Jake Adelstein's Blog, page 13

A Redneck From Missouri Explains To You Why The British Journal of Medicine Says The Tokyo Olympics Are So Goddamn Dangerous. (A translation)

Photo illustration by Derreck Johnson. Image via Nintendo. from Pokémon Go Is Thriving Even Though Everyone’s at Home

I grew up in Missouri, next to McBaine, Missouri, where I rode Bus 57 to school. On Bus 57, there is no Missouree–there is only Mizzou-rah. Riding this bus required learning to understand a little bit of rural Missouri redneck culture—to survive. If there is anything good to be said about redneck rhetoric, it’s that straight talk was generally appreciated and valued. Indeed, Missouri is still called “The Show-Me State” referring to the native demands for actual evidence to back up any far-fetched claims.

I bring all this up because The British Journal of Medicine published an amazing editorial Reconsider this summer’s Olympic and Paralympic games on why Japan should not be hosting the Olympics this year. The editorial goes into clinical detail and is backed up by multiple sources. It’s a brilliant essay but slightly obtuse and the people who should read it, won’t, and the British fondness for diplomatic wording detracts from the message. 

So, in order to make the points a little more palatable (easy to understand),, I have channeled my inner redneck to bring you their excellent editorial in plain American, with only slight transgressions from the main text. I am not a 100% real redneck so please pardon any inauthentic phrasing here. I’ve done my best.

The original article is above and the “translation” is below. I hope that you find this elucidating and if you don’t, you are probably just an ignoramus (dumb-shit). 

Thank you

Reconsider this summer’s Olympic and Paralympic games

BMJ 2021; 373 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n962 (Published 14 April 2021)Cite this as: BMJ 2021;373:n962

Serious questions remain about managing the games safely

The government of Japan and the International Olympic Committee are determined to hold the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer. In February 2021, G7 leaders also supported Japan’s commitment to holding the Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo (Tokyo 2020) “in a safe and secure manner … as a symbol of global unity in overcoming covid-19.”1 While the determination is encouraging, there has been a lack of transparency about the benefits and risk, and international mass gathering events such as Tokyo 2020 are still neither safe nor secure.

Tokyo Olympics? You can’t fucking do it–No way. Don’t be an asshole

The Japanese or rather their government and the IOC which stands for international Olympic Committee are hell-bent on holding Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer, no matter what, not matter how dangerous, come hell or high water or a tornado or a volcano or this deadly fucking virus. It sounds pretty goddman dangerous to me. The leaders of G7 which are the really wealthy countries, that includes the USA (U-S-A!) they support Japan’s efforts to hold the Olympics and I’m quoting here, “in a safe and secure manner”– as a symbol of global unity and overcoming COVID19. Yada Yada.

Well that gung ho spirit is mighty fine but it’s totally unclear if this is going to be a clusterfuck or whether or not its actually going to be safe. A big international gathering event like the Olympics is “neither safe nor secure” and I’m not sure what the differences between these words is but in other words, it’s pretty goddamn dangerous. It would be like fucking Fern Granger without a condom while everyone knows that Fern will sleep with anyone and she’s not particularly careful and God knows if she had an STD test in the last year. Also I’m not slut-shaming here, because there are guys like Dave down at the Redhill Lounge that are total sluts and bad news, and sexually-transmitted diseases are serious problem and one should always use a condom before engaging in casual sex. I hear you can also get the rona from fucking which I guess makes sense. These Olympics needs a condom and Japan wants to ride raw.

The world is still in the middle of a pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 variants are an international concern, causing a resurgence of covid-19 globally.2 We must accelerate efforts towards containing and ending the pandemic by maintaining public health and social measures, promoting behaviour change, disseminating vaccines widely, and strengthening health systems. Substantial scientific advancements have occurred over the past year, but vaccine rollout has been inequitable, reducing access in many low and middle income countries. Huge uncertainty remains about the trajectory of the pandemic.3

The whole world is in the middle of a pandemic which is like an epidemic that is a pansexual: it will fuck anyone, anytime, anywhere. Just when you thought you had kicked its motherfucking ass, it turns out to have some mean ass cousins that you didn’t know you have to deal with. We call these cousins “variants”. It’s like the Greenhills who live past the railroad near where there used to be a post-office. It’s all one family with different people and they’re all mean and will fuck you up. But in less metaphorical terms these variants keep bringing back the virus like a zombie. 

The whole world is in the middle of a pandemic which is like an epidemic that is a pansexual: it will fuck anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Although a special scheme for vaccinating athletes—marshalled by the International Olympic Committee4—may help save lives, it could also encourage vaccine diplomacy, undermine global solidarity (including the Covax global access scheme), and promote vaccine nationalism. Full transparency and clear lines of accountability are critical in any scheme to vaccinate athletes. Furthermore, prioritising athletes over essential workers at high risk in low and middle income countries raises ethical concerns that must be addressed.

We gotta lockdown this sucker by thinking about public health and doing all that stuff we have been doing, like washing our hands, wearing a mask, not spitting at people and not chewing tobacco or blowing smoke in people’s faces, or going to crowded bars getting fucked up. And if you’re one of those no maskers and no vaxxers, fuck you. Fuck you and the station wagon you rode in on. 

We have got to VAX as many people as possible. We have got to improve our healthcare. Thanks to science there have been a lot of great things done in the last year but the vaccine rollout has been piss pour and unfair. If you are a poor country, you are like white trash or a minority in the United States and you are not given that vaccine. Nobody knows how this pandemic thing is going to play out.

Although a special scheme for vaccinating athletes—marshalled by the International Olympic Committee4—may help save lives, it could also encourage vaccine diplomacy, undermine global solidarity (including the Covax global access scheme), and promote vaccine nationalism. Full transparency and clear lines of accountability are critical in any scheme to vaccinate athletes. Furthermore, prioritising athletes over essential workers at high risk in low and middle income countries raises ethical concerns that must be addressed.

The Internationl Olympic Committee could do a lot more than just vaccinating athletes but they don’t give a shit about ordinary folk. If you ask us, essential workers which is like doctors and nurses and farmers and stuff should be a priority in getting vaccinated. Giving these coddled athletes the vaccines before other people in poor and middle-class countries is pretty shady and pretty shitty. It’s an ethical problem. It ain’t right. In case you don’t get it, the IOC are a bunch of assholes.

Poor control

Unlike other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, Japan has not yet contained covid-19 transmission.5 Despite its poor performance,6 Japan still invokes exceptionalism and continues to conceptualise covid-19 within previous planning for pandemic influenza.5 The second state of emergency in the Greater Tokyo area was lifted in late March7 despite early indications of a resurgence and an increase in covid-19 patients with variants of concern, which have now spread across Japan.89

The country’s limited testing capacity and sluggish vaccine rollout6 have been attributed to lack of political leadership.5 Even healthcare workers and other high risk populations will not have access to vaccines before Tokyo 2020, to say nothing of the general population. To properly protect athletes from covid-19, Japan must develop and implement a clear strategy to eliminate community transmission within its borders,5 as Australia did before the Australian Open tennis tournament.

Suga Couldn’t Even Drive A Tractor With Training Wheels

Unlike their Asian neighbors—hey Taiwan, nice job!—Japan has not licked this virus. In fact they are getting their ass kicked. Despite doing a shady job in handling the virus. Japan still thinks they are so so special and they keep treating this virus like it’s the flu which is pretty stupid. Stupid is as stupid does. Japan had a second state of emergency in the greater Tokyo area which is like Tokyo in places around Tokyo. It did not accomplish jackshit. They lifted the emergency while infections were rising and the weird mutant viruses were showing up all over Japan. Any dumbshit could see that there would be another resurgence like the Taliban in Afghanistan. Anyway, these killer mutant bad ass viruses are now all over Japan.

The leaders of Japan can’t tell there assholes from their mouths. Japan has a crappy capacity to test people for the virus. Their vaccine rollout is so goddamn slow that you would think the space time continuum in the country is in slow motion, like when you film something in slow motion on an iPhone, if you can afford an iPhone, or you have a friend who has an iPhone. Maybe you can also film things in slow motion on an Android phone but all i have is this old flip phone and that’s fine with me. Healthcare workers and old people and people who really need that vaccine are not going to get it before the Tokyo Olympics starts. And everybody else, they’re pretty much fucked. If Japan is going to protect the athletes that come there to play in these games, they need to get their shit together. They need to have a plan to stop the transmission, in other words, the spread of this virus within its own borders. You know who did this good? Australia did this. Australia did it before the Australian Open Tennis Tournament. They handled the virus really good if you don’t mind me saying.

Japan and the International Olympic Committee must also agree operational plans based on a robust science and share them with the international community. Waiving quarantine for incoming athletes, officials, broadcasters, press, and marketing partners10 risks importing and spreading covid-19 variants of concern. While international spectators will be excluded from the games,11cases could rise across Japan and be exported globally because of increased domestic travel—as encouraged by Japan’s official campaigns in 2020.51213Entrants will be asked to download Japan’s covid-19 contact tracing app,10 but this is known to be unreliable.14

The maximum allowable number of domestic spectators is still pending,11 but an overwhelmed healthcare system combined with an ineffective test, trace, and isolate scheme51213 could seriously undermine Japan’s ability to manage Tokyo 2020 safely and contain any outbreak caused by mass mobilisation.

Japan and the international Olympic Committee must create plans that are based on solid science and they need to share them with everyone in the whole wide world. By not requiring quarantines for athletes officials broadcasters press and marketing partners, there’s a pretty good chance that they are going to import some nasty mutant killer viruses into Japan. That will really suck.

Sure there will be no spectators at the Olympic games, that don’t mean it’s safe. There are 8000 ways this could get fucked up. You could have the virus go crazy in Japan and be exported on a global level—like they did with Pokemon, but you don’t want to catch them all. You don’t even want to catch one of these Pokemon. Japan has done this sort of fuck-up before and they are going to do it again. Japan had this dumb ass domestic tourism promoting program in the middle the pandemic called Go To Travel and the country has Gone To Hell. Those who are participating in the event are asked to download Japan’s shitty contact tracing app but it doesn’t work and you can’t count on it and it’s doubling down on stupidity

Sure there will be no spectators at the Olympic games, that don’t mean it’s safe. There are 8 millions ways this could go sideways. You could have the virus go crazy in Japan and be exported on a global level—like they did with Pokemon, but you don’t want to catch them all. You don’t even want to catch one of these Pokemon.

Nobody knows how many people will be watching or participating in the games but when you have an healthcare system that is overloaded and a worthless system for tracking testing and isolating people with the virus, you have a recipe for disaster. When you got a lot of people moving around you got a lot of ways to spread this virus. That should be pretty obvious to anyone who doesn’t have their head up their ass.

Safety first

Plans to hold the Olympic and Paralympic games this summer must be reconsidered as a matter of urgency. The whole global community recognises the need to contain the pandemic and save lives. Holding Tokyo 2020 for domestic political and economic purposes— ignoring scientific and moral imperatives—is contradictory to Japan’s commitment to global health and human security.

Assholes and Athletes First, Common Folk Can Suck A Donkey Dick

Is this really so-I’m-going-to-shit-my-pants-if-I-don’t-go-to-the-bathroom-now urgent do we have to have the Olympics this year? The whole world except the IOC and Japan cares about saving lives and kicking the ass of this pandemic. If Japan actually gives a shit about the health of the world and human beings in general, they should not be ignoring science and being nice to other people, just because a bunch of old bastards want some glory and some money. When you think about the whole spiel about Olympic values, world unity and the human spirit and all that, holding the 2020 Olympics is a bunch of hypocritical bullshit. Fuck that. When we say ‘reconsider’, we mean get your head out of your ass and postpone it or cancel it, you bloody bastards. Thank you! I hope you got that.

Japan’s Toxic Olympics: 10,000 Deaths and more to come

There is a Japanese saying, (悪因悪果) that “from bad beginnings come bad endings”. Holding the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in the midst of a pandemic will not end well.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics begin with a bribe and lie. That lie was told to the world when Prime Minister Abe assured them that Tokyo 2020 Olympics would be safe because the nuclear disaster at Fukushima was under control. It wasn’t under control then and it isn’t now. Deadly radioactive waste is spilling from 8000 corroded containers on site, the company running the operation, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, will dump the tons of radioactive water on the site into the ocean in two years. They will keep dumping the water for years after, because sea water has to be pumped into the core to keep cooling the remains of the reactor. 

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics also begin with a bribe. That bride was given from the government through the Japan Olympic Committee (JOC) and channeled  by Dentsu, the largest advertising firm in Japan, to former members of the IOC (International Olympic Commission) to make sure that Japan won the bid. The French authorities investigated and the head of Japan’s Olympic commission resigned in disgrace. No one at the IOC or the JOC gives a fuck.

It bears repeating, if Fukushima nuclear disaster was really under control when Prime Minister Abe made that lie in 2014, the Japanese government wouldn’t be unilaterally deciding to dump nuclear contaminated waste into the ocean two years from now.

Now Japan claims that it has the pandemic under control. 

“Come to Tokyo! It’s perfectly safe!” 

It’s so safe that the government has banned attendance at all sporting events starting today—and plans to hold the world’s largest sporting event in three months. The safety protocols in place are underwhelming.

The safety guidelines for the Olympics ensure that athletes will be vaccinated while everyone else waits. Athletes will be confined to three areas, violators may be stripped of the right to compete or participate in the Olympics. The Yomiuri Shimbun, a sponsor of the Olympics, published a sneak cherry picked peek of the safety protocols. Japan Subculture Research Center published the documents for the public.

The 2020  Olympics which are very likely to be a catalyst for creating new and more terrible variance of the coronavirus, looks like a biological nuclear disaster waiting to happen. But just as Japan ignored warnings and coverups that led to the 2011 deadly disaster which displaced 160,000 people and will pollute the world for years to come, they are ignoring all sensible arguments to postpone or cancel the Olympics this year

The Tokyo Olympics are not something that the Japanese people want, they are something that a few old men in power want to hold desperately so they have something to add to their retirement scrapbooks. The majority of the Japanese people, nearly 80% do not want the Olympics to be held this year or want it be canceled. That is wise. Japan is in the middle of a state of emergency as coronavirus number surge here again, and anemic and poorly thought out countermeasures failed to stop the spread of the disease. People are dying and their dying faster than they have before. It took one year for the first 4000 people to die (January 16 2020–January 6 2021). The next 4000 died in less than two months. Today, 10,000 people will have died from COVID19 here. Neighboring countries in Asia have done much better.

Not even this magical creature can save Japan from magical thinking. 10,000 dead and more to come

At one point in time Japan’s Minister of Finance, bragged that Japan was able to handle the coronavirus without lockdowns or other stringent measures because of the superiority of the Japanese people. He can’t make that claim now. If you compare Japan to the United States or other countries in Europe, it seems to be doing very well, at least in terms of mortality. However if you could compare Japan to its Asian neighbors, it’s the worst kid on the block. Japan’s per 1000 people testing ratio is worse than Kazakhstan. It has refused to follow the successful examples of other countries in the region. Now there is a bit of a mystery as to why the death toll in Asia is so low, with theories that the genes are different or that an earlier less virulent form of the disease is already given people immunity, are that the BCG vaccine which was widely used in Asia especially the so-called Tokyo strain, gave those who received it what is called trained immunity. No one knows the answer. But here’s how it shakes out

Taiwan which has 1/5 the population of Japan, was the first country to warn the world of the, deadly virus, originating in China. Taiwan, thanks to strong leadership and a swift response, has done a remarkable job of containing the virus, without vaccines, so the people there are now living more or less a normal life. Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, have all dealt with the virus better than Japan, if you count the number of deaths as a bear meter.

Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong each country has had less than 100 deaths. Taiwan has only had 12 deaths. Even when adjusting the numbers of deaths to the population of each country, Japan has done a dismal job.

Japan now has 10,000 people dead from the coronavirus and more to come. Why has Japan done such a dismal job of protecting its own people from this virus?

Because time and time again the insane desire to put on the Olympics no matter what, has encouraged the country to take half ass measures to pretend that everything is all right, to squander opportunities to get the disease under control, and to put saving face before saving lives.

Tokyo is now in its 3rd State of Emergency. It will be lifted when the head of the IOC comes to visit the country. “We can’t have the IOC visiting Tokyo during a state of emergency, can we?”

Ask yourself, are the Tokyo 2020 Olympics worth holding if even one person dies as a result? How many deaths are acceptable?

Japan has wanted to save face over saving lives from the first reports of the deadly virus being issued from Taiwan—-the same day, January 16th, 2020 Japan had its first COVID19 case. When the infected cruise ship, The Diamond Princess, arrived on the shores of Japan, this nation refused to let the passengers be taken off board and treated at hospitals, because they didn’t want the numbers of infected and dead to be counted as Japan’s number. That wouldn’t look good for the Olympic Committee. So they kept them on board, effectively turning the ship into a giant floating Petri dish.

Then the government let the Japanese passengers leave the ship after insufficient testing and despite warnings that passengers not showing symptoms might still be carrying the disease. They went home by public transport—spreading the disease nationwide. Several turned out to be infected—the total number hasn’t been made public.

It also became clear that health care workers who had been aboard the Diamond Princess and staff from the Ministry of Health had become infected. However, at first the Japanese government refused to test them. Refused. And when they did test them, sure enough, there were infections.

Japan’s first cluster of coronovirus cases off the Diamond Princess was the Ministry of Health. It has been a clusterfuck ever since. The Olympics obsessed Abe government as well as Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike seemed unconcerned about the coronavirus for weeks. Abe wined and dined the media while the virus was spreading. Koike barely mentioned the word until—-the Olympics were officially postponed on March 23rd 2020. The next day, Koike sounded the alarm bells, calling for a lockdown and the number of reported coronavirus cases miraculously surged. What a coincidence!

Japan has ignored the successful examples of other nations and steadfastly refused to test widely or test wisely. In the midst of the pandemic, the Japanese government ran a domestic tourism campaign, Go To Travel, which ensured that there was nowhere safe in the country from the coronavirus. Misguided efforts to prioritize the Olympics, to make Japan appear safer than it is, have delayed serious countermeasures and as a result, people have died. The mismanagement is so great that it is equivalent to professional negligence resulting in death and injury.

You could and you will argue that Japan has done so much better than the US or England. The relatives and loved ones of the 10,000 dead will tell you this irrelevant.

The Tokyo Olympics have already killed hundreds of people. They have been killed because priorities were screwed. If the Olympics continues, more people will die. Is even one death acceptable to hold what are, once you take away the hyperbole, simply games? Even one of Japan’s top athletes was brave enough to say what should be said, that human lives were more important than an international competition.

We know that the IOC has no moral compass. They have no qualms about hosting Olympics in China which is committing general genocide against a minority of its people. The only reason the IOC is not holding the Olympics in North Korea is the hermit Kingdom just doesn’t have enough money.

We should change the name of the IOC to stand for the International Oligarch Club, because that’s whom they appear to be serving.

Almost every media outlet in Japan is a sponsor of the Olympics, and having become a sponsor they have also become an accomplice in promoting the Olympics above public safety, and they should be ashamed of themselves. They aren’t.

Japan’s Olympic Committee will turn a blind eye to corruption, to bribes, to yakuza influence, to the real possibility that athletes die from heatstroke amidst Japan’s notoriously brutal summers.

Maybe I’m naïve, but if Japan and or rather the government of Japan, and the IOC actually gave a damn about the ideals espoused in the Olympics, they would suck up their losses and postpone the games to next year. And they hold them in the autumn (as they did in 1964) so fewer people die, or cancel the damn things altogether.

Japan’s Finance Minister Taro Aso also who asserted so stupidly that Japan’s so-called victory over the novel coronavirus was due to Japanese superior was right about one thing. He called the the Tokyo 2020 Olympics “cursed”

He’s right. For the sake of all the nations participating in the optics, and all the people living in Japan, it’s time to end that curse you. We only need two magic words, “Postpone” or “Cancel”.

Let’s see if the greedy clowns running the Tokyo 2020 Olympics have any decency and do the right thing, but I suspect if compassion were a Olympic event, the organizers wouldn’t even win a bronze medal.

The Tokyo Olympics (#Toxic2020) are a terrible idea in the middle of a pandemic—and were bought with a bribe and won with a lie. They do indeed seem to be cursed. If they are held as planned, it is likely to spread new and deadly variants of COVID19 to the public in Japan, and participants here may take back, along with their medals, new and deadly variants from Japan.

Time to end the curse. Let the IOC and the JOC know how you feel, before it’s too late.

Spring Healing: An Art Exhibit–last day March 28th

Tokyo Art Studio Launches ‘Spring Healing’ Joint Art Exhibition

Featuring 14 Japan-Based Artists & Over 100 Pieces of Artwork

With Spring comes new beginnings! Tokyo Art Studios is thrilled to announce their inaugural exhibition, titled “Spring Healing”, which features over 100 artworks by 14 emerging and established artists based in Japan. The “Spring Healing” exhibition runs until March 28 2021.

The exhibition highlights artist experiences in Japan using varying aesthetics relating to their mediums, including oils, acrylic, watercolor, illustrations, silkscreen, and photography. The artists hail from Japan and around the world, but all call Japan home today. The themes of Japan’s nature, arts and society, are woven into all the pieces.

All artworks can be viewed online at a later date but come see them in person while you can. Some featured artists include:

Johnna Slaby

Johnna Slaby is an abstract artist born and raised in Japan, and currently works between Japan, the UK, and the US. Utilizing various materials from acrylics to coffee, she creates abstract pieces that are reminiscent of a late-afternoon coffee or the golden hour near a river. Through the experiences and stories that she comes across during her travels and life, she works them into pieces to create memories people can see. From her large canvas pieces to her intimate paper studies, she dissects both mundane and profound moments of life, continuing to ask, What does it mean to be alive?

Shinjiro Tanaka

Shinjiro Tanaka is an artist who expresses the infinite possibilities of simple lines by combining contradictory elements such as calmness and passion, past and future, and life and death. His works are not limited to canvas painting, but also include murals, apparel, three-dimensional objects, and digital art. Born in CA in 1985, he graduated from Keio University in 2008 and moved to NYC after working for Dentsu. He brings a variety of experiences to his art, including working as a music producer’s assistant and Performing with Nile Rodgers and CHIC, launching the apparel brand BSWK, and performing at Heisei Nakamura-za in New York. After returning to Japan, he held his first solo exhibition “FACE” in 2018; at the end of 2018, he performed live art on the streets of New York for 30 days, and the following year held his solo exhibition “NYC STREET ART PROJECT”. The same year, he won the ART BATTLE TOKYO competition and has been working unconventionally in Japan and abroad, exhibiting at a gallery in London and creating murals on the streets.

Keiko Takeda

Keiko Takeda’s practice allows her to express her favorite places and unknown corners of the world through colors and shapes. Each subject is made warmer with her brush as she believes that colors have feelings that embody our own emotions. Keiko has shown her work in many exhibitions, both solo and group shows.

Marie Ikura

Marie Ikura studied art, and more specifically painting, while at Tama Art University before becoming a professional artist whose signature style is based on live art. Often, Marie creates live paintings that share space, time, and music with the people present where her work is ever-evolving as the paint scatters, making sounds such as “voice of color”. In addition, she engages in participatory art like wearing art or consuming art. Her live work has taken her to regions in Europe and Southeast Asia.

About Tokyo Art Studio

A new Tokyo gallery which opened this March (2021) – Tokyo Art Studio strives to provide a platform for the global community of emerging artists based in Japan. Through exhibitions and programming, TAS encourages our community to creatively connect with one another through the power of art and dialogue. To learn more about Tokyo Art Studio

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The Studio is located at 3-17 -12 Minami Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Visits outside of exhibit times are by appointment only.

Email and questions or request for interviews to contact@TokyoArtStudioGallery.com.

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"Where Is The Romance?"–a hard-boiled meditation on mating rituals in Tokyo (for V-day)

In a departure from our usual somber posting, I’ve written an original prose-poem, which is for a friend’s upcoming “Where is the Romance” theme party in Tokyo–a pre-valentines’s day event.  I’ve been in Japan (not just Tokyo) for over twenty years now and it seems to me that this city as overpopulated as it is, is also a very lonely place.  I’ve heard more dating horror stories than any man should hear in his entire life.  If Hong Kong is the graveyard of marriages–Tokyo is where the infanticide of them is widely practiced–and marriages, when they happen, seem to last as long as the cherry blossoms or linger on, liked fish being dried in the sun. Of course, this also a city where fake marriages run 3,000 dollars for foreign women wanting to work in the entertainment industry, and gay men marry women to maintain appearances, and marriage fraud schemes are a semi-institutionalized crime.

I should say that I’m parodying one well-known author/poet with this masterpiece and whoever figures out who it is gets a pack of dried umeboshi and honorable mention on this humble blog. Hopefully, those of you familiar with Tokyo will get some of the subtler references.  By the way, remember on Valentine’s Day in Japan–the women buy chocolate for the men.

“Where is the romance?”
A “hard-boiled” meditation on dating in Japan
by Jake Adelstein, author of  “WHY WOMEN SHOULD PAY FOR DINNER: A GUIDE TO COURTSHIP IN JAPAN”
—3rd version, 2010 for EH.

Where is the romance?
Does it even live in this city?
Can the dead really know it–
can it be found in the shadows
of this glittering necropolis?

For Tokyo is a ghost town
crowded and overflowing with
A billion spirits
that see
but are never seen
that touch
but are not felt,
that speak
but are not heard
and yet hear
but do not listen.
Maybe, it once was here.
Urban legends say
it’s buried in a coin locker in Shibuya station
but the key lies somewhere in the tracks of the Chuo line
and those that look for it
rarely come back
It’s certainly not in your computer
waiting to be found
or in your cell-phone
just one more twitter away
it does not live in a virtual environment
or in the love hotel where you stay

it might have been
on that train you rushed to catch
but just missed instead
or in the person
who you might have given your seat
if you had just been a little less tired
maybe at the yoga class
you keep meaning to go to,
if work didn’t always runs late.
rumors of its existence
persist nonetheless, like tobacco stains on teeth

there were eyewitness sightings
at Heartland
but they proved to be misleading.
traces of it in fancy dinners
that were really just about breeding
invitations of “hey, come over to my place and listen to music”
always make sure to keep it far away
and men who want to split the check
make sure it never stays

romance in the realm of hungry ghosts
is a hard thing
and corporeal existence
while it can be bought at the door
is no guarantee of locating it–
and even when found,
it only lasts until your wallet
is as empty as the experience.
ethereal, fleeting, legendary
where is the romance?
It is as elusive as the Japanese wolf
long believed to have been hunted
into extinction
never to return.

If you find it,
somewhere hidden between ambition
compromise, opportunity, and commitment
consider yourself fortunate, my friend
hold it gently, treat it well,
you are unlikely to catch it again.

“Nothing says love like menstrual blood.” In Japan, V-Day chocolates are really special

Japan has a unique way of celebrating western holidays. On Christmas Eve, men and women check into Japan’s ubiquitous, pay by the hour, slightly kinky boutique hotels, also known as  “love hotels” and celebrate the event with raucous but tasteful intercourse.

On Valentine’s Day, the women buy chocolates for men. The men reciprocate a month later on White Day, a candy industry invented holiday, by saying thanks for their expensive chocolate gifts with cheap white chocolates.

On Valentine’s Day in Japan, women give chocolate to men. And some women put a little blood and sweat into making home-made chocolates for their true love. Metaphorically and literally.

The whole holiday is a huge headache for many Japanese women who not only buy chocolates for the most important lover in their life, which may not necessarily be their boyfriend, or husband, or even a man at all–but they also have to buy and give chocolates to work acquaintances and close male friends. The chocolates that you give to your lover are called 本命チョコ (true love chocolates). Those you give out of obligation (義理) are called giri-choco (義理チョコ).

Love, blood, chocolate and a love hotel is all you need. Happy Valentine’s Day in Japan! Hey and the costume rentals look amazing. Notice the lovely Disneyesque fonts.

 

Well, some women in Japan, and probably a very small number of them,  in order to spice up their home-made chocolates with a little extra something, or give their store bought chocolates  something really special--are reportedly (self-reportedly) putting a little of their own blood and sweat into the cooking of gooey sweets. Literally. Sometimes body fluids such as blood, sweat, and spit are the secret ingredient in chocolates given by Japanese girls to the boy of their dreams. If they aren’t really doing it, they are at least certainly tweeting about it.  One sneaky chef recommends that people use frozen raspberry puree in their home made chocolates to disguise the blood’s taste and appearance. (I always knew there was something about raspberries I didn’t like.)

Japanese girls and women have been tweeting about mixing blood, spit and other bodily fluids in the chocolates for their “true loves” as a sort of magic. How many really have? Who knows?

Obviously, some of this self-reporting is dubious and simply black humor but it’s not altogether an unknown practice and reports of it date back at least to 2011.

There seems to be a primitive belief in Japan that one’s blood or parts of the body have magical powers of attraction and that by having your true love consume it, that they will become a part of you or inseparable. In other words, if you are the one in love but not your partner (片思い）, having him drink your blood is believed to make you fall in love with each other equally. (両思い).

The insertion of bodily fluids into chocolates is considered to be a sort of black magic (黒魔術) or a spell/majinai（呪い). Or perhaps, women just do it because a popular website reported it as new trend. In Japan, what is reported to be a trend, often becomes a trend based on that report. The news makes the news. Of course, one respondent to JSRC explained her reasons for putting her blood in the chocolate as simply, “I thought it would make the chocolate taste better.”  (血液を入れたら美味しくなるかと思ったから)

Ideally, says the blogosphere, if you are going to lace your true love’s chocolates with blood, menstrual blood is the most powerful. For those women to be having their period during Valentine’s Day is an auspicious sign.  Women are advised that if they don’t have blood to give, to try fingernails, skin, or other materials from their own body.

We agree that the “bloody valentines” are not a trend, and  probably only made only by a fringe element in Japan but there you go. Japan apparently isn’t the only place where the magical attractive powers of a woman’s blood in the food of her man are supposed to to make him a love slave. This is allegedly a common voodoo belief as well. However, in Japan they seem to be more methodical in how to do it, including recipe suggestions—even if some of that is in jest.

It goes without saying that consuming the blood of another person is probably not healthy. And the jury is out on the efficacy of chocolate’s sterilization of harmful viruses in the red elixir of life.  So for you lucky guys in Japan getting a box of chocolates from your “true love” or would be “true love” ; be sure to get vaccinated first and consume carefully. If you suddenly find yourself feeling strongly for your lover in what was once a one-sided relationship, well then you’ll know something magical is happening.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Note: This article was originally written without one tasteless pop-culture reference to horror/slasher film “My Blood Valentine.”  Angela Kubo, food writer, gracefully contributed to this report. 

 

Happy Uniquely Japanese Valentine’s Day! What we talk about when we talk about love & sex in Japan

It’s Valentine’s Day again in Japan or it will be soon….And while Valentine’s Day is a mutual exchange of gifts and professions of love in the West, in Japan it’s a holiday where women give expensive fine chocolate to the men they love and crappy obligatory chocolate to the men they work with or work for, known as 義理チョコ (giri-choko) or “obligation chocolates.”

According to Encyclopedia Aramata, Valentine’s Day was first introduced into Japan in February of 1958 by an employee of Mary Chocolate Co. Ltd, who had heard about the European chocolate exchanges between couples from a friend living in Paris He decided it would be a brilliant marketing technique in Japan so he organized a collaboration with Isetan Department Store in Shinjuku, Tokyo. It was an incredible….failure.  “During one week we sold only about three chocolates worth 170 yen at that time,” an employee recalled.  Yet this employee persisted, later becoming the president of the company, and by the 1980s, he and Japan’s chocolate industry, along with the department stores, had enshrined Valentine’s Day as a holiday that is “the only day of the year a woman confesses her love through presenting chocolate.” The spirit of love.

But of course, as time went by, giving chocolate became something women were expected to do for not only the their “true love” but people at work, their bosses, their friends, and even, their brothers. 義理チョコ  (giri-choko) aka “obligation chocolate” has branched off into “友チョコ (tomo-choko)”  chocolate for friends, 世話チョコ (sewa-choko), chocolate for people who’ve looked after you, 自分チョコ (jibun-choko), a present for yourself, and even the rare 逆チョコ (gyaku-choko) —the rare event when a man gives chocolate to a woman on Valentine’s Day (revolutionary).

When we say “Valentine’s Day” in Japan, it doesn’t quite mean what it means in the West. (We’ll talk about White Day in March). And if you think about it, what do we really mean when we talk about love? Japan has some very specific terms for discussing and classifying love. Although the terms can be expressed in English, the compactness of Japanese words for sex, love, and everything in between is quite charming.

Japan has many words for love and sex. It’s surprisingly rich in words for love such as 友愛 (the love between friends) and 親愛 (love between family members) and of course 恋愛 (passionate love) . Here are some of the words you may find useful as you travel through love hotel island.

The Japanese language is rich in terms for love and sex–which are definitely not the same thing here.

*出会い（Deai）–“meeting people” Also used to describe dating sites 出会い系サイト and one-night stands.

不倫 (Furin)-“adultery, infidelity.” Has more of a negative connotation than uwaki

慈愛(Jiai)–compassionate love. Much like the love a parent feels for their child–a desire for the happiness and well-being of another. When the Dalai Lama speaks of love in Japanese, this is often the word used to translate his words.

 

*浮気 (Uwaki) –1) to describe someone who can romantically love many people 2) infidelity; an affair 3) being in love with in someone other than your partner 4) (old usage) cheerful and gorgeous

*恋人 (Koibito) “lover”

*熱愛 (Netsu-ai) “passionate love”

*恋愛 (Ren-ai) “romantic love” A word very popular in Japanese woman’s magazines

*恋い (Koi) “love”

*一物 (Ichimotsu) “the one thing”  According to an old joke, the definition of a man is this: a life support system for an ichimotsu (the penis).

*慈悲, 慈悲深い (Jihi) (Jihibukai) “compassionate love/sympathetic joy” This comes from Buddhism and describes a maternal love, originally means to give joy and peace to someone and remove their pain. 慈悲深い人–someone who is compassionate and finds happiness in the happiness of others.

*情熱 (jounetsu) “passion”

*ラブ (rabu) “love” pronounced Japanese style.

ラブラブ (rabu rabu) “love love” used to described a couple deeply in love.

*同性愛 (douseiai) “homosexual love”

*愛 (ai) love. “to love” 愛する (ai suru)

*好き (suki) like. Used often to express love as well. 大好き (Daisuki) “really like” Old school Japanese males never say, “I love you” (愛している) they would say, Daisuki. This line:“君が大好きだ” (Kimi ga daisuki da). “I really like you” is often the profession of love in a Japanese movie or television show on both sides.

純愛 (Jun-ai) “pure love” An almost mystical concept of love as something beyond physical or material reality. I’m still not sure what this means but it sets off lights in the eyes of Japanese women. It’s a television drama buzz word.

*惚れる (horeru) fall in love

*惚れ込む (horekomu) fall deeply in love

*一目惚れ (hitomebore) love at first sight “hitome” first sight. “hore” fall in love (see above)

満足manzoku (satisfied)

*セックス (Sex)—This is “Japanese English.” It means sex.

*前戯 (Zengi)–Foreplay. Mae (前）means before and “戯れ” means “play, goof around”.  Technically this entry should have been before Sex (セックス) on the list but then I wouldn’t be able to make this joking reference here.

*セックスレス (Sexless)—Maybe half of Japanese marriages are sexless. Who knows why? It’s a common complaint for Japanese women and some Japanese men..

アイコンタクト (eye contact)” Important in courting.

*エッチ (etchi) A cute-word for anything sexual, flirty. Usually has a fun connotation.

*男根 (dankon) “male-root” If you can’t figure out what this means, please refer to 一物 (ichimotsu)

*おまんこ (o-manko) The female genitalia, sometimes just the vagina. Also referred to as simply manko. However, we prefer attaching the honorable “o” as in “orgasm”.  Also, it’s never bad to show respect. Even amongst the closest of friends, decorum is necessary. 親しき仲にも礼儀あり

*愛人 (aijin) Lover. The aijin is usually the partner in a forbidden romance. Similar to “koibito” but more of a shady aspect.

*オーガズム　(ougasumu) orgasm

オルガスムス (orugasumusu) orgasm in Japanese taken from German Orgasmus

絶頂 (zettcho) climax, orgasm in Japanese language

*失楽園 (Shitsurakuen) A very popular novel and movie about a passionate modern day affair that ends in double suicide, with the lovers found dead in each others arms in mortal post coitus bless. Yes, you wouldn’t think this would encourage people to have affairs but it did! Women’s magazines had multiple features on the books and movies.

潮吹き (shiofuki): female ejaculation. Some Japanese women release a squirt or excess lubrication on orgasm. There appears to be some science suggesting that this does happen.

鼻血 (hanaji): bloody nose. There is a strange folk-belief that when a Japanese man is sexually excited he gets a nosebleed. Go figure.

Note:

In Japan, when man or women reaches orgasm, they don’t come (来る) they go (行く/iku). Likewise, to make a man or woman reach orgasm, is to 行かす (Ikasu) “make go.”

 

楽園 (rakuen) mean paradise. 失（shitsu） means “loss” or as a verb 失う（ushinau） to lose.

 

If I was running a campaign aimed at women for Japan’s favorite 浮気（uwaki) dating site for married people, I might make a pun on this along the lines of “恋愛の楽園を失いましたか。Ashleymadison.jpで禁断の楽園を再発見しよう“ (Did you lose your lover’s paradise？Rediscover the forbidden paradise on Ashleymadison.jp) BTW, the site already had a 1,000,000 members within 8 months.

*恋い焦がれる (koikogareru)=”burningly in love” to be in love so deeply that it’s painful, to yearn for the other 恋い (love) + 焦げる (burn).

Not a negative word, but a way of expressing a deep passionate consuming love. Many men and women seem to be seeking

*ベッド (bed)—usually a roundabout way of discussing sex in Japanese female magazines

–プレイ”—(play) This is usually added to various types of sexual fetishes.

性愛 (sei-ai) Erotic love, eros (sex/gender 性 +  love 愛)

For example, 赤ちゃんプレイ　(Aka-chan purei)—When the guy likes to be diapered like a baby, possible shaved completely nude, and nurse, sometimes with a woman who’s actually lactating. I could tell you a really strange story about a police raid on a place specializing in this type of service but I’ll skip it.

 

*遊び (Asobi) “Play”—this can refer to sex, an affair, a one-night stand. It has a wide usage in Japan and adults “play” just as much as children. Hence the costume fetish in Japan—

コスプレー (cosupurei—“costume play”)

 

密事 (mitsuji)—An old word but a literary one for discrete affairs.

*禁断の愛　(kindan no ai) Forbidden love

*密会 (mikkai) secret meeting

*ばれない (barenai) to not be discovered, to get away with something

*絶対ばれない (zettai barenai) “absolutely no one will find out”

REVISED: February 14th, 2018

Woman Under The Sand (short story)

by Kaori Shoji

Japan Subculture Research Center is proud to present the latest addition to a series of short stories, by our resident book reviewer and social commentator, Kaori Shoji, on the often tragically mismatched marriages of foreign men and Japanese women–The Amazing Japanese Wife. If you see echoes of someone you know or yourself in this story, be rest assured that you’re a cliche—but take solace in the fact that misery is universal. This new story is apocryphal in the sense that the protagonist is unmarried–but seeking to be married.

“Kimie felt as if her insides had dried out and her blood vessels were clogged with sand. Did the woman in the novel die in the end? Kimie couldn’t remember but neither could she recall when she had her last period.” 

One

In high school, Kimie read a novel about a woman who lived in a shack that was sinking into a sand pit. One day, sheer chance leads a man–an outsider–to wander into the woman’s shack. Initially, she’s kind and welcoming but she takes steps to ensure that the man can’t leave. Soon she sets him to work shoveling the ever-present sand out of her door, which she herself has been doing everyday for years. Otherwise, the sand will claim the shack completely and the woman will have no place to live. 

At the time, Kimie was sixteen and was reveling in the power of her sexuality. She didn’t need to trap a man in the sand to get him to do anything–most of them were putty in the hands of a girl in a school uniform. When she stood on the platform of the train station she could feel the particles in the air around her change and shift, as men craned their necks to get a better look at the back of her knees and her neck and her long, perfect hair. A man in a neat, expensive-looking suit once gazed at her intently and pressed a 10,000 yen bill in her hand. “This is so you can kiss me later,” he whispered, before striding rapidly away. 

For all that, the woman in the shack that was sinking into the sand, haunted Kimie. As she grew older it seemed she was turning into this woman, shoveling out sand alongside the man she had trapped. She knew exactly how this woman felt, and how earnestly she needed the man in her sand blown life. After she hit her forties, Kimie identified more with the man. She could picture him, desperately clawing at the sand, eyes darting wildly as he searched for a way to escape. 

Two

Kimie had turned 47, and was living with her mother in the same house she had lived in since childhood. 

Three weeks into the pandemic shut-down, Kimie felt her synapses fraying, and then unraveling. Her hair was falling out in chunks and her skin was clammy to the touch in some places, while in others it was dry and chilly. The soles of her feet had the texture of old, cracked rubber. She would get up in the morning, and too distracted to open the curtains, would immediately turn on the news, mentally preparing for the day’s dreary horrors as if they were a mere extension of her fitful nightmares. 

“Kimi-chan, Kimi-chan!” After half an hour of staring at the screen, the calls of her mother from the kitchen downstairs, would alert her to the fact that she had procrastinated long enough. It was time to face her mother at the table, over coffee and toast with synthetic butter and cheap jam. 

The sight of her mother, aged 77, instilled a sense of silent panic deep within Kimie’s soul. This is where I’m going, this is what I’ll look like. She knew such thoughts were vain and unworthy but she had decided long ago that it was okay to have them. Until five years ago when her father was still alive, Kimie could convince herself that she valued her parents because they brought her up and sacrificed much for this life of hers. In her youth, this life had seemed to be the most enticing item in the whole shop. She had pointed to it with her finger and it became hers, gift-wrapped and bow-tied. The bill had been sent round to her father, who paid without complaint. But now the sand was getting into the nooks and nannies and crevices of her pretty little life. 

On good days, Kimie would tick off her milestones in her mind, if only to remind herself that she was special, and her life was, if not completely wonderful then surely presentable. A semester in a high school in Missouri, courtesy of a school-sponsored home stay program. She had called her father collect to ask for 500 extra dollars to spend on a prom dress, subsequently torn in three places by her geeky, fumbling boyfriend as he frantically groped her in his parents’ car. A year in Pennsylvania during university because she had insisted to her father that she needed to improve her English in order to land a good job. Her father had wired 800 dollars into her account every month so she could eat well, go to parties and well, improve her English. (Which she did! She scored 900 on TOEIC!) A trip to Italy and France as a graduation present. At the time, all these things made enormous sense to her, and besides, her mother had encouraged her every step of the way.  “I want you to have the life that I could never have, Kimi-chan,” she intoned, the closest thing her mother ever came to a prayer. She would also say, “The world is so different from when I was young. I had no choices, no options, nothing but the life that was put in front of me.” This was her mother’s mantra, pulled out whenever she got into a fight with her husband or daughter, knowing it would make them feel guilty enough to shut up and back off. 

Kimie had allowed herself to buy into the myth that her mother, comfortably ensconced in their house in a Tokyo suburb purchased with a 30-year mortgage, had been abused and victimized by the Japanese social system. By embracing that myth Kimie took it upon herself–the brilliant girl who had studied in the US, could speak English and got a job in a bank–to be happy and successful. This would compensate for her mother’s apparently miserable and downtrodden existence. 
Kimie had believed she was doing the right thing, only to realize in middle age that she was trapped, a prisoner in the cell of her own bedroom. 

Three

Kimie’s younger brother had always rebelled against their parents and left home at the same time he chose a university in the northern tip of Japan–as far away from Tokyo as he could get without going abroad. Relatives had pitied her brother, he chose a national university with low tuition and turned down their father’s offer of a loan so he could rent an apartment. Instead, Kimie’s brother Youki spent four years in a cramped, filthy college dorm. Occasionally, he called to let his family know he was all right. After graduation, he stopped by to say he had found a job at a mid-sized electronics manufacturer. Youki had none of the privileges Kimie had taken for granted but he gained the kind of strength and freedom she couldn’t even fathom. Now, Kimie found it hard to wrap her mind around the fact that her brother had his own house, a family, even a dog–an elegant Dalmatian named Sabu whom she had seen only once. Youki had left and never came back. She had been the cosseted, dutiful daughter who stayed, and stayed and stayed at home. “At least I have you, Kimi-chan,” her mother liked to say. “As long as you’re still here, I have nothing to complain about, really.” 

Kimie felt as if her insides had dried out and her blood vessels were clogged with sand. Did the woman in the novel die in the end? Kimie couldn’t remember but neither could she recall when she had her last period. 

“Kimi-chan, are you working today?” Her mother, chewing toast, tossed the question in the air and Kimie nodded with a small grunt. There was a Zoom conference at 3PM for which she planned to turn the camera off. Until then she could pretend to do some paperwork, answer some emails, make a few calls. How long would that take? Maybe a couple of hours. Even with the Zoom conference slotted in, there were still ten or more waking hours that had to be whiled away somehow, secluded in her prison cell. Putting her dishes in the sink for her mother to wash, Kimie plodded to the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face. She saw no reason to change out of her pajamas, it wasn’t like she was going anywhere. 

Kimie didn’t like life under the pandemic. At times, the strain of being cooped up inside a small house with her mother felt intolerable. But she hated her pre-Covid life even more, with a ferociousness that had her contemplating suicide at least three nights a week. 

In late 2019 Kimie had an epiphany: instead of dying she would get married! Marriage would at least, enable her to leave her mother and the wretched house. In January, she signed up with a ‘konkatsu (marriage agency),’ dutifully paying the 300,000 yen registration fee and answering each and every match-up question. She understood from the hour-long meeting with the agency’s ‘counselor’ that these days, it was quite common for women in their 40s and 50s to look for partners, but the road to an actual wedding could take longer than expected. The 300,000 yen fee would cover her match-ups for up to one year. “What happens when a year goes by and I’m still single?,” Kimie had asked and the counselor, intimidating with her glowing skin and sleek hair, had chirped that most women found someone within 6 months. “Our advice is: try them out. Most of our clients haven’t dated in awhile and they’re all a bit rusty. We find that when the woman takes the lead, everything tends to fall in place. So don’t say no until you’ve tried them out!” 

After screening a half dozen applicants, Kimie settled on the 56 year old Yamanishi-san, whose portrait photo reminded her a little of her father when he was that age. Yamanishi-san’s texts were charming; he seemed to know how to strike just the right tone between elaborately polite and paternally friendly. They agreed to meet for lunch in a kaiseki restaurant (his choice) in the posh district of Ginza, where he had booked an alcove facing a Japanese garden. “I love gardens in the winter. They’re so calm and soothing,” he texted, and Kimie felt a little thrill of anticipation. It had been a long time since she had been courted, on any level, by a man. Maybe she really was about to get a ticket out of the sand shack–her private nickname for home. 

Exactly 24 hours before the appointed time, she had her roots done at an expensive salon in Aoyama. Two weeks prior to that, she had bought a dress at a department store, along with a fresh pair of panty hose and brown leather pumps. On the day, she scrutinized herself in the mirror and decided she didn’t look a day over thirty-nine. Saying nothing to her mother, Kimie went to the restaurant with as little anxiety as she could manage. If this worked out, she would break the news to her mother gently, and suggest moving to a house in the immediate vicinity so they could visit often. 

Yamanishi-san turned out to be a bit heavier than his photo, and with noticeably less hair but Kimie was willing to overlook these minor flaws. What was much more jarring, was the rift between his digital texts and his real life persona. Yamanishi-san didn’t even look at the garden but kept his gaze firmly on Kimie’s chest, as if he were a chef contemplating the char marks on a grilled steak. “You have a good body for a woman of your age,” he said. “Have you done much sports in school? I like a woman with good muscle tone.” Kimie smiled and said no, not really, she had been too busy studying English.

“Ah, yes! I read that in your resume. You’re not some idiotic female with zero skills, you’ve been out in the world and you can speak English! My mother would like that. She used to be a teacher in her day. She likes women with knowledge and work experience. She can’t stand dumb girls.” 

The conversation went on in this vein and Kimie could hardly bring herself to sample the meal, made up of exquisite morsels of food artistically displayed on polished lacquerware. All she wanted to do now was go home, and slip into bed with her phone. She stopped listening to Yamanishi-san altogether and thought about Spotify. She really should update her playlists. 

Suddenly, in the middle of wresting a thin piece of radish from a tiny portion of soup, Yamanishi-san fixed her with an intense stare and said, “Okay, I seriously have to ask you this question if we are going to take this relationship any further. What color is your that?” 

Kimie could feel her cheeks tingle, and then burn, and could only mimic the last word in his question. “That?” she blurted, like a fool, she thought. Yamanishi-san nodded vigorously and said, “Yes, your that. You know, I can almost tolerate black nipples though I would much prefer them to be a lighter color. But a woman’s, you know, that–should never be dark. If we are to have sex, I don’t think I can perform very well if your that is a dark color.” 

After a full ten seconds of silence in which Kimie sat there, her face turned desperately to the winter garden which struck her as being dull and ugly, Yamanishi san said in a gentler tone, “I’m sorry to have to ask you. But this is…not love, it’s not dating, don’t you see? This is an arrangement preceding marriage. I think that you are a smart, modern woman and maybe we could come to an understanding, the two of us. But neither of us is young, and there’s no time for beating around the bush. I have my priorities and I am being honest about them. Won’t you give me an answer?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t usually look.” With that, Kimie stood up, clutching her handbag, and walked clumsily to the reception area where she asked for her coat. As soon as she was out of the restaurant, she grabbed her phone and blocked Yamanishi-san’s number after deleting all his texts. 

Finis

Kimie’s thoughts often wandered back to that lunch, but the memories were not of Yamanishi-san. Indeed, within hours of that experience he had felt like a figment of her imagination, spawned as the result of the meeting with the chirping counselor and her stupid advice. 

What Kimie recalls is how, as soon as she had gotten home and climbed the staircase to her room, she stripped off her coat and dress and peeled off her pantyhose. She took a mirror from her make-up drawer and held it close to her vagina. For several seconds, she had to struggle to see, but when she got a good enough view, she let out a sigh of relief. Her ‘that’ wasn’t black. In fact, the color could even be described as being on the light side. “If we are to have sex,” she whispered to herself. Then she had put the mirror away, pulled up her panties and got into bed. She could hear her mother calling her name from the kitchen but she shut her eyes tight and willed herself not to hear. The sand was seeping into her room, gathering in mounds all around her bed, lulling her to sleep. She would shovel it out later. 

Note: Ms. Shoji should be credited for coining the word WAM (Western Anglo-Saxon Men) also (White American Men)–a more understandable term for the Charisma-man type of entitled self-important foreigners that once flooded these shores but now mostly live in Hong Kong, Beijing, or Singapore. Also, it should be noted that Ms. Shoji has always been an equal opportunity misanthrope, as evidenced in her book review entitled 21 Reasons Why Japanese Men Suck.

TOTAL RECALL: REMEMBERING JAPAN’S TEMPLE OF SPEED

[image error]An iconic photo taken by Joe Honda

In 1967, Japanese photographer Joe Honda became the first Asian to capture the international motorsport scene. 

More than 300,000 35 mm photographs and five decades later, Emiko Jozuka—Honda’s daughter—is reviving his legacy in an exhibition held at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan between December 5, 2020, and January 8, 2021. The show will move to Hong Kong in February 2021, in Honda’s first international exhibition in Asia, outside of Japan. 

In partnership with award-winning Tokyo photography atelier Shashin Kosha, this exhibition brings to life memories of motorsport’s golden age through a series of historic and rare photographs from Joe Honda’s rediscovered archive. It offers an intimate glimpse into Japan’s emergence on the global automotive and motorsport scene. 

“The October 1966 international Fuji Speedway race was a landmark event that changed my father’s life, the art of motorsport photography and Japan as a nation. It was the first global race in Asia that defined Honda’s work and paved the way for Japan’s golden age of motoring,” says Emiko Jozuka, director of the Joe Honda Archive.

To the Japanese cognoscenti, the American Indianapolis 500 was a celebrated race, and hosting the first international Indy event in Japan heralded their country’s arrival as an industrial power. One photo in Honda’s series captures British driver Jim Clark flanked by curious Japanese onlookers as he prepares his IndyCar. In another, we see motorsport legend Jackie Stewart racing around the precarious bends of the Fuji Speedway.

Born in 1939, Joe Honda graduated from the Nihon University Department of Fine Arts and trained with famed photographer Yuji Hayata before going freelance. He began his five-decade-long career at the October 1966 Fuji Speedway race, where he crossed paths with British racing stars such as Jim Clark and Graham Hill, who had come to Japan for the first time. In 1967, Honda travelled to Europe to capture the Formula One season, and became the regional representative of the International Racing Press Association (IRPA). 

Over a prolific international career, Honda captured iconic 35 mm film shots of Formula One stars such as Bruce McLaren, Ayrton Senna, Niki Lauda, James Hunt, Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill. He documented Formula 1, 2, 3, NASCAR, Indy races, 24 Hours of Le Mans, Paris-Dakar rallies, motocross and classic car races. His work was also exhibited in major art galleries such as the Nikon and Canon Salons in Tokyo and published extensively in works and publications related to the Formula One and the automotive industry.

“Honda’s archive spans 50 years and travels from the grit and glamour of motor racing’s golden years through its evolution into a technological arms race funded by big business. His photographs represent the developments, people and culture that shaped the motorsport industry. Preserving and showcasing them is crucial as they document a pivotal period in history, showing major shifts in the automotive and photographic industries through one artist’s perspective and evolving practice,” says Jozuka.

www.joehonda.com | https://www.facebook.com/joehondahisworks | https://www.shashinkosha.co.jp/english/about_us.html

Arrangements: Members of the public who wish to see the exhibition can get in touch with Emiko Jozuka, the director of the Joe Honda Archive, who is organizing a limited number of private tours.

For more information, interview or image requests, please contact:

Emiko Jozuka email: emiko.jozuka@gmail.com

Mobile: +85298562017   | WhatsApp: +85298562017  | LINE: emi337

Curator bio and additional comments

Emiko Jozuka, director of the Joe Honda Archive

Emiko Jozuka is a Japan-born multimedia journalist for CNN Digital Worldwide, who grew up in the UK. She has worked for WIRED and VICE Media Group in London and the Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review and freelanced in Turkey. She holds degrees from the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lettres et Sciences Humaines in Lyon, France. In 2017 Jozuka founded the Joe Honda Initiative to share Honda’s collection with the broadest possible audience, attain support to catalogue and establish a foundation that democratizes access to art, photography and motorsports.

Takuji Yanagisawa, president of Shashin KoshaIn 1990 Takuji Yanagisawa became the second company president of award-winning Tokyo-based photography atelier Shashin Kosha. Since its founding in 1950, Shashin Kosha has merged tradition with innovation to support and showcase the work of Japan’s most outstanding photographers. In 1976, Shashin Kosha became the only photo atelier to win a special award for achievements and contributions to photography from the Japan Photographers’ 

Award-winning indie Japanese film, STAY, showing tonight in Tokyo, prior to Amazon Japan release

TOKYO – November 6, 2020 The award-winning independent motion picture STAY by filmmaker Darryl Wharton-Rigby will screen at the Legacy Foundation Japan’s Legacy Lounge on Sunday, November 8 at 6pm prior to its November 17 release on Amazon Japan.

“I am excited to that STAY will finally be seen by audiences in Japan,” said Wharton-Rigby. “When I started filmmaking, I never imagined I would make a film in Japan. From Baltimore to Tokyo – What an incredible journey.”

STAY “a touching romance” follows the story of a couple who fall passionately in love over a weekend; Ryuu, a Japanese man who is a recovering addict, and Hope, an American enjoying her last days in Japan. The film features emerging Japanese star, Shogen and introduces British model/actress, Ana Tanaka. 

Lensed by photographer Jeremy Goldberg and a score by Himaness, STAY, Wharton-Rigby’s second feature film, was shot on the Tokyo streets in 15 days, guerrilla style, a technique the filmmaker has used throughout his career. 

“We have believed in this film and are excited to come home to Japan,” says Executive Producer, Christopher Rathbone. “Given the global festival acceptance and the awards won, STAY has been a real crowd pleaser. Audiences really like this film.”

“Shooting STAY in Tokyo on the BlackMagic Pocket Camera made us virtually invisible and allowed us to capture the city up close and personal. We shot on train platforms and trains, Tsukiji Fish Market, ramen shops… Everywhere,” explains Writer/Director Darryl Wharton-Rigby. Every day was something new and challenging. We were constantly on edge. I really wanted STAY to show Tokyo in a real and natural way.”

The Legacy Foundation Japan Legacy Lounge is located on the 9thfloor of 2-chōme-8 Azabujūban, Minato City, Tokyo 106-0045, which is above Soul Food House..

NEWSFLASH: Japan calls the US Election by issuing “President Biden Burger”

IT’S OFFICIAL! A Japanese diner, TSUNAMI NAVY BURGER, located near the US military base in Yokosuka, calls the election for Biden w/ release of the Biden Burger: 600 grams, full of Philadelphia Cream Cheese (thanks Pennsylvania) and ¥1980 ($18). The diner might retire its predecessor, the fatty, artery clogging Trump Burger–but the jury is still out.

This gourmet delight was modeled on the Philadelphia Cheese steak sandwich. It contains a generous thick patty of beef, onions, peppers, paprika, sautéed mushrooms, lots of Philadelphia cream cheese–in a nod to Biden’s home state, Pennsylvania, which may have ensured his victory, and sprinkled with potato chips for a salty accent and a better mouth feel. It’s the taste of victory.

The Trump Burger which has been served since 2016, is a heart-clogging blend of peanut butter, soft-boiled egg, two bacon strips, Sloppy Joe sauce (ahem), cheddar cheese, lettuce, onion, tomato with a tiny USA flag on top (probably made in China).

The deadly Trump Burger. It may taste good going down but the heartburn lasts four years.

Head down to TSUNAMI NAVY BURGER to celebrate if you’re a Democrat or to cheer yourself up if you’re a Trumper. Bon Appetit!

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The Election of the 46th US President Commemorative Biden Burger. The secret to its deliciousness are the old-fashioned potato chips, solid beef, and liberal amounts of Philadelphia Cream Cheese and brotherly love.