Osaka Mayor Hashimoto Does It Again... And Again. He's Cutting Funding to Human Rights Museum, Korean Schools, Bunraku, etc....

Those living in Osaka, Japan or anywhere else need to know what the current mayor of Osaka is doing based upon his own preferences and desired images of Japanese culture. This is especially true as his power grows and his local group becomes a national political party.

Hashimoto is cutting funding to Liberty Osaka, the only human rights museum in Japan. Why? Tessa Morris-Suzuki writes in her recent Japan Focus article (9/3/12):

The Osaka city government has until now provided a crucial part of the museum's funding, but the current city government, headed by mayor Hashimoto Tōru, has decided to halt this funding from next year, on the grounds that the museum displays are ‘limited to discrimination and human rights’ and fail to present children with an image of the future full of ‘hopes and dreams’ (Mainichi Shinbun 25 July 2012).

See the whole article: "Out With Human Rights, In With Government-Authored History: The Comfort Women and the Hashimoto Prescription for a ‘New Japan’"

Link: http://japanfocus.org/-Tessa-Morris_Suzuki/3818

Hashimoto has cut funding for Korean schools in Osaka. Why? Among other reasons, according to a recent Japan Times article (9/2/12), he doesn't like Korean schools displaying portraits of Kim Jong Il:

In March 2010, then-Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto announced the prefecture would stop paying subsidies to Korean schools that refuse to meet four criteria, including the removal of portraits of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

The Osaka Prefectural Government stopped paying subsidies to one of the corporation's high schools in the 2010 academic year after determining it did not meet the provisions. It ended payments to most of the operator's elementary and junior high schools in the following school year because Kim's portrait adorned faculty rooms. For the current fiscal year, the prefecture didn't even allocate a budget for the subsidies. Meanwhile, the Osaka Municipal Government cut off subsidies to the schools when Hashimoto became mayor in 2011.

See the whole article: "Osaka faces Korean subsidy suits"

Link: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120902a7.html

Hashimoto is cutting funding for Bunraku puppets (an art form originating in Osaka). Why? According to a recent Mainichi article (7/27/12), he didn't like the performance:

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, who recently declared he would freeze subsidies to an association for Bunraku, a centuries-old form of puppet theater, expressed his dissatisfaction with a Bunraku show he saw on July 26, describing the performance as "unsatisfactory."

"I understood that this is an art that should be preserved as a classic (art form), but the last scene was plain, and lacked something," Hashimoto told reporters after watching "Sonezaki Shinju" (The love suicides at Sonezaki), a classic play based on the work of renowned 17th-18th century dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon, at the National Bunraku Theatre in Osaka's Chuo Ward on the evening of July 26.

"The staging was unsatisfactory," the mayor added in his comment on the play, which has not been changed since it was reintroduced to the public in 1955. "Does it really have to follow the old script that precisely?"

See the whole article: "Osaka mayor Hashimoto calls classic Japanese play 'unsatisfactory'"

Link: http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120727p2a00m0na006000c.html

Granted, Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City have terrible budget problems. But these cuts and others seem to be done by the whims and personal views of Hashimoto. These budget cuts, along with his witch-hunt for city employees with tattoos and his insistence of standing for the Japanese flag and national anthem provide insight into this man and the kind of changes he wants to do in the creation of his image/view of Japan.

Journalist Hiroshi Iwaisako provides more information about Hashimoto and perhaps his rationale for budget cuts and other actions in a recent article at Nippon.com (7/24/12); his report/perspective is more serious/formal than other descriptions of Hashimoto that have appeared in other sources.

See the article: "What to Make of Hashimoto Tōru?"

Link: http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a01103/

See also: "Hashimoto sets new national party, names it Nihon Ishin no Kai" by Eric Johnston (9/9/12)

Link: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120909a1.html

As for tattoos, Hashimoto might benefit from reading this article: "Top Arizona court rules tattooing is protected speech" (9/7/12)

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48948732/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/#.UE1RGxhhNFQ

People need to know what Hashimoto is doing along with his so-called rationale. Is this what we want for the future of Japan?

Link to Liberty Osaka Human Rights Museum: http://www.liberty.or.jp/topfile/human-top.htm

"Filming curtailed in 'suicide forest'"

From The Daily Yomiuri Online, 9/6/12:

The Yamanashi prefectural government has decided to prohibit the shooting of movies and TV dramas in the Aokigahara forest at the base of Mt. Fuji if the scenes include suicides, as they believe such depictions could encourage suicides in real life.

Yamanashi Gov. Shomei Yokouchi said he wants to erase the image of the forest as a famous site for suicide.

The decision was incorporated into the prefecture's action guideline for suicide prevention, which was drawn up Tuesday.

According to National Police Agency statistics, the prefecture's suicide rate was 36.1 per 100,000 people in 2011, the highest nationwide for the fifth year in a row. Last year, 312 people committed suicide in the prefecture.

According to Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry statistics, 212 residents of the prefecture killed themselves last year. The prefectural government said many people who committed suicide came from outside the prefecture.

A large number of them do so in the Aokigahara forest. Since most of the forest is owned by the prefecture, movie or drama producers need to obtain permission from the prefecture to film in the forest. In making its decision, the government takes into consideration what scenes will be filmed.

Source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120905004579.htm

Announcement for Film Screening at University of Tokyo: "Ashes to Honey"

Announcement from H-Japan; if you are in the Tokyo area, check out this film:

"Ashes to Honey" [Mitsubachi no haoto to chikyū no kaiten]

Year: 2010

Film Length: 115 minutes

Subtitles: English
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHG6TKKeO-A
Director: Kamanaka Hitomi, Group Gendai

Discussant: David McNeill, Sophia University



Description
:
While the weekly anti-nuclear demonstrations now taking place in Japan mark a new chapter in local citizens' action, they may also be understood as part of a longer history of popular protest, and an ongoing debate about political transparency, democracy, and grassroots action in Japan. In the spirit of understanding the current debates and some of the deeper questions they raise, UTCP has organized a screening and discussion of Kamanaka Hitomi's film Ashes to Honey (2010).

Filmed before the 3/11 disaster, Ashes to Honey takes both a local and global perspective on questions about energy policy, sustainable society, and non-violent protest. At the local level, it depicts the situation on Iwaishima, an island on the Seto Inland Sea, where the residents have been locked in struggle for almost three decades to protect their lives and livelihood from the construction of a nuclear plant by Chugoku Denryoku. To bring this into a global perspective, Kamanaka travels to Sweden, to assess the results of two decades of alternative energy policy, and whether parts of the North European model could be successfully implemented in Japan.

Taking the debate around energy policy as a point of departure, Ashes to Honey prompts us to reflect on how we imagine a future, sustainable society, and the efforts required to realize it.


We are pleased invite you to join us for this special screening, to be followed by a discussion and Q & A with the director.

Kamanaka Hitomi is a documentary filmmaker, working extensively on the issue of nuclear energy. Following ten years at NHK, Kamanaka-san today works as an independent filmmaker. Her previous films include Hibakusha — At the End of the World (2004), and Rokkashomura Rhapsody (2006).

Date: 17:00-20:30, Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

Place: Media Lab 2, 1st Floor, Building 18, University of Tokyo, Komaba Access: http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/access.html

For more information: http://utcp.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/events/2012/09/film_screening_ashes_to_honey/index_en.php

Announcement: The Royal Anthropological Institute's Body Canvas Photography Competition‏

I recently received information about this interesting photo contest dealing with the body as canvas. The submissions they are looking for are Engaging photographs that explore biological, cross-cultural and social elements of body art and modification in relation to these categories:

1) Tattoos and Scarification
2) Piercings and Body Reshaping

Deadline for submissions 30th September 2012.

For further information and submission guidelines please visit: www.discoveranthropology.org.uk

Take a look at previous photo competitions on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/raieducation

"School asks deaf preschooler to change his sign language name"

From The Lookout via Yahoo! News:

Three-and-a-half  year old Hunter Spanjer, who is deaf, signs his name by crossing his forefinger and index finger and moving his hand up and down.

To his family, friends and those who know the Signing Exact English (S.E.E.) language that the Grand Island, Neb., boy uses, that gesture uniquely means "Hunter Spanjer."

But to Hunter's school district, it might mean something else. The district claims that it violates a rule that forbids anything in the school that looks like a weapon, reports KOLN-TV.

And Hunter's parents claim that Grand Island Public Schools administrators have asked them to change their son's sign language name.

"Anybody that I have talked to thinks this is absolutely ridiculous," Hunter's grandmother Janet Logue told the TV station. "This is not threatening in any way."

Hunter's father Brian Spanjer said, "It's a symbol. It's an actual sign, a registered sign, through S.E.E."

The family told KOLN that lawyers from the National Association of the Deaf may push for Hunter's right to sign his name at the school.

Jack Sheard, Grand Island Public Schools spokesperson told KOLN, "We are working with the parents to come to the best solution we can for the child."

One Grand Island resident said she disagrees with the school.

"I find it very difficult to believe that the sign language that shows his name resembles a gun in any way would even enter a child's mind," Fredda Bartenbach said in the news report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/school-asks-deaf-preschooler-change-sign-language-name-191629255.html

Thanks to my colleague, JH, for bringing this to my attention. Here's my take on this situation.

This is a great example of the problems associated with signing systems as opposed to natural sign languages. Signing Exact English (S.E.E.) is not a language. It is a system, or more precisely a modality, to express English language through manual gestures. It is different from American Sign Language (ASL). S.E.E. was created to supposedly make it easier for deaf people to communicate with hearing people. While S.E.E. adapts some signs from ASL, it uses the same grammar and word order as spoken English. ASL has its own unique grammar and word order. Culturally Deaf people use ASL. Those deaf people who don't advocate Deaf culture and wish to mainstream into hearing society use S.E.E. or other similar manual systems.

So it would seem that if your intention is to sign/communicate English, and if a particular sign is problematic for English speakers, then that sign should probably not be used. If the young boy was using ASL, most likely he would not have been given such a name sign. Here is a cross-cultural example to support this claim. In Japanese Sign Language (JSL), an individual's name is usually expressed using the established signs for the kanji characters that make up her name. For example, the name Yamamoto consists of two kanji, 山 (yama) and 本 (moto). JSL would express the name by signing yama + moto. However some kanji signs are seen as odd, offesnsive or just plain creepy. In these instances, other signs are used, or in the extreme case, the name is fingerspelled. Nobody wants an odd, offensive or creepy name.

A signed name that resembles a gun or violence might fall into such a category.

It should also be noted that name signs are a part of Deaf culture. (Name signs in Japan are different than how their names are expressed through signing kanji). Name signs are unique to the individual. A Deaf person seeing a name sign for the first time would not automatically know the name of the individual. Usually name signs are based upon an individual's physical characteristic or personality trait. (ASL usually incorporates a fingerspelling handshape as well.) A person must be given a name sign by a Deaf person. One cannot make up their own name sign. Receiving a name sign can be seen as recognition and acceptance into the Deaf World. A hearing person cannot make a name sign. So the question here is who gave the young boy the problematic name sign in the first place? A culturally Deaf person would most likely not give another person such a name sign. Often times name signs change in a person's life as physical traits and behaviors change.

So changing the young boy's name sign might not be such a traumatic event after all.

My comments here are based upon the ideal social models of deafness - cultural vs. deficit. In the former ASL in the U.S (or JSL in Japan) would be favored; in the latter S.E.E. in the U.S. (or Signed Japanese in Japan) would be favored. In reality, there is no such clear cut separation as this particular case shows.  I work with Deaf people in Japan who hold clinics and workshops to promote JSL and eradicate Signed Japanese. I have grown to understand this mentality. But my research shows that such a goal is impossible in the realm of deaf communication. The bottom line: there is much diversity in the deaf world just as there is in the hearing world in terms of politics, attitudes and language use.

Great Ethnographic Film: Cuba Sentimental

Image borrowed from Cuba Sentimental web page.

Recently I had the pleasure of participating in the Anthro-Film Laboratory (vol. 4) organized by Itsushi Kawase in Osaka. The main event was the showing of the film, Cuba Sentimental by Sachiko Tanuma. A work in progress film on the journey and reception of Cuba Sentimental was also showed. Here is the film synopsis (from the Cuba Sentimental web page):  

Sachi, who lived in Havana for her anthropological study between 2002-2004, sees all her Cuban friends leaving the country to anywhere they can -- Spain, England, Chile, the United States. Visiting them in their new homes, and visiting their relatives and friends still in Cuba, the film explores how Cubans feel about leaving their country, a place that has been known for its utopian dream.

The second film was mostly a reflexive exercise blending comments from viewers, filmmakers and subjects of Cuba Sentimental. It also exposes more of the personal ties the filmmaker has with her subjects. I really like Cuba Sentimental a lot, and I will focus on that film although I might also react to some comments from the second film as well.

The film's main theme seems to be immigration as is follows people's immigration and integration into their new societies after leaving Cuba. I would argue that the film wonderfully illustrates globalization. We are treated to more than a glimpse of the local setting of Cuba - in fact, we see much that western media sources have failed to show. And then we see people moving to different parts of the world and how they go about living their new lives. It was interesting to note - and very telling as well - that the person who had the most difficulty integrating in terms of career, language and personal life was the subject who immigrated into the United States. Other subjects who went to countries in Europe and South America were able to find employment in their professional and academic fields and even enter jobs at prestigious institutions - some were even employed in government positions.

One commenter in the second film questioned whether the film was really about immigration at all - he was more impressed with the subject themselves, suggesting that the theme was really friendship, a theme that most people could identify with. I agree that the film does a great job of showing us Cuban individuals who make up a close circle of friends. But this quality should not take away from the globalization/immigration issues. Anthropology looks at globalization in terms of the lives of real people - how are real people affected by local and global forces. That we get to know and care about the subjects of the film is really a result of the long and quality fieldwork of Tanuma.

Tanuma's fieldwork and filmmaking are muli-layered. We see the group of Cubans through Tanuma's eyes/camera; we see her showing her film to the subjects themselves in their new locations and getting their reactions; we see her sharing the filmed reactions of subjects in one location to subjects in other locations. In fact, Tanuma never seems to turn her camera off. This creates a truly participatory methodology that generates multiple perspectives and reactions.

This work is Tanuma's first attempt at filmmaking. Admittedly some of the shots and editing are not so professional. But we can easily forgive these technical aspects because of her quality of presentation style. Still these aspects bring to light the challenges that visual anthropologists have in the field. How can the visual anthropologist observe, participate and film all at the same time? How can the visual anthropologist capture real life in demanding settings and make a good composition at the same time? These are valid questions for discussion. A partial answer might be that the visual anthropologist learns to deal with these challenges and improves with experience. Tanuma will certainly improve in technical areas but not at the expenses of her quality presentation style (I hope). Whatever the future holds for Tanuma, a common reaction to her film is that viewers want to her to make more films.

Many thanks to Sachiko Tanuma for sharing her work. And thanks to all the participants of the Anthro-Film Lab - it was a great venue to see the films and have fruitful discussions. I look forward to more...

For more information about Tanuma and her work, check out her web site.

Link: http://global.hus.osaka-u.ac.jp/cubasentimental/home_en.html

"The World in Two Minutes: Japan"

Here's another attempt to to represent Japan in a short video. It comes from a group (?) called WOKI TOKI. Here is their own explanation of their project (text accompanying their YouTube video):

We took the greatest videos from all over the world and made a mash-up from every country. The World In 2 Minutes describes different cultures, and how eccentric they are. 

Sigh... more tired stereotypes perpetuated once again, I'm afraid. But to be fair (?), they made videos for other countries (and their stereotypes), including Mexico, Russia, Chile, Brazil, India and the United States. (click on the country name to see the corresponding video).

I found this information on a web page called Rocket News 24, which promises "Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today." More "weird Japan" focused material, similar to Tokyo Mango. Not so academic but (sometimes) entertaining...

"Ric O’Barry and his group to return to Taiji to oppose dolphin hunt"

From Japan Today, 8/26/12:

 Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project will return to Taiji, the town made infamous by the Academy Award-winning documentary “The Cove,” for the beginning of the six month-long dolphin slaughter season on Sept 1. 

 “Our Dolphin Project Team and I are returning to Taiji once again to oppose the killing of dolphins and to warn the people of Japan about the dangers of eating mercury-contaminated dolphin meat,” O’Barry, director of Earth Island Institute’s Dolphin Project, said in a statement to media. “The hunts must end, and the people of Japan will be the ones to end the hunts.” 

“We have made some progress; the number of dolphins being killed in Taiji has gone down for the past four years of our Save Japan Dolphins Campaign,” noted O’Barry. “The Japanese people, being warned about mercury and other contaminants in dolphin and whale meat, are buying less and less of it.” 

 Beginning at 11 a.m. on Sept 1, representatives from five continents will arrive at the Cove in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, to conduct a series of events to mark the new dolphin slaughter season. Participants will form a circle for a moment of silence for the souls of the dolphins that have been killed in the past and will be killed in the coming season. 

The prayer will also honor the victims of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, as well as those who lost their lives in Wakayama Prefecture during typhoons. 

Participants will line the street in front of the Cove with signs in Japanese warning the Japanese people that dolphin meat is poisoned by mercury.

Source: http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/ric-obarry-and-his-group-to-return-to-taiji-to-oppose-dolphin-hunt

 Click here for previous VAOJ coverage about The Cove.

 

Leaked iPhone 5 Promo (OK, it's a parody...)

"What do people use their iPhone for?" asks the video above? "Taking pictures (of their food)." Funny, but close to reality, especially in Japan. My back-up camera is my iPhone 4s - my previous (non-smart phone) cell phone had a much better quality camera. So I am happy at the prospect of improvements in future iPhone models...

More info: "iPhone 5 Parody Promo Takes Photo Obsession to its Logical Conclusion" by Josh Wolford.

Link: http://www.webpronews.com/iphone-5-parody-promo-takes-photo-obsession-to-its-logical-conclusion-2012-08

 

Just can't help taking pictures of the Sun Tower when I'm at Banpaku...

Click here for more Banpaku.