We're all doomed, doomed I tell you...

Goodness me it’s been a while

I know I always write that, but there you go. I think I wrote at Christmas that it was about time for a proper post so getting it done at Easter isn’t too bad, is it? Anyway I’m a busy person, cut me some slack.

The return of Silent Shinzo

Yes, I know it’s been a while since Yoshihiko Noda got dumped for trying to do the right thing, since September 2012 to be precise, that’s when the LDP clawed their way back to power, so how has the new boy, Silent Shinzo Abe, been getting on?

Well he’s invented a new word, or rather he’s had one invented for him, the so-called Abenomics, a cunning and inventive blend of Abe and economics. So what is it? Well, as far as I can tell it’s the same as the quantitative easing that worked so effectively at kick starting the economy in the US and Europe. The idea, as far as I can see, is that the central bank prints lots of extra yen and uses this to buy lots of government bonds, I think they buy the bonds from Japanese banks who up until now had been propping up the government by buying these bonds thereby proving the government with cash (I could well be wrong about that, I’m not an economist; if I am wrong, what do you expect, go read Bloomberg).

The effect, hopefully, of this central bank buying spree is that it firstly provides liquidity to the banks who can then start using the money to give loans (which let’s face it is hopeful as no one wants a loan when they don’t want to be more in debt (except governments, of course, but they have different rules known as ‘fuck you small people, we do what we want’ rules)). The second supposed effect is to kickstart an infrastructure construction boom which, by the miracle of trickle-down economics, puts money into normal people’s pockets thereby restarting the economy as people buy stuff, inflation increases a bit, interest rates rise and everything is right with the world. This second point may sound familiar and it is to anyone who has been to anywhere in ‘small town countryside’ japan where there are enormous highways to nowhere and cavernous 1500-seater concert halls in a town of 200 people (and another up the road) – yes, it’s basically what’s been going on for the last 20 years.

There are other tenets to Abenomics, like devaluing the currency – this was important and something I agree with as for the last few years, even though the Japanese economy (we’re talking macro scale here) has been structurally fucked (no growth, stag/deflation, aging population time bomb etc)  it seems the people who run these things decided Japan was a safe haven, and compared to Europe and the US for a while I suppose it was, so the yen was at stratospherically high levels for far too long and some adjustment needed to be made. What’s interesting here is that for the 2-3 years that the yen was strong there was little mention from the currencies that benefitted, dollar, euro and yuan, whilst Japan was left to suffer in silence. As soon as Japan started to try to devalue the yen all these currencies that had benefitted suddenly started predicting the end of the economic world because if Japan aggressively devalued its currency then they would have to as well (from a position of being devalued, interesting…). So suddenly Japan is screwed if it does and [continues to be] fucked if it doesn’t – good position to be in.

In a way I feel sorry for Abe, inasmuch as I can feel sorry for any politician. Japan has been in a bad place for a couple of decades now and something needed to be done, but as with a lot of these things it looks like it’s impossible to do what really needs to be done (e.g. separate big business from the government/ministry of finance; stop the white collar closed shop corruption; wipe out the bank’s toxic debt; make business stand on their own two feet; end protectionism; transpose the ultra-efficient Japanese manufacturing processes into company structures and the workforce (i.e. promote efficiency in all areas of the company); introduce meritocracy; value people; value ideas; make decisions; act. Goodness me, got a little carried away there, maybe I should be the next PM or Chancellor…). Anyway all that needs to be done but can’t be done solely by the government, so the government has to try and find ways to encourage business to buy into this, which means getting the currency down, liquidity into the market and more people into the shops to buy stuff (and most importantly get people having babies as old people don’t buy new TVs/cars/houses very often but young people do – fat fucking chance of this, of course and as discussed elsewhere, but you can’t say it enough times).

Er, lost my thread there with that ‘what is to be done’ mini-rantlet. So…something needed to be done and Abe can only do so much. He can’t really sit on his hands and not say anything, like he did last time he was PM back in 2006/7 as the world has changed for the worse since then. So he has to try something new, though a large part of the ‘new’ seems to be to do what has been done before but on a much bigger scale. At least Abe does have the bonus, if it could be called that, of having to rebuild Tohoku after the 2011 earthquake – that will take a lot of money and time and will, eventually, lead to a lot of people buying a lot of new stuff and maybe having babies, but whether it will be enough…

Reaction to his policies has been unsurprisingly mixed. The markets have loved it and the Nikkei, up another 100 points today, is now moving upwards at a rate of knots. Most economic commentators have looked on with a mixture of awe and morbid fascination, expecting the economy to either implode or explode in the not too distant future, pointing out that for this to work interest rates and especially economic growth rates will have to be impossibly high whilst keeping inflation manageably low all to ensure that debt servicing doesn’t exceed the country’s GDP (and seeing as the debt already exceeds GDP by a considerable margin and could head towards 245% this is a real worry). However given the right circumstances, such as continued growth and construction/rebuilding work that does actually benefit people, put money in their pockets and encourage them to spend, there is a feeling of optimism in certain quarters (the Economist http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21569435-can-fiscal-and-monetary-splurge-reboot-japans-recessionary-economy-keynes and Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/08/japan-shinzo-abe-yen-economics to name but 2 big names).

So I guess we’ll have to wait and see, I’m in the optimistic camp myself, having lived here for the best part of 17 years in the midst of depression (economic not personal) and still the country seems to get through, people spend, new buildings are built and the sun still rises. It would be better if he took on board my suggestions above, I wouldn’t charge too much for him to use, and not just because I have probably nicked them off lots of other people, but I know it’s unlikely to happen as it would mean too much of a change in the fundamental psyche of Japan.  However it will all be for nothing because…

Krazy Kim Junior

Just what the fuck is going on over in Krazy Kim Junior’s People Mart? No, I don’t know either but I do with they’d sort it out and stop threatening to drop a large piece of metal on my head from a great height (though to be fair to Krazy Kim it seems to the South Koreans, naturally, and the Americans that have his dander up at the moment and in a show of enormous self-restraint the Japanese generally, and Silent Shinzo especially, have decided to forego the normal inflammatory ‘can we have any of our citizens you may still be holding captive back now please, and their children’ modus operandi that holds sway in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

One thing you have to wonder about – there is no way, as far as I know, that your average North Korean person can see any foreign news whilst they are in KKJPM, so whilst we understand that Junior has to be seen to rattle the sabre by his people in order to a) wring concessions from the US; b) get the US, China, Japan and who knows, Malawi to the negotiating table; and c) get some food aid. What I don’t understand is, when his people aren’t going to be watching BBC World or CNN why does he actually have to go through the rigmarole of the sabre rattling in the first place? He could just ask for some food and then, when it arrives, he goes on TV and is interviewed by that vicious newsreader woman and all he has to say is “I jolly well rattled my sabre and look, a bally load of rice/mung beans/marmite has been delivered by the quaking imperialist capitalist mongrels”. Or something similar – it’s not like there will be rioting in the streets with workers holding up copies of the Guardian declaim Junior as a liar, more likely they’ll be waving flags and smiling (and trying to ignore guns pointing at them from behind).

Anyway come on Junior, dad was a nutjob but I don’t really remember him going this far before…

Tattoo You

Strap in, it’s rant-o’clock…

Japan has a bit of a neurotic attitude to tattoos. The history of tattooing goes back a long way, possibly 10,000 years to the Jomon period, but certainly to the Yayoi period (c.300BC to 300AD) where Chinese visitors to these shores remarked on them upon their return to the middle kingdom.

According to Wikipedia the Japanese art of tattooing (irezumi 入れ墨 (there are quite a few ways to write in kanji so I’ve plumped for this one) became popular after with the arrival of woodblock printing and it was the wood block artists who apparently became the tattooists. In the Edo period (1600-1860) it’s unclear who made irezumi popular, some say it was low class ruffian types, others say it was wealthy merchants who could not flaunt their wealth through clothes so got themselves painted instead. Anyway, the popularity took off until…

The Meiji Restoration (1860 onwards) – in a useless sop to the West (another chapter in Japan’s on-going attitude by the sound of it) the government made tattoos illegal and it was then that tattoos took on their connotations of criminality and the association with the yakuza was, well, not born as they had always had tattoos done, but from here on tatts = gangsters, end of story. Tattooing was legalized by the Americans in 1946 but the stigma has remained, so much so that onsens, swimming pools, gyms and other places where you may have to strip off will now not allow anyone with tattoos on the premises, even dorky gaijin with the kanji for carburetor stamped on their neck who could never, in a month of blue moons, be associated with Japanese yakuza gangs.

“So what” I hear you cry. Well it wouldn’t be very much at all really, just another example of Japan unable to think or acknowledge the changing of times. However a few months back in May Toru Hashimoto, the Mayor of Osaka, suddenly decided he didn’t have enough to do, so he sent a “voluntary” survey to all employees of the city government “asking” them to disclose if they had any tattoos and, if so one assumes, what and where.

For some reason most city’s 32,000 employees responded to this gross invasion of their privacy and provided details of the tattoos they had (98 workers had visible tattoos, 12 had concealed tatts and a further 16 had both). However around 500 teachers and other school staff with their heads screwed on refused to answer as they saw, rightly, it was an invasion of their privacy.

Delighted by the overall response Hashimoto basically said that any of the 120 or staff with tattoos should either get them removed (at, one assumes, their own expense) or look for another job as he didn’t want their sort around. So, having been given a job under one set of criteria, those staff are now being shafted by a complete dickhead with a serious chip on his shoulder (the nasty media accused his parents of being yakuza when he was running for office, so instead of getting narked with the media he’s taking it out on his employees, nice…)

However he was mightily irked by the refusals so he ordered these 500 miscreants to reply to the voluntary survey or else – which I guess means that at that stage it stopped even trying to be voluntary.  Most of them did eventually comply but 15 Osaka city employees continued to refuse to respond, again citing the violation of privacy issue that it so clearly was. So the city government decided that these 15 employees would be subject to disciplinary measures, including reprimands and possible salary cuts as the refusal to complete the survey was tantamount to disregarding a direct order (they were teachers and caretakers, remember, and not soldiers).

Since then the scent on this issue has gone cold, as it were. What I find most depressing about the whole issue is not the survey itself or the action being taken against the Osaka 15, though it’s bad enough. No, what gets me more is that fact that there has not been a general outcry in the media, organisations devoted to freedom and/or liberty, from the unions or from anyone else. Indeed the main reaction seems to have been “well, they do have tattoos…” even though we don’t actually know if they have tattoos or not. What we do know is they have the balls to stand up to the authority figure and say ‘no way am I going to tell you that, it’s personal, it’s nothing to do with you, it makes no difference to my ability to do my job so go fuck yourself”. It almost makes me want to get a tattoo in sympathy – though I won’t because they’re ridiculous, but I will stand up for the right of Osaka city employees to not have to answer pointless and demeaning questions about the possibility of having one.

Driving in Tokyo

In England drivers tend to follow the mantra ‘mirror-signal-manoeuvre’

In Japan drivers tend to follow the mantra ‘manoeuvre’

It makes driving fun, really…

That said I will maintain that Japanese drivers do tend to be better behaved towards cyclists that (my limited) experience of UK drivers. OK, I know I used to cycle quite a lot when I was a kid 25 years ago, before Bradley Wiggins had won the Tour de France or Chris Hoy had torn up the Beijing velodrome, but it cycling on a A-road was taking your life in your hands. Here in Tokyo I cycle to work in the summer and take roads that are the equivalent of the London north circular (namely routes 317 (nakasendo) and 17 (yamate-dori)) and drivers are pretty well behaved, even taxis and truck drivers.

My theory on this is that in Japan you are allowed to undertake on motorways, so when changing lanes you have to use your passenger-side mirror a lot more – this means Japanese drivers are a bit more adept about using them and spotting cyclists flying up their inside. They still don’t signal very well, but at least you think they might have spotted you (unlike the idiot who stepped into the road on a long flat corner last week who I missed by the width of a swear word…)

My word is my...

When the DPJ took power for the first time a couple of years ago (not counting the brief flirtation with office they had 1980s) when the Hat got elected they produced a manifesto. Like most political manifestos it was long on hot air and short on details of any concrete policies, but you expect that from politicos. I suspect it was full of things like ‘we’ll try not to rock the boat too much or fuck things up royally’ and ‘we promise to think very carefully about certain things, related to but not necessarily including things we can do anything about’ and, of course, ‘we will maintain the rule of bureaucrats so that we do the talking and they, the grey, unelected mass, do the running’. You know, the usual sort of thing.

What they did not write in their manifesto was ‘in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake and subsequent even-more-lethal tsunami we will raise consumption tax to facilitate the rebuilding of the Tohoku region (as we won’t have enough money to do it as we’re already in hock to ourselves to a rather overstretched degree (but at least we’re not in hock to the Chinese, oil-rich Arabs or the New World Order))’. It was a tad remiss of them to leave out this important clause, indeed 9 DPJ MPs thought so and are now 9 former DPJ MPs, or, more accurately, the 9 founding members of a new political party called Kizuna (named, possibly, after a song by, variously, Aya Matsuura, Aya Ueto, Orange Range or Ayane; or maybe after an action rpg for the Wii – only the 9 will know). Kizuna also means ‘bond’ in Japanese, though I’m not sure if that’s bond as in ‘ties like our ties to the DPJ aren't very strong’ or bond as in ‘glue’ or maybe bond as in ‘the name’s Bond…’; again maybe the 9 know and they’re not saying (more likely I haven’t found out, so I’m going with the Ian Fleming option).

Anyway, it got me thinking about these 9, are they:

a) Unaware of how big the Japan’s debt currently is?
b) Woefully ignorant of what faces Japan and especially Tohoku in the coming years in terms of rebuilding, not to mention the social welfare and pension time bomb?
c) Wankers?
d) All of the above?

(by the way ‘c’ is a trick option, they’re politicians so of course they’re wankers).

Their claim is that the DPJ are betraying their pre-election promises, and their manifesto no doubt, as nowhere did it say that the party was going to raise consumption tax. Well ok, they are right, though I think the raising of this tax, from its current 5% has been on the cards for ages, if for no other reason than Japan has to pay for its current and future welfare/pension liabilities somehow, but there you go. But the real impetus has come from the quake and the need to rebuild, which Japan absolutely must do, but because the manifesto didn’t mention it these 9 have said they refuse to be party to a party that will do this. Quite how they expect the government to fund the rebuild is anyone’s guess, though as far as I can tell they haven’t actually said anything except ‘not by raising consumption tax’.

So I don’t really get what they want. What I know Japan doesn’t want, or need, is another political party, especially one of only 9 MPs. Also, what about the people that voted these tossers into power? Akira Uchiyama was voted in by the people of Chiba as an MP for the DPJ but has now become an MP for Kizuna, shouldn’t he be going back to the people of Chiba and asking them if they would still like him to be their MP, now that he has formed his own party? Same for the rest of them – but of course no chance of that until the next election, at which point I hope they boot him out.

Now I personally don’t want my tax to increase, but I can see the need for it. And it’s not like it’s going to happen overnight, it will go up from 5% to 8% in April 2014 and then 10% in October 2015 – so still some way off the 17.5% you get in the UK and will still be pretty low as the total tax take is only 17% of GDP, the lowest in the OECD according to the Economist (interesting article here).

Anyway I think these 9 are just your average grandstanding politicos, looking to get some easy short-term advantage whilst the country goes to the long-term dogs (notwithstanding the article above). OK, something like 58% of respondents in a recent survey said they didn’t want their tax to increase, so maybe these guys can see some popular support, but I wonder how the question was asked – if the question was ‘do you want to pay more tax?’ then I expect the answer is mostly ‘no’; if the question is ‘to fund the reconstruction of Tohoku would you agree to a modest increase in consumption tax, otherwise we can’t pay for it?’ then I think most would answer yes.

This is why I have a sneaking respect for current PM Noda – I think he can see the writing on the wall, the elephant in the room and that the king is not wearing any clothes (though the emperor is, I have from a trusted imperial source, fully attired). He knows that 1) they need to raise revenue 2) consumption tax is the way to do it 3) it’s not going to be popular and 4) his PM-ship is a one-way ticket to the dole queue but, as the saying goes, it’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it. He has already said that he will not call an election on this matter but will force it through, a fait accompli if you will, which is exactly what needs to be done. I think he can see this and has decided that he’ll do it for the good of Japan before disappearing off to retire by the sea.

If he does, respect to him.

In other news:

So in many ways I guess I had a pretty successful 2011.

I didn’t die in either the most catastrophic earthquake to hit Japan in 16 years or the subsequent and even more lethal tsunami. Admittedly I wasn’t anywhere near Tohoku at the time, but there you go, good planning.

I have a great family who were all general healthy and well through the year.

I still have a job that I enjoy in a school that seems to holding its shit together in this increasingly turbulent economic epoch.

No one I know has got radiation poisoning from Fukushima (so far).

I ran a half-marathon and not only finished but finished in the top 35%

So all things considered it wasn’t too bad, then again, roll on 2012…

And finally...

In the Annual Intercontinental Bowdidge Backgammon Bonanza I'm very glad to report that Japan triumphed 25-18 in what was once again a brilliant display of backgammon skill. Bad luck and well played to the losing finalist.

Noda - the first few weeks...

So the new boy wonder is in the hot-seat and what has he come up with to save Japan from fiscal, environmental and demographic catastrophe…?

Well, fuck all so far, it seems. The new kid has been keeping his head down and grafting, I know this because the media types have been bemoaning the fact the kid keeps his head down and doesn’t do interviews or press conferences. The old boys used to have at least 1 press conference a day, sometimes 2, with all that pressing going on you would think they didn’t have much time to do anything, and you’d be right (expect back-stabbing, mud-slinging and, in the case of (The Man Who) Kan, standing stock still in panic induced paralysis at the shit in front of him). But Noda has said “No, da won’t be many press conferences from now on” (apologies for the forced pun there), and those that he will do will be at ad hoc in locations the press will be told about with 2 minute’s notice (cue Keystone Cops-style charging about Kasumigaseki by the press corps whilst Noda chuckles to himself in Roppongi Hills/a rice field/Washington DC etc.)

But like most recent Japanese PMs, I can’t really think of much he’s done. I suppose he has overseen the indictment of the crook that is Ichiro Ozawa, who is still protecting his innocence, deriding the legality of the court and accusing the prosecutors of fraud, thereby acting like the supercilious, arrogant tosspot that he is; I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if he had shouted ‘don’t you know who I am!?’ several times already.

Sorry, back to Noda – er… There’s been a bit of talk about the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership), a sort of free trade agreement with the US, but that will be wrapped up in the Futenma base shenanigans that are *still* going on. Then there are the proposed tax hikes, which will put my tax up in the not too distant future through a combination of increased income and sales taxes (yes, I can see they are needed but no, I don’t want them if all they will do is go towards more a) useless, anti-competition hand-outs for rice farmers/fishermen (for example) to keep them voting the right way b) ridiculous pork-barrel construction projects (there are enough real construction projects needed in Tohoku) c) bureaucrats d) semi-public institutions still bankrolled by govt. through my tax (JAL, Japan Tobacco et al) e) anything else that promotes waste and that I don’t agree with. Jesus, I sound like a Republican!).

I’m sure there is other stuff he’s done, but I can’t remember much about it. I’m sure he is doing great things to start the rebuild of northern Japan which will be, in the main, unsung, so maybe he needs to start blowing his trumpet a bit more.

Radiation news

The thing about having a nuclear power station going into meltdown 250kms away is that it makes everyone really paranoid about radiation. The first accusation is that the govt. and TEPCO aren’t telling anyone anywhere near enough about what’s going on at the plant. This was undoubtedly true at the time and though I suspect the flow of information is now much better, after the general panic has dissipated, I’m sure there is more they are not (or maybe not able) to tell us yet.

The second accusation is only possible after the general panic has dissipated and people can get back to living their normal lives, this is the paranoia that radiation is everywhere and the government aren’t telling us about it. The idea is that large amounts of radiation fell on Tokyo in very specific areas, creating radiation hotspots that will, for example, give your child incurable radiation sickness and/or cancer the second he/she goes near the aforementioned hotspot. There is no way the govt. can counter this unless it takes radiation readings from every street corner in Tokyo every 5 minutes for the next 10 years, and even then certain people, like some parents at the school I work at, will not believe the readings are real.

What makes matters worse are completely unrelated, random events that ratchet up the panic. For example a bunch of ‘concerned residents’ got hold of a radiation meter (another really, really bad idea as these are sensitive instruments with which it’s easy to pick up false readings unless you know what you’re doing) and started measuring bits of Setagaya-ku in west Tokyo. Somehow they managed to get an accurate reading and found a really quite large spike in radiation in one spot on a road outside a slightly rundown house. Cue local hysteria so the real boys were called in and, interestingly, found the same readings. Cue national hysteria and calls for the government to resign en masse for lying to the public (actually I made that bit up, but I’m pretty sure someone was saying it). Anyway, what the big boys found was that the radiation was coming from the house and, after getting permission to go in, found several bottles containing radium 226 (the stuff they use as luminous paint for watches) under the floor of the house. The woman who owned the house but no longer lived there said her (now dead husband, died if radiation poisoning…?) might have used the stuff but she really had no idea. So in the end it was all completely unrelated to Fukushima, but the paranoia goes on. Also, the level of radiation just above the bottles was 600 micro Sv/h, about the amount you would get from a stomach x-ray; so not exactly lethal though you wouldn’t want to stand there for too long, so outside the house on the street the level was around 3 micro Sv/h, so no one was going to get anything nasty just walking by the house every day, not that you’d think that listening to some of the comments that came out.

The Rugby World Cup

It’s almost over and I haven’t written anything about it. So, some musings…

- England were pretty rubbish on the field (looking good against Romania and Georgia does not count)

- Off the field England were not saints, but a large section of the media did seem to have it in for them from the moment they arrived in NZ (Mick Cleary and Mark Reason in the Telegraph spring to mind)

- I feel sorry for Wales but Sam Warburton should not have made that tackle as he did, whilst James Hook and Stephen Jones should have done better than 1 from 6

- I feel slightly sorry for South Africa, but they should have been a lot more savvy in realising that Bryce Lawrence had given carte blanche at the breakdown for anyone to do anything

- Japan played well, very well, at times but lacked composure when it really mattered

- No one put 100 points on any of the “minnows” – this was a great improvement and will only get better the more opportunities they are given to play the ‘big’ nations

- I now want France to win on Sunday, just because everyone is writing them off and saying they are the worst team ever to grace the final. Allez les Bleus!

- Stop blaming the refs and start looking at you team’s shortcomings

- Roll on 2019 when it all comes to Japan


And Dan Wheldon, R.I.P.

Lastly some pictures of cars from La Fest Mille Miglia in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago

La Festa 2011, a set on Flickr.

Who was that Man...?

So The Man Who Kan is officially now the Man Who Couldn't. As I said before, he was dealt a shitty hand but seismic catastrophes are in the job description for a Japanese PM and I'm afraid to say that he didn't handle it particularly well. Yes, politics is riven by factions, especially within his own party, but at some point he had to stop, draw a line in the sand (after clearing away the wreckage and checking for radiation), grow a pair and, firstly, tell Ozawa to f*ck off and expel him from the party (and deal with the crook later) and then take charge of the country post-quake, show a bit of leadership, be strong, fight and all that. Sorry, but on both counts: FAIL.

So he finally did the decent thing, after the 3rd emergency budget was passed (or whichever one it was) and fell on his sword. After a bit of ministerial tooing and froing, the suits of the DPJ elected another of their own, Yoshihiko Noda, as the new #1. Of the candidates he was one of few who I didn't really want to get it, mostly as he looks like a toad (imagine a flesh-coloured Baron Silas von Greenback and you'll see what I mean), and he sounds a bit like one as well - and kudos to him if he ever starts burping really loudly in a cabinet meeting in a vain attempt to attract Renho for a ministerial debrief...

So Noda has also been dealt a pretty shitty hand by the fates, but at least he has the excuse that he saw it coming. Of course the main problem is the economy - at the moment government debt is running at about double the annual turnover of Japan Inc, meaning that we are well mired in the deepest of deep shit. That said, unlike the mountainous debt of Europe and the US, most of the people the J-govt are indebted to are the people of Japan, as pretty much all the IOUs are written to Japanese banks backed up by the savings of millions of households across the land. This is a good thing, and the only reason Japan Inc hasn't gone bust for the last 20 years, as the people of Japan are very unlikely to stop saving, take the cash from the bank and blow it all in Vegas (or, in the case of US/European debt, the Chinese suddenly saying, "hey, you know all those IOU's? Reckon we'll cash them in now...").

But with a shrinking popuation and no mass immigration any time soon, the tax base will decrease and govt income fall even before the rebuilding of Tohoku gets underway. So sales/consumption tax will probably have to go up, no defintely have to go up, from its current 5% - I can see that at 10% in the next few years and probably 15% in a decade. It's going to hurt but it's got to be done. The Tohoku clean up is, naturally, another bit blot on the landscape (quite literally) - of course things have begun and lots of work already done, I think pretty much all of the displaced people now have temporary housing, as opposed to living in gymnasiums and other evacuation centres - that's pretty damned good going, considering how many people lost their houses. But rebuilding lives, towns, communities, jobs and all the other myriad of things that go into a place to live, that's going to take some work.

And then there is Fukushima. The nuclear plant is still not safe, though the chances of it blowing up and spewing radioactive crap all over Japan have now, it appears, receded. Interesting that everyone is now happy to use the word 'meltdown' to describe 2 or 3 of the reactors - it seems that the partial meltdowns happened within days of the disaster, certainly when we were sitting at home in Tokyo wondering whether we should get the hell outta Dodge. If anyone had mentioned the 'M' word at that time we would have been on a plane without pausing for thought, as would about 12 million people around me. So in a way it is hardly surprising that no one used that word, panic would have ensued, but now the attitude is more 'we I lived through it and I'm not dead yet, so the cores melted, big deal, there's no mushroom cloud over Tokyo...'. Probably way too blase, that, but there you go.

Anyway, good luck with all that, Noda-san.

Oh, er, oops...

Sorry, keep doing this, not exactly a blog you can set your watch by, now are we?

So I can't really remember everything, nay, anything, really, that has gone on since the last time I posted back in April, though I am absolutely sure that some things have, indeed, gone on. Anyway, let's try the ol' stream of consciousness approach and see where we get to...

(The Man Who) Kan ('t do a f*cking thing)

OK, the guy has been dealt a fairly shitty hand, all told. No PM really wants a catastrophic earthquake on his or her watch, but in Japan it's one of the hazards of the job, as it were. Now as we discussed last post, the govt didn't really know what to do in the immediate aftermath, though things did swing into action. Of course once the initial shock has been sort the job of rebuilding begins – the idea of not bothering to rebuild Tohoku was, I admit, a bit of a non-starter, not just because ok, it had been devastated, but actually only a relatively small bit, up to about 10km inland, so that left an awful lot of Tohoku not devastated, so it would have been a mighty kick in the knackers (and a potential vote-loser) if the govt had said ‘ah, sorry, don’t have the cash to rebuild, best you move down to Kyushu and hope there isn’t a lethally big jolt down there in the next 20-30 years’.

Now, the quake has been a big opportunity for the people of Tohoku, and everywhere else as a show of support, to pull together, cooperate, work in harmony to get things done. Everywhere except, of course, Kasumigaseki, where the politicians all live. For them this has been an unparalleled opportunity to stab each other in the back, criticise, divide and generally act like, well, a bunch of politicians. In the beginning the tone was unduly harsh on The Man Who, as I said he had been dealt a shitty hand by nature and TEPCO but seemed to be doing the best he could. There were plenty of ‘we don’t think he’s handled it very well’ calls from other politicos who were safe in the knowledge that they would never be in that position so could snipe all they liked.

But then it really did begin to look like didn’t know what to do, what to start or even how to look like he was doing something even if it was just buying time (surely a pre-requisite for a politician?). It ended a few months back with a no confidence vote in the guy, which he survived reasonably comfortably. This should have been the green light for Kan to say ‘right, fuck off you lot, I’m The Man (Who), I got the vote, people have confidence, cut the crap and let me get on with sorting out this shit’.

But what he actually said was (something along the lines of) ‘er, what, I survived? Er, well, I guess that means that some people still don’t like me, so tell you what, I’ll resign when we have reached some point of stabilisation in the current recovery situation’.

So, the worst of all worlds; he didn’t flip the bird (like he should have done), he didn’t resign, he didn’t give a timetable for a possible resignation and didn’t clarify what that ‘point of stabilisation’ might be. It would have been better if he had just stood up and said ‘I do not have the first effing clue what I am doing, end of.’

So now Japan, from a leadership viewpoint, which should be steaming full-ahead on the recovery is still sitting in the ferry terminal arguing who is going to board first. I had some sympathy for Kan when the rest of the politicos wouldn’t let him do his job, but now I realise that he was not up to doing the job in the first place. What Japan needed, no needs, is someone to drain the poison out of the political system, remind politicians that they are there to serve the people and then, well, I don’t care if that person a) kicks as many butts as necessary, scruff of the neck, bull by the horns and other ‘strong-man’ clichés or b) builds a genuine consensus, one of mutual aid and common sense, either/or but which finally starts governing this country… I was going to write ‘governing this country properly’, but the way it is now no-one is running the show, so there isn’t even a ‘properly’ to live up to.

Nuclear Armageddon update

Apparently, according the newspaper this morning, we’re over the worst of it now, as you can see from this lovely graphic:

Now I’m not entirely how much of this I believe, especially now as beef contaminated by caesium has recently been sold in Tokyo, but still, it’s a start. One thing that (The Man Who) Kan has decided, or been told to decide, is that Japan, like Germany, is going to phase out nuclear power even though he, nor anyone else it would seem, has any really clear idea of what to replace it with. This is also after he stated, quite publicly, that Japan would not do anything to derail Japan’s long standing nuclear power policy – so clear and decisive leadership, then.

Update from yesterday [writing a few days after I started the rant] – apparently Kan’s u-turn on nuclear power, (the phase-out phase) is not government policy after all, merely the audible ramblings of a confused mind. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up…

Oh Ambassador, you’re spoiling us…

Not one but two invitations to be wined and dined at the Ambassador’s residence at the Embassy, that’s how important a member of the British expat community I am these days, that or a absolutely reliable (as in, will turn up if asked), probably won’t embarrass us, almost certainly British (no matter what Ichikawa ward office thought) person to make the room look full.

The reason it was 2 invites was because of Jeremy Browne MP. He is the Minister of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, which I think means he’s like a deputy foreign minister, and he was meant to come in May but, in true British fashion, he was waiting for his flight in the US and his plane broke down. As this was at the last minute, as it were, the Ambassador, Dave, decided to go ahead with his soiree anyway and the caterers had been booked and he would have given less than 72 hours’ notice for a cancellation. So off we scooted to Hanzoumon, where we Brits have our embassy, and food and drink was laid on. Now free food and drink is always, in my book, worth getting out of bed for (hence the absolutely reliable above), but even more so when the British taxpayer is paying for it. I can tell you, all those of you who pay taxes on your hard earned cash in the UK, the Ambassador keeps a pretty good table and cellar – I’ll admit that we were not treated to his 1999 Chateau Lafite but a decent bit of plonk was provided, along with canapés and some other, more substantial foodstuffs. This time we were also treated to a few glasses of Pimms by way of greeting, which in Japan is a little hard to come by so that was nice.

But on neither occasion were we, I am very sad to report, offered any Ferrero Roche chocolates! When I grew up it was touted as the height of sophistication to offer them around, indeed the subtitle to this very piece was the tagline of the commercials, shot at some dodgy studio dressed up to look like some ‘swish embassy in a former communist republic but now very cosmopolitan place’ like Prague (think the embassy scene from mission impossible 1).

Anyway, dashed expectations are generally the forerunner to national insurrection so I am now fermenting revolution here in Tokyo at the hopeless decline of Her Britannic Majesty’s Foreign Service provision of chocolates at free nosh-ups. I mean, not even an After-Eight or a tray of Matchmakers! Pitiful! What will johnny-foreigner think? We’ll be a laughing stock. I believe the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands was predicated on a bowl of Quality Street being proffered at a cocktail reception at the British Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1981; “If zis is ze only chocolate zey can afford…” General Galtieri is alleged to have said, ‘…zen we are in viz a chance, boys!”. At least they were offered…

So come on, buck your ideas up, Tokyo!

Finally in sports news…

 Well done to the Japanese ladies footy team, who won the World Cup

And the gents rugby team who won the Pacific Nations Cup

Well played all

What's going on...? (as a famous man once sang)

So it's been an interesting month or so, to say the least.

First the earthquake, then a lot more earthquakes, then (not really) nuclear armageddon in Fukushima, then a gaijin-only broohaha (about flyjins or denyjins or cryjins or whatever the label de jour-jins was), then (not really) social and infrastructural breakdown in a large city an awfully long way from the earthquake and (not really) nuclear armageddon zones and a whole load more stuff as well. Phew, it's been a ride!

But for us good folk of Arakawa Riverview (in the large city an awfully long way from the earthquake and (not really) nuclear armageddon zones), life has been reasonably normal, to tell the truth. In the week after the quake there were indeed shortages of foods like milk, bread and dried and canned stuff, but since then things are back on the shelves. There was a subsequent yoghurt scarcity, but that's pretty much OK now, and then a very real scare as breweries suddenly realised that beer producing and shipping capacity was way down and Tokyo running dry suddenly became a very real possibility. So far so good on that one, but we are monitoring the situation carefully (and stocking up on red wine and gin (I will re-label myself a gin-jin)).

Also in the week after the quake the British Embassy (to whom I will doff my cap to a job reasonably well done in the face of enormous stress) changed their travel advice from 'everything is pretty much OK' to 'British nationals should consider leaving Tokyo'. This freaked me, along with the Guru, out and we made plans to move south to a branch of the family down in Kyushu. But after a little reflection and a realisation that the travel advice was more to stop people coming to Tokyo, thereby giving the embassy more responsibilities if things did go bad, rather than a cry to run to the hills (and not Roppongi Hills), we decided to stay put. Others didn't, some went to Osaka or Kyushu, some went to Singapore or Hong Kong, others further afield to Australia or the UK. Fine, I have no problem with that, people make the decisions best suited for themselves and their families. What I find most poisonous is the subsequent name-calling and label-making mentioned above - people that left became flyjins, branded cowards by some who stayed; people who left called the stayers naïve, delusional and crazy to put themselves in harm's way. Basically everyone trying to justify their actions, as if a) it matters or b) it has anything to do with anyone else. So, anyway, get over it people as we’re all people and we don’t have to justify our decisions to others.

Now because of the goings on in Fukushima TEPCO (that’s Tokyo Electric Power Company, for those who have been living in the north pole for the last month) and the Japanese Government have come in for some pretty stinging (by Japanese standards) criticism in the last month. The main foci have been:

1) Tepco don’t know what they are doing

2) The govt don’t know what they are doing

3) The govt don’t know what Tepco is doing

4) Everyone is covering up the scale of the nuclear related problems

The first 2 are undoubtedly true as neither Tepco nor the govt have a clue what to do about the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant or, if they did know what to do, they have no idea how to do it. The 3rd point is probably true – Tepco are definitely the bad guys here (except the valiant Fukushima 50 (and probably more) who are trying to cool the reactors and sort out the problems – these heroes are distinct from the homogenous Tepco mass as I think they do have a clue what they are doing and probably a clue how to do it (and are trying to do it the face of seemingly insurmountable incompetence by their “superiors”)). Er, yes, Tepco, definitely the bad guys, or more likely lethally negligent guys…lost my train of thought. Ah yes, so, not only does it look like Tepco have been pulling the wool over the eyes of their staff and the people of Fukushima, it seems that they haven’t really told the whole story to the govt, or the IAEA, or anyone else. This does not, as you may well imagine, fill one with confidence about what is happening there right now, but it will, hopefully, mean that those (ir)responsible will be brought to book when the (radioactive) dust finally settles. One thought – some argue that Tepco should be nationalised, as should all nuclear power production, but I wonder. Private firms will cut corners to save costs, thereby endangering lives like now; however state industries can be woefully inefficient and ‘jobs for life on the state sector’ can very easily lead to similar sloppy work procedures. So what to do…?

Point 4 above, that everyone is covering up, does, I think, have some merit as an argument. The reason, I think, is that the govt need a diversion to take everyone’s mind, and view, off what has happened to Iwate and Miyagi prefectures in the aftermath of the quake and tsunami. The devastation up there, the sheer scale of the rebuild that will need to take place is, I think, on a level that people cannot comprehend, and when they do start to think about it the excrement will hit the slowly rotating cooling device. So, better to keep the focus of the people and the world on Fukushima, which so far has killed 2 people (I think) rather than on the destruction wrought upon Tohoku area on 11th March, after which some 30,000 are dead or missing. So when, again, the radioactive dust finally settles, (the man who) Kan can quickly whip a satin sheet off Tohoku, say ‘ta-daa’ and show everyone that the clean-up is underway, reconstruction has already started and things aren’t as bad as you thought they were, so keep calm and carry on. Mark my words, you read it here first.

But here’s a seditious thought – why bother rebuilding Tohoku? It was full of old people, most of whom were unfortunately swept away by the tsunami. Rural depopulation is such that the areas affected were dying anyway, there was little inward investment above the govt building useless roads to nowhere and empty concert halls in vainglorious but futile pork barrel projects. Schools were closing and classes amalgamating in towns all over the area as fewer and fewer children were born because the kids that were born moved to Tokyo as soon as they were old enough, never to return. So why bother? Rebuild the ports and the fishing fleets as they were useful; and then put all the rice fields together in one big lump and either nationalise rice growing in that area or sell the land as one or two blocks to a major agricultural business and let them grow rice on an industrial basis as opposed to the millions of mom & pop farms that again are slowly dying as the kids realise rice farming is hard work. With the hundreds of thousands of displaced people, ship them to Tokyo or other areas of rural depopulation (which is most of Japan outside the major cities) and start filling up the gaps in those communities – Tohoku is lost, don’t bother trying to find it again. Japan needs a radical rethink towards the countryside, maybe this is the time to do it…

Of course the counter argument to that (apart from the humanitarian one), is that Japan should be trying to de-centralise, especially Tokyo, as there is too much important stuff here so if/when the big one hits us (as it surely will) too much infrastructure will be destroyed. What Japan should be doing is rebuilding Tohoku and encouraging (forcing?) govt departments, businesses and the like to move to these areas to disperse the potential damage when another quake hits (I don’t mean when another quake hits that area – Tohoku could be the place to go as it has now been ‘disastered’ so the chances of another catastrophic event are, compared to Tokyo which hasn’t had a major quake since 1923, hopefully reduced). I don’t know, I don’t think there is a right answer, just options that all seem a tad bleak.

Let’s leave those happy thoughts for a while and talk about fashion.

I don’t, and won’t, claim to know a lot about fashion, especially where young ladies are concerned, but a recent trend has got me confused. As a rule I don’t criticise what people wear – if they want to look foolish then that’s their lookout, also I don’t want to sound like an old fart, which is getting harder as the years go by.

Anyway the recent trend is for women to wear glasses. Nothing strange there, I know, but the fashion is to wear what look like oversized, plastic framed glasses but only the frames, no lenses. Now wearing glasses is a pain in the, well, often the nose and behind the ears, but generally it’s more just annoying having something stuck to your face, so why go to that trouble if you don’t need to?

A pictorial reference to the fashion would look something like this

OK, yes, she’s fit, but she would be without the frames.

The Guru says these women are wearing the big glasses to make their faces look smaller and therefore more cute. If this is true it seems odd, as to me it looks like they have big glasses on, not a smaller face. Another explanation is that they actually need the glasses and lenses, but can’t wear them with the lenses in as they get in the way of the artificially long eyelashes – this, I think, holds more water as a theory.

So I don’t know, but it seems to me that this fashion cocks a snook at people who really do have to wear glasses. ‘Ha haa’ they seem to be saying, ‘I can take my glasses-frames off and suffer no degrading of my sight, whereas you, have-to-wear-glasses-person, you will stumble around bumping into things if you tried to do the same’. This seems a little rude to me, but there you go. If I fine out the real reason I’ll let you know.

Politician is a bit of a prat shocker!

Goodness it was over 2 months ago since I posted about the centenarians – where does the time go…? Anyway,

Political news now

I have little time for most politicos, it’s all about self interest and not about running a country properly, or even trying to most of the time. But about Japanese politicos I am even more in despair – I just don’t know why they bother. If there wasn’t actually a prime minister I don’t actually think it would make the slightest bit of difference to the country as a whole. OK, there might have to be a top level game of ‘paper, scissors, stone’ (or the j-equivalent ‘junken’) to decide who goes to the [insert name of international conference here] this week to stand at the back, not say anything and then come home and be criticised, or there might be an unseemly tussle if Carla Bruni comes a-visiting and someone has to shake her hand (or other stately appendage), but otherwise Japan would probably quite happily carry on with no head of state, or rather with the faceless grey bureaucrats and the plain grey emperor. But anyway they do have a PM so I’d better write about him.

Actually it’s not about him, the Man Who Kan, I am going to write, it’s about his erstwhile Moriarty, Ichiro Ozawa. OK, this is all old news, but hey, I’ve been busy. So Ozawa is the oldest of old skool, he is only in politics for one reason – himself. Pockets to line, plebs to rule over, god given right to lord it over other people with the expectation that they will thank him for doing so. I don’t like him, if you can’t guess.

Anyway a few months ago a probe was started into some alleged falsification of his financial reports by him and his little minions. At this time Ozawa was a serious heavyweight in the Democratic Party of Japan, a contender for future PM if he could avoid scandal. Now, as we know the DPJ had been out of power for decades until the The Hat came along and won an election. He then ballsed it all up over Okinawa and fell on his sword, as reported here before, and then The Man Who took over. So, new government formed for the still fledgling DPJ ruling classes, what better thing to do than launch a hostile bid for the leadership, just for a laugh. So that’s what Ozawa did.

Now, the timing of this, as you can see, is a bit odd. OK, the DPJ, according its constitution I think (a constitution that needs some serious revision by the sound of it) have to have a leadership contest – but as a party, if you’ve just been through a messy divorce with the standing PM and your popularity is shaky to say the least, you do not want the party ripped apart from the inside by an extremely partisan leadership contest. So, someone needs have a word with the potential leadership contenders along the lines of ‘this is a really delicate time, a time for unity, so there won’t be any challengers, will there…?’

Unfortunately the possibly most-appropriate person to have this little chat is our friend Ozawa, controller of the largest faction in the DPJ, but his chat is more like ‘Come on! Where are all the fighters in this town!?’ So he throws his hat in the ring.

All the while this is going on the investigation into his ‘financial irregularities’ is in full swing and the evidence is pointing increasingly strongly to the fact that he is a lying, cheating bastard (he’s a politician, as if there is any doubt!). His response to this is a simple ‘fuck you!’ to the investigators, reporters and general population of Japan.

So now we have a spot of internecine warfare in the DPJ and not just a little bit but a full on battle front as Ozawa is an important figure in the party who then gets endorsed by ex-PM, and current waste of space The Hat, and the very real possibility that, if Ozawa wins, he will become the first PM to be indicted whilst running the country (as well as the small matter of being something like the 3rd PM in 12 months).

The saving grace is the election process – now I won’t claim to understand the whole shebang, but basically the election votes are divided between (I think) the equivalent of the power-blocs in the Parliamentary party and the rank and file members. In the parliamentary party the votes are reasonably even between Ozawa and Kan, but the rank-and-file, who have been watching as this idiot Ozawa tries to destroy their attempt at government, are horrified at the prospect of him being PM and so are in favour of Kan by about 8-2.

In the end, of course, the election was won by the Man Who with the votes going almost exactly along the lines above. Was Ozawa repentant? Of course not, probably do it all again. The happy news is that he will be prosecuted by the police for the financial irregularities, but not before he threatened to sue the entire panel that came up with the indictment in the first place – his defence being ‘You can’t do that, don’t you know who I am?’ and other such choice defensive posturing. I’d like to think that’s the last we’ll ever hear of the inestimable Ichiro Ozawa, but I have the horrible impression that he will somehow avoid prosecution and bide his time whilst the Man Who inevitably cocks something up and then step into the leadership vacuum. Will be a sad day for Japan if it happens…

Holiday news now

Lock up your daughters, Mr Sexy Peasant is a-coming home for Christmas! Or something like that. Yes, we will be back to Blighty for festive celebrations from December 17th to, I think, 3rd January.

Already I have been instructed to present myself and family at a photo studio in Crowthorne (I know, who’d have thought it!) for family picture snappage – though worryingly father parental has mentioned something about having smart clothes with us for a ‘formal’ shot (golf-playing-brother is the organiser (I know, who’d have thought that adjective could be applied to that person!)). Anyway word to the wise, we will not have much in the way of formal clothes with us, not with normal clothes, Christmas presents and a small child with us.

And now, a brief mention of house guests

We have a house guest by the name of Adam – he is the nephew of a friend of the family and, unlike most 18 year olds (well, unlike most 18 year olds I knew when I was 18 (as I don’t really know very many now)) he doesn’t drink, take drugs or smoke – maybe he isn’t really 18… but he is jolly polite and somewhat diffident.

Anyway he’s here as he has a deep and abiding interest in Japan that needs knocking out of him so he’s staying with us for a couple of weeks. He arrived on Saturday evening looking slightly bewildered by it all, though he had been on a plane for 12 hours and had used, so he told me, one of paper bags that most people just make fun of.

Yesterday the Guru, youngster and I had to go to Meiji Jingu shrine near Harajuku for some serious feng shui praying (don’t ask me) so took Adam along with us. Then we wandered back through Harajuku to Shibuya and thence to Shinjuku and a ride to the top of the TMG building for a look over Tokyo’s sprawl. All very pleasant but at the time a little, niggling worry as whenever we asked ‘where you like to go and see now?’, he didn’t really know. Hmm, thought yours truly, so taking the bull by the horns when we got home I asked him outright, ‘what are your plans for the next 2 weeks?’ to which I got the reply;

‘Er, I don’t know really – maybe go to Kyoto and I’d like to climb Mt Fuji’

So you’ll have done a lot of research, then? Yes, you can climb Fuji in late-October but you tend to have to be an experienced climber with the full kit as snow has already dusted the top of the mountain. And Kyoto, good, that’s a couple of days, what about the rest?

OK, so maybe he is like any other 18 year old; lots of ideas but a bit lacking in the preparation department.