花火

There were fireworks last night. I don't really know why, and neither does my homestay brother Kenta. Have I mentioned Kenta? He's a wonderful guy, very Canadian in a lot of ways – he spends a lot of time swearing in English though. I guess that's a natural tendency for somebody learning a new language.

I actually picked up a Chinese swear-word the other day from a couple of the Chinese exchange students in Jesse's dorm. I think it means penis, and while I don't really know the characters for it, it's pronounced something like Sharpie, the pen company. I haven't had much opportunity to use it though, what with being in Japan and all.

The fireworks were nice though. It was probably an early-Halloween thing. Halloween isn't really big here, but everybody knows about it. Though I've been asked a couple times if it was a Christian thing (I answered it wasn't really, am I right?) I think its main source of infamy is the Gaijin Osaka Loop-line Halloween Party, which has happened every year since the turn of the millenium. Apparently the revelers shut down the line for about ten minutes last year, and most Japanese consider it to be a bit “dangerous.



Gaijin means foreigner, by the way. Here's the footage from the last couple of year's on Google's YouTube: 2005 Pt. I; 2005 Pt. II; 2004.

When I come back after graduation in a couple years I want to go. I'll be rowdy and dangerous and very, very foreign. The Japanese will flee my fiercesome countenance. The police will whistle at me.

The Japanese word for fireworks, 花火 hanabi breaks down into “fire” (on the right) and “flower” (on the left). It's a pretty word, for a pretty thing. The show was about fifteen minutes long, but I missed most of it because it was down by the water, and the intervening houses obscured most of it. I saw only those that soared the highest and shone the brightest. Them and Icarus, baby.

I still need to get a Halloween costume. Last-minute suggestions?

Nara Prologue: Golden Light

On the first weekend of October Pat's homestay parents (pictured, they're wonderful, I can't for the life of me remember their names) took me, Pat and our friend Crystal to Nara for a romp around the temples there. There are a lot of them, and I mean a lot.

Nara was the capital of the Japanese state during the years 710 to 794, at that time it was called Heijo. This was a time of rapid expansion and growth for Buddhism, which had been imported from China by way of Korea beginning in the middle of the sixth century.

The speed with which Buddhism, a foreign religion, managed to infiltrate and to some extent dominate native Shinto in the years before the move to Heijo is surprising. Though several families at court had vested interests in promoting Shinto, the Soga clan, an immigrant clan that had taken responsibility for Buddhism, managed to emerge victorious following a military struggle in 587 that killed off the chief ministerial opponent of the Soga, and a coup in 592 that placed the pro-Buddhist Empress Suiko on the throne. Soon, powerful rituals were performed that brought rain in times of drought, and cured the illnesses of important ministers. The exotic faith quickly spread, valued for its elegant rituals, its association with advanced Chinese civilization, and its ritual miracles. With the spread of Buddhism the power of the immigrant Soga increased, and the imperial family brutally eliminated the clan in 645.

The imperial family quickly took over the reigns of Buddhism, and the religion was co-opted into supporting the ruler's authority. From this point the Emperor became an active patron of Buddhism, though the Shinto rites on which the state had been founded continued to be a major part of the Emperor's ritual function. Buddhism became a state religion known as ritsuryo Buddhism – ritsuryo refers to governing principles and methods that were introduced during this time as part of a bout of political reform that increased the authority of the emperor vis a vis the immigrant clans. Ritsuryo Buddhism focused on the “state protecting sutras”: konkomyo-kyo (The Golden Light Sutra) and ninno-kyo. (The Benevolent Kings Sutra) They contain lines like

...the Four Deva Kings, the Guardians of the World, promise with all their numberless followers to protect the kings, who attentively listen to this sutra and respectfully make offerings, receiving and keeping this holy text.

In 710 the capital was moved to Heijo, and nearly became a Buddhist state. A statewide system of temples was developed, at which the state sutras were promulgated. This Buddhist infrastructure was capped by Todaiji, the great temple that would house the Daibutsu, a fifty-three foot statue of Rushana Buddha. (Skt. Vairocana) The day-to-day life of Buddhist monks and nuns was governed by the Soni Ryo (Regulations for Priests and Nuns) which bid them to stay in the temples and monasteries to study, rather than travel among the common people.

Nearly a century later the political power of the Six Nara schools had become cloying, and the emperor moved the capital to Heian, now called Kyoto.

It was very cool, being able to actually take in all this history I'd only read about. Pat picked me up at 8 or 9 in the morning at the train station, and we drove the rest of the way. Before I got in the car I spotted my own little golden light. So did everybody else, and we all stopped for a moment to gawk at the rainbow.

Another Bureaucratic Scandal!

Here's a bit of a shocker for you: Japanese high schools have not been teaching the entirety of the mandatory curriculum. For the last several years principals at various schools have been trimming down student's course load, chiefly, they say, because of the recent reduction in the school week, which went from six days to just five.

According to a Kyodo News survey of prefectural boards of education and top high schools nationwide, as of Thursday, 213 schools in 35 prefectures have not been teaching all the compulsory subjects, including world history. The number of seniors affected is estimated to be more than 20,000.

[...]

Takashi Tomita, head of the Fukushima prefectural board of education, admitted he was aware of the problem in 2003, when he became a principal of Fukushima High School.

"As weekly school days have been shortened to five (from six since 2002), class hours were reduced. We had no choice but (to omit some compulsory subjects) to have (students) advance to universities. Now I regret it," he said.

The schools will give the seniors extra classes to catch up and will discuss with the school boards how to deal with the people who have already graduated. (Japan Times)

The Japanese bureaucracy has been rocked by a series of scandals in the past ten years or so, most famously a high-level cover-up of HIV-infections from blood transfusions that blew open in 1996. The dirty blood was supplied through a inept government-funded agency that employed pricey retired bureaucrats from the Phramaceutical Affairs Bureau within the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

Since that time, the once-proud Japanese bureaucracy has taken a clobbering in the public arena, for everything from sex scandals to entertainment cost over-runs. This most recent affair, local and only mildly inconvenient, is just another connecting right hook in the ongoing struggle.

It comes at an inconvenient time for the left though. With Prime Minister Abe chomping at the bit to further centralize the education system and bring in his own little dirigisme of "nationalist education" - that's code for glossing over wartime atrocities such as Nanjing and Comfort Women - the leftists in Japan are going to be hard pressed to keep the Prime Minister's Office out of this mess.

15 Things, Again

Bla, I'm sick. I was up to late last night, I think, enjoying my new computer. Luckily no class today, so I'm just whiling away the hours at home. At some point I intend to study, but we'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I've been working on this list on and off for a month now.

15 Odd Small Things

1. Vending machine flaps lift up, instead of pushing in.
2. Old people and ugly people appear on TV.
3. Boy bands are pretty much the same as in the West, except they dance in a more feminine way. Lots of hand motions. And hips.
4. Iced tea isn't sweet.
5. There are markers on the train station platforms for where the door of the train will be.
6. Imagine a roll of toilet paper. The sections of paper are a bit longer in Japan.
7. Keyboards are funny. The apostrophe key, for instance, is shift + 7.
8. Milk is 3.6%.
9. Eggs come in packs of 10.
10. You can buy alcohol at supermarkets. Or vending machines for that matter.
11. Vending machines in general are pretty weird. Alcohol, cigarettes and flowers are all a go. So are, apparently, used school-girl panties.
12. If you ever have money transferred into your account in Japan, the bank will call you, just to make sure you actually want more money.
13. Pop cans are smaller. They're also heavier. That's weird.
14. My pillow has a hole in it.
15. The toilets are funny, and have lots of buttons.

A sort of silly moment

I wrote this about a year ago, in, I think, a fit of cranial hemorrhaging. I apologize in advance, but it popped into my head this morning, god knows why, and through the wonders of the internet I managed to track it down again.

It's even on topic!

The Japanese language is very different from English. For instance, English verbs conjugate differently depending on the subject. As in I am, you are, he is. One of the first things an Anglophone will notice if they take a Japanese class is that the Japanese language does not conjugate like this. Instead, Japanese verbs conjugate only for tense. As in I run, I will run, I ran.

Another important distinction am the use of particles. The English language do not has particles, instead it rely on the structure of the sentence, the placement of the subject and the object and the verb relative to each other. As in Johnny went to the store. But Japanese go about this differently. To mark a subject it use the particle wa, and the particle ga if the subject is secondary. To mark an object, it-wa has the particle o. The particle ni-wa indicate time-o. If you-wa am going somewhere, your destination-ga am marked by he. But if you-wa am already somewhere, your location-ga is marked by de. As in Matt-wa went to the store-he at 2:00-ni. At the store-de he bought an orange-o. Other particles-wa am for giving examples (toka)-toka, the conjugate and (to)-toka, and the word too (mo), which replace wa-to ga-o.

But the Japanese language-wa am even more confusing. Even though there am particles-ga, the language-wa still have a sentence structure-ga-mo . That structure-wa am subject-time-place-object-verb. Matt-wa 2:00-ni store-he went. Store-de orange-o bought. Adjectives-wa like un-particle-d objects-ga act. Matt-wa untalented am.

I-wa this-ga the fact that hard am-ga know. You-wa it-o can do.

Needless to say, the admins over at Megatokyo quickly locked the thread.

観覧車

With a limited amount of network space at school, and no computer of my own as of yet, I need to start clearing out some old pictures to make room for newer ones - specifically to make room for the ones from Nara two weekends ago (which, I swear, are coming soon) and from the 時代祭り jidai matsuri Festival of Ages coming up this weekend in Kyoto. This will be my third Foray into Kyoto, but the first time I'll be there for two simultaneous festivals.

At least I'm told there will be two festivals, but my sources, fellow exchange students, are none too reliable.

The Jidai Matsuri celebrates the legacy of Japanese history, from Yayoi times (ie BCE) through Heijo, Heian, Kamakura, Tokugawa and right on up to the present day. It's about 10 000 years packed into one day.

Anyway, as part of my attempt to clear space on my camera I need to delete some old pictures from my school account. These are from like a month ago.

It was I think the second or third weekend since our arrival, and we all went in to Osaka for some drunken revelry. And oh was it revelrous, but before we hit the 居酒屋 izakaya sake joints we went to this sort of amusement park at the top of a shopping centre. It was I think spread across the seventh and eighth floors, and at the very top, stretched out across the Osaka sky, was one of the biggest ferris wheels I have ever seen.



It was actually fairly small for Japan, where the 観覧車 kanransha ferris wheels. While everybody else sat through some stupid horror story about a doll (alright, I admit it, I was too scared to sit through it myself) Ida and Pat and I hitched a ride on this red monstrosity. It took like fifteen minutes, cost around five hundred yen (that's basically five bucks) and was one of the most stunning experiences I have had in Japan.








Afterwards we stuck together, and while the remaining group of twenty tried to find a diner they could cram into, Ida, Pat, and I, and Ida's old friend from mother-Finland whose name I have been told four times but cannot seem to absorb, went off to some high-falutin place and I ordered plain tofu by accident. It was not delicious.

Miscellania

A few things to quickly mention, loose ends to wrap up, and news to dish out.

Yesterday was an important milestone. As of today, I have been in Japan for one month and one day.

That article that I talked about ages ago is up on the Ubyssey's website: Recycled pen trend comes to campus. (sounds juicy, no?)

Speaking of the Ubyssey, my favourite campus newspaper has been added to the sidebar. Check out the sexy new website. The other new side dishes are blogs from fellow exchange students Brookie (very proudly of Texas) and Magnus. (very sarcastically of Norway)

In response to the roguest of the rogues' recent actions, my favourite, funny-looking, double-minority politician is headed to the Far East. Condie Rice was dishing out optimism left, right, and centre over the weekend, encouraging China to live up to its sanction obligations against long-time-ally North Korea.

She said, "I am not concerned that the Chinese are going to turn their backs on their obligations. I don't think they would have voted for a resolution that they did not intend to carry through on. And let's remember: no one has an interest in seeing the trade in dangerous materials or weapons of mass destruction. That is, if anything, more destabilizing to the neighbors than even to the interests of the United States." (Epoch Times)

It's nice to hear the US tooting the multilateral horn every now and then. Now that the White House has broken its silence and confirmed what Russia has been saying for weeks I expect we'll be hearing a lot from them over the next few days. If the rhetoric stays this moderate, I'll be willing to give GWB and staff some points for diplomacy.

Not a lot of points mind you.

High-level Japanese politicians seem to be very aware of the need for multilateral and bilateral dialogue, and moderate language. But not surprisingly, it looks like some of the most radical language is coming from lower down.

"There are concerns that North Korea may launch large-scale terrorist attacks or sly and heinous activities in retaliation to additional sanctions," said Hiroto Yoshimura, deputy director general of the National Police Agency.

Yoshimura was addressing the first meeting of a security task force that he heads since North Korea's Oct. 9 atomic test, according to NHK.

Yoshimura told task force members to step up security and intelligence efforts to head off possible retaliation by North Korea. (Japan Times)

And that would be all for the day, if it weren't for some terrible news my old friend Evan told me this morning. He's going through a rough time, and my thoughts are with him and his family.

Nara Teaser

This is maybe venturing back a little into ancient history, but I went to Nara like two weekends ago with Pat, (from Massachusets) Crystal, (from Nevada or Nebraska, I get those two confused) and Pat's homestay parents, who are adorable. (and are from Japan, like duh) I think I said I was going to put up pictures like a week ago, but I'm bad like that.

These are from Pat's camera, and are for the most part very embarassing. Enjoy :)







Two cookies to whoever can identify that sock-like thing sneaking up on me in the fourth picture down.

List I

15 Things we learned at all-night karaoke this weekend
By Jesse, Brookie, Matt Ho and yours truely.

1. Drunk people are difficult.
2. Nomihodai (all you can drink places) are bad for foreigners.
3. In Japan, karaoke is an art form. Hell, they invented it.
4. 27 people (gaijin and nihonjin mixed) = hell on earth
5. Japanese names are hard to read in kanji. Do not expect your cell phone address book to ameliorate this fact.
6. The Doraemon song is a lot of fun.
7. Singing the YMCA song once is fun. Singing it twice is just silly.
8. Warning: if you try to sing like Kurt Cobain your voice will hurt tomorrow morning.
9. Chinese students like to sing Chinese songs.
10. When Jesse is angry he hits his head on things. Hard.
11. If you order one iced tea, they will probably bring two.
12. After several hours of song, sweat and spills, you should consider spending some time in the hall.
13. Japanese compliments are weird.
14. The best thing in the world is melon bread at 7 am.
15. If you make plans to go shopping with people the next morning, you will sleep through your alarm.

Osama bin Layton

Today is a day for general musings. It's rainy and miserable and I have these photos from my weekend trip to Nara but I don't think I'm going to get around to posting them for a while. There's too much stuff going on in the world right now, and I am spending way too much time staring at a monitor as is. I'm going to logoff, I think, maybe do some homework, maybe go to the gym. Maybe I'll put up those pictures tomorrow.

A guy I know is in Uganda

Let’s start on a positive note. Sort of. Here’s a little tidbit from a former Ubyssey-er. John Woodward has an article on CBC.ca today that documents the energy crises in Uganda that began four years ago.

North Korea still on the table

Getting back to Korea, I know I tried to point out yesterday how crazy Kim Jong-il is, but then today I ran across this little tidbit from an old CBC.ca biography that I just had to quote.

According to state officials, he was born in February 1942 at his father's guerrilla base on Mount Paektu, North Korea's highest mountain. "At the time of his birth there were flashes of lightning and thunder, the iceberg in the pond on Mount Paektu emitted a mysterious sound as it broke, and bright double rainbows rose up," the official lines read.

[…]

In 1964 he graduated from the Kim Sung Il University where legend has it he wrote 1,500 books, all of which are stored in the state's library. It is also said that he wrote six operas, all of which are better then any in the history of music, and designed the Juche Tower, a 150-metre tower that commemorates his father. (Source)

On the international scene, China, Russia and the US have all publicly ruled out an armed response, while talks on sanctions and blockades remain stalled. While US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton continues to push the six-party talks, Japan, the current president of the security council, continues to push unilateral sanctions, but says it will not take part in cargo inspections, which are considered an act of war and are therefore banned under Article 9 of the constitution.

China is still a horrible place to live

Even putting aside talk of coal mines and “death-vans,” Chinese ex-pat Yang Dazhi has a chilling story of persecution in Communist China. As much laud and honour as China may be getting these days for its transformation into the latest Asian miracle economy, it’s difficult to see what makes it that different from arms-dealing "terrorist regimes" like North Korea, or fascist, anti-Semitic Iran.

Not that we should be that hard on them, really. Among other things, we, the collective plutocrats of the West, have built our fortune largely on the blood and sweat of the lower-class that came before us. The same thing can be said about environmental pollution, or, say, nuclear weapons. The tricky part is, that in all the talk of China being a nation of socialists, or at worst dirty communists, it more closely resembles a fascist dictatorship like Nazi Germany, right down to the nitty-gritty of the internment camps. It’s gotten so bad that even the US Congress is beginning to take note.

David Kilgour, a former Canadian cabinet minister, was among those who testified. "The government of China and its hospitals, detention centers and other agencies in numerous parts of the country, has over the past half decade put to death a large, but unknown number of Falun gong prisoners of conscience,” he said. “Most of the victims were convicted of nothing. They were murdered by medical professions for their vital organs. These organs were, virtually, simultaneously seized for sale at high prices, often to foreigners."

It’s so easy to be a fascist state these days, what with ideas of “cultural differences” and “moral relativism” sprouting up in all the right places. But this guy can’t get away with it anymore. Neither can these guys. Meanwhile, rubes like Jack Layton continue to press for Canadian withdrawal from crisis points like Afghanistan. Whatever happened to Human Rights and anti-fascism?

This will make you laugh. "MR LAYTON: CANADA MUST CHANGE MISSION IN WESTERN EUROPE [1944]"

Some reasons to maybe not be so worried after all.

Among other things, even if Pyongyang’s touted “nuclear test” turns out to be the real deal, and Russia is saying that it is, it’s unlikely that Kim Jong-Il has the capability to fit his nukes on a Taepodong or the like.

Prototype nuclear weapons in the past have been physically very large and North Korea's is likely to be the same, James Acton, of the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (Vertic) in London, says.
"If North Korea has just tested a first generation device then it is currently likely to be too big to fit on a missile," he said. (BBC)

Moreover, while fears of an Asian conventional arms race are legitimate, it’s important to keep in mind that for historical reasons Japan is one of the most vocal opponents of nuclear weapons, and nuclear technology in general, and is unlikely to acquire a Bomb of its own. If it chose to, Japan could no doubt develop the technology in a matter of days, but the domestic and international opposition to such a measure is broad-based, and very, very robust.

The nuclear topic has been sacrosanct in Japan for decades and the Japanese public remains vehemently opposed to becoming a nuclear power.
While Japan's hawkish new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has won popularity with his tough stance towards Pyongyang and calls for a more assertive foreign policy, persuading Japanese people that they need nuclear weapons would be a tough task.
Equally, Mr Abe will be aware of legal constraints - such as the NPT - that prevent Japan having nuclear weapons, and also of the considerable international opposition, not least from main ally the US, to such a move. (BBC)

From the same source, we have people claiming that a nuclear DPRK may actually be the key to stabilizing the region. As crazy as that sounds, an internationally-relevant Pyongyang may be the key to finally injecting some maturity into Washington’s policies. It goes without saying that nobody in East Asia is interested in a nuclear arms race.

"Anything that causes regional instability is not in China's interests," says Dr Pinkston. Beijing needs stability so that it can focus on its economic development, he says.
Any economic dip could impact badly on a society already coping with rapid change and severe income disparities.
Popular unrest is one of the Chinese political elite's greatest concerns and so maintaining a stable society is the priority, he says.
Countries around the region will more likely put considerable effort into pursing a diplomatic course rather than moving rapidly to arm themselves further.
A North Korean nuclear test could, in fact, be the foundation for better regional dialogue and a more unified effort to put pressure on Pyongyang, says Nicholas Szechenyi of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. (BBC)

The linchpin will be Pyongyang, and if Pyongyang behaves well it all hangs on how GWB reacts. So far, Kim’s been biding his time, and Washington seems committed to a multilateral approach through the Security Council. I think the most threatening the White House has gotten is to mention, of all things, economic sanctions and setting up a naval blockade of sorts.

And thankfully, despite the poignant timing by Pyongyang, Ban Ki-Moon is still poised to replace Kofi Annan as Secretary General of the UN. Kofi, I think, has been there over-long.

With the support of most of the Security Council and of all of the permanent members, the UN General Assembly can appoint Ban to take over after current Secretary General Kofi Annan's mandate is over at the end of the year.
In Ban, the Security Council, which has the ultimate say in choosing the new head, gets a balanced and neutral choice. His appointment would satisfy both the calls for an Asian secretary general and the United States, which considers South Korea to be a staunch ally.
"The Americans would certainly support the South Korean candidacy because that's sort of a validation of South Korea, which has been under the American orbit since the 1950s," Dr. Arne Kislenko, who teaches history and international relations at Ryerson University and University of Toronto, told CBC.ca. (CBC)

And in case you needed to be told, the entire goddamn world has condemned the test, including the Security Council. Some of the more amusing condemnations come from India, Pakistan, and Venezuela. Except Tehran, of course, which makes some good points about Western hypocrisy, but somewhat trips up its high horse when it buys its plutonium COD from the DPRK.

Then again, the Epoch Times reminds us just how close and worrying the ties are between NK, China, and fascist, Islamist Iran, Syria, and Sudan.

And Kim Myong-chol, unofficial spokesman for the DPRK, lets us know just how crazy "the greatest iron-willed, brilliant commander" Kim Jong-Il really is.

Holy Fuck.

North Korea performs its first-ever nuclear test
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Monday it had performed its first nuclear weapons test, an underground explosion that defied international warnings but was hailed by the communist nation as a "great leap forward" for its people. (Globe and Mail)

The Situation

The most detailed account of the nuclear situation I have found. Washington Post

Overview of North Korean Nuclear Activities. CBC

Historical Overview of North Korea. CBC

The Korean People's Army is made up of 1.2 million troops, making it the fourth-largest military in the world. North Korea spends more than 30 per cent of its gross domestic product on its military. About 37,000 of those troops guard the demarcation line between the two Koreas.

The most important point of all. CBC

Seoul is a city under the gun – thousands of them, in fact. Nearly half of the South Korea's population lives in and around Seoul with an artillery range only 50 kilometres to the north. That military threat makes South Koreans nervous, says Shim Jae Hoon, a journalist for the South China Morning Post and Jane's Defence Weekly.

"They have artillery positions that can fire half a million shells a day at Seoul," he says. "Militarily we are a target, and we are a hostage of North Korea."

North Korea

North Korea lauds “100% safe” test, China and US condemn. China Daily

"It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the (Korean People's Army) and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability," KCNA said. "It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it."

DPRK’s Korean Central News Agency webpage has yet to make an announcement in English. KCNA

Text of North Korea's nuke announcement. China Daily

America

US confirms seismic activity. China Daily

South Korea

South Korea stocks plunge on nuke report. China Daily

Pinko Commie Bastards!

I've made a few additions to the sidebar.

I don't know how I missed this, but sometime over the summer the perceptive and ardently left-wing Matt Good started blogging again.

The erudite Terry Glavin, of the Georgia Straight and that messy article I featured in last January, has a blog that's too good to miss. Plus he's been helping me out with some journalism stuff recently, and is an alround good guy.

The China Daily is now featured, so that you can get the dish on Abe's visit from the Chinese perspective. It was recommended by my Chinese Industrialization professor, who being Chinese himself, hopefully knows what he's talking about.

I almost forgot this one, but the Epoch Times (Canadian Edition) deserves mention under the Asia category. It's the out-spoken newspaper that spawned the Nine Commentaries on the Comunist Party, and it's available for free in most major cities I know of.

And there's a new category as well, Coin, which features links to daily tabulations of currency values for the Chinese Yuan and the Japanese Yen. My East Asian Finance professor wants us to pay attention to this stuff.

Shinzo Abe

If you haven't heard, Japan has a mystery-man of a new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. Abe was elected in mid-September within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to replace outgoing PM Junichiro Koizumi, and his talk is tough, hawkish and very, very patriotic.

Like his predecessor, Abe is immensely popular, and as a result he's faced very few actual challenges to his platform. (which is only four pages long) He's basically casting himself as a hard-right politician, which is a popular posture in Japan, but at 52 he's fairly young and a relative newcomer, so there are very few actual archives of his political opinions. What records there are, though, are very scary. From CBC.ca, dated September 22nd.

Portraying himself as a right-wing candidate who believes patriotism is the solution to Japan's troubles, Abe has made clear his intentions to reinvigorate the Japanese military.

Critics now fear that with Abe in power, there will be an overhaul of the traditional postwar pacifism ingrained in Japan's constitution.

The grandson of an accused war criminal who went on to become prime minister, Abe has made controversial remarks in the past, arguing it is "not necessarily unconstitutional" for Japan to use nuclear weapons in preventative pre-emptive strikes against North Korea. (Source)

It's all very reminiscent of the early 1900s. Speaking of which, among Abe's supporters are the hard-right organizations that consider putting the truth about Japanese war-crimes into highschool textbooks to be unpatriotic. Scary, no?

But as easy as it is for the Western pundits to label him dangerous, having a tabula rasa of a politician as PM may be ideal given Japan's chilly relations with its neighbours. Abe has chosen to play down visits to the Yakusuni Shrine where war-criminals are buried along with ordinary soldiers who fell in the Pacific theatre. Today, Abe is in Beijing meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, and on Monday, a national holidy here in Japan, he will be in Seoul meeting with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun. His honeymoon visit marks the first high-level exchange between China and Japan since 2001, and it shows a willingness on his part, as well as on China's part, to behave, shall we say, maturely. Also from CBC.ca, from today's edition.

Chinese state media have given prominent coverage to Abe's comments, with a television broadcast showing Abe saying he wanted to strengthen dialogue and establish what he called "future-oriented" ties.

Analysts say the trip is highly significant and indicates both sides are willing to take a more pragmatic approach to bilateral ties.

[...]

"Beijing also seems to be quite anxious to tell the international community that it's diplomacy has matured — at least for time being — to the point that it's willing to downplay ideological and cultural/historical issues and focus more on practical matters such as trade, the economy, or the solution of the nuclear crisis on Korean peninsula," [Willy Lam, a veteran China watcher] said. (Source)

Obviously, the recent drama on the Korean peninsula will dominate the agenda today and tomorrow, but Abe's trip was originally conceived as a simple kiss-and-make-up session. And as a blank slate, Abe is in an ideal position to deal with the idealogical and historical tensions that plagued Koizumi's era.

And Abe is showing a willingness to play softball, to show tact and understanding for the domestic and international situations that his neighbours are in.

Or maybe not. I recognize that there is a often a sizeable abyss between what a politician says to win the public's affection, and what he actually does when he's thrust into the boardroom. These two meetings will be the first true tests of Abe's public persona as Prime Minister, and his private goals as a diplomat. Maybe he will start a war after all, but so far I give him cred for his thoughtful and soft diplomacy.

Stay tuned.

Three point one four one five huh?

Here's some crazy news for you. A guy in Chiba prefecture (that's a little east of Tokyo, round the bay) just broke his own record for reciting pi to an insane number of digits.

A man from Chiba Prefecture on Wednesday broke his own world record, reciting the value of pi -- the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter -- to 100,000 digits, a feat that took 16 hours.

[...]

Haraguchi said he will seek to register the feat with Guinness World Records, which currently lists 42,195 digits as the record, set in 1995 by a Japanese university student.

Haraguchi filed an application with Guinness World Records after he set the previous mark in July of last year but it has not been listed yet, he said. (The Japan Times)

You just never know what those wacky Japanese are going to get up to next!

You may have noticed that the sidebar has been updated a little bit. If you can't read kana or kanji, from top to bottom the categories are Asia, Amigos, and then Japanese Language.

A picture of me!

As part of this writing contest I'm doing on one of the forums I frequent I need to post a photo of myself, and since I don't use photobucket or myspace this is going to be my fallback option.

Thus, a picture of me at Himeji Castle, trying to hide from, I think, somebody with a camera.


Oh, right, I got photos of our class trip to Himeji Castle from Ida and Jesse. I will post them shortly.

I'm going to buy a cell phone later today. When next I post, I will be a modern homo sapien, with erect posture and wireless technology. Amazing.

Reboot and Matt

All this talk about the internet put me in mind of some classic, mid-90s Saturday morning programming.

I don't think I entirely got Reboot when I was 10, but man was/is it a cool show. The fourth season was apparently never released, but it's available on DVD from somewhere.

"I come from the Net. Systems, people, cities, to this place: Mainframe. My format: Guardian. To mend and defend. To defend my new-found friends. Their hopes and deams. To defend them from their enemies.

They say The User lives outside the Net and inputs games for pleasure. No one knows for sure, but I intend to find out. ReBoot!" (Source)

Awesome!

Facebook and Matt

OMG.

I have become such a Facebook whore since I left. I guess it has something to do with being in a different timezone (and generally a different day) than all of my friends, but I resisted Facebook for so long when I was in Vancouver and everybody from highschool was in Toronto.

Maybe it has something to do with wanting English conversation, but with sixty other exchange students I'm not really lacking.

Maybe it's because I don't have a computer or internet connection of my own, so the time I do get at school I hoard.

Hell, I don't even really like FB that much. (Do people really call it "FB"?) I think it's a great way to keep track of people, but at the end of the day I'd much rather have an actual conversation, or worst case scenario, email chain.

Now, I'm not one to rage and wrack against the digitization of society. You won't hear me talk about the decadence or isolation of the Television Lifestyle, telecommuting, or internet porn. I spend a lot of time on the internet. A lot. I patronize two forums, around ten web comics, one wiki, and two IRC channels. I read a dozen blogs and publish two of my own. I have friends on the internet, friends I have never met in real life and never will meet.

Actually, one of my e-friends from ages ago recently added me on FB. I think that's cool, I love that Facebook lets you do that. But until recently FB never really grabbed me. I just didn't see the appeal in developing an online relationship with people I already saw regularly. Which maybe means that I don't grok 2nd Millenium Friendship, or that I haven't yet figured out that Networking isn't something that just corporate executives do.

But OMG have I become a Facebook whore. I'm even starting to read the Mini-Feed, despite my intense hatred for it.

I'm on a twelve step program, and my psychiatrist says I'm making great progress.

It's probably self esteem issues. If only I could have played those reindeer games in kindergarten.

Alright, that's enough soliloquy for now. Lataz.

A Rainy Day in Kyoto

I went to 京都　Kyoto on Sunday with my Nihongo Partners 美和子 Miwako and 昌平 Shohei and it rained the whole time. We gawked at the 外人 foreigners. We began our tour with lunch in a two-floor restaurant where I ordered a bowl of noodles and some tempura that cost me the equivalent of $16. We ended in a very nice cafe where my iced cap put me out around $6. Kyoto is somewhat expensive, even for Japan.

Kyoto is gorgeous though, I'll give it that. It's the city that, back a millenium and a half ago and under a different name, became the capital of the Japanese government and the seat of the 天皇　Emperor. Until the end of the Second World War he, and occassionally she, continued to reside there, but political power was passed into the hands of the 将軍 Shogun around the beginning of the twelfth century, and eventually ended up in 江戸 Edo.

Back in the day　it was traditional, for reasons of religious pollution, for the capital to be moved following the death of an Emperor. It was a terribly expensive practice, and was discontinued with the move to Kyoto. The wooden government buildings at the previous capital, 奈良 Nara, were disassembled and dragged by wagons and horses and human sweat to the new and auspicious location, where they were reassembled as best they could be. It's a long trip, but you can do it today in a matter of hours by train.

The plans for Kyoto were based on the Tang dynasty capital of Chang'an, (that's in China) which basically means it was going to be a big square divided into wards with the palace at the top. For geomantic reasons that I would love to get into another time it was aligned with due north, with a river to the east and some hills here and there. I have a map of Chang'an somewhere on my computer, but my computer is in Waterloo and the laptop I brought out here is broken. Boo hiss.

Anyway, that's enough history for now. There are a bunch of really frickin old お寺 Bhuddist Temples and 神社 Shinto Shrines in Kyoto. These are some of them.

As I said, our first stop was a very expensive restaurant. Thence to the heritage of Japan.















Third was 大谷神社 Ootani Shrine, which venerates I don't know what. Just outside it was a graveyard that spread across the hillside in tiers. It was a terrific sight, awe-inspiring in its shear density and grandeur.

Before that was 八坂神社 Yasaka Shrine, which I didn't get any pictures of, and, though it's currently inhabited by a behemoth of a Shinto mythical figure, Susano-no-O, it was originally a Buddhist temple dedicated to a Hindi god with power over disease whose very long sanskrit name is Jetavanavihara, which was shortened into a Chinese approximation, after which the Japanese approximated the Chinese into 祇園 Gion.　Gion, incidentally, is the entertainment district in Kyoto, within which is Yasaka Shrine. Gion (the deity) over time came to be seen as equivalent to Susano-no-O, and was officially supplanted in 1868 by a government decree.

I said no more history, didn't I?



Kyoto was crowded, not just with Japanese but with Foreigners. I think Kyoto is maybe like the CN Tower - a lot more appealing to foreigners. Miwako, for instance, was there for her second time.



















清水寺 Kiyomizu Temple was next. It's huge, and not only huge but gorgeous. Temple, by the way, means Buddhist.

That statue on the right is a 狛犬 Korean Dog, a tradition that apparently was started with Empress Jingu back in the 3rd to 6th century (depending on who you ask) when she is supposed to have conquered Korea. The King of Korea begged for his life like a dog, and the figure has been used to guard the entrances to Japanese temples and shrines ever since.

Under the statue you can see people drinking from an ancient wellspring that has brought good luck to people for, I think, over a millenium. The three different spouts are supposed to be auspicious in three different ways. Shohei says that on the right (your right) you have health and intelligence. Jesse told me later that the middle one is supposed to grant long life. Nobody knew what the one of the left meant.



There are maybe four or six buildings of this size, and some bigger, comprising all of Kiyomizu. It's a good-sized temple.



Shoehei prayed in front of this jolly Buddha for wealth and good fortune in business.

Another shot of the holy wellspring. Needless to say, I drank me some holy water, specifically from the middle spout. I took too much though, and had to empty some of the water onto the ground.

After this we went to a garden, and then another temple where we listened to a chanter work his way through a round of nembutsu - なむ　あみだ　ぶつ　namu amida butsu; Hail Amiddha Buddha, a chant that was introduced to Japan from China by the 天台 Tendai school of Buddhism, which was based right outside Kyoto in the 8th century or so. My camera had, of course, run out of pictures by this point, and I didn't get any shots of the next shrine either.

I'll have to go back, but there are like a gazillion temples in Kyoto, and I don't have that much room on my camera.