"Security cameras on trains being considered to reduce groping"

From today's Japan Today:

The National Police Agency plans to consider ways to reduce the occurrence of groping on trains, such as installing security cameras inside carriages, after a recent spate of acquittals in groping cases has raised questions about how to investigate them, agency officials said Monday.

A study group to be set up in fiscal 2010 with railway operators and outside experts will discuss the matter, the officials said, but whether the plan to install cameras will be put into place remains to be seen as the discussions will be held under a new administration led by the Democratic Party of Japan.

In its policy package released in July, the DPJ, which won a landslide in Sunday’s general election, raised concerns about the "harmful effects of an unlimited expansion of police authority, such as the abuse of investigative authority and the invasion of privacy."

It also vowed to "firmly lay down with human rights in mind the rules of administration when new investigative techniques are to be used."

Read the whole story:
http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/security-cameras-on-trains-being-considered-to-reduce-groping

"Gov't wants Google to say when it will take Street View footage"

From Japan Today, 8/26/09:

The communications ministry plans to urge Google Inc to take steps to ensure that its Street View service will not intrude into people’s privacy, including alerting residents about when and where it will take its close-up, 360-degree color footage of city streets, ministry officials said Tuesday.

The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry made the decision after an advisory panel put forward a set of recommendations in a report the same day, urging it to demand that the Mountain View, California-based Internet firm inform both municipal governments and residents beforehand of the time and place when it shoots street film.

The service provides close-up views of city streets as caught by Google’s Street View cameras installed in vehicles driving along the roads.

In June, the panel determined that the service could be deemed consistent with Japan’s personal information protection law, if the firm takes appropriate steps including blurring identifiable images, such as faces.

But in the latest report, the panel said, ‘‘It cannot be said that people would accept the service immediately even if problems concerning its legality may have been cleared up.’’

‘‘Therefore, it is indispensable that Google go on taking measures to allay ordinary citizens’ concerns and anxieties about the service,’’ it said.

Dozens of municipal assemblies, such as Tokyo’s Machida city assembly and Nara Prefecture’s Ikoma city assembly, have adopted resolutions urging the government to place curbs on the service, on the grounds it may breach the privacy of residents whose images might be taken by the Street View cameras, along with those of their properties.

Read the whole story and reader comments at Japan Today:
http://www.japantoday.com/category/technology/view/govt-wants-google-to-say-when-it-will-take-street-view-footage

Click here for more background information about Street View.

Don't take pictures on the train, especially if you are driving it...

From Japan Today, 8/25/09:

JR West driver took photos of 2 women passengers while operating train at 120 kph

A West Japan Railway Co (JR West) driver secretly took photos of two female passengers with his mobile phone camera through the rear window of the driver’s cabin while he was operating the train at 120 kilometers per hour, JR admitted Monday.

The incident first came to light last Saturday at a meeting for the victims and families affected by the fatal 2005 Amagasaki rail crash. According to JR West, the 28-year-old driver from the JR West Kanazawa branch was operating a train on the Kosei line, and took photos of the women between Makino and Nagahara stations on the morning of Aug 21.

At the time, the train was traveling at 120 kilometers per hour, and the driver took his eyes off the controls and tracks for about 7 or 8 seconds while taking the photos.

The driver was quoted as saying: “When I went to shut the curtain behind my seat, these two attractive women caught my eye, so I took their photo.” The women noticed the camera flash and complained to the train conductor at Nagahara station.

Read the whole story and reader comments:
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/jr-west-driver-caught-filming-two-women-passengers-while-operating-train-at-120-kph

Big Man Japan

(Image borrowed from I Watch Stuff.com)

My cousin, Bob Aho (yes, for you Japanese speakers, his name really is Aho) e-mailed me about this movie: I rented a movie called "Big Man Japan" this weekend, about a washed-up super hero, who battles giant monsters. His neighbors wrote "AHO" on the wall just outside his home, and people kept throwing bricks through his windows, etc. - brilliant!

Here's what Rotten Tomatoes says: BIG MAN IN JAPAN is the latest in a burgeoning genre of films combining documentary aesthetics with fictional content, but it is by far the funniest and most creative of this group. The film depicts the everyday life of Daisatou, a man who periodically transforms into Dai-Nipponjin, a Godzilla-sized behemoth who fights off an odd mix of monsters who are constantly invading Japan. These battles are broadcast on television, and Daisatou generates additional revenue by sporting tattoos of various companies on his torso. But the market for mega-superheroes is bottoming out, and his show has been relegated to a late-late-night timeslot, causing the interviewer to comment, "Even the weather gets better ratings than you." It gets worse--everyone hates Dai-Nipponjin, claiming he causes more damage than he prevents, uses up too much electricity (needed to make his transformation), and disrupts their lives with noise and traffic jams. His wife has left him, not wanting their daughter to be forced to follow in his giant footsteps. His grandfather (and mega-sized predecessor) suffers from dementia from the massive amounts of electricity he ingested. But through it all, Daisatou does his patriotic duty by battling a memorable assortment of "baddies," including "Mean Look Baddie" and "Smelly Baddie." The film is filled with parodies of familiar documentary moments, such as the prolonged awkward silence that ensues when the subject does not want to answer a particular question, and the inevitable scene where the cameraman is told to turn off the camera but continues surreptitiously filming anyway. This intelligent cinematic satire is offset by the hilarious ceremonial logistics required for Daisatou to transform, and the outrageous computer-generated monsters he encounters. The climactic final confrontation between Dai-Nipponjin and his nemesis ranks among the funniest closing sequences of all time.

Sounds very interesting for visual anthropologists. Here's the trailer:



Has anyone else seen this? I'll be ordering a copy from Amazon.com soon...

No! Drug

Here's one from the "I just couldn't help it" department...

(Image and text below borrowed from Japan Today, 7/1/09)

Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister Ryu Shionoya, 59, recently showed off the new anti-drug poster featuring actress Yukie Nakama, 29, that will be put up at junior high schools, high schools and universities around Japan this month. The poster says “NO! DRUG” in English in a large white font, and underneath it says “dame, zettai” – which means something to the effect of not taking them under any circumstances.

The poster targeting drug use among young people coincides with this month’s release of “Gokusen THE MOVIE,” starring Nakama as Kumiko Yamaguchi – mathematics teacher and granddaughter of a yakuza boss - and she is wearing her trademark sports gear in the poster. She is folding her arms and in smaller white font next to her resolute pose is a sentence that says: “Let’s get the courage to stand up and protect those important to us.”

How effective do you believe this poster is? This poster/campaign is also timely in wake of the recent drug use scandal concerning Noriko Sakai.

If you are unaware of the recent scandal, here is a brief synopsis: Husband of pop star/singer/actress Noriko Sakai is pulled aside by the police because he is walking funny. They search him and find a small amount of stimulant drugs in his underwear. The husband tells them that his wife uses drugs as well. Somehow this gives the police cause to search the home of Sakai herself (who lives separately from her husband) where they end up finding .008 grams of stimulants and are able to match her DNA to them. Noriko disappears amid a media frenzy. She finally turns herself in and confesses to taking the drugs on the advice of her husband. We also find out that her brother had recently been busted for drugs as well. While this story has calmed over the Obon holiday, the media circus and the Japanese attitudes towards drugs remains under scrutiny.

(For us at VAOJ, it might be interesting to note that Noriko Sakai starred in Hoshi no Kinka, a popular Japanese drama with a deaf protagonist.)

Here is an article from Japan Times that gives more background on the Sakai case and supposed drug use in Japan.

Sakai bust puts spotlight on narcotics evil:
Case of ex-antidrug poster girl points to stimulants' proliferation
Link: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090813a2.html

Here's a video that's been going around a lot (I first saw it on Japan Probe). This video was produced by the Japanese Police and aired on Fuji Television during the Sakai frenzy.



For you Americans out there, does this bring back flashbacks of Reefer Madness and after-school specials? How effective is this video do you think in drug education and preventing young people from taking drugs?

Along with such posters and videos, we often see commercials on Japanese TV for "vitamin supplements" for old people that are supposed to give them more energy and allow them to live better lives. My favorite commercial shows an old woman crawling up a stair case. But after she takes the "vitamins" she is shown running up and down the stairs. How do we know she didn't smoke some crack? Why are these supplements legal while other drugs like caffeine, alcohol (available in vending machines) and tobacco (the Japanese government owns 50% of the domestic industry) legal?

How does visual representation influence the use of both legal and illegal drugs?

Article 9, Japanese Pacifism, and American Militarism

Another announcement from H-Japan:

Film director John Junkerman will introduce his film "Japan's Peace Constitution" (2005) during his lecture/discussion about the Japanese Constitution's Article 9 within the broad context of Japanese pacifism and American militarism.

Date & Time: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 7:00 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: Free
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)

Born in Milwaukee, the United States, Mr. Junkerman is a leading American filmmaker attempting to raise public awareness through his films on various socio-political and historical issues facing Japan and the global community. His first film was Hellfire—A Journey from Hiroshima (1986). A co-production with John Dower, the noted historian, it is based on his interviews with Iri and Toshi Maruki, Japanese artists known for their “Genbaku no zu (Hiroshima Murals),” paintings dealing with the aftermath of the atomic bombing, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1988. His Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times (2002) gives viewers a rare opportunity to listen to and reflect on the critical discourse of Noam Chomsky, one of the most important public intellectuals and political dissidents of our time.

For more information, see the I-House web page:
http://www.i-house.or.jp/en/ProgramActivities/japan_ihj/index.htm

MIT Visualizing Cultures

Here's an interesting resource and application of visual methodologies. There are a lot of Japan related materials to check out:

Self description:

Visualizing Cultures weds images and scholarly commentary in innovative ways to illuminate social and cultural history. Founded in 2002 by MIT Professors John Dower and Shigeru Miyagawa, Visualizing Cultures exploits the unique qualities of the Web as a publishing platform to enable scholars, teachers, and others to: (1) examine large bodies of previously inaccessible images; (2) compose original texts with unlimited numbers of full-color, high-resolution images; and (3) use new technology to explore unprecedented ways of analyzing and presenting images that open windows on modern history.

Visualizing Cultures has positioned itself as a nexus between the institutions that house image collections and the scholars who would like to use them for research purposes. Publishing on MIT’s revolutionary OpenCourseWare—making MIT courses freely available on the Web—Visualizing Cultures has worked with many institutions to negotiate online publication of images for educational purposes using a creative commons license.

For more information:
http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/home/vc01_about.html

e-Asia Digital Library

This resource has been announced on H-ASIA and H-Japan. There are some visual resources here that might be of interest to visual anthropologists.

e-Asia Digital Library

University of Oregon Library, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, US

Self-description:

The e-Asia project is funded by the University of Oregon Library through the generosity of Nissho Iwai.

By building a collection of digitized e-books and a database of full text web resources, e-Asia strives to contribute to the research and scholarship of East Asia. While the e-Asia project is based largely on resources held at the University of Oregon Library, its purpose is neither to duplicate nor displace printed traditonal materials. Rather, by providing searchable full text, the digitalization efforts of e-Asia represent a new tool aimed at facilitating the information-gathering process.

Site contents:

* About e-Asia (About e-Asia, Contributors, Contact Us);
* Maps (Maps of China, Maps of Japan, Maps of S. Korea, Maps of N. Korea, Maps of Taiwan, Other Maps);
* Images (Images of China, Images of Japan, Images of S. Korea, Images of N. Korea, Images of Taiwan);
* Audio [MP3 Format - ed.] (Sounds of China, Sounds of Japan, Sounds of Korea, Sounds of Taiwan);
* Film [Flash Format - ed.] (Chinese Cinema, Japanese Cinema, North Korea Cinema, South Korea Cinema, Taiwan Cinema, Other Cinema);
* Projects (China Projects, Japan Projects);
* Special Collections;
* Search e-Asia by Keyword;
* Browse/Search e-Asia by Subject (China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, Other E-Books);
* Browse Alphabetical Listing by Author (China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, Other E-Books);
* e-Asia's Most Recent Additions (China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, Other E-Books);
* e-Book Formats (General guides, Standard pdf, Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket, Stanza (iPhone, iPod), Other formats);
* Other Digital Libraries (Google Books, Internet Archive, Aozora Bunko, Project Gutenberg, Distributed Proofreaders, China-US Million Book Digital Library Project, More library collections).

URL http://e-asia.uoregon.edu/

Conference: Feeling Photography, October 16-17, 2009, Toronto

Another announcement from H-ASIA:

"Feeling Photography" is an international, interdisciplinary conference that will bring together scholars working in a range of interpretive and theoretical approaches to interrogate the relationship between the affect, emotion, and/or feeling and the photograph. The conference will be held at the University of Toronto and is sponsored by the Centre for the Study of the United State and the Toronto Photography Seminar.

The conference features plenary addresses from the following scholars: Lisa Cartwright (UCSD); Ann Cvetkovich (UT Austin); David Eng (Penn); Marianne Hirsch (Columbia) and Leo Spitzer (Dartmouth); Christopher Pinney (University College, London); Shawn Michelle Smith (School of the Art Institute of Chicago); and Diana Taylor (NYU). We have assembled fifty-two papers from our fall CFP into sixteen panels featuring scholarly work from across the globe and the disciplines. Panel topics include Children and the Political Management of Affect; Feeling Together: Publics and Counterpublics; Emotional Geographies; Marketing Emotions: Loss, Fear and (Comic) Loathing; Racial Affects; Emotional States: Citizenship and Photography; Instrumental Images: Bodies, Cities and Empires, 1903-1918; Digital Affects; Public Intimacies; Touching Photo; Visual Witnessing: Photography and World War II; Feeling First: Documentary and Left Internationalism; Photography, Trauma, and the Ethics of Witnessing; Queer Affect(s); Affective Economies; Facial Tics - Faciality.

Early registration deadline for the conference is September 1st. To Register, and for further information, see http://www.torontophotoseminar.org

Outsider Cinema from the Philippines

OUTSIDER CINEMA FROM THE PHILIPPINES
Saturday, August 15, 2009 • Showtime 7PM
Visual Communications @ The Union Center for the Arts

Visual Communications, in association with noted Philippine independent director Ruelo Lozendo, is pleased to present this collection of works by three internationally renowned filmmakers and one emerging voice from the New Philippine Independent Film Movement. Emerging director Dada Docot, along with enfants terrible Raya Martin, John Torres, and Khavn de la Cruz are spotlighted in short films that further illustrates the Philippine's continuing contributions to the range of adventurous and innovative films of world cinema.

VENUE AND PARKING INFORMATION:
VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS @ The Union Center for the Arts
120 Judge John Aiso Street, Basement Level, Los Angeles 90012

For more information, check out http://vconline.org