, four-fingered Kit Kat is Britain's most popular chocolate bar, but recently, its makers have been struggling to cope with a surge in demand for the chocolate bar here because, believe it or not, local teenagers believe that it will help them pass exams. You see, the term Kit Kat sounds eerily close to "kitto katsu," a Japanese exam-season mantra that literally means "I'll do my best to make sure I succeed". As a result, and as we are now getting into the thick of the exam season here, tens of thousands of students' lunch boxes will contain a Kit Kat bar, often put there by ambitious parents anxious to try any ruse to ensure their offspring's success. However, there are some differences between the Kit Kat that Rowntree launched back in 1937 and the student's favourite. For one thing, Nestlé Japan has tried to appeal to Japanese youngsters – who are notoriously keen on sweet foods – by introducing a remarkable range of flavours, such as lemon cheesecake, passion fruit, white chocolate and even green chocolate flavour -- in other words, Japanese green tea. Now many traditionalists are a bit upset by this trend, seeing it as yet another foreign invasion. In the old days, students preparing to sit the all important entrance examinations for high school or university would be served "katsudon" – breaded pork cutlets served over rice – as a good luck meal, but as with so much else here, this tradition has been forced to make way for a western import. I remember the old Kit Kat adverts that used the catch phrase "Have a break -- have a Kit Kat", but that doesn't seem appropriate if one is a hard studying student. Still, whatever gets you through, I suppose. Oh, and in case you're wondering about the name Kit Kat, the bar was originally launched as the Chocolate Crisp, but took its present name from that of a famous 1920s London club. This page is just a mine of useless information, don't you think?

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That hardy bunch who form my regular readership may recall that last month, I reported on how the opinions of a couple of right-wing ruling party members led Japan's public broadcaster, NHK, to change a programme about the 'Comfort Women' sex slaves the imperial army used in WW2. Well, this story has really upset those who still believe in a free press, and so a group of academics and citizens recently launched a campaign to urge the public to withhold payments of the viewer fees that NHK relies on for 97% of its revenue, unless they stop informing politicians about the content of programmes before they are broadcast. The group, which is radical enough to call for political neutrality at NHK, presented its demand to NHK, but which litter bin it ended up in wasn't revealed. Amazingly, NHK were not happy about this campaign, calling the move "tantamount to blocking NHK's fee-collecting operations." Glad to see they've got the picture. Now in the UK, which has a similar scheme to finance the BBC, such a move could end in jail. However, with typical naivety, Japanese law says we must pay this 'viewer fee', but does not provide for a punishment for those who don't -- of whom there are many! However, this latest rebellion is nothing new, for there have been many reports of folks refusing to pay following the arrest of a senior NHK producer for corruption. Recent scandals have rocked the BBC's once almost sacred reputation for impartiality and dependability, but old 'Aunty Beeb' has a long, long way to go before she can reach NHK's level!  
Footnote: Shortly after that was announced, a long list of naughty goings-on at NHK came to light. This list included: 
* A chief producer and a lead commentator 'reprimanded' for padding expense accounts while stationed in Singapore. The alleged crooks were suspended from work for 3 to 6 months, while the salaries of their superiors were reduced, NHK said. 
* Various employees guilty of sexual harassment, paying for sexual favours from a high school student, molesting a woman on a train, assaulting a woman on the street, filming up a woman's skirt at train station, and assaulting and injuring a saleswoman. 
* A vice department manager (appropriate job title) who stole female underwear from a nearby stadium locker room. 
* Another vice department manager who molested a female student on the train. 
* A chief director who broke into the house of a female co-worker and attempted to rape her, earning 2½ years in jail. 
Most of these crimes did NOT result in criminal proceedings because, according to a former NHK employee, NHK put pressure on the police. At least that explains what they do with the viewer fees

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Remember the fuss and sackings imposed by Tokyo's education authorities when teachers refused to sing the national anthem? Well, the saga continues. On the outskirts of western Tokyo is the city of Machida, once the home of a dear friend of mine. Well, the education authorities here have decided that singing the anthem isn't enough. The city board of education has instructed local elementary and junior high schools to teach their students to sing the "Kimigayo" in the same way as their school song -- i.e., loudly. Any particular key? Now this has, understandably, angered the Machida branch of a teachers' union for Tokyo metropolitan schools, which is protesting the action to supervise students on volume levels of singing Kimigayo. They claim, with more than a modicum of justification, that compelling students to sing the anthem in any manner or volume is a violation of their freedom of thought and conscience. Sadly, this seems to indicate that the union still naively believes that the constitution still means anything to certain persons with power over we poor common folk. Such naievty is touching, but I fear that their complaints will do nothing but give local garbage men more paper to dispose off! Let's hope the eager pupils of Machida  don't get sore throats, or they might get expelled!

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For a highly developed and technical country, Japan still has a remarkable amount of faith in traditional 'sciences', including fortune telling. In that most modern of shopping zones, the Ginza, one can find countless palm-reading stalls, mostly doing a pretty good trade. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that many newspapers and magazines have special fortune telling features every New Year. The most famous is the Shukan Gendai, which said that however bad 2004 may have seemed, 2005 will be worse. Amongst the 100 predictions they made for the coming year are: 
¤ A tax increase to cover Japan's alarming national deficit;
¤ Prime Minister Koizumi will resign in June after serious clashes with his own Liberal Democratic Party over postal privatization. His successor, the present party Deputy Secretary-General, will visit the Yasukuni Shrine on August 15th, the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, infuriating China.
¤ The former Foreign Minister, Makiko Tanaka, will get together with other political ladies to establish the Women's New Party. How will it do in the General Election, said to be coming next September? They don't speculate!
¤ Outside Japan, they predict that Palestinians and Iraqis will unite against the US as the Middle East descends into "vast chaos."
¤ In North Korea, 'Dear Leader' Kim Jong Il's 2 sons will fight for power among themselves, whilst Japan is expected to implement economic sanctions against North Korea over the abduction issue. As a result, the panel of 'experts warns "Japan had better be militarily prepared."
¤ Russia, armed with a new generation of nuclear missiles, will ally with China, Germany and France in a neo-Cold War against an increasingly isolated US.
¤ Due to global warming, Tokyo might see temperatures of 45ºC, which will help breed clouds of "killer bugs". 
¤ As Japan's quality of life worsens, suicide will rise even higher, with the retired feeling they have lost their reason for living and their younger counterparts feeling there is no reason at anyway! However, this will lead to a boom in Internet-based suicide assistance firms, which will grow and flourish. 
Nice to know what we can look forward to, isn't it? A boiling hot, insect filled Tokyo, but with all these suicides and the increase in AIDS, at least we should find it easier to get a seat on the train!

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In March, Japan hopes to welcome many foreign visitors to the 2005 World Exposition in Aichi Prefecture. However, when these people take a look at the city of Nagoya, there will be something they won't see. You see, the Nagoya municipal government recently removed the tents used by homeless people in a city centre park. Of course they provided them with alternative accommodation, right? Wrong! So they gave them some other from of protection from the winter weather, yes? No! They just took their tents, doubtless hoping that the winter cold would deal with their homeless problem for them! Nice, huh? Charity groups and supporters of the homeless condemned this cruel move, claiming (with one hell of a lot of justification) that the city government just wants to hide the homeless from tourists start arriving in Nagoya for the expo. The city didn't deny this but defended their actions  by saying that the tents "prevent appropriate use of the park and maintenance work" and adding that they had asked the homeless people to leave last year. Not long ago, Tokyo's beloved governor sent in the police to clear the homeless from Shinjuku railway station, and just like Nagoya, Tokyo seemed to not give a damn about what happened to the cleared people. Out of sight really is out of mind here. According to research conducted by the Japanese  'Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare', Japan has over 25,000 homeless people, but you wouldn't know it judging by government efforts (or lack of) to help them! Oh, and don't go thinking these are high school dropouts -- the same research shows their average age is 56!  

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This might seem to belong more in the 'Crime File' section but it has so upset Japan that it also deserves its own paragraph. I am referring to the incident where a 17-year-old boy with a kitchen knife walked into his old elementary school in Osaka Prefecture and stabbed a male teacher to death,  seriously injuring 2 female staff members. Fortunately, no pupils were harmed in the incident. Following the attack, the murderer went into the staff room and calmly smoked a cigarette until the police arrived and arrested him. He has yet to give any motive for the attack. It all began when the killer asked his victim for directions to the staff room. The victim was thought to have been showing him the way when he was stabbed, the stab wound reaching from the back to heart. The killer then moved to the staff room and attacked the 2 female staff members, police said. The murderer's background, which might or might not be relevant, is mixed. One woman in his neighbourhood said the boy was often absent from school when he was an elementary school pupil as he stayed up late at night to play computer games, whilst another neighbour said he didn't think the boy had any friends. As regular readers of this page will know, this is far from being the first such school killing. The most infamous recent example was back on June 8, 2001, when a man killed 8 schoolchildren and wounded 2 teachers and 13 others, also in Osaka Prefecture. I am glad to report that the scumbag responsible was executed in September last year. Nonetheless, even though Japan's school killers use knives instead of guns (not having millionaire groups like the NRA to encourage ridiculous gun laws), it is just as worrying, for the victims are just as dead! For anyone with kids, this should make Japan seem a lot less attractive, although Japanese complacency will doubtless mean that little is done to prevent a repeat!

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Crime File

• I suppose that strictly speaking, this isn't a crime, but it involved the police and is pretty sad. Now may you think of Japan as a rich nation filled with well-fed people, but you might need to change that opinion in the light of a recent story from Osaka. In the city of Higashi-Osaka, there lived two old sisters, aged 78 and 81, and the younger one's 53-year-old son. Not long ago, the older lady's 74-year-old brother tried to contact his sister but without success, so he contacted the police. When they entered the home, they found that the residents had apparently starved to death or died of illnesses, for there was no food in the house, the police said. 

• Ever had the feeling someone doesn't like you? Now we all know it's lonely at the top, but for one senior Japanese executive, things recently became even lonelier! Yotaro Kobayashi is the Chairman of Fuji Xerox, one of Japan's best known companies. Well, not long ago, some Molotov cocktails were found in his home, and then a few days after that, the Metropolitan Police reported that a bullet had been sent to his home. To be exact, they said it was probably a 30-calibre live round, sent to him by mail while he was away on a business trip abroad. The police added that the delivery seems to have come from a real company in Tokyo. There goes the neighbourhood!

• We all know that raising a kid isn't easy, and so many p;arents might want to giuve up this 'burden' long before the offspring leaves home. An extreme example occurred in Miyazaki Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu, where the District Court sentenced a woman to 6 years in prison for drowning her 2-year-old son in the bathtub of their flat. The 24-year-old mother is accused of holding her son's head under water in the bath until he drowned last August. The judge said that the accused deserved some sympathy as she was "feeling alone and cornered because of child rearing."

• If ever you stumble across a suitcase and are tempted to take it home, take care! In the port city of Yokohama, city officials recently found a suitcase buried under fallen leaves in a local park. On opening it, they found the body of a woman aged around 35 to 45, wearing jeans and a purple sweater but with no shoes. Kanagawa prefectural police report that they have launched a murder investigation after an post mortem revealed that the woman died as a result of a stab wound to the right-hand side of her chest, whilst the upper part of her body also bore signs of bruising. Finder's keepers?

• If you think killing a 7-year-old girl and abandoning her body is pretty sick, you ain't heard nothing yet! Kaoru Kobayashi, a 36-year-old former newspaper deliveryman, has been accused by Nara Prefectural Police with kidnapping and killing a girl last November. So why did he do it? Wait for it -- he told police that he wanted to molest the girl after killing her! Maybe they should bring back hanging, drawing and quartering!

• Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The old music hall song "If you want to know the time, ask a policeman" was inspired by a London police scandal whereby a lot of watches in police custody went missing, and Japan seems to have a similar, though more hi-tech problem. I refer to the report that a senior Ishikawa prefectural police officer (with the highway patrol unit) has been arrested for stealing a DVD recorder worth ¥70,000. The officer in question denies the charge, and has been on a leave of absence since last May because of an illness, police officials said. Kleptomania, perhaps?

• Sex scandals and the like amongst the acting fraternity are nothing new, but in Japan, at least one actor has been arrested for something a bit more serious. 54-year-old actor Kenichi Hagiwara was detained on suspicion of attempting to extort about ¥10 million (US$95,102) from a film producer he had worked with. Commonly known by the nickname "Shoken," he has denied the charges, saying "I telephoned but did not extort,". The disagreement in question began when he was cast to play the lead in the 2004 film "Toukou no Ki", but was later dropped. After the film was completed, he phoned the producer and 'just happened' to drop the name of a crime syndicate during the conversation, which police understandably interpret as trying to intimidate the producer into paying up!

• Actors and cops aren't the only ones, of course. Even those young enough to be junior high school pupils can be violent criminals these days! Take, for example, the recent report from Gunma Prefecture, where 3 such pupils were arrested for beating a 58-year-old man to death back in January. Seems that after the savage beating, the victim fell into a coma and died. The 3, , all 15-year-old boys, attacked the man at his house because of financial troubles with his 18-year-old son. The way things are going here, I reckon that it's time for any family man to consider moving elsewhere -- and that includes me!

• Although this isn't a Japanese crime, it does involve a Japanese -- but he put it in his wife's name! It seems that the 32-year-old Chilean wife of Yuji Chida (who embezzled ¥1.44 billion (US$13.13,69 million) from a housing corporation) has been arrested in Chile on suspicion of sending Chilean girls to Japan for prostitution. This was after she had invested her share of the appropriated money in an extravagant mansion and other facilities in Chile.

• So schools, supermarkets and trains aren't safe, what about old folks' homes? Nope! Police recently arrested a male employee at a nursing-care facility in Ishikawa Prefecture on suspicion of killing an 84-year-old woman by pouring boiling water on her. It is alleged that he tried to commit suicide afterwards by taking a narcotic and is now hospitalized. So apart from being too expensive for anything less than Bill Gate's pension, there's another reason for not retiring here!

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Sadly, although this is supposedly the 'information age', there are still some parts of the world who haven't heard that Japan is probably the worst place to seek asylum -- unless you're a remarkably wealthy ex-Peruvian president, of course! However, if you happen to be a family of Kurdish refugees, whose refugee status has been recognised by the UN, forget it. You see, as if to underline how racist the Japanese government is, their definition of a refugee )which seems to be written in pencil) differs from that of the UN. The background to this is the recent deportation of Ahmet Kazankiran, 49, and his 21-year-old son, Ramazan, which attracted a lot of media attention as they were the first UN-recognized refugees in Japan to be deported. One reason they were deported might have been the embarrassment they caused the government when they staged a much-publicized sit-in last year in front of the United Nations University in Tokyo. Following the criticism this inhumane move attracted, Japan's Justice Ministry broke with precedent and issued a statement criticizing the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for daring to protest at the deportation. The ministry said that its move was in line with a decision by the Tokyo High Court in May 2003 that supported the ministry's decision that Kazankiran was not a refugee. A Japanese court supporting the government? There's a rarity! And we all know how unprejudiced local courts are! The UNHCR called the deportation "an act of 'refoulement' prohibited under international refugee law." In case you're wondering, refoulement means returning a refugee to a place where his or her life or freedom is under threat. What's more, back in 1951, the UN organised a Refugee Convention, one clause of which stated that "that no refugee should be returned to a place where his or her life or freedom is under threat (non-refoulement) and that the involuntary return of refugees would raise refoulement concerns." Japan signed this convention in 1982, but this seems to mean very little. Of course, some Japanese figures have claimed there is no danger for the Kurdish ethnic minority in Turkey -- which doubtless comes as a big surprise to those Kurds imprisoned within Turkey. You see, Turkey (like Japan) likes to think of itself as being just one race, and so any talk that hints of the Kurd's unique ethnic identity can be deemed separatism, and grounds for imprisonment. Legitimate Kurdish political parties are shut down and party members harassed and imprisoned for "crimes of opinion." A Kurdish woman MP was sentenced to 15 years for "separatist speech."  So the poor Kurdish refugees are not the only uninformed people around, but then again, why let mere facts get in the way of one's plans?

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Everyone knows how tough it is to be a clean official in a corrupt department, and this is especially true for policemen. If you don't believe me, just ask Toshiro Semba, a 55-year-old career Ehime prefectural police. This brave officer did the 'right thing' after having been asked by his superiors to fabricate receipts to make illicit money at all police stations he worked at from 1973 to 1995. He refused and reported the crime. So what happened? He was forced to transfer to the dispatcher division against his will. He then told reporters gathered in front of the prefectural police department, "I asked not to be retaliated against, but that hasn't happened." However, with more dedication than the force, or the uncomplaining public it serves, deserve, he added that "I will not surrender to any pressure, and will not quit or die until I complete my duty as a police officer,". And how did his clearly pro-corruption masters defend this slimy act? Believe it or not, they claimed that they had decided to move him to a position in which he will not have to carry a gun for fear that he may commit suicide or injure others! File that one under 'Is that the best you can come up with', I reckon! They say that people get the police they deserve, and judging by how little outcry followed this immoral move, which I think almost ranks with Serpico in New York, Japan surely does!

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Imagine. You are innocently practicing with your baseball team one Saturday morning when you spot something in a nearby irrigation ditch. What is that you find? Try ¥15 million (US$141,750) in cash! I'm not kidding. This is what happened to a 13-year-old boy in Hasuda, Saitama Prefecture. What's more, someone found an additional ¥2 million (US$18,900) close to that same ditch a few days later! The original boy's team manager said he first thought the money was discarded counterfeit bills, dumped after the recent findings of fake ¥10,000 bills in many locations in Japan. However, both finds were real money, and so needless to say, that ditch has now become very popular. So how did all that lovely money come to be there? The answer came a few days later, a 25-year-old woman who'd been arrested for theft told police that the unearthed millions was money she'd dumped after stealing ¥60 million (US$570,613) from an ex-boyfriend with the help of some unemployed male acquaintances, who were also arrested. As she put it, "We stole the money but as the sum was too huge, I got scared and dumped it in a ditch in the city of Hasuda,". Seems the trio stole the money from her 25-year-old ex-boyfriend (who was earning several million yen a month in commission from a job with a housing renovation company), then split the money and parted. Now if you found that much cash in a lonely spot, would you tell anyone? Yeah, right!

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Some of you may remember the incident, reported in an earlier issue of the 'Empty Seat', where Chinese vessels entered Japanese territory around a distant rock called Okinotori Island which, for some strange reason, is officially part of Tokyo, despite being 1,740km away. Well, the government has been trying to think of ways to discourage any future incursions, but Tokyo's beloved Governor has his own ideas. He wants to build an electric power plant in waters around the island to counter China's marine research activities. The plant would convert thermal energy from the difference in temperature between waters near the surface and at deep sea level into electrical energy, according to our revered leader. This is part of his scheme for the Tokyo metropolitan government to start "visible economic activities" in waters around the island to clarify that the area is part of Japan's exclusive economic zone. "We won't tolerate any words of aggression from China," he said after revealing the plan to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. I love the 'We'! When can we expect the Tokyo Navy to set sail, ah? He has already asked a fishery cooperative in the Ogasawara Islands (located northeast of Okinotori and another weirdly distant part of Tokyo's domain) to engage in fishery activities at the southern tip of its territory. Now two things strike me about this brainwave. First off, does he think a mere power plant will deter the Chinese, unless he plans to station some of Tokyo's finest around it! Secondly, just what will he do with the power generated -- deliver it almost 2,000km to Tokyo?  
Footnote: Speculation within Japanese government circles that Tokyo is considering beefing up its military presence around its southern remote islands has upset China -- not that upsetting China is very difficult! Seems a bit like a burglar complaining about improved alarms to me! A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, with the merry sense of humour normally associated with Beijing spokes people, said Japan should not act on its own to settle territorial disputes regarding the Senkaku Islands. Well, if they aren't to act on their own, who are they to act with? China? Seems to me that China's record of entering international negotiations with an open mind isn't exactly impressive (just ask Taiwan or Tibet), and so even though Japan's military probably wouldn't scare a cat off a lawn, Beijing's normal attitude doesn't usually leave its neighbours much choice in the matter!

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Say That Again . . .

Remembering the size of the average Japanese home, it is truly amazing that teenagers are resourceful enough to hide anything from their parents, but somehow they do. An extreme case was recently revealed when 23-year-old woman who lives with her parents told an interviewer about the dragon and rooster tattoos she has hidden from her parents for 6 years. As she said:
"Maybe someday tattoos will be accepted enough so I can show mine to my parents, but now isn't the time to tell them."
Won't that be a nice surprise for them!

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Many folk have the kind of job where the only thing that gets them through each day is dreaming of how they'll spend their pay. Well, that even applies to Japan's peadophile form of the 'oldest profession', for as one local author, who spent 18 months of her high school life doing 'paid dating', recounted:  
"Every time, a customer did something to me, I was calculating the price."
 She says she earned 250,000 (US$2,300) per date. Beats the pocket money I got!

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Talking of the 'oldest profession', no-one can say that Japan doesn't have a form of sex equality in that field. One 30-year-old professional gigolo (unquote) who works at a 'Lady's Club' in Shinjuku, recently explained:
"The women are looking for someone who looks after them and appears confident at all times. I am a person, but I am also a brand." 
He claims to earn about ¥36 million (US$340,000) a year. Boy, am I in the wrong job!

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Earlier, you might have read about the ethnic Korean nursed who was refused permission to take a promotion exam because she wasn't 100% Japanese. Well, not surprisingly, the Supreme Court's racist attitude has not made her a big fan of this country, for as she recently told anyone considering moving here:
"I want to tell people all over the world that they shouldn't come to Japan to work. Working in Japan as a foreigner is the same as being a robot." 
Being a white foreigner, I haven't suffered as much as this lady but I can still say that unless you're pretty thick skinned, you might want to reconsider working here -- especially for a local company!

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Many outsiders are amazed at the ultra-high conviction rate achieved by the Japanese police and courts. Well, most of these convictions are based on confessions. And does this mean that the Japanese are ultra-honest and confess at the drop of a hat? Maybe not, for as one of Japan's few criminal-defence lawyers recently said:
"One of the biggest reasons for confessions is because attorneys are not there at the detention phase of the investigation." 
I recall a conversation in the film 'Gorky Park', which said something like "You know what you're doing when you hire a defence attorney in Russia -- wasting your money!" Maybe it's not just true in the USSR.

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In a recent survey, high school girls from Japan and the US were asked if they thought it was important to keep their virginity for their husband. Well, the answer revealed that Madam Butterfly is long gone, and this upset some folk, including one member of the ruling party, who complained:
"Only 29% of Japanese high school girls said virginity should be saved until marriage, compared with 56% of their American counterparts. What is the education ministry doing about this?"
 What does he expect the ministry to do -- include chastity belts in school uniforms? Opinion about sex education here is bitterly divided between whether to keep children totally in the dark or teach them everything. I wonder which camp he's in!

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Here's one from the 'home truths' department, but at least it should show that whatever some naive foreigners may think, Japanese women and their gaijin counterparts are 'sisters under the skin'. Takashi Shimizu, a 32-year-old film director, recently stated:
"Women are the most incomprehensible beings. If you underestimate them, they can ruin your life." 
The voice of bitter experience, it seems to me. Been there, done that!

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Remember the story about fake currency notes being passed at some Japanese shrines during the New Year celebrations? Well, the printers aren't the only ones doing their best to increase the amount of money circulating, for Kyodo News reports that over 5,500 fake ¥500 coins have turned up in Fukuoka, Kumamoto and Tokyo prefectures, according to the body responsible for such coins, the Finance Ministry. What's more, that bastion of Japanese thrift , the Post Office Savings Bank, has reported almost 10,000 more fake ¥500 coins in some accounts, and has announced that it has suspended accepting these coins, via both its ATMs and counters in the affected prefectures. Now thanks to computers, faking banknotes has become a lot easier, at least for the amateurs, but faking a coin seems a lot more like hard work -- to me, at least. Now normally I might have some grudging respect for such industry, but not this time. Why not? Because the ¥500 coin (click here to see one) is my favourite Japanese coin, that's why! It is bigger than other coins, making it easy to find in your pocket, and as Japan's highest denomination coin, you can do more with it than, say, the ¥100 or ¥50. Carrying enough ¥100 coins to be useful gives one a heavy pocket, but not so with the ¥500. So I sincerely hope that the constabulary catches these fakers ASAP, and allows the good ol' ¥500 coin to resume its useful role in everyday life! 

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When I saw a lot of pictures on TV of crowds around an Ito-Yokado supermarket, and knowing Japanese TV's love of the trivial, I thought it was some sort of sale or special promotion. However, I later discovered that it was much more serious. It turns out that a 34-year-old man went into that supermarket (in Aichi Prefecture), stole a small stainless steel kitchen knife, went up to a play area in the children's clothing section on the second floor, and stabbed two children, killing an 11-month-old boy and injuring his 3-year-old sister. The boy was stabbed in the head and was pronounced dead at a hospital in the early afternoon. The attacker also punched a young woman in the face. The attacker, reportedly unemployed and of no fixed abode (he'd been living in a dumped car), tried to escape but was arrested on a street about 1.2km from the crime scene about 90 minutes later. So why did he attack these kids, with whom he was not acquainted? Police quote him as saying, "I thought of killing them. I was feeling increasingly irritated for several days." It seems he also said something like "I heard noises directed to myself, telling me to kill myself." However, with an attitude Western police might well adopt, Aichi police said that the man's remarks were consistent and so he should take criminal responsibility for the crime. This seems especially valid as he had just been released from a prison in the same prefecture in late January after serving time for an unspecified crime. Fortunately, Japan is one of the few sensible nations to retain the death penalty and so with a bit of luck, he will end up going to somewhere uncomfortably hot very soon! 

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The streets of Japan are still about the safest around, despite what you may read on this page. However, for ladies, Tokyo's trains are certainly NOT very safe! According to figures from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, the number of reported groping incidents on Tokyo trains in 2004 rose threefold from 1996, reaching the unpleasantly high number of 2,201. This represents the worst figure on record, police said. Now there is no way to make this figure anything other than shameful, but there is a positive angle, as police claim the surge is due to the increasing willingness of women to file complaints with the police. Now if this is true, it is really good news. For far too long, the worst enemy of Japanese women has been Japanese women, not only the way they used to be so reluctant to react when groped or touched by the men around them, but also the stupid way they encouraged such misbehaviour. Encouraged? Yes indeed, for Japanese mothers, even now, still seem to treat their male offspring differently to the females, thereby encouraging them to believe they can treat women anyway they want. You'd think that mothers, having suffered the worst effects of male chauvinism, would try to raise their sons a little less 'traditionally', but no. So although 2004's figure was so high, don't expect it to remain a record for very long.  

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Just for once, a non-baseball sporting fixture filled the local newspapers, and it wasn't because of the sport. The event in question was the football World Cup qualifier between  Japan and North Korea. With memories of the abducted Japanese clearly to the fore, police went on high alert for the game. Then, just before the two teams met, North Korea's official media officially criticized Japan and demanded an apology and compensation for its colonial rule. Not the first time they've done so, and not without some justification, but the timing reveals the true plot. The Minju Joson, a Cabinet paper, dismissed the abduction issue by saying it is "hardly comparable with the monstrous crimes committed by Japan" in the past. Meanwhile, the Rodong Sinmun, a paper of the Workers' Party of Korea, criticized the acting secretary general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party for suggesting that economic sanctions be imposed against North Korea if it doesn't come up with a new response over the abduction issue. However, if this was Pyongyang's feeble attempt to 'psych' the Japanese team into making a hash of the game, it worked as well as most of their harebrained schemes. Japan beat North Korea 2-1 with a goal literally in the last minute. There's a return fixture in Pyongyang in June, but I doubt if crowd control will be a problem there. The crowd might start to eat the grass, but nothing more!

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Gaijin's Tip:

'Despite what you read here, Japan is still a pretty honest place and theft is uncommon -- except for umbrellas and bikes. So if you're riding a bike anywhere near a policeman, do not be surprised if you are stopped, especially at night, ostensibly to check that the bike is yours.'
(For more like this, please visit the 'Gaijin's Guide to Living in Japan')

&

Gaijin's Where-to-Go

'You've maybe read about the Nikkei and various companies on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, so why not take a look at the real thing? The 'Information Terrace' is open Monday~Friday, 09:00 ~ 16:30 (last admittance 16.00). Advance reservations are required if you want an English-language guided tour, at least one day prior to the tour. For more information, contact the Public Relations Group at the TSE at 03-3665-1881. Nearest Metro station is either Nihombashi or Kayabacho.'

(For more suggestions, check out the 'Gaijin's Guide to Enjoying Tokyo')