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! (^_-)-☆

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NEW YEAR 2011

Possibly my favorite card of all time.
And particularly appropriate since this year is the year of the Bunny.

☆.。.:*・Happy New Year☆2011・*:.。.☆

For computer viewing: http://bit.ly/faoInN (RakutenGreeting)

For cell phone users (simpler version): http://bit.ly/fOVL6H (RakutenGreeting)

☆.。.:*・Happy New Year☆2011・*:.。.☆

Cheers and we hope to see you again! (^_-)-♪


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wheat woes

Yes, thank you.
Someone qualified pointing out how harmful wheat (food) allergies are.

Gluten Sensitivity and the Impact on the Brain

What can one say?
One of the reasons I hate living in the US is the blatant disregard for people suffering from wheat/gluten allergy. And at the same time, America is a wheat and meat based food culture. In other words, everything from chocolate to coffee (flavored) is CONTAMINATED.
That is unless you want to cough up 3-4 times the $amount$ for 'safe' food with 1/3 the equivalent taste.

But worse than the price gouging is the outright mean ignorance.
Just see what happens if you suggest to the mother of a shellfish allergy child, "Oh, it's not that bad. She can eat a little."
Or even better, "Ugh, you're just making it up."
(really)

I have never met this kind of mean, arrogant ignorance in Japan or Korea (and Korea, in general, is an angry, angry country) so I can only attribute it to the culture here. Personally, I always suggest that before insulting another person, get your facts straight first before you show how much of a self-centered idiot you really are.
But that's just me. I like to be soundly armed. (^_-)-☆


Cheers!
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You speak Korean (?)

Last day of class this semester before Winter vacation was a designated movie day. Anything else would be beyond impossible into the utterly unthinkable range.

However, one enterprising table of girls in one class asked if they could play a game.
～　There's actually two broken down board games from the 1980's - CLUE and SCRABBLE. Upon asking I was told there wasn't enough 'budget' to get another game. What? Can't spare the 30 dollars on a learning game? No Budget? Why don't we start by NOT buying boxes of paper coffee cups and use only the ceramic ones that are already available?? hmmm..... -_- ～

To my surprise they grabbed CLUE and asked me to teach them how to play it. I was more than happy to. Taken aback in shock even.

In direct violation of Universal Laws, I am not a rabid fan of the TWILIGHT saga and having already seen the first 40 minutes six times this week... Well, any excuse was a good excuse as far as I was concerned. On top of which they would be using more English in this one class than the accumulated classes of the whole semester!! (Somehow that makes me want to cry.)

One girl was apparently appointed translator for my simplified explanation, cards were dealt, set and game.

Knowing better - not to mention not having anything better to do - I stayed and waited for the inevitable question from some unforeseen quarter to pop out and bring everything to a screeching halt.

Took longer than usual to come out of hiding, but there it was. I closely observed the appointed-translator and the dice-roller in heated exchange in Korean then helpfully jumped in:
"You can ask anybody the question. If you 'think it is Mrs. White', you don't have to ask Mrs. White player. You can ask anyone."

Appointed-translator quickly gave the resolution to the exact problem they had been wrestling over, but not before she quipped off, "You speak Korean (?)"
There really wasn't enough raise in her voice to qualify it as a question, but fortunately even if it was a question, I didn't have to answer as the game quickly got back on track again.

Halleluyah!
I am miraculously fluent in Korean!

Alas, NO.
The reality is I am extremely, painfully skilled at reading people and situations. It's something I have always been able to do and comes as both a gift and curse. Humans don't like being seen-through. They like to think that all their secrets are snuggly tucked away. The reality is though, it's all bleeding through. Everything below the surface. T_T T_T

When you are young people dismiss you as being over-sensitive or even making things up?! o.0
But when you are older...

Here, these many years in foreign lands, my 'skill' has been honed as it is basic to my very survival.
Yet at the same time, because I can read a situation so well I have all sorts of people chattering at me thinking I understand what they are saying. Hell, I've had whole conversations without really knowing what the other person was talking about although they certainly left satisfied.

Oddly enough, that doesn't create as many problems as one might think. On the other hand it creates tremendous stress to read and react to things on a spilt-second basis. And when the conversation, albiet one-sided, goes on for several minutes...
I leave completely exhausted.

It's not that I ever wanted this 'skill' or even wanted to know these things. (Some things really are better left NOT KNOWN. 知らぬが仏。) But neither is it anything I can change.

The good news is I no longer let people demean or dismiss me. I know better.

The bad news is I am still reading people like an open book.

...and that is precisely why to this day I still only wear glasses. -_-;;



Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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You teach from 9:25 today!!

was the title of today's 'mail'.
Sent to me at 9:26.

No really. Look.

===========================================================
[제목] : this is todays schedule. you start at 09:25!
===========================================================
[발신인] : 담임 이은영
[수신인] : 어학실
[수신인원] : 1명
[수신일자] : 2009-12-18 09:26

I compared what my clock was saying against the oddly empty classroom, and hurriedly replied back.

"Ok, but so the kids know that? There's no one here."

I learned from before to NOT expect any help so I quickly translated some of what looked relevant Korean emails ONLY to find out today was another test day.

Thanks for the one minute warning people.

Actually, one minute AFTER THE FACT.

This will make the third time they didn't bother to inform me of something dreadfully relevant or a major schedule change. (This is a test-centered school culture.)

Foreigners already have a HUGE disadvantage here far, far beyond the constraints of a language barrier.

But that's another gripe/warning for another time.

The point is that this oversight makes me look BAD. AGAIN.

You do NOT make mistakes here.

And this is "my" third major mistake.

Last week was finals.

Normally I proctor tests so I was prepared to do the same for this one. Even made up a little "test bag" of supplies. When I spoke to my lead teacher, she said that just like the mid-term I would not be on the schedule. Instead I would be "off".

I no longer trust anything here so I decided to come in that morning anyway to do some other work. As I received no "quick! come proctor!" message via the internal messaging system I felt rather confident in her statement. Even so, I went through the dozen or so Korean mails, looking for the ones about the final test and quickly translating what I could.

My name did NOT appear in the schedule.

So I was feeling pretty good and for some reason I can no longer remember went down to see the lead teacher.

After she walked in from her test period, some other male teacher grabbed her and started irritatingly blathering at her. Unfortunately I caught a slurred version of my name.

The resultant explanation of this exchange was delivered with a typically plastered smile - "Oh, you were supposed to proctor! You were on the list!"

...

Really?!? You told me I wasn't going to be on the list.Matter of fact, I went so far as to check the list and I couldn't find my name on it.

It was the FINAL, for %^$%# sake.

And for a foreigner to make a mistake (much less a woman) it is automatically assigned to the pigeon hole thought process of "foreigners = unreliable. lax. sloppy. not serious about their work. have it so f*(&*%g easy yet they can't even be counted on to do something as simple as THIS."

Admittedly, there's more than a few like that (like apparently my next door neighbor), but for those of us who came expecting to actually teach...

Like I told the lead teacher once after another 'incident' - "They (the teachers) have stress so they take it out on you. The kids have stress which they ALSO take out on you. It really seems to me that they're just looking for someone to kick around."

I so, so, sooo hate this place.

Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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口は災いの元?それとも自由の元？

The Japanese have a saying, a brilliant bit of wisdom if I must say - "口は災いの元".
Literally, "The mouth is the source of troubles."

It's likely why I was unusually reticent as a child (I knew it then without actually knowing it.) and thereafter never developed any further skill with the spoken word.

But as no one understands half of what I say here anyway, I naturally take advantage of this, throw all cares to the wind and babble out whatever pops into my head.


SOPHOMORE BOYS:
"Wake up or stand up!"
- they are perpetually trying to sleep in class. He stood up immediately. He could have just WOKEN UP, but as no one is ever listening to me in the first place, I didn't bother to correct him.

"It's not a dance floor."
- typical example of minor punishment is to have the student stand outside. I don't like that for several reasons the main one of which you simply can NOT trust them to just sit down and make themselves comfortable or merely walk off someplace.
So my version is they stand at the front of the class on my large dias. (Besides, it's more humiliating this way.)
For the first time I caught someone doing the moonwalk up here today.


SOPHOMORE GIRLS and ONE BOY'S CLASS:
"I WILL beat you with the bunny stick."
- aaah, the bunny stick. How I love thee.
In general, you don't have too much problems with the girls classes. That's rather true internationally. But wrongdoings can not go unnoticed forever and sometimes an example must be made.
For the girls, I do the worst thing possible - I use the bunny stick to MESS THEIR HAIR.
For the one and only, singular boys class the rates gentleness because they are so good - I just whack them on the head.
(They're sooo good!!! When I tell them to stand in the corner, they actually STAND IN THE CORNER!! I love that class.)


ALL BOY'S CLASSES:
"You don't speak to me like that!"
"WATCH YOUR MOUTH."
- aah, things I remember hearing from my childhood. (Fortunately, I wasn't on the receiving end.) It's almost nostalgic to find myself saying them now, the way the tumble off my lips so thoughtlessly, naturally.
Seriously, children are extremely rude to the foreign teachers here. It was quite a shock the first couple months after teaching in Japan for 4 years. There's nothing to explain it except to say that THIS is the Korean way of things.


ALL CLASSES:
"If I wait, YOU wait."
- My newest technique for getting them to shut up not just QUICKLY but for more then 5 minutes is deliciously effective. Even more so then the nailpolish. For every minute the make me wait, they wait that long in class After the bell rings. :D
This is really great because you're hitting them directly where it hurts - the stomach and the Korean teacher.
There's only two options for the 'next class'. It's either lunch/dinner, in which case you're delivering a belly-hit, or it's a Korean teacher's class.
They may treat us like week-old road kill, but they respect and FEAR the Korean teachers. They'll stroll into my classroom 5 minutes past start time, but they will run from this same classroom in order to not be late for their Korean teacher's class.
Boy, do they listen carefully these days.

And as always there are the assortment of curious conversations...
Student: "You are scary."
Me: "Yes. I am."
** Her intention was to say that I liked scary things, but I didn't bother to correct her since I agree under either meaning.

Student: "Your face is so small. You are so cute!"
** Yes, I happen to embody the Asian pinnacle of beauty - tall in height (by Asian standards, of course), small face, big eyes, tall nose. (As opposed to big nose. Not big, 'tall'.)

To a Kindergarten boy that kept shoving his toy tank in my face while we were trying to have class -
"Oh, yes, it's very nice. However, I'm against war under any circumstances."

Possibly my current favorite.
Said to a table of girls up front. You remember seeing those nature shows with monkeys grooming themselves, picking out bugs from their fur and eating them?
One of the little monkeys was laying across two others at her table all three of which were searching intently through her hair. I couldn't resist.
"Are you looking for bugs?"
*squeals* "No, no! White hair!"
White hair acquired and yanked free.
In a fleeting moment of sympathy I said "Aah, you are to young."
As student in question despondantly examined the hair - "Yes, I am."
"I think it's stress."
And just as sadly - "Yes, stress."


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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I take it all back.

Surely it's a fleeting thing, but aside from the monster mosquitos and around 50% of the population being grotesquely unmannered, pompous, ignorant, over-sexed... I'll leave off there.

I am NOT saying that I like it, but maybe Korea is not all bad? o.0

☆ I have access to really great cosmetics lines - Tony Moly, DHC, the domestic brands SkinFood and Innis Free. They would be the best ever if they weren't surely tested on helpless, suffering animals, but I don't have much choice in a country that eats dog meat.

☆ I have an endless supply of 'happy cake' in near endless varieties.
(I know the location of all the closest eight shops and they know me too.)

☆ I have three TV channels in Japanese one of which shows each of the major 2 week long sumo bashos and another on now which is showing American football!
Hakuhou~! ♡ Kotomitsuki~!♡ Balto! ♡♡ !
Oh, and BS2 (Japanese) will now be showing COLUMBO regularly on Thursday evenings. ♡ヨッシャー！！

☆ The white rice is still no comparison to Japan's, but the black, wild, red and about 5 varieties of brown are plentiful and cheap.

☆ Unlike in America, I have medical coverage.
For EVERYTHING. Even pre-existing injuries. The fact that I wouldn't be just shocks everyone into speechlessness. Much less when I tell them it was the charming US government itself that cut off my health insurance right in the middle of my physical therapy.

☆ The have these really cool item of clothing I've never seen elsewhere. Once I realized their potential I cornered a student on where to get them. (Apparently NOT where the sell clothes.)
ARM WARMERS.
Like leg warmers, but obviously not for your legs.
Within one week I managed to hunt down and acquire 7 pairs.

Or just maybe it's that I like being able to say "I need to make a quick jump over to Japan for some shopping this weekend."


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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More Happy Racism

We were dragged into the chairperson's office in the middle of our ONE real break between classes (a whopping ten minutes) to be incoherently informed that two teachers here had come into contact with some people diagnosed with SI and were forthwith confined to home for the next seven days.

The whole time I'm thinking SI? SI? ...SI? and throwing questioning looks at the towering 'A' next to me - Can you make out any of this?

I finally figured out he was meaning swine influenza. That might seem obvious to you, gentle reader, but no real English speaker here uses that phrase so between my overwhelming disinterest and his broken English, I didn't catch on right away.

But that wasn't the even best part.
That came in the form of a semi-coherent, delusional YET stringent warning -- You need to keep two meters between you and the other teachers. Everyone. Kids. And wash hands. (mimic hand-washing here.)

I just wanted to walk out then and there.

I had suspected the man knew NOTHING about what went on in his school, particularly the classrooms, from early on.
Like from week one.
But this utterly confirmed it.

At best you are two feet from the little snots and that's when you're not constantly crouching down to try to figure out what they're saying or being grabbed and petted. (My nails are a big hit.) Same goes for the teacher's office -- at best two feet from every other person in ALL directions.

And washing hands?
Well, I know I do. But I also know that the kids DON'T. Many times they don't even flush the toilet, they are in such a rush to get back to class. (Although what do you really expect when you give 100 students 5 minutes to use six bathroom stalls?)

So we had our marching orders - stay back! and stay clean!! - and were summarily dismissed to face the angry, unclean hordes.

We had liquid soap in the bathroom now.
I felt better already.

But, no, wait! It gets even better!

I finally got some coherent information about the whole situation from the KBS Japanese broadcast. Apparently there was an overnight conference for English teachers - both foreign and Korean. Fifteen unspecified participants tested positive for swine flu. The foreigners were staying at the unspecified lodging together but they also had "free time". And in this free time they Went Out Into the Public.
So, the news goes on to report, if you came into contact with the FOREIGNERS during their outings you may be infected too!!

Beware the White People!

They obviously don't say that straight out but neither do they remind you that there were both Korean Nationals together with the foreigners at the conference in closed quarters for hours on end. They are immune, I guess, but their very Koreaness? After all, it's just naturally understood that it's the foreigners that spread disease in this country. It certainly couldn't be the Korean habit of not washing hands or dishes thoroughly, nor the ages old tradition of everyone eating off the same plate. That was quaint about 200 years ago, but it the world of global epidemics, it's long past time to reserve that for an "at home" tradition.

So, we all had our marching orders now:

Screw the threat of impending war!
FEAR THE DISEASE-CARRYING FOREIGNERS!!

Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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Why do you speak English?

When I lived in the glorious state of Maryland {regarding Ohio, no comment as always} I distinctly remember my mother having a very 1970's looking hardcover on the bedstand titled KIDS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS.

Yes, they do. Particularly in an ESL classroom.

"Why do you speak English?"
~Student A asked me this recently in a conversation about my stamps.
I have many, many. All of which are invariably from Japan.
In response to the question of why I have these Japanese things, I said, "I lived there."
That was followed by a brief moment of silence.
Then, "You lived there? Why do you speak English?"

This is actually very interesting twist to the common expat experience of being a stranger in a strangeland. In Japan the formula was White=>Foreigner=>AMERICAN.
A distinctly skin color-based formula for assessing your opponent in conversation.
(And incidentally there is a sub-rule of Foreigner=can not speak Japanese.)

However, in the little Korean girl's mind, the formula was geographically-based: regardless of skin color, the fact that I lived in Japan equalled I should be speaking Japanese, not English. You could just see the misconnection of reality and facts etched on her face.

However, first week questions top the list for me.

"Why are you so tall?"
~For all the foreigners supposedly around here in Seoul I've always been struck by how misplaced this was. I was never asked this by children in Japan even in the rural areas where it's NOT unusual to be the only foreigner.

Some questions, however, are universal:

"How old are you?"
~As this inevitably comes up not once, but several times I turn it into an ESL activity to practice numbers by making them guess my age. They're always shocked. Even the adults.

"Are you married?"
~Because at MY age, how could I possibly not be?!?!!?
Is the Asain mindset.

"Do you have a boyfriend?"
~Lacking a proper husband, surely I must have one of these to attest to my basic worth as a female. >.>


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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Year of the Bore... BOAR

Everyone counts down at the end of the year--they count the seconds before the ball drops, they count the top 10 news stories of the year... The end of the year is ALL about counting. So...

THE TOP TEN SIGNS YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN JAPAN!
10. You frequently leave your bag/purse sitting in your grocery cart or in your bicycle basket and turn your back on it to look at something else. AND it never wanders off.

9. One apple costs 3 dollars and a mango costs 7.

8. You see signs like this--"For a Regulation of a Customer" and have to read the Japanese "translation" below it to figure it out.

7. You have to use a crank attached to your bathtub to light the gas in order to heat your bathwater. (Didn't that go out of existence in the early 1900's??)

6. You can watch programs that use Madonna's LIKE A VIRGIN and other classic hits to teach English.
-Seriously, how better to teach the phrase "You made me feel ---- "?

5. Rock-paper-scissors is a national sport.

4. New Year's celebrations include men running around in their underwear on their way to diving into a bathtub filled with ice cold water...OUTDOORS.

3. The pokemon children's magazine is displayed next to the "middle-aged" man's pornographic magazine on an outdoor bookstand.

2. You wear your pajama bottoms to work and no one cares. (I've been doing that for over a month now. Admittedly, they're a solid color, but still.)


And the number one sign you know you're in Japan when.....

1. A young mother helps her 1 year old son pull down his pants so he can relieve himself at a telephone poll on the way home from grocery shopping in the middle of the day.

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