Open Source full text article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17540763.2025.2487588
Docot, D. (2025). An archive of archives lost. Photographies, 18(2), 223–244. https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2025.2487588
Showing posts with label salvage ethnography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label salvage ethnography. Show all posts
Sunday, June 8, 2025
New Publication: "An archive of archives lost" by Dada Docot
Open Source full text article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17540763.2025.2487588
Docot, D. (2025). An archive of archives lost. Photographies, 18(2), 223–244. https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2025.2487588
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Sunday, May 3, 2020
「Tenbun Closing」- Leading to a Week of Intensive Photography and Salvage Ethnography pt.5 - Raw Data of the Last Night
Tenbun's business hours were 2:00 PM to 10:00 PM. However Tencho was very flexible. There were many times when I showed up a little early and left a little late. Tenbun was very busy during its last week. But the last night was absolutely crazy with customers spilling out into the corridor. It was as though everyone had to say their farewells and drink up every last bit of alcohol at the shop before it closed. The following two short videos - raw data - show the scene at 11:20 PM...
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
「Tenbun Closing」- Leading to a Week of Intensive Photography and Salvage Ethnography pt.4 - What's in my bag?
Compare with:
What’s in your fieldwork bag? https://savageminds.org/2007/08/13/whats-in-your-fieldwork-bag/
What's in Your Bag? https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/AN.600
What's in Your Bag, Anthropologists? https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/AN.929
What’s in Your Bag? 2019 Edition https://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/07/23/whats-in-your-bag-2019-edition/
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Monday, April 20, 2020
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Sad News for VAOJ and Many Others: Tenbun Closing - Leading to a Week of Intensive Photography and Salvage Ethnography
The tachinomiya Tenbun has closed. Tenbun has been an important research subject and site for me for the last several years. And my personal history with the shop goes back over 22 years. I can't thank Tencho, shop employees and regular customers enough for their service, friendship and teaching me so much about Japanese culture.
For more background:
Photo Exhibition and Visual Ethnography - "Tachinomiya: There Are Two Sides to Every Noren"
"Tachinomiya" Photo Exhibition and Visual Ethnography: The First Week
"Tachinomiya" - A Successful and Memorable Photo Exhibition/Event/Research Method
AJJ Presentation - Tachinomiya: Photo Exhibition as Research Method
「Tachinomiya: Photo Exhibition as Post-Fieldwork Encounter」- Society for East Asian Anthropology Regional Conference 2019 in Tokyo
For now, here are a few shots from the last few days as I continue to deal with my shock and sorrow. More to come in the near future.
"Tencho I."
Notification of closing (rough translation from the Japanese):
Thank you for visiting us regularly. We feel sorry to announce this but we are closing the shop on March 28th, 2020. For 40 years we have really appreciated your support. We hope you understand it was a really difficult decision for us. Until then, our shop will be open as usual. It will be a short time until then but we hope you can visit us.
"Tencho II."
Messages of thanks and gratitude from customers.
One of the first shots I took a couple of years ago for the photo exhibition. It seems appropriate here...
Friday, September 6, 2019
"Forgotten films from '64 shed light on Paralympic evolution in Japan"
Photo and text borrowed from The Japan Times, 9/5/19.
Two long-forgotten films offering a rare glimpse into the staging of the 1964 Tokyo Paralympics and the conditions that were faced by disabled people in Japan at the time are being aired with about a year to go before the 2020 Games.
Gathering dust for about five decades, the films capture the atmosphere of postwar society in 1964, and the involvement of then-Crown Prince Akihito and Crown Princess Michiko in the fledgling sports movement.
The 1964 Paralympics were officially called the “International Games for the Physically Handicapped,” but the Tokyo event marked the first time the term “paralympics” came into wide, albeit then unofficial, use. It is now considered by the International Paralympic Committee to be the second Paralympics after the 1960 Rome Games, which were also called the Paraplegic Olympics.
A few of the Japanese athletes were former servicemen, and members of the Imperial family visited and watched the competitions, according to Journal of the Paralympic Research Group by the Nippon Foundation Paralympic Support Center. Many of the foreign athletes were also ex-servicemen.
One of the films, the title of which can be translated as “Tokyo Paralympics, Festival of Love and Glory” (“Tokyo Paralympic Ai to Eiko no Saiten”), had been “buried in the company’s massive archives,” Satoru Nokuo, associate general manager at distributor Kadokawa Corp., said at a screening at Sophia University in July.
The other film, “Record of the 1964 Tokyo Paralympic Games” (“1964-nen Tokyo Paralympic Taikai Kiroku Eiga”), was found in a warehouse of the Japanese Para-Sports Association, according to Tetsuya Takeuchi, a senior commentator at NHK who took part in the screenings.
Through interviews and other means, the 63-minute and 45-minute films depict how people with disabilities in Japan regained their sense of worth by playing sports and interacting with foreign athletes who had endured similar struggles.
The former was directed by cinematographer Kimio Watanabe and the latter by the NHK Public Welfare Organization.
The films also cast light on the differences between Japanese athletes, many of whom lived in institutions at the time, and their foreign counterparts, who in many cases were active in their communities.
For NHK’s Takeuchi, who uses a wheelchair, the films are a reminder about how much still needs to be done to improve the lives of disabled people in Japan. While transport access and other issues have improved, the situation “has not really changed in any significant way. People with disabilities still face challenges in finding marriage partners and jobs,” he said.
Compared with today, the events of 1964 were seen, especially in Japan, as a way to provide physical rehabilitation rather than competition.
“I’ve noticed the word rehabilitation was mentioned many times (in the films),” archer Tomohiro Ueyama said at the screening for the NHK film. Ueyama competed in the 2016 Rio Games and is expected to compete in 2020. “But it’s different now, and I am hoping people will enjoy the Paralympic Games as a sports event in Tokyo rather than rehabilitation.”
According to an official 1964 Paralympics report, the two films are among six independently produced records of the event; the other four are missing. No official filming of the Paralympics was conducted due to a lack of funding, the report said.
“Thanks to the two surviving films, we are able to see what really happened in 1964,” said Fumio Morooka, a professor emeritus at Sophia University who moderated the talks at the screenings. He said it was important to keep a visual record of such events.
“As no official announcement has been made yet on the film production to record the upcoming Tokyo Paralympics … I truly hope the public and private sectors will cooperate to produce a visual record that can pass on the legacy of the games to future generations,” Morooka said.
Andrew Parsons, the president of the International Paralympic Committee, said in a statement that he was pleased the original 1964 Tokyo Paralympic Games film had been found and stressed their “lasting legacy” in both Japan and around the world.
“Since 1964 we have seen the Paralympic movement grow and grow, taking leaps and bounds not just for the Paralympians, but also for society as a whole,” he said.
Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/09/05/national/forgotten-films-64-shed-light-paralympic-evolution-japan/?fbclid=IwAR26G_K64gFCdy4MHQTOWMMgyaz5GmLAL2btEU_G-PbNBPtarDUy5O5pRAc#
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
"Okayama photo studio offers to clean rain-damaged photos"
Photo and story from The Japan Times, 8/1/18.
A photo studio in Okayama Prefecture has offered to restore — free of charge — photos damaged by the heavy rains that ravaged western Japan last month, prompting people in the disaster-hit areas to send in tens of thousands of photos.
Staffers and volunteers at the Yagyu Photo Studio in the city of Kasaoka are hand cleaning and drying the photos that include snaps of school field trips, wedding ceremonies and images of moments dear to many of those affected by the storms.
Mud-stained photos are prone to rot and it’s not possible to use regular chemicals, which could possibly damage them, so those working on the restoration must clean the images by hand.
The photo-cleaning service has garnered such attention — prompting the massive influx of damaged photos — that other studios in Aomori and Yamaguchi prefectures have offered to assist with the cleaning.
“Photos are precious possessions. I hope this endeavor can contribute to the region’s reinvigoration after the disaster,” said Kuninobu Yagyu, CEO of Yagyu Photo Studio.
Kayano Photo Studio in Soja, Okayama Prefecture, is also offering a service to reprint photos for customers who have used the studio since 2008, but only if the studio still has the image data. The studio said it will take several months for reprints to be delivered after an order is made.
Riichi Konishi, 64, a Soja resident who lost his wife four years ago, visited Kayano Photo Studio. Rains from the storms damaged his wife’s face in a family photo, which he was hoping to get restored.
“We will never be able to take photos together again. Although it is heartbreaking that she is no longer here, I feel grateful for the cleaning of this photo,” Konishi said.
Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/08/01/national/okayama-photo-studio-offers-clean-rain-damaged-photos/
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
"New documentary on Tsukiji fish market captures essence of nation’s ‘lively kitchen’"
Text from The Japan Times, 7/23/16.
Ever since he visited Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market for the first time in 2012, movie director Naotaro Endo has been intrigued by the place often called “the world’s largest fish market.”
“I was amazed by the spectacular taste of the fish that was recommended by an intermediate wholesaler, and that experience made me interested in Japan’s fish-eating culture as I became a frequent visitor,” Endo says.
Endo has turned his passion for the market into “Tsukiji Wonderland,” a documentary film that he has made with foreign audiences in mind.
“I hope this film will trigger people’s interest in Tsukiji and the essence of Japanese food culture,” he says, while also trusting it will serve as an opportunity for Japanese viewers “to think about passing on our food culture to future generations in the best possible way.”
“Tsukiji Wonderland” will be shown at a Tsukiji cinema on Oct. 1 and released nationwide on Oct. 15. It is also scheduled to be screened elsewhere in Asia, including Hong Kong in August and September, Thailand in September and Singapore in October.
Filming of the 110-minute documentary began in March 2014. For about 16 months, it goes behind the scenes at the market, records the distinct tenor of the four seasons and follows the daily routine of industrious professionals as they go about their work.
The Tsukiji fish market opened in its current location in 1935 after the market moved from the Nihonbashi area in the wake of the devastating 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.
Since then, the market dubbed “Japan’s lively kitchen” has been feeding people both at home and — in recent years — abroad, contributing to sustaining the quality of washoku Japanese cuisine, which has been designated by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage.
According to the website of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, nearly 1,700 tons of fishery products were handled in the Tsukiji wholesale market per day in 2014, and some 480 kinds of fish are traded throughout the year. The wholesale market also sells other fresh goods such as vegetables, fruit, meat and flowers.
In November, the Tsukiji market will shift to Toyosu, about 2.3 kilometers to the southeast, and the documentary aims to capture the last images of Tsukiji before its relocation.
Earlier this year, a version of the film with English subtitles was screened at packed cinemas in the state of Washington during the Seattle International Film Festival and Endo sensed the strength of the film through the audience’s strong reaction.
“Images of food can be understood non-verbally across cultural boundaries and beyond language barriers,” Endo says. “Since food is related to principles of culture and forms part of our basic needs — food, clothing and shelter — I think washoku can be a very effective representation of Japanese culture overseas.”
The filming of the documentary was the first occasion in which cameras were allowed to follow people working at the fish market for such an extended period and in areas normally out of bounds to the general public.
Endo was particularly interested in featuring the professional lives of the intermediate wholesalers as opposed to focusing on chefs or restaurateurs. There was something appealing to him about their lively behavior, their ability to select quality fish, and the pride they put into their work.
Intermediate wholesalers buy tuna and other produce at auction and sell them to retailers, restaurants and other shops. They must be licensed professionals approved by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to conduct business at Tsukiji.
“They are not just getting paid for moving goods in the middle of the distribution system,” Endo says.
“Today’s food professionals have very demanding needs and produce from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south is delivered to Tsukiji thanks to the advanced distribution system,” Endo says. “But it is almost impossible to control the harvest of fish because this largely depends on conditions in the natural environment.”
The role of the intermediate wholesalers is to find a way to satisfy the needs of food professionals come what may by sourcing and recommending produce, he says.
“They have sustained Japan’s fish-eating culture since the Edo period, making Tsukiji the capital of fish-eating culture,” he says.
Shrines and monuments dedicated to fish and seafood at Tsukiji are another distinctive trait associated with Japanese food culture, Endo says.
Next to the market stands Namiyoke Shrine, where many pay their respects on arriving for work in the early hours.
“It’s a very beautiful, picturesque scene especially on cold winter mornings when people, whose breath is visible, bow in front of the shrine in the light of Japanese lanterns before they go to work. So I put a scene of that in the film,” he says.
There are various monuments dedicated to eggs, fish, sushi and other products at the shrine as a mark of respect and appreciation for the lives taken to become food. Elsewhere in the market, there is even an annual memorial service for blowfish, presided over by a Buddhist monk.
As he prepared for shooting the documentary and conducted research on Tsukiji, Endo came to know Theodore Bestor, a professor of anthropology and director of the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University, after reading his book “Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World.” He asked him to appear in the documentary.
Bestor received the Commissioner’s Award for the Promotion of Japanese Culture, from Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2013.
“In many cases, people cannot objectively see their own culture so seeing it through the eyes of foreigners is an effective way to do it,” Endo says. “(Bestor) is a leading expert on Tsukiji.”
“I think the film is really remarkable in the way you have a gentle approach to people of interest,” Bestor tells an audience during a lecture and dialogue session with the filmmakers at the International House of Japan.
While Bestor expects a number of things will change or be lost with the relocation, he believes core elements of Tsukiji culture, such as various kinds of kinship among professionals including a genealogical one and senpai-kohai (senior-junior) relationships, will remain as a microcosm of Japanese society at large.
“It’s not a sentimental goodbye to Tsukiji. It’s looking at people and their working lives. Their working lives continue whether, as you say, they are in this box or another box,” Bestor says.
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/07/23/films/new-documentary-tsukiji-fish-market-captures-essence-nations-lively-kitchen/
Monday, April 25, 2016
Monster Salvage Ethnography Post About Recent Disability Issues in Japan
Record 453,000 people with disabilities working for firms in Japan
From The Japan Times, 11/27/15.
A record 453,000 people with disabilities were working for companies in Japan as of June 1, up 5.1 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Friday.
The number of disabled workers hit a record high for the 12th straight year, the ministry said in a report.
The proportion of workers with disabilities in overall private-sector workforces stood at 1.88 percent, up 0.06 percentage point.
Under a law aimed at promoting employment of people who have disabilities, Japanese companies are obliged to employ disabled workers so that they account for at least 2 percent of the firms’ overall workforce.
The proportion of private-sector companies meeting the 2 percent target came to 47.2 percent, up 2.5 points.
An increasing number of companies, especially large firms, have become aware of the importance of hiring people with disabilities, a ministry official said.
The share of disabled workers in the corporate workforce stood at 2.09 percent for companies with 1,000 or more employees and 1.89 percent for firms with 500 to 999 employees.
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/11/27/national/social-issues/record-453000-people-disabilities-working-firms-japan/
25% of Japan’s disabled have trouble making ends meet
From The Japan Times, 2/16/16.
At least 1 in 4 disabled people in Japan has difficulty making ends meet, with the poverty rate running twice the average of nondisabled individuals, according to a study led by a Keio University professor.
Atsuhiro Yamada’s team studied the results of a 2013 government survey on people’s lives to identify the relative poverty rate for people with disabilities and found that the rate is high here compared with that of other developed nations.
Relative poverty is measured based on household disposable income. The percentage reflects those living in households with an income below 50 percent of the national median level.
The researchers say the high poverty rate reflects the fact that there are fewer job opportunities for disabled people and that they earn lower wages. They also reflect the lower pension benefits available in Japan for such people compared with other advanced countries.
Yamada said the findings underscore the “seriousness” of poverty among disabled people in Japan and called for measures to promote employment for them and their families to help them escape poverty.
The study covered people who said in the government survey they needed help or had to be watched over because of disabilities or loss of physical abilities.
The poverty rate of disabled people in their 20s and 30s stood at 28.8 percent, while the figure came to 26.7 percent for people in their 40s and 27.5 percent for those aged between 50 and 64.
As for people with no disabilities, the comparable figures were 13.8 percent, 13.4 percent and 14.6 percent.
The government has compiled poverty figures for the population as a whole and for children under the age of 18. According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, the overall rate was 16.1 percent in 2012.
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/02/16/national/25-japans-disabled-trouble-making-ends-meet/
Badges for ‘invisible disabilities’ catching on
From The Japan Times, 6/2/14.
Patients with hidden physical impediments — internal conditions not immediately recognizable by others — are increasingly wearing badges as they try to increase awareness of the difficulties they face.
“In all my life, I have never once been able to run,” said Nobuyo Shirai, 45, an activist who has a serious heart ailment and is registered as disabled.
Shirai visits a large hospital in Tokyo from her home in Saitama Prefecture once a month, but the one-hour train ride is tough because she is physically weak.
It is a huge ordeal when she cannot get a seat. But it is even more painful when other passengers glare at her for taking a priority seat designated for elderly and disabled passengers, she said.
People with invisible impediments can be those with heart, kidney and liver conditions. Like people with visible physical disabilities or visual and hearing problems, they are eligible for physical disability certificates.
Figures from the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry show there were an estimated 930,000 patients with internal ailments as of 2011. They accounted for 24 percent of all certificate holders, a number surpassed only by people with limb disabilities.
To enhance public awareness, Shirai’s non-profit Heart Plus organization created a “heart plus” symbol in 2003 to signify an internal ailment.
People with invisible impediments used to have no way to indicate their needs, Shirai said. “People who have had ostomies would get yelled at for using the toilets for the disabled,” she said.
The mark is winning public recognition. Five years ago, Kitakyushu City Hall began placing heart plus stickers on priority seats on trains, buses and other public transport and providing badges with the mark to those who wish to wear one.
Eriko Yoshida, an associate professor at University of Nagasaki, surveyed 471 people with internal impediments last year and found that 52 percent of the respondents reported being in need of assistance or support.
Fifty-four percent said they need assistance or support even with such household chores as cooking and cleaning. A further 42 percent cited daily shopping, with a similar number saying they needed help to make hospital visits or commute to work or school.
Even people who said they needed no help may in fact be struggling, Yoshida said.
Author Sarasa Ono thus developed an “invisible impediment badge” to help people with internal ailments discuss their difficulties with others.
Ono, who suffers from an intractable immune-system condition, writes about people who receive insufficient support because of shortcomings in public assistance.
The badge, which costs ¥350, has received 30,000 orders, Ono said, with interest both from patients with chronic diseases, developmental difficulties and mental ailments, and their families.
“People need the courage to talk about their own impediments,” Ono said. “I hope they don’t feel alone, because everyone with a badge is in the same situation.”
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/06/02/national/badges-invisible-disabilities-catching/
Deaf community hopes 2020 Olympics a ‘game-changer’ for better social inclusion
From The Japan Times, 11/4/15.
Peggy Prosser was sitting in front of a travel agent in Japan when she was abruptly informed that she would not be able to fly back to the United States to visit her family because she is deaf.
When Prosser sat down with him, she had written out her itinerary and given it to him.
Initially he had assumed it was because she couldn’t speak Japanese, but when it became clear that she was deaf, he wrote on a piece of paper that flying was not an option as she would be unable to follow safety instructions.
To Prosser this was nonsense — after all, she had come to Japan by air — and definitely not part of any guidelines for dealing with deaf people. It spoke more to the ignorance of the travel agent than anything else. She finally got her tickets after the agent talked to a supervisor, but the incident left a bad aftertaste.
That was in 1993. But even now, Prosser believes discrimination against the deaf still exists as society is built for people who can speak and hear.
“I do see a lot of things changing for the better and some things for the worse,” said 52-year-old Prosser, who has lived in Japan for over 25 years. “Too often, deaf people are marginalized, forgotten or maybe ignored,” she said.
Prosser went deaf at the age of 5 for an unknown reason. Since then, American Sign Language has given her a new tool to communicate and a new way to interact with the world.
She does not remember how she lost her hearing but recalls the time when she no longer needed to wait for “a big yellow school bus” to go to school just like other kids in the neighborhood.
Living in Japan as a foreigner who is deaf has revealed many challenges. Prosser, who works as a travel agent for the deaf, hopes 2020 will be a game-changer in a society where a lack of understanding of the deaf population leads to audism — or the notion that one is superior based on an ability to hear.
“Access to public programs and services will give deaf people the experience they need to become empowered and give back to society,” Prosser said.
Many deaf people stress the importance of visualizing information as the hearing community often hesitates to communicate in writing, especially in times of emergency. Verbal announcements to tell commuters why a train has been delayed, for example, may not be helpful for the deaf.
Despite positive moves in recent years toward equal opportunities and to encourage people with disabilities to participate more in society, Japan is still seen as lagging behind the United States and European countries.
The U.S., for instance, celebrated the 25th anniversary in July of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which bans discrimination based on disabilities in employment and transportation services, among other areas.
In April a new law takes effect in Japan banning discrimination by government organizations and companies against people with disabilities.
Under the new law, public organizations both at the national and local levels will be legally obliged to give “reasonable accommodations,” or assistance to those in need, so social barriers can be removed, whereas companies are encouraged to follow suit.
Globally, some 1 billion people, or 15 percent of the world’s population, have a disability, and nearly 790 million are of working age, according to the International Labor Organization.
Japan’s disability employment rate stood at 1.82 percent as of June 2014, a record high for Japan but still below the 2 percent target set by the government for private companies, data show.
“Japan is one step behind” in promoting the employment of people with disabilities, said Sadanori Arimura, a professor well-versed in diversity management at Yamaguchi University.
“The government should aim for a higher target.”
People who have knowledge of disability employment point out one “pitfall” in hiring deaf people. They say that employers tend to believe deaf people are only unable to hear but otherwise can work just like anyone else. That misperception has prevented those with disabilities from receiving enough support in the workplace.
Even if they are hired, the chance of promotion to a managerial post is slim, and there is also a hiring gap between men and women, according to experts.
The inclusion of people with disabilities in various aspects of society is still a work in progress.
In a classroom in Tokyo, American instructor Martin Dale-Hench teaches Japanese students how to describe personal characteristics in ASL.
Offered by Japanese ASL Signers Society, a nonprofit organization, the course is designed to help Japanese students — both with or without hearing disabilities — deepen their understanding of different cultures and train volunteers for the Olympics in ASL.
Dale-Hench, 28, said encouraging Japanese students, especially those who can hear, to express their emotions when signing is a difficult part of teaching.
One of his students, Michiko Akimoto, a psychologist in her 30s, developed her interest in ASL after traveling to many countries, including the U.S., New Zealand, China and South Korea.
She believes learning a new sign language will open up more doors, and someday enable her to offer counseling services to foreigners who can’t hear.
“I want to continue studying and serve as a bridge for deaf people as the Tokyo Olympics (are) coming up,” Akimoto, who was born deaf, said through a sign language interpreter.
Foreigners like Prosser see a need for the tourism industry to cater more to the deaf population, as the 2020 games will likely encourage Japan to improve social infrastructure in coming years.
“I want the tourism sector to invest in tour programs for deaf people in the same way they add ramps for wheelchair users and audio guides for blind people,” Prosser said.
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/11/04/national/social-issues/deaf-community-hopes-2020-olympics-game-changer-better-social-inclusion/
Make new law opportunity to end bias against people with disabilities
From The Yomiuri Shimbun, 4/6/16.
Realizing a livable society in which everyone, whether disabled or not, respects each other’s individuality — we hope the recent enforcement of a new law will provide an opportunity for such awareness and actions to take root among the people.
The Law on the Elimination of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities came into force this month. The law bans administrative bodies and private businesses from unduly discriminating against disabled people, and it also calls for giving “reasonable consideration” to support people with disabilities.
This is in line with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Japan signed in 2007 and ratified in 2014. About 160 countries and regions have joined the treaty.
Under the new law, refusing or limiting the provision of services due to a disability or attaching such conditions as requiring disabled people to be accompanied by someone to assist them is considered discriminatory.
“Reasonable consideration” refers to efforts to remove various barriers the disabled face, as long as the burden of doing so is not excessive.
A typical example is installing slopes for wheelchair users. Measures well thought out from the position of people with disabilities, such as providing Braille materials or sign language interpreters for those with visual or hearing impairments, must be expanded as much as possible.
Simply treating those with disabilities exactly the same as the able-bodied does not mean equality in many cases. Without means of moving and communicating, people with disabilities are limited in their activities. A major characteristic of the new law is that it makes it clear that failing to give “reasonable consideration” is also considered discriminatory.
Serious efforts essential
The new law obliges administrative bodies to give “reasonable consideration” to disabled people, and it also requires private businesses to make efforts to do so.
However, the effectiveness of the new law will be limited if not enough is done by private businesses that people with disabilities come into contact with in their daily lives, such as public transportation and commercial facilities. A positive approach should be taken.
There are as many as 7.88 million disabled people in the country. It is certain that this number will rise further in the future in step with the aging of society. Providing services and products for people with disabilities will not only improve the images of corporations but will also make good business sense.
To deal with trouble related to discrimination, tasks remain to be addressed. The new law urges local governments to set up local councils in which relevant entities can prevent or help solve such troubles.
Although establishment of such councils is proceeding at the prefectural level, municipal governments lag behind. To eliminate discrimination, it is vital to take measures for people with disabilities in the areas where they live.
Nearly three years have passed since the new law was enacted, but it is hard to say that its intent has become widely recognized in society.
The promotion of barrier-free environments that give consideration to disabled people will also bring benefits to the elderly and people with children. Also, the Tokyo Paralympic Games is coming up in 2020. The government should strive to make the new law widely known.
Source: http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002854009
Accommodating disabilities, but only within reason
From The Japan Times, 4/16/16.
Due to his recent sex scandal, best-selling author Hirotada Ototake has decided not to run for the Upper House under the banner of the Liberal Democratic Party this year, but he hasn’t officially said he won’t run at all. Earlier this month, while the scandal was still hot, he went ahead with a birthday party that had been scheduled before it broke. The media reported that he was originally going to announce his candidacy at the party, and though he didn’t, he also didn’t clearly say he wouldn’t run.
Ototake doesn’t necessarily need the LDP to win. He’s famous, and if he does decide to run — either independently or for another party — there’s a chance he can still win. The reason he aligned himself with the LDP was that he thought he would be able to accomplish more with the backing of the ruling party.
His main task is to make better lives for people with disabilities like himself. For the LDP it was perfect, since Ototake’s membership automatically would have given them credibility as a party that supported citizens with disabilities in a society where such support is often considered insufficient, which may explain the media’s cautious approach to the Law on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities, which went into effect April 1.
The regulation, enacted three years ago, seems simple enough. As the Yomiuri Shimbun explains, it “bans administrative bodies and private businesses from unduly discriminating against people with disabilities.” The idea is to make a society where those with disabilities can move and communicate with the same freedom a person without disabilities enjoys. But while the law mandates that private and public sectors alike must “make an effort” to remove all barriers that prevent people with disabilities from realizing the law’s aims, it qualifies the mandate with the phrase “reasonable accommodation.” In other words, there may be circumstances that make it difficult for a party to fully accommodate certain disabilities, but the law is too vague to specify those limitations. Facilities and practices should be made “barrier-free,” but if a business claims it can’t afford to make the appropriate changes, is that an “unreasonable” consideration?
In 2013, Ototake went to an upscale Ginza restaurant and was not admitted because the establishment said it could not accommodate his wheelchair. He took to Twitter with his outrage, naming the restaurant in the process. The restaurant’s response may have been cold, but it was on the second floor and the building’s elevator didn’t stop at that floor. Ototake suggested an employee carry him up the stairs, but that might not be an option for some customers. Under the new law, would the restaurant have to renovate the elevator even if it didn’t own the building?
It isn’t clear how the law would address such matters — an important consideration since there are as many ways of discriminating against persons with disabilities as there are disabilities. As Sarasa Ono, a Meiji University researcher and rights advocate, recently pointed out in interviews, the U.S. incorporated its Americans With Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities under any circumstances, into the broader doctrine of constitutionally guaranteed equality, and that equality in this sense means equal opportunity. Ono says that guarantees of equality in Japan refer to something different: In elementary school, for example, all students should have the same books and uniforms and pencils and eat the same lunch, the idea being that no one is treated specially. Equal opportunity here means creating an environment where everyone starts from the same point and has the same chance for improvement.
On the day the law went into effect, the Tokyo Shimbun discussed what sort of changes it should bring about. Pointing out that the central government arrived “late at this issue,” the paper struggles with the meaning of “reasonable accommodation.” The reporter accompanies a 47-year-old woman in a wheelchair on her morning Tokyo commute. When she arrives at Shinjuku Station, Japan Railway staff tell her to wait 30 minutes for an employee who can help her board the train. Once on the platform she has to let several trains pass because the employee has contacted Ikebukuro Station, her destination, and found there is no one available to help her get off right away. It takes her an hour and 20 minutes to arrive at her job, whereas a person without disabilities would normally make the trip in 30 minutes.
JR might say its accommodation was reasonable, but most people would argue it certainly isn’t effective. Fifteen government ministries and agencies are making guidelines for the private sector, and sent notifications to businesses in January asking for feedback, but few have responded, according to the Tokyo Shimbun. There was also resistance to the ADA in the U.S., but over the years people with disabilities successfully sued employers or businesses who they felt did not satisfy its mandates, and as a result a more accommodating environment has been fostered.
The Japanese law simply assumes good faith on the part of the public, including individuals, but it is up to local governments to spread the word. Asahi Shimbun reported last week on so-called help marks, the badges that individuals place on their persons or bags to indicate a disability that may not be apparent. Since these symbols are not unified from one city to another, they aren’t effective in creating a level of social awareness that makes assistance second nature.
But as the JR example illustrates, assistance isn’t the ultimate aim. It’s preferable to have an environment that minimizes the need for assistance, because that is what freedom is about. In the U.S., such an environment developed because people with disabilities used the ADA to assert their rights.
Scandal or no scandal, the Japanese movement needs someone like Ototake, because he’s shown he will fight for his rights. Presumably, he’d fight for others’, too.
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/16/national/media-national/accommodating-disabilities-within-reason/
Concerns raised over support services for disabled earthquake evacuees
From The Japan Times, 4/20/16.
Nearly a week after the first deadly earthquake hit central Kumamoto, concerns are rising that evacuees with disabilities or ailments are not getting the support they need.
“These people should be separated from the healthy ones, because a person with a cane cannot walk quickly enough to pick up rationed rice balls, for example,” said Tatsue Yamazaki, an associate professor of disaster nursing at Tokyo Medical University who inspected the disaster zone in Kumamoto over the weekend.
“Governments should create shelters for people with special needs, including the sick, the disabled and pregnant women,” she said. “The need for such shelters was intensively discussed after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, but local government officials I talked with in Kumamoto had no idea that such shelters were needed.
“It was only after they were hit by the quake this time that they realized they should have prepared for the worst.”
Yamazaki added that many evacuation centers are packed with people, and municipal governments have turned schools and other buildings into ad-hoc evacuation centers. But because these facilities are not designated as official shelters, they don’t have access to relief goods, she said.
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/20/national/kyushu-quakes-left-9000-structures-damaged-hard-hit-areas-look-building-temporary-housing/
From The Japan Times, 11/27/15.
A record 453,000 people with disabilities were working for companies in Japan as of June 1, up 5.1 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Friday.
The number of disabled workers hit a record high for the 12th straight year, the ministry said in a report.
The proportion of workers with disabilities in overall private-sector workforces stood at 1.88 percent, up 0.06 percentage point.
Under a law aimed at promoting employment of people who have disabilities, Japanese companies are obliged to employ disabled workers so that they account for at least 2 percent of the firms’ overall workforce.
The proportion of private-sector companies meeting the 2 percent target came to 47.2 percent, up 2.5 points.
An increasing number of companies, especially large firms, have become aware of the importance of hiring people with disabilities, a ministry official said.
The share of disabled workers in the corporate workforce stood at 2.09 percent for companies with 1,000 or more employees and 1.89 percent for firms with 500 to 999 employees.
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/11/27/national/social-issues/record-453000-people-disabilities-working-firms-japan/
25% of Japan’s disabled have trouble making ends meet
From The Japan Times, 2/16/16.
At least 1 in 4 disabled people in Japan has difficulty making ends meet, with the poverty rate running twice the average of nondisabled individuals, according to a study led by a Keio University professor.
Atsuhiro Yamada’s team studied the results of a 2013 government survey on people’s lives to identify the relative poverty rate for people with disabilities and found that the rate is high here compared with that of other developed nations.
Relative poverty is measured based on household disposable income. The percentage reflects those living in households with an income below 50 percent of the national median level.
The researchers say the high poverty rate reflects the fact that there are fewer job opportunities for disabled people and that they earn lower wages. They also reflect the lower pension benefits available in Japan for such people compared with other advanced countries.
Yamada said the findings underscore the “seriousness” of poverty among disabled people in Japan and called for measures to promote employment for them and their families to help them escape poverty.
The study covered people who said in the government survey they needed help or had to be watched over because of disabilities or loss of physical abilities.
The poverty rate of disabled people in their 20s and 30s stood at 28.8 percent, while the figure came to 26.7 percent for people in their 40s and 27.5 percent for those aged between 50 and 64.
As for people with no disabilities, the comparable figures were 13.8 percent, 13.4 percent and 14.6 percent.
The government has compiled poverty figures for the population as a whole and for children under the age of 18. According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, the overall rate was 16.1 percent in 2012.
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/02/16/national/25-japans-disabled-trouble-making-ends-meet/
Badges for ‘invisible disabilities’ catching on
From The Japan Times, 6/2/14.
Patients with hidden physical impediments — internal conditions not immediately recognizable by others — are increasingly wearing badges as they try to increase awareness of the difficulties they face.
“In all my life, I have never once been able to run,” said Nobuyo Shirai, 45, an activist who has a serious heart ailment and is registered as disabled.
Shirai visits a large hospital in Tokyo from her home in Saitama Prefecture once a month, but the one-hour train ride is tough because she is physically weak.
It is a huge ordeal when she cannot get a seat. But it is even more painful when other passengers glare at her for taking a priority seat designated for elderly and disabled passengers, she said.
People with invisible impediments can be those with heart, kidney and liver conditions. Like people with visible physical disabilities or visual and hearing problems, they are eligible for physical disability certificates.
Figures from the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry show there were an estimated 930,000 patients with internal ailments as of 2011. They accounted for 24 percent of all certificate holders, a number surpassed only by people with limb disabilities.
To enhance public awareness, Shirai’s non-profit Heart Plus organization created a “heart plus” symbol in 2003 to signify an internal ailment.
People with invisible impediments used to have no way to indicate their needs, Shirai said. “People who have had ostomies would get yelled at for using the toilets for the disabled,” she said.
The mark is winning public recognition. Five years ago, Kitakyushu City Hall began placing heart plus stickers on priority seats on trains, buses and other public transport and providing badges with the mark to those who wish to wear one.
Eriko Yoshida, an associate professor at University of Nagasaki, surveyed 471 people with internal impediments last year and found that 52 percent of the respondents reported being in need of assistance or support.
Fifty-four percent said they need assistance or support even with such household chores as cooking and cleaning. A further 42 percent cited daily shopping, with a similar number saying they needed help to make hospital visits or commute to work or school.
Even people who said they needed no help may in fact be struggling, Yoshida said.
Author Sarasa Ono thus developed an “invisible impediment badge” to help people with internal ailments discuss their difficulties with others.
Ono, who suffers from an intractable immune-system condition, writes about people who receive insufficient support because of shortcomings in public assistance.
The badge, which costs ¥350, has received 30,000 orders, Ono said, with interest both from patients with chronic diseases, developmental difficulties and mental ailments, and their families.
“People need the courage to talk about their own impediments,” Ono said. “I hope they don’t feel alone, because everyone with a badge is in the same situation.”
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/06/02/national/badges-invisible-disabilities-catching/
Deaf community hopes 2020 Olympics a ‘game-changer’ for better social inclusion
From The Japan Times, 11/4/15.
Peggy Prosser was sitting in front of a travel agent in Japan when she was abruptly informed that she would not be able to fly back to the United States to visit her family because she is deaf.
When Prosser sat down with him, she had written out her itinerary and given it to him.
Initially he had assumed it was because she couldn’t speak Japanese, but when it became clear that she was deaf, he wrote on a piece of paper that flying was not an option as she would be unable to follow safety instructions.
To Prosser this was nonsense — after all, she had come to Japan by air — and definitely not part of any guidelines for dealing with deaf people. It spoke more to the ignorance of the travel agent than anything else. She finally got her tickets after the agent talked to a supervisor, but the incident left a bad aftertaste.
That was in 1993. But even now, Prosser believes discrimination against the deaf still exists as society is built for people who can speak and hear.
“I do see a lot of things changing for the better and some things for the worse,” said 52-year-old Prosser, who has lived in Japan for over 25 years. “Too often, deaf people are marginalized, forgotten or maybe ignored,” she said.
Prosser went deaf at the age of 5 for an unknown reason. Since then, American Sign Language has given her a new tool to communicate and a new way to interact with the world.
She does not remember how she lost her hearing but recalls the time when she no longer needed to wait for “a big yellow school bus” to go to school just like other kids in the neighborhood.
Living in Japan as a foreigner who is deaf has revealed many challenges. Prosser, who works as a travel agent for the deaf, hopes 2020 will be a game-changer in a society where a lack of understanding of the deaf population leads to audism — or the notion that one is superior based on an ability to hear.
“Access to public programs and services will give deaf people the experience they need to become empowered and give back to society,” Prosser said.
Many deaf people stress the importance of visualizing information as the hearing community often hesitates to communicate in writing, especially in times of emergency. Verbal announcements to tell commuters why a train has been delayed, for example, may not be helpful for the deaf.
Despite positive moves in recent years toward equal opportunities and to encourage people with disabilities to participate more in society, Japan is still seen as lagging behind the United States and European countries.
The U.S., for instance, celebrated the 25th anniversary in July of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which bans discrimination based on disabilities in employment and transportation services, among other areas.
In April a new law takes effect in Japan banning discrimination by government organizations and companies against people with disabilities.
Under the new law, public organizations both at the national and local levels will be legally obliged to give “reasonable accommodations,” or assistance to those in need, so social barriers can be removed, whereas companies are encouraged to follow suit.
Globally, some 1 billion people, or 15 percent of the world’s population, have a disability, and nearly 790 million are of working age, according to the International Labor Organization.
Japan’s disability employment rate stood at 1.82 percent as of June 2014, a record high for Japan but still below the 2 percent target set by the government for private companies, data show.
“Japan is one step behind” in promoting the employment of people with disabilities, said Sadanori Arimura, a professor well-versed in diversity management at Yamaguchi University.
“The government should aim for a higher target.”
People who have knowledge of disability employment point out one “pitfall” in hiring deaf people. They say that employers tend to believe deaf people are only unable to hear but otherwise can work just like anyone else. That misperception has prevented those with disabilities from receiving enough support in the workplace.
Even if they are hired, the chance of promotion to a managerial post is slim, and there is also a hiring gap between men and women, according to experts.
The inclusion of people with disabilities in various aspects of society is still a work in progress.
In a classroom in Tokyo, American instructor Martin Dale-Hench teaches Japanese students how to describe personal characteristics in ASL.
Offered by Japanese ASL Signers Society, a nonprofit organization, the course is designed to help Japanese students — both with or without hearing disabilities — deepen their understanding of different cultures and train volunteers for the Olympics in ASL.
Dale-Hench, 28, said encouraging Japanese students, especially those who can hear, to express their emotions when signing is a difficult part of teaching.
One of his students, Michiko Akimoto, a psychologist in her 30s, developed her interest in ASL after traveling to many countries, including the U.S., New Zealand, China and South Korea.
She believes learning a new sign language will open up more doors, and someday enable her to offer counseling services to foreigners who can’t hear.
“I want to continue studying and serve as a bridge for deaf people as the Tokyo Olympics (are) coming up,” Akimoto, who was born deaf, said through a sign language interpreter.
Foreigners like Prosser see a need for the tourism industry to cater more to the deaf population, as the 2020 games will likely encourage Japan to improve social infrastructure in coming years.
“I want the tourism sector to invest in tour programs for deaf people in the same way they add ramps for wheelchair users and audio guides for blind people,” Prosser said.
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/11/04/national/social-issues/deaf-community-hopes-2020-olympics-game-changer-better-social-inclusion/
Make new law opportunity to end bias against people with disabilities
From The Yomiuri Shimbun, 4/6/16.
Realizing a livable society in which everyone, whether disabled or not, respects each other’s individuality — we hope the recent enforcement of a new law will provide an opportunity for such awareness and actions to take root among the people.
The Law on the Elimination of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities came into force this month. The law bans administrative bodies and private businesses from unduly discriminating against disabled people, and it also calls for giving “reasonable consideration” to support people with disabilities.
This is in line with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Japan signed in 2007 and ratified in 2014. About 160 countries and regions have joined the treaty.
Under the new law, refusing or limiting the provision of services due to a disability or attaching such conditions as requiring disabled people to be accompanied by someone to assist them is considered discriminatory.
“Reasonable consideration” refers to efforts to remove various barriers the disabled face, as long as the burden of doing so is not excessive.
A typical example is installing slopes for wheelchair users. Measures well thought out from the position of people with disabilities, such as providing Braille materials or sign language interpreters for those with visual or hearing impairments, must be expanded as much as possible.
Simply treating those with disabilities exactly the same as the able-bodied does not mean equality in many cases. Without means of moving and communicating, people with disabilities are limited in their activities. A major characteristic of the new law is that it makes it clear that failing to give “reasonable consideration” is also considered discriminatory.
Serious efforts essential
The new law obliges administrative bodies to give “reasonable consideration” to disabled people, and it also requires private businesses to make efforts to do so.
However, the effectiveness of the new law will be limited if not enough is done by private businesses that people with disabilities come into contact with in their daily lives, such as public transportation and commercial facilities. A positive approach should be taken.
There are as many as 7.88 million disabled people in the country. It is certain that this number will rise further in the future in step with the aging of society. Providing services and products for people with disabilities will not only improve the images of corporations but will also make good business sense.
To deal with trouble related to discrimination, tasks remain to be addressed. The new law urges local governments to set up local councils in which relevant entities can prevent or help solve such troubles.
Although establishment of such councils is proceeding at the prefectural level, municipal governments lag behind. To eliminate discrimination, it is vital to take measures for people with disabilities in the areas where they live.
Nearly three years have passed since the new law was enacted, but it is hard to say that its intent has become widely recognized in society.
The promotion of barrier-free environments that give consideration to disabled people will also bring benefits to the elderly and people with children. Also, the Tokyo Paralympic Games is coming up in 2020. The government should strive to make the new law widely known.
Source: http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002854009
Accommodating disabilities, but only within reason
From The Japan Times, 4/16/16.
Due to his recent sex scandal, best-selling author Hirotada Ototake has decided not to run for the Upper House under the banner of the Liberal Democratic Party this year, but he hasn’t officially said he won’t run at all. Earlier this month, while the scandal was still hot, he went ahead with a birthday party that had been scheduled before it broke. The media reported that he was originally going to announce his candidacy at the party, and though he didn’t, he also didn’t clearly say he wouldn’t run.
Ototake doesn’t necessarily need the LDP to win. He’s famous, and if he does decide to run — either independently or for another party — there’s a chance he can still win. The reason he aligned himself with the LDP was that he thought he would be able to accomplish more with the backing of the ruling party.
His main task is to make better lives for people with disabilities like himself. For the LDP it was perfect, since Ototake’s membership automatically would have given them credibility as a party that supported citizens with disabilities in a society where such support is often considered insufficient, which may explain the media’s cautious approach to the Law on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities, which went into effect April 1.
The regulation, enacted three years ago, seems simple enough. As the Yomiuri Shimbun explains, it “bans administrative bodies and private businesses from unduly discriminating against people with disabilities.” The idea is to make a society where those with disabilities can move and communicate with the same freedom a person without disabilities enjoys. But while the law mandates that private and public sectors alike must “make an effort” to remove all barriers that prevent people with disabilities from realizing the law’s aims, it qualifies the mandate with the phrase “reasonable accommodation.” In other words, there may be circumstances that make it difficult for a party to fully accommodate certain disabilities, but the law is too vague to specify those limitations. Facilities and practices should be made “barrier-free,” but if a business claims it can’t afford to make the appropriate changes, is that an “unreasonable” consideration?
In 2013, Ototake went to an upscale Ginza restaurant and was not admitted because the establishment said it could not accommodate his wheelchair. He took to Twitter with his outrage, naming the restaurant in the process. The restaurant’s response may have been cold, but it was on the second floor and the building’s elevator didn’t stop at that floor. Ototake suggested an employee carry him up the stairs, but that might not be an option for some customers. Under the new law, would the restaurant have to renovate the elevator even if it didn’t own the building?
It isn’t clear how the law would address such matters — an important consideration since there are as many ways of discriminating against persons with disabilities as there are disabilities. As Sarasa Ono, a Meiji University researcher and rights advocate, recently pointed out in interviews, the U.S. incorporated its Americans With Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities under any circumstances, into the broader doctrine of constitutionally guaranteed equality, and that equality in this sense means equal opportunity. Ono says that guarantees of equality in Japan refer to something different: In elementary school, for example, all students should have the same books and uniforms and pencils and eat the same lunch, the idea being that no one is treated specially. Equal opportunity here means creating an environment where everyone starts from the same point and has the same chance for improvement.
On the day the law went into effect, the Tokyo Shimbun discussed what sort of changes it should bring about. Pointing out that the central government arrived “late at this issue,” the paper struggles with the meaning of “reasonable accommodation.” The reporter accompanies a 47-year-old woman in a wheelchair on her morning Tokyo commute. When she arrives at Shinjuku Station, Japan Railway staff tell her to wait 30 minutes for an employee who can help her board the train. Once on the platform she has to let several trains pass because the employee has contacted Ikebukuro Station, her destination, and found there is no one available to help her get off right away. It takes her an hour and 20 minutes to arrive at her job, whereas a person without disabilities would normally make the trip in 30 minutes.
JR might say its accommodation was reasonable, but most people would argue it certainly isn’t effective. Fifteen government ministries and agencies are making guidelines for the private sector, and sent notifications to businesses in January asking for feedback, but few have responded, according to the Tokyo Shimbun. There was also resistance to the ADA in the U.S., but over the years people with disabilities successfully sued employers or businesses who they felt did not satisfy its mandates, and as a result a more accommodating environment has been fostered.
The Japanese law simply assumes good faith on the part of the public, including individuals, but it is up to local governments to spread the word. Asahi Shimbun reported last week on so-called help marks, the badges that individuals place on their persons or bags to indicate a disability that may not be apparent. Since these symbols are not unified from one city to another, they aren’t effective in creating a level of social awareness that makes assistance second nature.
But as the JR example illustrates, assistance isn’t the ultimate aim. It’s preferable to have an environment that minimizes the need for assistance, because that is what freedom is about. In the U.S., such an environment developed because people with disabilities used the ADA to assert their rights.
Scandal or no scandal, the Japanese movement needs someone like Ototake, because he’s shown he will fight for his rights. Presumably, he’d fight for others’, too.
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/16/national/media-national/accommodating-disabilities-within-reason/
Concerns raised over support services for disabled earthquake evacuees
From The Japan Times, 4/20/16.
Nearly a week after the first deadly earthquake hit central Kumamoto, concerns are rising that evacuees with disabilities or ailments are not getting the support they need.
“These people should be separated from the healthy ones, because a person with a cane cannot walk quickly enough to pick up rationed rice balls, for example,” said Tatsue Yamazaki, an associate professor of disaster nursing at Tokyo Medical University who inspected the disaster zone in Kumamoto over the weekend.
“Governments should create shelters for people with special needs, including the sick, the disabled and pregnant women,” she said. “The need for such shelters was intensively discussed after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, but local government officials I talked with in Kumamoto had no idea that such shelters were needed.
“It was only after they were hit by the quake this time that they realized they should have prepared for the worst.”
Yamazaki added that many evacuation centers are packed with people, and municipal governments have turned schools and other buildings into ad-hoc evacuation centers. But because these facilities are not designated as official shelters, they don’t have access to relief goods, she said.
Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/20/national/kyushu-quakes-left-9000-structures-damaged-hard-hit-areas-look-building-temporary-housing/
Friday, September 6, 2013
Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters (JDA): New Content and Features for 2013
Announcement from H-Japan:
The Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters has launched a new front page, along with new content and features that enhance the usefulness and accessibility of the archive.
The front page now includes:
Links to an overview of the archive, a list of partner organizations, and navigational help, available in both English and Japanese.
A stream of recently uploaded "Collections," or user-curated exhibitions of archived items.
New content includes:
A "Translate" button that allows users to add their own translations of item descriptions, in any preferred language.
Images and full-text news articles from the Asahi Newspaper Company’s English-language “Asia & Japan Watch” website.
Japanese headlines from a variety of other news sources such as the Jiji Press and the Mainichi, Yomiuri, and Sankei newspapers.
Japanese news broadcast videos from NHK.
New website content updated almost daily.
In addition, two upcoming features will be available in the early fall:
A bookmarklet that can be dragged to the browser toolbar to add content to the archive from any web page.
A presentation editor that will allow users to build interactive multimedia presentations out of materials in the archive.
We hope these updates enhance the content, design, and interactivity of the JDA. If you have any feedback or examples of how you have used the archive, please feel free to contact us.
The Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters project is an initiative of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University in collaboration with several partners. We aim to collect, preserve, and make accessible as much of the digital record of the disasters as possible, to enable scholarly research and analysis of the events and their effect.
url: jdarchive.org
The Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters has launched a new front page, along with new content and features that enhance the usefulness and accessibility of the archive.
The front page now includes:
Links to an overview of the archive, a list of partner organizations, and navigational help, available in both English and Japanese.
A stream of recently uploaded "Collections," or user-curated exhibitions of archived items.
New content includes:
A "Translate" button that allows users to add their own translations of item descriptions, in any preferred language.
Images and full-text news articles from the Asahi Newspaper Company’s English-language “Asia & Japan Watch” website.
Japanese headlines from a variety of other news sources such as the Jiji Press and the Mainichi, Yomiuri, and Sankei newspapers.
Japanese news broadcast videos from NHK.
New website content updated almost daily.
In addition, two upcoming features will be available in the early fall:
A bookmarklet that can be dragged to the browser toolbar to add content to the archive from any web page.
A presentation editor that will allow users to build interactive multimedia presentations out of materials in the archive.
We hope these updates enhance the content, design, and interactivity of the JDA. If you have any feedback or examples of how you have used the archive, please feel free to contact us.
The Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters project is an initiative of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University in collaboration with several partners. We aim to collect, preserve, and make accessible as much of the digital record of the disasters as possible, to enable scholarly research and analysis of the events and their effect.
url: jdarchive.org
Monday, August 19, 2013
"University of Michigan New Digital Image Collections in Japanese Studies"
Announcement from H-Japan:
University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service (DLPS) has completed 3 new digital image collection projects in Japanese studies. These collections are open to the public for educational and research purposes.
Brower Fund Collection: Playing Cards:
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/brower1ic
Alfred Hussey Collection: Japan's Constitution Slides: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/hussey1ic
Alfred Hussey Collection: Japan's Constitution Photo Album: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/hussey2ic
See also the UM Digital Library Production Service (DLPS) for all of their on-line resources: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/lib/colllist/
University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service (DLPS) has completed 3 new digital image collection projects in Japanese studies. These collections are open to the public for educational and research purposes.
Brower Fund Collection: Playing Cards:
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/brower1ic
Alfred Hussey Collection: Japan's Constitution Slides: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/hussey1ic
Alfred Hussey Collection: Japan's Constitution Photo Album: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/hussey2ic
See also the UM Digital Library Production Service (DLPS) for all of their on-line resources: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/lib/colllist/
Monday, June 10, 2013
New Resource: Great Kantō Earthquake Japan, September 1923 Image Site
Announcement from H-Japan:
The Great Kanto Earthquake Japan of 1923 provides access to 199 images from a historical album of still photos captured destruction by the deadliest earthquake occurred on September 1st, 1923.
The project was funded by the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library and the National Research Center, East Asia Grant (NRC-EA).
http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/earthquake/
The Great Kanto Earthquake Japan of 1923 provides access to 199 images from a historical album of still photos captured destruction by the deadliest earthquake occurred on September 1st, 1923.
The project was funded by the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library and the National Research Center, East Asia Grant (NRC-EA).
http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/earthquake/
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
"Photos a worry for disaster volunteers / Exhibition space lacking, battle against time to reunite goods with owners, kin"
From today's Daily Yomiuri Online:
Dressed in funeral attire, a woman at a temple in Rikuzen-Takata, Iwate Prefecture, opened the photo albums on display one after another, studiously looking at the images of family gatherings and children's school sports festivals.
The temple was hosting a photo-display service for bereaved family members of victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, just one example of how volunteers are trying to reunite photos and other items with their owners or kin.
...
Volunteers and local governments in devastated areas have faced difficulties working out how to treat unclaimed photographs and other items.
The volunteers collect photos on behalf of local governments, which are too busy managing shelters and confirming residents' safety. They then clean the photos, removing sea water and mud, but in many cases, they cannot find the owners. It has also become increasingly difficult to secure space to display photos.
Some volunteers have begun attempts to display items in unusual areas--such as the temple in Rikuzen-Takata--and make image databases so that people do not need to be physically present to view the photos.
...
Before using the temple, the group had exhibited items in a hard-to-reach mountain area, which slowed the the return of photos to their owners. Thus the organization decided to exhibit photos and other items in more popular locations in attempts to reunite unclaimed items with their owners.
The municipal government of Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, is attempting to convert unidentified photos into a database with the cooperation of Tokyo Gakugei University.
The government is looking into ways in which people can search for photos without being physically present, and is considering displaying photos on the Internet to combat an increasing lack of physical exhibition space.
...
A volunteer organization storing and displaying photos for identification from disaster-hit areas in Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture, was distressed to receive a notice from its city government in early July.
The notice said it would no longer be possible for the organization to store and display such items at the public gymnasium after Aug. 21. and after this date, events to reunite owners with lost items would have to cease.
The government explained it needed to resume normal use of the gym despite more than 30,000 photos being unaccounted for. It would consider how to best dispose of the items, including incineration.
The volunteer organization lodged a protest with the government and has had its use of the gymnasium extended until the end of August.
While helpful, volunteers say the temporary reprieve is not enough. "Even now, about 20 persons a day come to the gym trying to find lost photos," said a 30-year-old male volunteers.
Although the city government has decided to store the remaining photos, officials admit to difficulties.
"Keeping the photos indefinitely is impossible, but out of consideration for the disaster victims, we can't dispose of them that casually," said one official.
The city government of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, has worked toward storing such photos in freezers to prevent their image quality from worsening.
Some photos were covered with fungus while others had deteriorated because of high temperatures and humidity.
...
In late March, the central government said in guidelines given to local governments that photos and spirit tablets are different than jewels and cash and have no intrinsic monetary value.
But the guidelines also said such items "may be of value to individuals." They also mentioned taking disaster victims' feelings into consideration: "It is desirable to store [such items] and create opportunities for them to be returned to their owners."
About some local governments' planning to dispose of such items, a senior Justice Ministry official said: "If local governments make concerted efforts to return goods to their owners by openly displaying them or other means, and notify people in advance of their potential disposal, they should not face any legal ramifications."
Read the whole story: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110815004170.htm
Dressed in funeral attire, a woman at a temple in Rikuzen-Takata, Iwate Prefecture, opened the photo albums on display one after another, studiously looking at the images of family gatherings and children's school sports festivals.
The temple was hosting a photo-display service for bereaved family members of victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, just one example of how volunteers are trying to reunite photos and other items with their owners or kin.
...
Volunteers and local governments in devastated areas have faced difficulties working out how to treat unclaimed photographs and other items.
The volunteers collect photos on behalf of local governments, which are too busy managing shelters and confirming residents' safety. They then clean the photos, removing sea water and mud, but in many cases, they cannot find the owners. It has also become increasingly difficult to secure space to display photos.
Some volunteers have begun attempts to display items in unusual areas--such as the temple in Rikuzen-Takata--and make image databases so that people do not need to be physically present to view the photos.
...
Before using the temple, the group had exhibited items in a hard-to-reach mountain area, which slowed the the return of photos to their owners. Thus the organization decided to exhibit photos and other items in more popular locations in attempts to reunite unclaimed items with their owners.
The municipal government of Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, is attempting to convert unidentified photos into a database with the cooperation of Tokyo Gakugei University.
The government is looking into ways in which people can search for photos without being physically present, and is considering displaying photos on the Internet to combat an increasing lack of physical exhibition space.
...
A volunteer organization storing and displaying photos for identification from disaster-hit areas in Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture, was distressed to receive a notice from its city government in early July.
The notice said it would no longer be possible for the organization to store and display such items at the public gymnasium after Aug. 21. and after this date, events to reunite owners with lost items would have to cease.
The government explained it needed to resume normal use of the gym despite more than 30,000 photos being unaccounted for. It would consider how to best dispose of the items, including incineration.
The volunteer organization lodged a protest with the government and has had its use of the gymnasium extended until the end of August.
While helpful, volunteers say the temporary reprieve is not enough. "Even now, about 20 persons a day come to the gym trying to find lost photos," said a 30-year-old male volunteers.
Although the city government has decided to store the remaining photos, officials admit to difficulties.
"Keeping the photos indefinitely is impossible, but out of consideration for the disaster victims, we can't dispose of them that casually," said one official.
The city government of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, has worked toward storing such photos in freezers to prevent their image quality from worsening.
Some photos were covered with fungus while others had deteriorated because of high temperatures and humidity.
...
In late March, the central government said in guidelines given to local governments that photos and spirit tablets are different than jewels and cash and have no intrinsic monetary value.
But the guidelines also said such items "may be of value to individuals." They also mentioned taking disaster victims' feelings into consideration: "It is desirable to store [such items] and create opportunities for them to be returned to their owners."
About some local governments' planning to dispose of such items, a senior Justice Ministry official said: "If local governments make concerted efforts to return goods to their owners by openly displaying them or other means, and notify people in advance of their potential disposal, they should not face any legal ramifications."
Read the whole story: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110815004170.htm
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Resource: CIViC - An Archive of Indian Visual Culture
Announcement from H-ASIA:
CIViC - An Archive of Indian Visual Culture
Brief description (from their web site): We preserve, archive, document and research populist imagery from the inception of print culture in the 19th century to contemporary times. Our growing digital image archive is one of the most significant in India and constitutes our focus of research.
Explore our site to browse our services, view select images from our digital archives, join discussions on our blog and read articles on current areas of research on our Forum.
While this isn't Japan-related, this is still a great resource for visual anthropology. Check it out!
Link: http://civicarchives.org/
CIViC - An Archive of Indian Visual Culture
Brief description (from their web site): We preserve, archive, document and research populist imagery from the inception of print culture in the 19th century to contemporary times. Our growing digital image archive is one of the most significant in India and constitutes our focus of research.
Explore our site to browse our services, view select images from our digital archives, join discussions on our blog and read articles on current areas of research on our Forum.
While this isn't Japan-related, this is still a great resource for visual anthropology. Check it out!
Link: http://civicarchives.org/
Sunday, July 24, 2011
"Newspaper Photo Books Focus on March 11 Quake-Tsunami Disaster"
From NSK News Bulletin Online, July 2011:
A number of newspaper companies, including those from areas hardest hit by the March 11 mega-quake and tsunami, are publishing books of news photographs about what is being called the “worst disaster in a thousand years”.
In the disaster areas, many newspaper subscribers have made bulk purchases of such photo books to send them to acquaintances outside the areas in the aim of getting others to appreciate the severity of the damage.
Officials at newspaper companies say the photo books are drawing high acclaim from readers for preserving a record of the disaster in the familiar medium of the newspaper.
...
The Yomiuri Shimbun and the Asahi Shimbun, both of which are leading nationwide daily newspapers, each published a special bound-volume issue of their newspapers covering the mega-quake and tsunami. The Yomiuri also released an A4-size, 418-page bound-volume issue on April 23, titled “The Great East Japan Earthquake: A Month-Long Record.” The book features reduced-size copies of front pages, national news pages, city news pages and some feature pages from the Yomiuri’s last daily edition of each day in the one-month period after the quake struck on March 11. Yomiuri officials said they expect the specially bound-volume to be a collectors’ item that would be used as a reference guide to the full scope of the disaster.
Read the whole story:
http://www.pressnet.or.jp/newsb/
A number of newspaper companies, including those from areas hardest hit by the March 11 mega-quake and tsunami, are publishing books of news photographs about what is being called the “worst disaster in a thousand years”.
In the disaster areas, many newspaper subscribers have made bulk purchases of such photo books to send them to acquaintances outside the areas in the aim of getting others to appreciate the severity of the damage.
Officials at newspaper companies say the photo books are drawing high acclaim from readers for preserving a record of the disaster in the familiar medium of the newspaper.
...
The Yomiuri Shimbun and the Asahi Shimbun, both of which are leading nationwide daily newspapers, each published a special bound-volume issue of their newspapers covering the mega-quake and tsunami. The Yomiuri also released an A4-size, 418-page bound-volume issue on April 23, titled “The Great East Japan Earthquake: A Month-Long Record.” The book features reduced-size copies of front pages, national news pages, city news pages and some feature pages from the Yomiuri’s last daily edition of each day in the one-month period after the quake struck on March 11. Yomiuri officials said they expect the specially bound-volume to be a collectors’ item that would be used as a reference guide to the full scope of the disaster.
Read the whole story:
http://www.pressnet.or.jp/newsb/
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
"That Unforgettable Day--The Great Tokyo Air Raid through Drawings あの日を忘れない・描かれた東京大空襲"
Image borrowed from Japan Focus (artist: Fukushima Yasusuke)
New content at Japan Focus about artists depicting the Tokyo air raids. Brief description:
The following paintings depicting the Great Tokyo Air Raid of March 10, 1945 were featured in a special exhibit hosted by the Sumida Local Culture Resource Center (墨田郷土文化資料館) in 2004. The Center staff originally settled on the idea of collecting amateur and professional artwork as a unique way of contributing to the preservation of the public memory regarding the March 10 incendiary air raid. Each painting is accompanied by a short explanatory text written by the artist. As well as giving insight into the particular scene depicted in the painting, these explanations generally touch on the artist’s overall air raid experience.
Check out the whole story and paintings at Japan Focus:
Related post: New resource about Japan air raids:
Thursday, October 21, 2010
"Old photos reveal tale of Japan and Jews of WWII"
From today's Japan Today:
...
The photos were found in an old diary owned by Osako, who was a young employee of the Japan Tourist Bureau at the time, and died in 2003. Akira Kitade, who worked under Osako and is researching a book about him, has contacted Israeli officials for help and visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
The museum said he gave it about 30 photographs that he is trying to identify, and received a list of over 2,000 Jews who received travel papers that enabled them to reach Japan.
...
The photos shed further light on the story of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania who granted transit visas to several thousand Jews in the early days of the war. In doing so, he defied strict stipulations from Tokyo that such recipients have proper funds and a clear final destination after Japan.
...
Dubbed the “Japanese Schindler,” Sugihara was honored in 1985 by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, a high honor reserved for non-Jews who saved Jews at their own personal risk from the Holocaust, Hitler’s destruction of 6 million Jews.
A short movie about him, “Visas and Virtue,” won an Academy Award in 1997. Museums at his home town and in Lithuania are dedicated to his memory.
Read the whole story:
http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/old-photos-reveal-tale-of-japan-and-jews-of-wwii
See an online exhibition, "Flight and Rescue," at United States Holocaust Museum webpage:
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/flight_rescue/
...
The photos were found in an old diary owned by Osako, who was a young employee of the Japan Tourist Bureau at the time, and died in 2003. Akira Kitade, who worked under Osako and is researching a book about him, has contacted Israeli officials for help and visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
The museum said he gave it about 30 photographs that he is trying to identify, and received a list of over 2,000 Jews who received travel papers that enabled them to reach Japan.
...
The photos shed further light on the story of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania who granted transit visas to several thousand Jews in the early days of the war. In doing so, he defied strict stipulations from Tokyo that such recipients have proper funds and a clear final destination after Japan.
...
Dubbed the “Japanese Schindler,” Sugihara was honored in 1985 by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, a high honor reserved for non-Jews who saved Jews at their own personal risk from the Holocaust, Hitler’s destruction of 6 million Jews.
A short movie about him, “Visas and Virtue,” won an Academy Award in 1997. Museums at his home town and in Lithuania are dedicated to his memory.
Read the whole story:
http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/old-photos-reveal-tale-of-japan-and-jews-of-wwii
See an online exhibition, "Flight and Rescue," at United States Holocaust Museum webpage:
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/flight_rescue/
Saturday, October 9, 2010
"Digitalization of 30,000 historic photos under way at imperial palace"
From today's Japan Today:
Japan’s Imperial Household Agency has been promoting a project to digitalize some 30,000 old photographs, taken mainly during the Meiji period (1868-1912), the agency said Friday. Some are more than 100 years old and are fading and deteriorating.
Many of the images are landscape photos taken by professional photographers who accompanied Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) to visit various provincial areas. Emperor Meiji, who reigned between 1867 and 1912, is the great-grandfather of incumbent Emperor Akihito.
The agency plans to preserve the original photos and release the digitalized images to the public through the Internet, officials said.
They also include many photos of natural disasters, such as the 1888 eruption of the 1,818-meter Mt Bandai in Fukushima Prefecture that claimed the lives of hundreds of people.
One palace official said Emperor Meiji gave compensation to disaster victims after looking at those photos which were the only source of information for the monarch in the absence of radio and television.
There are also photos of Tomioka Silk Mill in Tomioka, Gunma Prefecture, and the old Shimbashi railway station in Tokyo.
The Tomioka Silk Mill is known as Japan’s oldest modern silk-reeling factory established in 1872. The Gunma prefectural and Tomioka city governments have been making efforts to put it on UNESCO’s World Heritage list.
Link: http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/digitalization-of-30000-historic-photos-under-way-at-imperial-palace
Japan’s Imperial Household Agency has been promoting a project to digitalize some 30,000 old photographs, taken mainly during the Meiji period (1868-1912), the agency said Friday. Some are more than 100 years old and are fading and deteriorating.
Many of the images are landscape photos taken by professional photographers who accompanied Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) to visit various provincial areas. Emperor Meiji, who reigned between 1867 and 1912, is the great-grandfather of incumbent Emperor Akihito.
The agency plans to preserve the original photos and release the digitalized images to the public through the Internet, officials said.
They also include many photos of natural disasters, such as the 1888 eruption of the 1,818-meter Mt Bandai in Fukushima Prefecture that claimed the lives of hundreds of people.
One palace official said Emperor Meiji gave compensation to disaster victims after looking at those photos which were the only source of information for the monarch in the absence of radio and television.
There are also photos of Tomioka Silk Mill in Tomioka, Gunma Prefecture, and the old Shimbashi railway station in Tokyo.
The Tomioka Silk Mill is known as Japan’s oldest modern silk-reeling factory established in 1872. The Gunma prefectural and Tomioka city governments have been making efforts to put it on UNESCO’s World Heritage list.
Link: http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/digitalization-of-30000-historic-photos-under-way-at-imperial-palace
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