Our Man in Abiko's Blog, page 15

SELF-PORTRAIT

I finally got round to writing an About page for this blog. It's only taken me five years, ahem.

HOMELAND SECURITY

Thanks to China, my wife is sound asleep.
She hasn't been sleeping well at night ever since the burglary early this week. But over the last few days we have been taking preventative measures to guard against further incursions into our sovereign territory.
Chief among them are the dozen made-in-China window locks we picked up from the ¥100 shop. Come nightfall, the lights go on all over the bunker. Having no sons, I don't have a cricket or baseball bat to hand, but I thought better of tackling future home invaders armed only with my daughter's badminton racquet. So I've taken to sleeping with an umbrella beside my bed. Until the weekend at least, when we have time to rearm, any invader will face the wrath of me and my brolly.
I can admit to myself that if I'm truthful, that probably didn't set my wife's mind at ease. But that and the cumulative power of a dozen small changes have. We don't forget to lock the doors and windows every night. We always close the outside window shutters now. And we pay attention to who is walking around the neighbourhood. Our strongest defence is openness — we tell what we know to anyone who will listen. The whole neighbourhood now knows what happened a few days ago, and because of this we learnt there was another break-in an hour before our home was raided. As a result, everyone is looking out for each other.
And the prime suspect.
The cops reckon he's in his 20s or 30s, is 160cm tall with 24cm-size shoes. They are pretty certain he's in the building trade because he's so neat and tidy. And there have been sightings of a young stranger walking around the neighbourhood with orange shoes. I saw him myself a week ago.
But I'm not so sure.
Remove the urge to make assumptions and other possibilities spring up. There's another word for a man who is short, neat and tidy with dainty feet:
A woman.
But whether it's a man in the building trade, a chap with orange shoes, or a woman: we're ready this time.
We're shuttlecocked and loaded.  

***

While I was splashing out on one-off home defence measures, the prime minister was too. Although Shinzo Abe's measures come in at considerably more than ¥1,260 ($15), which is what I paid for my window locks yesterday. The government is going to spend ¥180 billion ($2 billion) on missiles, fighter jets and helicopters as an emergency economic measure, according to my morning copy of the Japan Times.
This was in response to Chinese incursions into the Japanese held Senkaku islets, the most recent of which was a few hours before my home was invaded.
Abe's ¥180 billion also buys ¥16 billion of "antiquake and tsunami measures" for the Self-Defence Forces. That's presumably concrete. Sounds like an awful lot of money for very little to me, but of course it's also "to stimulate the economy," according to a defence ministry official. Of course it is. Everything is to stimulate the economy, just as long as someone else pays for all that stimulating. And unless there's a concrete factory around here, I doubt the Abikan economy will be much stimulated, but what would I know?
I can't help thinking of how many window locks Mr Abe could buy with that kind of money, although he probably won't be buying them cheap from China now.

CRIME SCENE ABIKO

Everyone was still in bed this morning when I realised something was wrong.
I'd gone downstairs to put the toaster on for the eldest's breakfast. Odd. The downstairs was freezing cold. This was not particularly noteworthy in our bunker, but I can't ever remember seeing my own breath, which even for our uninsulated, undouble-glazed house is odd. A sliding door to our front room was open that is always shut. The curtain was half open. The bug screen was lying neatly on its side against the persimmon tree. The sliding window was wide open. Odder still, a triangle of glass the size of a hand or elbow was missing from the pane of glass. An earthquake? A burglary? But nothing seemed to be missing.

***
Inspector Ichinose of the Chiba Prefectural police was the first to arrive at the crime scene. He strode purposefully around the garden to where the window had been broken. He adjusted his Los Angeles Fire Department baseball cap on his head and got straight down to it.
"This is the window?"
"Yes."
"This is the bug screen?"
"Yes."
His partner arrived with a hard, square briefcase. From it he retrieved a feather duster and began dusting the window.
The inspector turned to my wife.

"May I look around the house?""Of course."
The first break in the case came early on. The inspector lay prone and took out a clear plastic sheet, taping it to the floor. A footprint in the middle of the room? Odd, we always wear slippers.
He seemed happy to hear that.
"This has an interesting tread mark, a pair of shoes, maybe?"
"Looks like my new slippers,"my wife said.
In fact, the tread matched exactly.
"Oh well."
He sat on our youngest's child seat at the dining table and began filling out a form. We gave him our names, ages, and timeline for the home invasion. We'd gone to bed at midnight, reading till maybe 1am.  The only other thing we knew for sure was that at some point in the night our youngest had clambered out of her bed and gone to the toilet upstairs before climbing into our bed, nestling in next to mum.
"I see."
The inspector took this all down, then when he realised I wasn't the official head of household as he had assumed, he had to take it all down again on the right form with my wife's name as head of household.
Never assume anything.
As he wrote, a cop in uniform, Nakamura-san, introduced himself and asked if he could wander around and draw a plan of the house.
"Sure."
I had put the coffee on, but now with three policemen in the house, I was doubtful whether there was enough for everyone in the pot.
Then a fourth officer popped his head round the genkan entrance hall. He was the youngest of them all. He took his shoes off and tip-toed dramatically along the edge of the dining room in his socks, while being filled in by Inspector Ichinose. I nodded at the clipboard ninja and my wife fought back laughter.
The other detective was in the front room now and was kneeling on our sofa dusting for more prints. He found two. I said that was good, but the room was frequented by dozens of people, it being used as a classroom most days. There then followed some discussion between the two sleuths. They decided to print our fingers and palms. My wife's wedding ring was too tight to remove. After further discussion, they decided we didn't have to remove our wedding rings to be printed.
But it was all academic. They knew who the burglar was.

***
"We know who the burglar is," the cop said. The inspector and his partner had gone back to prefectural headquarters and now the only police presence was Nakamura-san and his sock-wearing junior, both of Higashi-Abiko department.
"He has size 24cm feet, is 160cm tall, is in his 20s or early 30s."
"Wow. How do you know that?"
 Nakamura-san doodled random crosses on the back of a report form and drew a circle around them all, then marked a bold cross in the centre of the circle.
"Well, we've been looking for him for a while. This fits his MO. He's neat. The bug screen, placed by the tree. And the glass from the window, he took that with him. We think he works in the building trade."
"What did he want to steal? The Nintendo DS and iPhone were left on the table."
"What do they all want? Cash and jewellery, that's it. Everything else is traceable or too much trouble to explain away. But he's a coward. He must have been disturbed or heard a noise and then ran away."
I sipped my coffee.
"So, our seven-year-old going to the toilet in the middle of the night might have saved our lives?"
Nakamura-san laughed.
"You can tell her, I'm sure she did."

KYU KYU

I've enlisted the children in the never ending war of attrition to conquer the Japanese language. For me, every tiny step forward can easily turn into a rout. But I'm full of awe at kids able to hold on to every new piece of territory gained without seeming to get their hands dirty.
These thoughts crossed my mind as I watched my youngest the other day doing the washing up.
"Dad, you know what this is?"
"It's a plate."
"No! Listen."
She put the clean plate in the sink next to the washing-up bowl and rubbed the tips of her little fingers up and down the middle of the plate.
"That's kyu kyu!"
"That's what we call squeaky clean."
"That's what I call worth ¥100."
"Ask your mother."

ALL OF THE ABOVE

It's not often that folk actually pay to read what I think, and rarer still when they post a considered comment about what I've written, so I'm doubly honoured to have received the following thoughts tonight  on a post that was included in the book Guts Pose in which I made a throwaway statement that Japan had suffered "Atomic genocide"…

First up, let me say I enjoyed this diary immensely. I bought it on Amazon and read it on New Years Eve whilst the in-laws were engrossed in the dreary annual Kohaku performance (yes, my wife is Japanese).

That said, I wish to raise a point of order. I take strong issue with your reference to "atomic genocide".

What exactly is it about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that qualifies as "genocide"?

A tragic waste of human life? Without question. But more Japanese died during the March 9th, 1945 conventional bombing raid on Tokyo. Was that also a "genocide"? And if so how should we view the entire air war against the Japan homelands? Should that be classed as "genocide" in it's entirety?

Bear in mind that the city of Kyoto was spared from bombing during the war as it was considered a city of extreme cultural significance to the Japanese nation. It is a strange kind of genocide that spares the cultural icons of a target nation, wouldn't you agree.

Rather, I suggest to you that the air war INCLUDING the two atomic bombings, whilst horrific to the victims, should be seem as ultimately forcing the Japanese High Command to face reality, thereby averting the further deaths of potentially 10 million Japanese civilians. 

Alternative history doesn't get taught in schools so very few people know that possibly the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War was the one that was never fought — Operation Downfall — the Allied invasion of the Japanese home islands. The Imperial HQ was readying children, women and old men to banzai charge American machine guns and tanks armed with nothing more than sharp bamboo sticks.

In short, I believe that characterizing the atomic bombings as "genocide" is inaccurate, unfair to the people who actually fought during those times, and demeans the experience of peoples who actually HAVE suffered real genocide such as the Jews, Armenians and Rwandans.

This is my opinion and I sincerely hope that it is published, not as a criticism, but to put perspective on an important historical event which gets misrepresented so often by Japanese and the Japanese media.

Thank you.

Saitama Steve 

On reflection, I agree "genocide" was a poor choice of word. I was trying to find the right one to describe the enormity of the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in one moment. Genocide is the attempt to eradicate a race or nation, and that was not what the Allies were about. And I take what Saitama Steve said about potentially averting millions more casualties that the mass killings of civilians presumably prevented. That was presumably true.

So, what is the right word to describe all that? I'm really not sure.

No disrespect to Saitama Steve, whose argument is entirely reasonable and valid, but stacking up the horrors of war as being less horrific than what might have happened had those horrors not been perpetrated makes my head hurt. Such arguments seem to me to be more political calculations than moral ones.

Had a sniper been able to kill the Connecticut nutter before he had killed the 26 school kids and teachers, of course the only clear moral thing to do would be to take the bloody shot. The morality gets a bit foggier if in taking that shot you knew you'd also be killing five kids in the line of fire. Is taking the lives of five innocents worth saving two dozen? How about 12 innocents? How about 26 innocent lives to save 26 others? What if the good guys were not armed with a sniper's rifle but a Predator drone? How many Pakistani wedding party guests is it moral to kill in pursuit of one terrorist? Or an alleged terrorist? When does the pursuit of alleged terrorists become terrorism itself?

I don't know.

The political answer is the ends justify the means. And that's good enough for most questions. I'm not smart enough to figure out if that is a good enough moral argument, I suspect it isn't. Had Japan won the war, would the Rape of Nanking be justified as an unpleasant but necessary oppression that by hastening the subjugation of a country saved countless millions of lives of civilians in the future? Seems absurd. And yet rational. We destroyed this village to save it .

What's the right word? Horror? Tragedy? Pragmatic Morality? Atrocity? Politics?

All of the above.

More from me about all this from three years ago  in this post and comments .

Carry on.

THREE RESOLUTIONS

1. Read more.
2. Write more.
3. Eat less.

ABE: BIG TALK, ANGRY BIRDS AND THE HORSE'S MOUTH

Edited highlights from an interview between Toshio Motoya, Hakubun Shimomura and Ourmani Nabiko. Full, original interview here .

Motoya: Thank you for joining me on Big Talk today. Shinzo Abe, who you supported, was successfully elected in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) presidential election; it’s his second time serving as president. Congratulations.

Ourmani: I had no part in that, really I didn't.

Shimomura: Thank you very much.

Motoya: I am also very happy, because I felt that Japan would not change if Abe did not become president. I immediately sent a congratulatory message after the election. Directly before Abe became prime minister six years ago, I was the vice chairman of the Society for Shinzo Abe as President. He attended a meeting at my home, and we became quite close.

Ourmani: How close? Is this code for, you know, a love that cannot speak its name? A love that is now permissible in more US states than ever before? I realise you can't admit to being gay lovers, but if that's what you are implying, squeeze my hand under the desk and whisper "yes, I know." I won't think anything less of you, promise.

Shimomura: Yes, I know.

Motoya: Abe and Nobutaka Machimura were candidates in the recent LDP presidential election, and the Machimura faction was split in two. Many people, centered on former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, the original leader of the faction, were telling Abe to hold off. You achieved a great deal by encouraging Abe to make this decision, and helping him be successfully re-elected even amidst these unfavorable conditions.

Ourmani: Boooooring. What's the most ridiculous thing you have ever said?

Shimomura: It was a miracle that he was re-elected.

Motoya: I’ve heard you have many connections with Abe.

Ourmani: We've covered that (winks). Move on.

Motoya: You have many things in common with Abe’s ways of thinking; you are the vice chairman of Creating Japan, the Diet members’ caucus for which Abe serves as chairman. I also view you as a kindred soul. I have spent 21 years conveying my idea of genuine conservatism via my published books and Apple Town, this magazine. I also run the “True Interpretations of Modern History” essay contest, in which Toshio Tamogami won the Grand Prize, and have opened a private school called the Shoheijuku. Currently, a total of 23 National Diet members, as well as ambassadors to Japan from 26 countries, are participating in the Shoheijuku.

Ourmani: Awesome. I've written a few books too. Have you read Reconstructing 3/11 about how the politicians of Japan deserted the people when they were most needed? Or Guts Pose: Diary of a Japanese election gone bad, that's all about how Abe won a landslide despite being universally detested as a lilly-livered, silver-spooned nonentity?

Motoya: For these and other reasons, I welcome the appearance of President Abe.

Ourmani: Oooh, hark at you.

Shimomura: I supported Abe in the recent presidential election because I felt a strong sense of crisis regarding the state of Japan today something I suspect motivates you as well.

Ourmani: Well, I have been buying a lot of dollars recently, getting out of yen since Abe took over, you know?

Motoya: Yes, I feel the same way.

Shimomura: When Abe became prime minister six years ago, I was appointed as Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary. Five years ago, Abe abandoned his administration, saying that his health was poor. Now, I have been taking action since the end of last year while insisting that Abe should run in this election. Former Prime Minister Mori said this was premature; he thought the LDP should recapture political power, and then Abe should return to the position of prime minister after serving in a series of important cabinet minister positions. However, I felt that the era would not wait that long.

Motoya: Now is certainly not the time for taking leisurely actions.

Ourmani: Sorry, what did you say? I just got a high score on Angry Birds. Awesome.

Shimomura: Right now, Japan is not functioning as a nation. Last year’s Great East Japan Earthquake was a divine revelation, showing that Japan will be crushed if things don’t change. The members of the National Diet need to be woken up; we need to react to this great disaster in a direct way, and to change this crisis into an opportunity. If not, why is the point of serving in the National Diet?

Ourmani: Well, you have to get the trajectory right. If you don't the birds miss their target and you are in danger of failing to clear the level.  

Motoya: I feel the same sense of danger. Recently, China and Korea are displaying unpardonable attitudes.

Ourmani: Gangnam Style! Absolutely.

Shimomura: I agree. Due to the current Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government’s defense policy, the Senkaku Islands and Takeshima have been stolen away. It’s only natural that the National Diet members who are watching wistfully without taking action are criticized and asked why they are serving in these positions. It’s at times like this that the National Diet members must stand up. I believed that Abe, who has firm views on the nation, history, and the world, should serve as a leader. He’s probably the only politician with the ability to make over this country.

Ourmani: He's the only Japanese premier that can do the horsey dance without even trying.

Motoya: I think so too. However, he abruptly resigned from his previous post…

Ourmani: Because he's a wuss. C'mon, you know it's true. You've been hanging out in think tanks too long. You should get out more, you know, read a book or watch a movie.

Motoya: When Japan was occupied, the US appointed intellectuals with socialist views to the position of media censors. That is the fundamental reason for the bias of the Japanese media.

Ourmani: Do you have a cloth? When you said that, I just spat my drink all over Shimomura-san, though I don't think anyone would notice with that tie. Does his mother still dress him, or is it his lucky tie from 1974?

Shimomura: That may be true. We must reflect on this, and utilize our reflections in the future.

Motoya: Another thing that has changed since Abe’s previous term as prime minister is the promulgation of information technologies (IT). The number of people who read newspapers is decreasing, while the number of people read news and share their views online is growing. The online public opinion has great power.

Ourmani: It's all about the hits, baby. Abe should do a nude calendar for charity, that would get some hits, maybe coverage in Gawker or HuffPo at least. 

Shimomura: I agree. We must think in a multi-faceted way. We need to construct a good relationship with the US, but we must also strengthen our relationships with China and other Asian countries.

Ourmani: Hmmm. Hold on fellas, I've got an idea. I'm thinking Jackie Chan, Shinzo Abe, Psy, the girls from Kara, Taylor Swift? ABE48?

Motoya: This will be extremely difficult underneath the current constitution.

Ourmani: What? Abe's constitution? Yeah, He probably doesn't have the stomach for it. Stomach? Geddittt?

Shimomura: I don’t think that’s very realistic.

Ourmani: Sorry, just brainstorming. Sheesh. Thought you folks in think tanks were all about thinking outside the box and all?

Motoya: I agree entirely. Ridding Japan of the postwar regime should involve breaking free from brainwashing. At the end of the interview, I always ask for a “word for the youth.”

Ourmani: Gangnam Style, c'mon, gotta be, right?

Shimomura: I believe Japan possesses the potential to be revived in the future. Both you and I have made our way without depending on anybody else. There are many opportunities for everybody; Japan is a country in which endless possibilities are opened for people who work hard. I will do my best in order to protect this.

Ourmani: That's OK and all, but not very catchy as a "word for the youth."

Motoya: I hope that young people will pursue large dreams. In my graduation essay from elementary school, I said that I wanted to become “president of the world” when I grew up (laughs). I don’t think that dream will be realized.

Ourmani: No, I think not. Have you had your nap Motoya-san? Why don't you dream those happy thoughts after lunch, yeah? Have a large lunch and a little dreamy-poos later, yeah?

Shimomura: That’s a large dream! (Laughs) Maybe you haven’t achieved it, but I think many of your other dreams have come true.

Ourmani: Yeah, like being here today. A dream come true. Totally awesome. 

Motoya: Thank you very much for joining me today.

Ourmani: (blows kiss)

GUTS POSE, AND THE MAYANS WERE WRONG

My latest book, Guts Pose: Diary of a Japanese election gone bad, is now available. All details are here including the world's first review written before the book was even a book. And in other firsts, I'm fairly sure it is the first book on sale about the Japanese election of 2012 in any language anywhere in the world. You can buy it for any Kindle from any Amazon outlet around the world, or if you are skint, you can just read the first drafts on this blog for free, but the finished version has fewer typos and a previously unpublished afterword by me and a beautifully written foreword by Shisaku blogger Michael Cucek , for which I'm humbled.

The Mayans were wrong about the end of the world today, but maybe they had the Japanese elections in mind, in which case, they weren't far off.

Carry on.

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUAL VIRTUE

By now, I had hoped to be shooing the handful of human visitors to this site toward Amazon Kindle shops to form an orderly virtual queue and purchase the cleaned up first drafts of the 30-days that didn't shake the world, the Japan Election Diary notes that have been reincarnated as Guts Pose: Diary of a Japan election gone bad.

But I'm still waiting for the file to clear the Amazon servers to go on sale. It could happen at any moment. Or a few days from now. Like all great acts of God, natural disasters and longevity of Japanese Prime Minister, we just don't know. I hope it makes it to people's Kindles before the end of the world, er, tomorrow or before folk have lost all interest in the election (that happened before it began — ed).

So, I have resigned myself to the fate that Guts Pose is unlikely to be a Christmas No. 1, and at this rate, it'll be lucky to make it on the virtual shelves this year. Ho hum.

But I console myself that had I tried to publish Guts Pose with a legacy publisher, a) they wouldn't have touched it even with a pair of kitchen chopsticks and b) even if they had, I wouldn't hear back form them for at least a month, probably six.

So, the wait continues, but it should be a matter of hours, not days.

Check in here to see if it's landed, if you care. If not, a Merry Christmas to you anyway.

Carry on.

Japan election results: My two yen

Folks popping by here for my take on the election may be disappointed as I'm in the throes of turning these Japan Election Diary notes into a book, should be published within 24 hours. But I will say this:

Abe won, kinda. Yes, yes, his LDP got a landslide and the DPJ dissolved almost into third place behind Ishin no Kai, Ishihara and Hashimoto's variety show. But before we go believing Japan has turned right wing or reactionary or whatever, just bear in mind a few facts:

1. Turnout was abysmal. I think 59 percent of the electorate.
2. Noda of the DPJ held on to his seat.
3. Ozawa got in.

The pendulum of government swung into the reactionary camp, but the country is the same on December 17th as it was on December 16th: disillusioned with its leaders and unhappy with the options it was presented with.

Just need better options. But don't look to me, I can't even vote.

See you tomorrow.