JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Core Developer - コアディベロッパー
- Midokura Japan K.K. - ミドクラジャパン株式会社, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥4.0M ~ ¥10.0M / Year Negotiable
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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- Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Kanto region
- RCS (RCSコーポレーション), Kanto
- Salary: ¥180,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month includes performance bonus
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Seiharinokaze
onibaku,
The haiku you presented for discussion is, I think, relevant and very suggestive to the present topic. The sound of cicadas was not a noise or zatsuon 雑音 or some rasping meaningless sound but a voice of living creatures with some message even to us human beings. I don't know much about what people write in their blogs recently, but at least I haven't met a Japanese who said aloud in a social setting that he/she finds cicadas' singing too noisy, though of course I do not deny that excessive dB of any sound is noise all right.
All people use both halves of their brains irrespective of races or nationalities. What the author argues is that Japanese or anyone who speaks Japanese as a mother tongue hears and processes some kinds of sounds such as of insects, winds, rivers, rustling of leaves with their left half brains as if they were words. Whereas the other peoples have those sounds treated by their right half brains as noises or meaningless sounds. So by primordial, I mean the possibility of communication between man and nature on an almost equal footing. Not anything about racial superiority. If you like, Japanese may be unevoluted people.
Posted in: Why the Japanese Are a Superior People
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Seiharinokaze
onibaku,
It may not be a gentle sound. But then again why did he feel silence amidst of cicadas chorus or noise that penetrates the rocks, may I ask? Or why did the sound a frog makes upon jumping into a pond let him feel something indescribable? Sounds of nature more often than not tend to communicate with you. It is not a matter of intellectual superiority but rather a matter of intellectual primordiality which we may be losing.
Posted in: Why the Japanese Are a Superior People
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Seiharinokaze
First to OssanAmerica,
Though I don't know how the findings by Dr. Tsunoda have been repudiated, he argues that Japanese hear vowels with their left half brain. Their brain deals with vowels as words. Whereas the people other than Japanese and Polynesians hear vowels, if uttered without consonants, with their right half brain. Their brain treat the sounds as noises rather than words.
And to onibaku,
I don't know if every American reacts the same way. I just shared my candid surprise at such an unheard comment in my life about chirring cicadas. Japanese probably don't complain about their summertime chorus.
As for the haiku by Basho, the poet didn't mean to comment on the noise of cicadas. How could he feel "silence しずかさや" if it was noise? He felt silence while listening to the chorus of cicadas around. The sound didn't disturb the quietude he was in. It rather brings quietude home to him and his wayfaring loneliness too. Insects voice is not a noise but words both out of his mind and nature around him.
Posted in: Why the Japanese Are a Superior People
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Seiharinokaze
I am not sure if Japanese are superior or disparate to other people in anything because of the way their brains process sound information from outside. But I remember being surprised to hear a comment by an American who said that the chirring of cicadas in this season is just noisy. I have never heard a Japanese make such a comment.
Posted in: Why the Japanese Are a Superior People
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Seiharinokaze
It has been pointed out by a number of military experts and world political scientists that the nuclear umbrella doesn't function actually. A nuclear power doesn't attack another nuclear power and doesn't secure its allies by the nuclear umbrella if it means to risk its own existence. That's why France, Britain and China developed their own force de frappe not believing in the nuclear umbrellas either by the U.S. or the USSR. North Korea is just emulating them. They all know that the nuclear umbrella is no more than a hegemonical trick for a nuclear super power state to subject a non-nuclear country to its will. If China believes so and dares attack Japan, will America send a missile to China as retaliation? If the U.S. counts it against its national interests to guard Japan against huge powerful China, wouldn't America take action in some way or other to nullify the security treaty? That is, Mr. Ito argues, what Japan should wake to and take into earnest consideration, though my bottom line is not necessarily the same as Mr. Ito's.
Anyway, it is common, though tacit, knowledge that the U.S. does not allow Japan to have its own autonomous defense capability. And China welcomes it. Didn't Kissinger say to Zhou in his first visit to China in 1971 that the presence of U.S. troops on Japan helped to restrain the Japanese rather than the reverse? It's in the interests of both the U.S. and China to keep Japan under control.
The next year when Nixon visited China, he also argued that Beijing should accept the US-Japan security treaty because it gave U.S. influence over Tokyo on such matters as Taiwan policy. The U.S. would restrain the Japanese from going to military expansion. It seems as if, in the context of the Far East, the US-Japan security treaty with its nuclear umbrella exists for containing Japan rather than defending it and serves also as a kind of America's diplomatic tool with China.
Posted in: Should Japan have its own nuclear weapons as a deterrent against security threats or should it rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella?
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Seiharinokaze
kinniku,
How about referring to Mr. Kusaka or Mr. Ito for yourself? I just answered to your question where I found the information. They mentioned Nixon's handwritten memorandum about the secret agreements with Chou En-lai. I'm curious to read it too. Also Mr. Ito wrote in his book "Chugoku no Kakuga Sekai wo Seisu (China's nuclear suppresses the world)" that the former National Security Advisor Brezezinski had stated in 2006 after North Korea's nuclear experiment that there is a collusion between the U.S, and China that they won't allow Japan to go nuclear. Do you think what they are saying are mere assumptions?
Posted in: Should Japan have its own nuclear weapons as a deterrent against security threats or should it rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella?
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Seiharinokaze
kinniku,
Well, though I am not sure if Kissinger really said that it's absurd for the U.S. to fight with China for Japan, I and many other Japanese understand that America's basic policy with Japan is not to let Japan have autonomous defense capability. The U.S.-Japan Security Treaty is therefore to keep Japan under America's nuclear umbrella. As I understand it, this is even then and now what "Japan would not be allowed to become militarily aggressive again" means in the talks between the U.S. and China, isn't it? Japan is only expected to dance to the orchestration staged by the two puppeteers for the Far East.
And it's Mr. Ito Kan a world politics analyst who was quoted in the book as saying about William Perry's advice to Jiang Zemin.
Posted in: Should Japan have its own nuclear weapons as a deterrent against security threats or should it rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella?
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Seiharinokaze
kinniku,
I read it in a book titled "Dorehodo America Wa Hidoi Kunika (How awful a country America is)" by Kusaka Kiminndo and Takayama Masayuki (PHP, 2009). Mr. Kusaka seems to assume the secret agreement is about Japan going nuclear more than anything else. The former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry was also quoted in the same book, as saying to Jian Zemin that if North Korea goes on its nuclearization, Japan might also go nuclear in the future to counter the threat, so that the U.S. and China should not allow Japan to have an autonomous defense capability. Isn't "not allowed to have autonomous defense capability" tantamount to "not allowed to go nuclear" rather than not allowed to become militarily aggressive?
Posted in: Should Japan have its own nuclear weapons as a deterrent against security threats or should it rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella?
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Seiharinokaze
Nixon and Kissinger had an secret agreement with Chou En-lai when they met in 1972 that they would never let Japan go nuclear. It is still valid as their mutual basic policy on Japan. Besides it's not North Korea but Japan that is most strictly watched for its nuclear movements by IAEA. We are expected only to dance with the umbrella to the orchestration stated for the Far East. NPT and NK are no less than what complements the scenario. So the above question is rather meaningless.
Posted in: Should Japan have its own nuclear weapons as a deterrent against security threats or should it rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella?
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Seiharinokaze
What's interests me as far as I can see from the picture is that the people who offered a light before the dead souls seem to be from such common folks' living area across the river as Nakahara ward of Kawasaki and Katsushika ward of Tokyo. Widow's mite seems more reassuring and unaffected than others.
Posted in: Light up
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Seiharinokaze
Several years ago I happened to share an elevator with a white lady who looked in her forties in a hotel in Bangkok. As I was standing near the floor button panel, I asked her in English "What floor?". Then she looked somewhat annoyed and just said "Deux". She seemed to think it beneath her dignity to speak English even in an Asian city though it's geographically near Cambodia and Vietnam. But I felt her attitude not to speak English somehow kitsch though brusque. I didn't get to dislike her or the French people for that. Japanese may think themselves as visitors from an out-of-the-way place while the French themselves as visitors from the center of the world perhaps.
Posted in: Pushy French are world's worst tourists; Japanese are top: study
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Seiharinokaze
Oh, sorry, correction; I had thought otherwise too.
Even robbery and arson happened more often in former days.
Posted in: Japanese urged to take pride in their safe society
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Seiharinokaze
There are crimes that are under-reported everywhere. Not exclusive to Japan. So to talk about unreported and unacknowledged crimes is largely conjectural. But murder is considered to be least under-reported among vicious crimes including robbery, arson and rape. And acknowledged murder cases are actually decreasing in Japan. Even robbery and arson happened less often in former days.
Year: No. of murder cases: Rate of incidence per 100 thousand people
1950: 3076: 3.697
1960: 2648: 3.044
1970: 1986: 2.069
1980: 1684: 1.333
1990: 1238: 1.002
2000: 1391: 1.116
2008: 1297: 0.948
Another striking point in crimes in Japan, against all counter-arguments or guesswork, is that the underaged people commit crimes far less often than their counterparts in other countries and even less often than the older generation of this country. Though I'm not urged to take pride anywhere in this context, at least one thing might be certain, that is, we better sometimes take time to compare the feeling of reality with statistics instead of just swallowing or rejecting either of them.
Posted in: Japanese urged to take pride in their safe society
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Seiharinokaze
realist,
This what you call mindless crap ideology sickness is what a British magazine has afflicted on Japan. Though I'm not sure if you say the same sickness can also be diagnosed to Zurich (ranking first) and Copenhagen (second), it's usually outsiders who file this type of evaluation and someone like you rather than Japanese who make a fuss over it. Livable or hell, the evaluation doesn't seem so real to us either way.
Posted in: Is Tokyo really top dog in global rankings?
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Seiharinokaze
mummet
Japan had concluded a neutral treaty with the Soviets and was not in a state of war with her. It's the Soviets that broke the treaty and declared war on Japan. So, USSR entered the war with Japan, not vice versa. And the Kuriles were their loot taken by violence and greed.
Sorry I don't know a person Kentaro Suzuki. But though I am not sure if Suzuki Kantaro's notorious "mokusatsu (黙殺)" of the Potsdam Declaration might not have been more aptly interpreted as "not deign to comment" instead of just "reject" or "ignore", I wonder why the efforts by the Japanese government to end the war behind the scenes through the mediation of the Soviets were rejected entirely.
Anyhow, we have yet to see what will happen in the end for the islands. Japan has not yet concluded a peace treaty with Russia who did not sign the San Francisco Peace Treaty either.
Posted in: Should Russia return the four disputed islands off Hokkaido to Japan?
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Seiharinokaze
mummet
The Yalta was an occasion to coordinate the interests of the major powers on how to divide the post-war world. The Soviet Union was selectively supportive to the Allied powers being rather guileful in expanding its influence. The Kuriles and part of Poland and Germany were given to the Soviet Union as booty for their helping hand. Transfer of territories executed without the participation by the countries concerned, however, is against international law and also against the Cairo Communique which declared that the Allied powers "covet no gain for themselves and have no thought of territorial expansion." Don't you think that the Soviet Union was just as aggressive in the Far East as in East Europe? By what were the Kuriles taken if not by violence and greed?
FYI because of the Soviet Union tens of millions of people lost their lives. And for a swift conclusion to the end of the war, by June 1945 the Japanese government sought to cease the war through the mediation of the Soviets basically accepting what Cordell Hull had proposed four years before. It's regrettable that the Allied powers ignored it and let the Soviets go to war.
Posted in: Should Russia return the four disputed islands off Hokkaido to Japan?
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Seiharinokaze
mummet
Siberia and Littoral province are no less than the result of Russian expansionism. Please compare the size of Russia with that of Japan: 17 million square km to 0.37 million km2. After defeating Napoleon in 19th century, Russia became more aggressive going down the Balkan Peninsula and over the Caucasus to the Middle East while taking the Baltic area. They just behaved similarly in the Far East too. Do you still say that Japan was categorically expansionistic against Russia?
At any rate the U.S. instigated the Soviets to break the neutral treaty and enter the war on the Allied side against Japan giving the Kuriles away as collateral. As a result they invaded and took illegally the islands which belong to Japan as per the Treaty of Saint Petersburg of 1875. So in this point the U.S. (along with Britain) conspired with Russia (then the Soviets) to violate the international law and commit a kind of crime against peace.
Posted in: Should Russia return the four disputed islands off Hokkaido to Japan?
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Seiharinokaze
Paul Klugman kept calling Japan all sorts of names and insisted on inflation targeting to fix its economy, criticizing the Bank of Japan's tight-money policy all these years. But recently he began to apologize to Japan, saying that wiser men in the west criticized Japan during its lost decades for being slow to take necessary measures and evading the fundamental solution, but that once placed in a similar situation, they are doing the same as Japan did. He even denies the effectiveness of inflation targeting. It seems, therefore, that for the time being Japan cannot but do without preachers.
Posted in: Japan can do without preaching on how to fix its economy
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Seiharinokaze
After the burst of the bubble economy of Japan in 1990's, the U.S. government criticized this country for its lax way of bad debt disposal and window dressing. But what Anglo-Americans are doing now is more than just what Japan used to do.They made new accounting rules to let financial statements look better. They walked off the job of assessing non-performing loans any rigidly; window-dressing seems to have become their state economic policy. And yet should Japan ask again for their preaching?
Posted in: Japan can do without preaching on how to fix its economy
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Seiharinokaze
The key note of the peace treaty was to let the world "recognize" that Japan at the time was not able to pay war reparation so that the Allied nations should basically waive war reparation claims including those of their nationals against Japan. (Article 14) This may be an unamendable historical fact, or you may call it victor's fact.
But anyway if the Military Tribunal were to be conducted on civilian perspective, the Allied powers would not be unliable to war crimes either. And most probably Japanese nationals would demand the amendment of Article 19 which stipulates that Japan waives all claims of Japan and its nationals against the Allied powers including the Soviets.
Posted in: Should the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco be amended to allow surviving ex-POWs and their kin to take legal action for compensation against the Japanese government?