The Disappearing Prime Minister and other magic tricks of censorship

This article on the sad state-of-affairs in education and thought in the mainstream American culture reminded me that I really need to write about Japan's (in)famous Disappearing Prime Minister, as America is on the fast-track to this same type of information censorship.

I had often made the joke that Japan has been going through a Prime Minister a year for the past 8 years. Although the truth of it is some don't even last one full year in office. (Not unlike the coming and going to the tides.)
Recently, however, I discovered that not only do they change, sometimes they completely DISAPPEAR !

Japan has a long history of censorship and denial. (Ask any Korean and Chinese national about the 50+ year-old Textbook Wars.)
Now, just recently, I found myself having to explain the difference in corruption between Japanese and American governments.  In America, the culture is one of avoidance of responsibility. In Japan, the culture is of acceptance of responsibility. Why, that makes the Japanese government sound downright chivalrous by comparison!

But there can be no sun without shade.

America is denydenydeny and never, EVER accept responsibility because you will be crucified - often way out of proportion and inappropriately - if you even give an inch.
Japan is suppress and censor, going even so far as to mob-bully into general agreement because someone WILL have to accept responsibility if the truth gets out. (There is a very thin line between group mentality and gang mentality as evidenced from my experience with animal rescue after 3/11. *LINK TO FUTURE ARTICLE*)

So we have established that both governments stink from their own particular stench.This, interestingly this also relates directly to the Disappearing Prime Minister Incident.

As was my want, when not living in Japan, I used to follow the current events every day very closely. In particular, TBS had a nice one-click online news service.

Original date of July 19, 2011 TBS carried a clip showing the then current Prime Minister making a statement about how they should have enough energy to get through the summer and the winter if they keep with their current energy saving methods.
And the winter.
The first time I ever heard anyone mention any possibility about winter energy "issues".

I knew there would be energy shortages back in April.
The Japanese government finally addressed the issue of "summer energy shortages" in June.
Now in July, there is , for all intents and purposes, a first mention of winter energy shortages??

Admittedly I had evac'd out of Japan already when I saw this, but there was only a 20 day interval of me having on-the-ground-access to information and being limited to online-only-access to information. Given the history of slow reaction and release of information by the Japanese government with this recent disaster, I wouldn't consider 20 days a major interval for sudden discovery of new information.

As it would turn out I fortunately posted a link to this video. I truly regret not downloading it because when I went to watch it again on the 20th, a mere day later... Not only was the video REMOVED, it was REPLACED by a whole OTHER clip!
Considerably shorter and completely lacking any video or statement by the Prime Minister.

Now, that is some well thought out censorship.
If you merely remove the "offending" material, that might cause interest or unwelcome questions.
If you REPLACE the video with an edited version.... Well, then you must have imagined seeing and hearing the PM because here is the video and there's nothing like that there.

(Incidentally, no other videos from that day had been removed. Only the one with the PM making a statement about summer and winter energy issues. I actually had to do a site-wide search to find the "replacement" video of the original offending video clip.)

Although, the TBS Disappearing PM Incident was certainly unexpected and quite a shock for me, this wasn't to be my only experience with the quick-hand of Japanese censorship.

Yomiuri Shinbun - previously my favorite online newspaper out of Japan - decided to remove an article from July 5th about a rather large southern earthquake.

The forthcoming Nankai M8+ quake is briefly discussed here. In even shorter terms, southern Japan is predicted to experience another quake like 3/11 in less than 30 years.

After the TBS Disappearing PM Incident, I went back and started looking through other articles I had shared. The Yomiuri article above?
GONE.
Not even in a site-wide search did something similar come up. However, one benefit of the current vanillazation of the news media is that your chances of finding a similar article elsewhere is pretty good.

And this time chance was on my side.
MSN carried an article about the exact same earthquake in southern Japan and how it was NOT related to the upcoming Nankai M8+ quake.

(click pic to enlarge)

You would think they would want people to know this, that it was NOT related.
However, any talk of the upcoming Nankai megaquake has gone by the wayside now as the Japanese government wants, needs the whole world believing that "Japan is safe and open for business." (PATA)

It goes without saying I don't bother to pay much attention to what goes on over there anymore. At least not through official media sources. As I mentioned to another friend recently on the topic of censorship in history - People live the history, media makes money off of it. You want to know what is really going on, listen to what the people are saying.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing!!

The Fallacy of Fairness

Shirley Jackson's THE LOTTERY.
Brilliant, rather unsettling piece of work.  If you don't know it, go out and find it at your local library.
If you don't feel like dealing with the traffic (or the people), you can download it for free.

I used to joke that the Japanese make all their final breakthrough decisions with rock-paper-scissors.  If sumo is the national sport, rock-paper-scissors is the national decision maker/tie-breaker.  The children start learning it from preschool.  You'll see them playing it after school on the playground, while waiting in line at the grocery store, and as they get older, in student council meetings.  WE, as adults, have used in in the workplace.

At first glance, I always felt it was pretty reasonable to use it to make a choice when no one could decide or no one would step forward.  (And this is Japan so that happens A LOT.  Group harmony and everything.)
It's random, unbiased for the most part.

But "randomness"  does not equate to "fairness" as was painfully brought to light after 3/11.

Before the internal censorship on the news got out of hand in Japan, you could actually hear about the difficulties faced by the people who had lost their homes, their lives, their entire TOWNS, how they really felt and how it affected them.  Then about a month later, it was nothing but talk of "rebuilding" and other hopeful fluff stories.

But in that small interval, you could get some real news.  I recall one piece I saw about the building of the temporary housing.  If you didn't have family in another prefecture to go to, you were stuck in an evac shelter day and night because the world around you had, for all intents and purposes, collapsed and there was simply no place else to go.  And even if there was someplace to go to, no way to get there as most people had their cars washed away or so severely damaged as to be undrivable.  Then again there also was the condition of the roads.  Maps were reduced to meaningless lines on paper in just trying to navigate through the debris.  The whole landscape had been rewritten.

It goes without saying that it takes time to build a house, even a smallish temporary style housing.  And when you have to build houses for 10's of thousands of people....

Enter The Lottery.

Your number came up - you get a house!
Your number didn't - better luck next time.  Sorry, but back to the evac shelter.

Sure it's unbiased, but in making it unbiased have they not just once again reduced people to numbers with no consideration for individual needs.or circumstances?

I am sure the "fairness because it's random" of the lottery was lost on the 80-year old man whose number didn't come up.  As he faced the camera and hopelessly explained, his wife was bedridden before 3/11.  Her health had deteriorated considerably since she had spent all that time at the evac shelter.  He was in no physical condition himself to help her.  What were they supposed to do until the next drawing?

The young family behind him got their number called.


For years now, the overall makeup of the Japanese population has been becoming considerably greyer, becoming a "senior citizen society".  Not only is it an aging population, but that area in particular that was most affected by 3/11, the Tohoku region, has quite a larger than average concentration of retirees as the young usually leave for better chances elsewhere.  I do wonder how many other older citizens faced the same dilemma as that one man did.  .

Yes, the Lottery might be random, might be unbiased, but it would be a mistake to equate that with fairness.


Cheers.

Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing!!

All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

My new job as a Highly Successful Fortune-Teller

I really try to not watch the Japanese news anymore.
It's not because of the smothering censorship though. Being able to speak and read Japanese fluently I could find the information on what is really happening if I looked around for it. The fact is I already saw it coming.

What I predicted back in April, low and behold, is happening now:
* mass numbers of people suffering from heat exhaustion/stroke because of the "energy saving" measures.
* planned/unplanned blackouts because there isn't enough energy to go around.

August 11 - In just ONE DAY, almost 1 thousand, or specifically more than 900 PEOPLE were sent to the hospital for heat exhaustion/stroke. (TBS)

August 12 - Another day, another city, a blackout of 2+ hours in the middle of 95+ degree summer day. (TBS)

If we were still in Japan, Ranmaru would be DEAD.

I stuck it out through a lot, A LOT of 5h1t, but when it became apparent that these kinds of situations were on the horizon (not to mention another M9 for our region), I packed him up and bid a sad and final farewell to a country I had loved for so long.

The fact is there's simply not enough energy to go around even with all the "energy saving" actions.  And even through the highly, extremely censored news, you can find the the government admitting that there will be over a 6% shortage through summer and the coming winter.
(Makes you wonder what the Flu epidemic will be like this time around.)

Now, admittedly, the August 12th blackout in the middle of 95 degree weather was unplanned.  TEPCO, however, is calling for even MORE CONSERVATION or there will be the infamous(ly fuddled) Planned Blackouts that we saw right after 3/11 to look forward to again by the end of August.  (Sankei,)

Oh, and I hope you have been following the recent August earthquakes.
Already, two rated at Magnitude 6+.
We saw those coming, too.
(Again, just August.  This is the July list of biggies ..)

So consider this my official application for a position in the fortune-telling business.
So far, we've been right on the dime.  :p

(Seriously, get out of that country if you can. )



 Cheers! (^_-)-☆

Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing!

All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

End of an Era...of Information

So sad to see the extreme and increasing level of censorship transpiring in Japan since 3/11.

Although the censorship is not as bad as the Chinese government that goes so far as to eradicate the sharing of "subversive" information or calls to gather by private individuals, the quick action to censor on the part of the media we saw in the Disappearing Prime Minister Incident was truly a portent of things to come.

As we slip into August, Japan is faced with another SOUTHERN earthquake, an M6.1

What is interesting to note (and a sign of things to come) is that unlike other previous articles on the recent southern earthquakes, the media is no longer even addressing whether these southern minor quakes (M6+) are RELATED or NOT to the upcoming M8+ predicted for that exact region.


So just in case, there's another Disappearing Prime Minister , I cut and pasted the original article here.  Of course, if you don't say anything in the first place, then you don't have anything to hide.  Or in the case of the Japanese media, erase and replace.

１日午後１１時５８分頃、駿河湾を震源とする地震があり、静岡県静岡市、焼津市、東伊豆町で震度５弱を観測した。

気象庁によると、震源の深さは約２０キロ、マグニチュードは６・１と推定される。　この地震により、若干の海面変動があるかもしれないが、被害の心配はないという。震度４は同県浜松市、富士宮市、横浜市、甲府市、長野県松本市、東京都新島村など。

（2011年8月2日00時02分  読売新聞）

Cheers! (^_-)-☆

Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing!!


All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Post WW-2-Nuclear Japan

In sharing some of my recent experiences of the 3/11 events and in particular the ongoing aftermath, I heard an excellent summary, a prediction of sorts from my audience.

They are heading into post-WW2 conditions...especially when winter comes around... They had nothing... (paraphrased)

This sounds extreme to someone on the outside of the events, particularly given the highly censored news coming out of Japan.  News that has given birth to dangerously misleading statements such as those sold to the English-speaking world from the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) - "Japan is Safe and Open for Business". But given the record of earthquakes over a of Magnitude 5 just in July alone, not to mention the current and worsening energy crisis... "Safe and Open for Business" is not a statement I would put my money on..

No they aren't bombed out of house and home, their fields ravaged to the point that even the topsoil is burned away, yet at the same time, the current situation is vaguely reminiscent. Houses, entire cities, are wiped out, having been swallowed up and carried off in the tsunami. A nuclear reactor has gone beyond critical and officially into a state of meltdown. The resultant contamination of that meltdown alone is far reaching and incalculable.

The location of the Fukushima reactor is in Northern (East) Japan were there is a bulk of the farming and fishing.

However, not only were the areas within the evac zone affected, but I saw how the contamination from the radiation had gotten and still is getting into the water supply through rain and irrigation and is still contaminating both farm animals and the fields far outside the 30 kilometer contaminated evac zone.

A contaminated food supply, coupled with ongoing (and future) earthquakes would be bad enough but the final straw for me, the last thing that finally pushed me out of Japan was the looming energy crisis.  Of course, it was only looming back in April.  I saw it coming and searched for help to counteract the effects of what a lack of energy would bring about.  All to no avail as no one either officially or unofficially seemed to be acknowledging the likelihood of an energy shortage except... me?

Come end of June, however, and then the media and assorted officials finally start talking about it - 6.9% shortage anticipated during the summer. 

Some things you hate to be right about, but there it was.
Fortunately for me and Maru, we already had our respective tickets and belongings packed.  We gave our sad and final (and possibly permanent) farewells to Japan at the end of June.

And this actually brings us back to the beginning of our story, about the correlation between post-WW2 Japan and post-3/11 Japan.  Back stateside, my information was now limited to carefully contrived online news reports.  Of course, with further searching, even now I can find real unaltered information (much like I was able to during the China-Japan Border Battle of 2010).   So it was hardly a surprise then when in the Disappearing Prime Minister Incident, the prime minister himself mentioned winter energy shortages.  Naturally it was in a roundabout way.
Not that there were going to be shortages, but that "if we continue with our energy saving now, we will be able to get through the summer and the winter."

Admittedly,  there was a dead zone between the time when I had access to on-the-ground information before we escaped Japan and the time I heard this statement, but that interval of 17 days aside, this was the first time I had ever heard mention of winter in any context.

Energy shortages in the summer.  Energy shortages in the winter.  At this point in time, both are estimated to be at 6.9%.   (Although that number is brought to us through the strictly censored official media.)

All this brought to mind several stories by my all time favorite author, Dazai Osamu.  Although most of his writing takes place previous to WW2, he lived through WW2 and continued on writing for a few years afterward in post-WW2 Japan.  The images from "Osan" of broken families moving from one relative's or friend's house to another looking for shelter in post-WW2 Japan as their own houses were destroyed and rendered uninhabitable are not unlike the current scenes of the displaced Japanese captured on national TV.   People lost without proper clothing or food, much less homes or jobs going from one evac shelter to another to another and then finally maybe to private but temporary prefab house-like shelters.  Or "Tazunebito", the story of a moving letter written by one of the many homeless beggars of postwar Japan to a kindly young woman he met traveling on a train who gave him some food.  The subtle difficulties of charity, the complexity of something that superficially seems so simple as the giving and accepting of food for these displaced people.

No, it's not so bad over there and probably won't get as bad as post-WW2, but it is eerily similar.



 Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing.  (^^)

All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.