Love Boat on the Korea Strait

WHAT IS IT with those folks in Fukuoka and Busan anyway? They keep confounding the people whose misconceptions masquerade as conventional wisdom and overturn every tired old cliche of Japanese-Korean relations.

Now they’re at it again. The accompanying photo depicting a traditional Japanese wedding ceremony was taken during the filming of a television drama in the Kushida Shinto shrine in Fukuoka City. The filming, which occurred on the 6th, is for a program being produced by MBC-TV in South Korea. The name of that program translated into English from Japanese from Korean is The Korea Strait Wedding War (玄海灘結婚戦争), while the Nishinippon Shimbun translated it into Japanese as The Great Japan-South Korea Wedding Operation (日韓結婚大作戦).

The groom in these telenuptials is a Busan native, played by Korean actor Im Ju-hwan. In the role of the bride, a Japanese woman from Fukuoka studying in South Korea, is Akiba Rie, who has appeared on Korean television before. Both characters have to overcome parental objections before the (presumably) happy ending. The character played by Im also has to overcome his self-doubt. He bolts during the ceremony at the shrine, declaring, “I can’t go through with it!”

And here I thought women were the ones who usually got cold feet at the critical moment. Most men who bug out hit the road before they show up at the church.

The Koreans say they selected Fukuoka for filming the Japanese scenes because it has close ties to Busan—which will be no surprise to long-time friends here—so it’s the best location for depicting mutual understanding between the two countries. They’ve already done some location work in Iizuka, and plan to film some more at a hotel and the local fish market, a Kyushu version of Tokyo’s Tsukiji Market. (Check the link on the right sidebar.)

Here’s the best part: The program will be broadcast on 1-2 March in South Korea. The first of March is a national holiday in that country commemorating the 1919 outbreak of the local movement for independence from Japan.

Actor and musician Hakuryu (literally, White Dragon), who plays the part of the Japanese father, said:

It is a ground-breaking step to take up the subject of international marriage between Japanese and Koreans in South Korea on 1 March. The show tastefully depicts the tension between the families.

Give credit to MBS for their gutsy move. Not every commercial enterprise dependent on public sentiment would behave that way in a potentially volatile environment.

Chon Je-won, the show’s producer, said:

I want to examine friendly ties between the countries in the future. Let the past be the past.

Said Ms. Akiba:

I hope that Japanese-Korean ties grow closer through this drama.

The program will be broadcast in Japan on the northern Kyushu regional network TNC in April.

*****
While MBC is on the side of the angels here, this might once again be a case in which the big institutions are behind the curve. There were 7,813 marriages in Japan between Japanese and Koreans in 2007, the latest year for which I could find statistics. The percentage of international marriages in Japan is close to 6%, and about 13% in South Korea, so the Japanese-Korean marriage rate in that country might be higher.

It’s a good rule of thumb that the people at ground zero will be way ahead of the folks in the corner offices on the top floors of corporate or government headquarters.

Afterwords:

Some people—the usual Diapered Ones, whose preferred form of entertainment is to indulge their coarser emotions—have already decided they won’t enjoy the program. You can have three guesses about the reason, but the first two don’t count.

The main body of the article includes a comment from the Internet that asks: “Do you know how much hurt this will cause for some people?”

To answer with a question: Do you know how little anyone else cares about your petty whining? We aren’t responsible for your failure to control your emotional state, nor are we obligated to modify our opinions or behavior because of it.

The idea that a person’s employment depends on following the party line should have died with the various democratic people’s republics, and not be preserved in a free market democracy.

A commenter to the main article identified as American Kim provides a more temperate view.

***
The actor/musician Hakuryu, a native of Imari, Saga, is a second-generation Korean-Japanese. The name on his birth register is Chon Jong-il. He also uses the name Takayama Sadaichi in Japan. Mr. Hakuryu/Chon/Takayama frequently appears on Korean television.

Trying to draw a foul in international relations

LAST THURSDAY, many Japanese suspected the day would bring an end to the career of a well-known public figure. Their suspicions were justified—the career of a well-known public figure did end. It just wasn’t the one they expected.

Karma has yet to have its way with scandal-plagued Democratic Party Secretary-General Ozawa Ichiro, but it did smite down with a heavy hand the preeminent sumo rikishi of his time, Asashoryu.

Don't mess with Mr. D.

The Mongolian-born superstar, whose real name is Dolgorsuren Dagvadorj, announced his retirement from the dohyo at a Thursday press conference in the wake of the controversy caused by his involvement in the latest and most serious of a series of incidents unbecoming his position.

That he was a superstar is beyond question. Asashoryu ranked third with 25 career tournament victories, behind Taiho’s 32 and Chiyonofuji’s 31. He was the only rikishi with the top yokozuna ranking in competition for a three-year period. In 2005, he became the first rikishi to run the table and win all six tournaments of the year. He stunned fans and experts alike by winning one match last July with a technique that hadn’t been used successfully in an upper level match in 34 years.

His resignation was the subject of intense interest and commentary in Japan, but few people doubted either the fitness or the necessity of the resolution to his brilliant but troubled career. Public opinion surveys found that 52% thought Asashoryu should be allowed to retire with his pension, while another 29% thought he should have been tossed out, with the possibility that he would lose his benefits.

In contrast, 72% of the public thinks the scandal-plagued Ozawa Ichiro should resign his post as secretary-general of the ruling Democratic Party.

The view in his homeland

It’s a different story in his native Mongolia, however. This AP/Kyodo report brings to our attention the opinion of some Mongolians that the national sparkler was forced out by those old Japanese devil xenophobes.

Several Mongolian newspapers on Friday featured articles on their front pages, reporting that a conspiracy was behind former grand champion Asashoryu’s decision to quit sumo over his alleged assault of a man in downtown Tokyo…

(They stressed) that Japanese sumo officials had pressured him to retire for fear of the fiery yokozuna breaking sumo legend and former yokozuna Taiho’s record of 32 title wins.

And:

Khaltmaagiin Battulga, who is president of the Mongolian Judo Federation and a minister in the government, said in an interview with Mongolyn Medee, “It appears that Japanese people were afraid of a yokozuna who has foreign nationality breaking a record in the country’s traditional sport.”

It appears that Khaltmaagiin Battulga was so afraid of facing up the facts that he went out of his way to wear blinders.

The AP/Kyodo report didn’t do much better. The only allusion to the real reason for his retirement came in a nine-word clause:

Most of them (Mongolian press) failed to mention Asashoryu’s problematic behavior…

Here’s what else they failed to mention:

• The circumstances of the final instance of the “problematic behavior” that precipitated his career change.

Asashoryu got into a fight in his own car outside a Tokyo eating and drinking establishment at 4:00 a.m. (Some reports say Roppongi, some say Nishi Azabu). He punched the man responsible for managing that establishment in the face, breaking his nose, and threatened to kill him.

• Sumo in Japan is not just a sport.

Here’s one of the reasons why it’s something more from the Nihon Sumo Kyokai (Japan Sumo Association), whose link is on the right sidebar:

According to Japanese legend the very origin of the Japanese race depended on the outcome of a sumo match. The supremacy of the Japanese people on the islands of Japan was supposedly established when the god, Take-mikazuchi, won a sumo bout with the leader of a rival tribe….
Its origins were religious. The first sumo matches were a form of ritual dedicated to the gods with prayers for a bountiful harvest and were performed together with sacred dancing and dramas within the precincts of the shrines.

For another perspective on the connection between sumo and Shinto, try this previous post.

• Because of these associations, all sumo rikishi in general, and the highest-ranked yokuzuna in particular, are expected to comport themselves impeccably.

Victory totals alone are not the criterion for promotion to yokozuna. One of the official requirements for selection is “dignity”. As a living symbol of the sport/rite, yokozuna are expected to demonstrate virtue as well as professional skill.

Breaking someone’s nose in a drunken brawl is unlikely to qualify as virtuous behavior in Mongolia, either.

• In July 2003, Asashoryu became the first yokuzuna ever to be disqualified in a match.

The tough guy yanked the top-knot of fellow competitor Kyokushuzan; i.e., he pulled his hair. There are reports they later brawled in the bath and that Asashoryu broke the exterior wing mirror of his car.

• He was often criticized for unsportsmanlike behavior in the ring.

That behavior included giving extra shoves to competitors he had defeated and raising his arms triumphantly after a win.

This ain’t the NFL.

• He begged out of a 2007 sumo tour claiming back pain

He submitted a medical report showing a stress fracture in his lower back that required six weeks to heal, and he did have several injuries that were likely quite painful.

But after he was filmed rehabilitating his back in Mongolia by playing soccer, he was suspended for two tournaments. He thereby added another first to his many accomplishments–the first time a yokozuna had been suspended from tournament competition. He had his salary cut by 30% for four months.

• The consensus inside Japan is that while Asashoryu is a stupendous athlete whom no Japanese can beat, and that he earned his promotions in the ring, he was nevertheless promoted too quickly because of his popularity with the public.

The rapid promotions meant that he didn’t absorb the psychological outlook his rank requires, and may have felt that he was exempt. The revenue he generated made the sumo association reluctant to discipline him. Some people think he would have been expelled long ago if he were a less-successful Japanese, but the association flinched from such a drastic step. Indeed, some think he was the first yokozuna to be allowed to get away with such behavior only because of his abilities and his popularity.

This is xenophobia?

• He has permanent residency status, so he is free to remain in Japan.

Expelled wrestlers lose their retirement allowance, but since he was permitted to retire without being expelled, Asashoryu will keep his and remain a man of means. Pensions for yokozuna start at JPY 15 million yen (about $US 168,000), and they get an additional JPY 500,000 for each tournament in which they appeared. He was in 39 as a yokozuna, which means he will receive JPY 34.5 million.

He will also receive achievement benefits. Some recently retired yokozuna were awarded from JPY 70 to 90 million in those benefits, but due to Asashoryu’s success, there is speculation he might get something close to 100 million yen, which is almost a million in dollar terms. Of course, this does not count the money he already has earned.

*****
Yet another overlooked factor is the dim view Japanese take of other Japanese who dishonor their position by bad behavior. Those with a long memory will recall a similar incident with NHK TV announcer Matsudaira Sadatomo.

Mr. Matsudaira was NHK’s star on-air presence in the 1980s. Early one morning in 1991, the hanagata got well and truly liquored up and hailed a taxi for the ride home. So far, so unexceptional.

But apparently the motion of the cab on the streets caused him some discomfort in his intoxicated state, which he verbally expressed to the driver. The cabdriver tsked-tsked, and he wound up with a kick in the head for his footling impertinence.

The announcer was suspended from appearing on NHK. Since his reinstatement, he has served only as the narrator for special series. He now narrates a documentary series on 100 world heritage sites.

In other words, they’re finding make-work for him.

As adult Japanese will immediately understand from his family name, Mr. Matsudaira is a direct descendant of the Tokugawa shoguns that ruled Japan from 1603-1868.

That was the treatment meted out to a Japanese blueblood for one incident. Asashoryu was treated with kid gloves despite having trouble as his constant companion.

*****
The Japanese attitude might be beyond the capacity of some in the West to understand, however.

For comparison, let’s look at the case of star NFL linebacker Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens. After a party in Atlanta on 31 January 2000, he too was involved in an early morning fight. Two people were stabbed to death. Lewis and two friends were indicted for murder and aggravated assault 11 days later.

Fans in Baltimore protested that the prosecutor was railroading Mr. Lewis because of his fame, and some trial testimony suggested he tried to act as a peacemaker. Yet he most certainly fled from the scene of a double murder without reporting it.

His attorney cut a deal by swapping a guilty plea for obstruction of justice—a misdemeanor—for his client’s testimony against his two friends. He was sentenced to a year of probation (i.e., a slap on the wrist), but fined $US 250,000 by the NFL.

One year later, Mr. Lewis won the MVP award at the next Super Bowl. He is still playing football and still earning money by the truckload.

Yet both of his friends were acquitted in June 2000 despite Mr. Lewis’s testimony, and no one else was ever arrested for the murders. How ever did those knives get inserted into those two bodies? We’ll never know.

Meanwhile, Mr. Lewis reached a financial settlement in 2004 with the families of the deceased. What praiseworthy generosity for an innocent man who was supposedly acting as a peacemaker–albeit compelled by attorneys representing the victim’s heirs.

Were Ray Lewis a sumo rikishi, not to mention a yokozuna, his career would have been over a decade ago. He might even be in jail.

*****
But the Mongolian media is trotting out the old Japanese-are-xenophobes trope. It’s understandable—Asashoryu is the native son who made very good indeed. How much easier to blame someone else than to admit his faults and accept the shame of his humiliation. And with the way the dinosaur media has stacked the deck, that charge is all too likely to stick for those who don’t pay close attention.

Alas, the story has now been picked up by Business Week, and who knows how far out of proportion it will be blown in the next few days. Is this also to be glommed by the Huffington Post types as an excuse to parade their extensive knowledge about what they don’t know about Japan?

Counting: 5…4…3…2…

Afterwords:

The public opinion survey in Japan showed that 43% of males in their 20s and 29% of males in their 30s thought it wasn’t necessary for Asashoryu to resign.

Maybe they should raise the voting age to 30 instead of lowering it to 18.

**
There’s not much information about the incident with Matsudaira Sadatomo on the Web. It was almost 20 years ago, before the Internet became such a force, and no Japanese newspaper has put its archives on line that I know of.

One Japanese wag on the web did make a reference to the Shogun descendant’s anger at the failure of the kumosuke to curb his tongue. That word is usually written with the characters for “cloud” and “help”, and it was used starting in the mid-Edo period to refer to men of no fixed residence who worked as palanquin bearers between stations on public highways.

**
NHK announcer Kitazawa Yoshiyuki interviewed Asashoryu after the press conference at which he announced his retirement. Here’s a brief excerpt:

Q: What did you think of Japanese society?

A: They keep saying “democracy, democracy”, but it’s surprisingly socialist.

Maybe I shouldn’t have revealed that. If some people can’t get off on bashing the Japanese for forcing out the foreigner, now they can claim Asashoryu’s a right-wing thug.

Dig yourself, baby

READER IKE sends in a link in the Comments section to some Australian blogger who claims the Japanese nation is racist and will never be able to handle immigration. His characterization of the Japanese nation is based on a single anecdote. The blogger said he was chased away from what he assumed was a brothel in “downtown Fukuoka” by a man shouting in “broken” English, “No foreigners allowed.”

That blogger writes about financial matters, by the way, and is presumably well educated.

Well, there might be brothels in “downtown Fukuoka”, though I’ve spent quite a bit of time there and haven’t seen one in that part of town. (Whatever part of town that is–Hakata Ward? Tenjin?) But perhaps I’m naive.

And I wonder how many native-born brothel operators in Brisbane, for example, would be able to drive away a customer in any foreign language, broken or not.

My experiences have been different. While walking down certain streets in Saga, guys standing on the curb have yelled out at me–in Japanese–”Hey gaijin-san, how about some chon-chon? (while waving right fist in the air) 10,000 yen!” Was I better-looking (or more desperate-looking) than the guy who wasn’t welcome at the Fukuoka cat house? But that was in the days before the Japanese were fully aware of AIDS.

Putting aside the fact that the plural of anecdote is not data, the tired old jive about the Racist Nation reminds me of another story a high school student of mine told me after she spent a year in the United States. This was about 10 years ago.

The girl, named Yumi, was quite gregarious, attractive, and intelligent, and so made a lot of friends. One of her best friends was a black girl. Let’s call her Alice.

One day, two of her white girlfriends took her aside in the hall and told her it wasn’t a good idea to be hanging out with Alice so much.

Why not, she asked. I like her. She’s my friend.

One of the white girls then turned to the other and said, “Oh, never mind. Yumi can be friends with anyone she wants. She’s not white.”

If you let that sink in, it becomes multi-dimensionally more pathetic.

Don’t ask what part of the United States that was, by the way. When Yumi tells that story in Japan, none of her listeners cares about that distinction. It’s all America to them.

Is anybody seriously willing to argue that no one in Australia has that attitude?

Memo to the Anglosphere: You know what they say about people who live in glass houses.

Imagine Western culture with Chinese characteristics

THE CHINA DAILY website has an intriguing article that provides a glimpse of how the Chinese are dealing with cultural cross-fertilization now that the country is opening up to the West.

One of the interesting aspects of the piece is that most of it could have been written about Japan at an earlier point in Japanese history. Just substitute Japan for China in this passage:

While China remained closed off, few of its people, products or ideas could make their way into the rest of the world. When the country opened up, the rest of the world rushed in as quickly as Nature moves to correct any sort of imbalance.
Naturally, this must have felt to China like a deluge, and some Chinese feared being swamped by alien ways.

This reminds me of something I once heard from a Japanese psychiatrist for whom I translated a few medical papers. He observed that the state of Western culture as it existed in 1868, when Japan ended its period of isolation, had been achieved through a long, organic process. In contrast, the modern world was thrust on Japan as if in a deluge, to use the same word as the author of this piece.

The psychiatrist thought that, all things considered, Japan had borne up rather well under that deluge and emerged the better for it. In fact, he seemed to take pride in the Japanese resilience and capacity to adapt to that sudden shock to the system.

Here’s an example of one of the issues that resulted from removing barriers to the outside world. This debate has mostly run its course in Japan, though traces still exist:

Mo (Luo), a scholar at the Chinese National Academy of Arts, says in his book “China Stands Up” that Western ways contaminate, exploit and weaken the Middle Kingdom. Zhu argued that China already has benefited from contact with Western cultures and will gain more if it carefully chooses which foreign characteristics take hold here.

Perhaps the only problem with Mr. Zhu’s argument is that it’s impossible to guide those choices after there’s been a full opening, and the current Chinese government knows it. The people decide in the aggregate, and most of those choices are made on the basis of what feels right.

Most Americans don’t know that Chinese weddings feature firecrackers; that Chinese parents make extraordinary sacrifices for their children; that Chinese diners eat off of plates smaller than any on a Western table; that favorite Chinese beverages include hot soy milk and the potent white-grain alcohol, baijiu; that Chinese toddlers wear split pants instead of diapers; and that elderly Chinese sometimes walk down streets backwards to keep their balancing skills sharp.

That same learning process about Japan is still underway, despite the obstacles the dinosaur media scatters along the path.

Westerners will learn as they and the Chinese increasingly mingle.

Unquestionably, but as the process with Japan and the West demonstrates, a lot of what people on both sides “learn” isn’t really true to begin with. Another thing the Japanese have learned is that people from the West will often respond with condescension when they encounter an innocent misconception. The intensity of the condescending response seems to be in direct proportion to IQ.

The response of most Japanese to similar innocent misconceptions, in my experience, is seldom condescension or contempt, but more often a bemused surprise.

One of my former English students, then a third-year high school student and now about 40, told me about some of the questions her host family asked her when she stayed with them for a year to study at an American high school.

One day at the dinner table, the father in the family wondered if Japanese ate pudding. Yes, she answered. But if you use chopsticks instead of silverware, how do you eat it, he asked?

We have spoons too, she replied.

She left it at that. The majority of Westerners that I’ve met in Japan, however, never leave it at that. There’s always room for an ironic, smart-ass observation.

It’s interesting that I’ve never encountered any Asians in Japan with quite that attitude about this country.

As they do, there’s no telling which Chinese customs will take root in foreign soil, but some of them surely will.

One custom/practice that has already established a foothold is chi gung (気功 in Japanese), which might yet become China’s greatest gift to humankind.

To think that exposure to Western ways weakens China, instead of strengthens it, assumes the country’s culture is fragile. That’s a surprising attitude for any Chinese to take.

That’s a surprising attitude for anyone to take about any cultural interaction between any two countries or blocs. In the long run, everyone is always the better for it, and that’s why the arguments against so-called “cultural imperialism” and “globalization” consist almost exclusively of hot air.

And the argument favoring trade protectionism is a monster that should be dispatched with a sharp sword whenever it raises its warty, sulfurous head. Here’s a short piece that explains why.

That article also demonstrates what the Japanese have learned, and the author of the China Daily article might not have learned yet: The people on the other side of the process have problems of their own to work out.

In a cab from the airport to my office recently, I listened to a cabbie complain bitterly about all the Toyotas and Hondas on the highway. I tried to assure him that most of the “foreign’’ cars he was looking at were assembled in the United States, but there was no mollifying him. Americans, he told me, had no business buying cars from Japan.

That was in Boston, which considers itself the sacred space of the intellectual elite.

There are people like Mo Luo everywhere.

Unintended consequences

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
- Friedrich Hayek

HERE’S AN INTRIGUING CONTRAST between the Japanese approach and the Chinese approach to the same problem. Or perhaps it’s a disturbing contrast, depending on your perspective.

The problem in this case is the United States, and specifically, the American economy.

Last quarter’s growth figures notwithstanding, conditions in the U.S. are still painful. Driving the growth was a slowdown in inventory depletion, which is unsustainable over the long run.

Yet last month, the American government submitted a budget for FY 2010 that proposes a record $US 1.56 trillion deficit. That deficit will be 10.6% of GDP, the largest deficit-to-GDP ratio since World War II. By 2020, national debt will have risen from $US 7.5 trillion last year, or 53% of GDP, to $US 18.6 trillion, 77% of GDP.

Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economist who has studied other countries’ experiences, says debt levels already forecast would push the U.S. toward a tipping point where interest rates could soar, the dollar could plunge and the economy could face a crisis. “We will hit a point where it comes on us very quickly, and you don’t want to edge up to that point,” Mr. Rogoff said. “Going beyond 80% you’re taking a real chance.”

Instead of belt-tightening, however, the Obama administration plans another stimulus measure–AKA, a jobs bill–even though most of the funds from the last stimulus are still unspent. It also plans to essentially federalize university tuition, which would have the dual disadvantages of wasting money and degrading the value of a college education at the same time. And that doesn’t begin to consider the unintentional buffoonery of its health care reform package.

The Chinese are dissatisfied with the American schemes and aren’t shy about saying so.

Chinese economists are worried that, if the Congress approved the budget plan, the U.S. federal government will issue more bonds and print more money to finance the deficit, which may prompt dollar depreciation. Dollar depreciation erodes the value of China’s holdings of dollar-denominated assets.

And:

He Maochun, director of the Center for Economic Diplomacy Studies at Tsinghua University, said the deficit would be financed by those holding U.S. dollar-denominated assets with the main channel to transfer the risks caused by the deficit being the issuance of U.S. treasury bonds.

Also:

Experts said the record deficit suggests the Federal Reserve will continue to flood more money into the market. The massive issuance of treasury bonds, the large fiscal deficit, and the printing of the dollar will prompt further declines in the value of dollar, they said.

…China is the biggest foreign holder of the U.S. government debt…

Cao Honghui, director of the Financial Market Research Office of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a government think tank…said the U.S. government should not transfer the problems of enormous debt to other nations or regions that are creditors like China.

What will China do?

Liu Yuhui, an economist with the CASS, said late last month China may scale back its purchases of U.S. debt on concern the dollar will decline.

China trimmed its holdings of U.S. government debt by 9.3 billion U.S. dollars in November last year – the biggest cut in five months – taking them down to 789.6 billion U.S. dollars.

Of course that’s just common sense—why keep throwing money at a drunken sailor who’s clutching the bar rail to keep from falling on his face?

The Japanese Approach

Meanwhile, the Japanese government is proposing the highest budget in its history, with the amount of government debt issues nearly exceeding income for the first time this year. (They will next year.) Recall Mr. Rogoff saying that pushing national debt beyond 80% of GDP is a serious risk? The Hatoyama Administration is pushing it up to 200% of GDP.

Though the government took some superficial belt-tightening steps, which they managed to turn them into a television soap opera last fall, they remain committed to boosting expenditures. Some of those outlays include offering a new and expensive family subsidy program and a farm subsidy program. Removing tolls on expressways will add to the burden while eliminating a revenue source.

They’ve also taken the first steps toward renationalizing Japan Post, which operates a banking system with the world’s largest deposits and a life insurance company. One of the objectives of privatization was to wean the government from excessive debt by having the bank diversify its investment portfolio beyond Japanese government bonds, thereby curbing government profligacy. But the Hatoyama administration has chosen to move forward to the past, rather than back to the future.

Now, the Nikkei Shimbun reports that aggregate corporate fixed assets, such as machinery and equipment, have declined for the first time since statistics were first kept in 1955.

The Cabinet Office said those assets declined 0.1% from the previous year during the July-September 2009 quarter. There was a sharp drop in capital investments, and the amount of depreciation exceeded the amount invested. The Nikkei warned that prolonged declines would stunt the underlying growth potential of the economy.

So what is the Japanese approach to the problems presented by the American economy?

It’s acting like one of two wooden-legged men in a three-legged race.

Japan’s banking minister Shizuka Kamei said the government-owned financial conglomerate Japan Post should buy more corporate bonds and U.S. Treasuries, rather than Japanese government bonds, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

Japan Post is the largest holder of Japanese government bonds and a big move to diversify by its two financial units — Japan Post Bank and Japan Post Insurance — could rattle the government bond market…

“Nearly 80 percent of Japan Post Bank’s funds go towards buying JGBs, but from now on (any increase in deposits) could go towards buying corporate bonds… and US Treasuries,” FT quoted Kamei as saying on Monday.

“(Kamei’s comments) are negative to the JGB market. But that is as much as we can say at the moment as we don’t know how much Japan Post Bank would cut its investment in government bonds,” said Mari Iwashita, chief market economist at Nikko Cordial Securities.

In another comment that didn’t make this article, Mr. Kamei said it was “natural for the Japanese government to support the United States.” Apparently he also thinks it’s natural for the government to further meddle in the private sector and distort the economy by buying corporate bonds.

Yes, the ability to diversify investments was one reason for privatizing Japan Post to begin with, but it is unlikely the objective of Messrs. Koizumi and Takenaka was to shift the outlays from absorbing greater issues of Japanese government debt to American treasuries whose value is deteriorating. Besides, in those days (2005), the American national debt was falling, which it continued to do until the last year of the Bush term.

Those in Japan with a conspiratorial frame of mind were wondering whether Mr. Kamei timed his remarks to coincide with the hullaballoo over the possible prosecution of DPJ Secretary-General Ozawa Ichiro, which was diverting everyone’s attention. Raising the possibility of investing taxpayer money in financial instruments that are likely to depreciate is an odd step for a government that’s painting itself into an economic corner.

When a government or one of its institutions makes risky investments, knowing that any loss on those investments will be backed up by public funds, it is the very definition of what economists call a moral hazard.

Perhaps the Finance Ministry thinks that unless Japan does its part to help the Americans, we’ll all be back to rubbing sticks together to start our campfires. Yet the Chinese obviously don’t think so. What accounts for the difference?

Could it be the psychological impact of the two countries’ respective attitudes toward national defense?

Consider:

The Chinese have more than adequate military resources to defend the country from any threat it could be realistically expected to encounter in the foreseeable future. More importantly, no one thinks the Chinese would hesitate to use military force in its own defense.

In contrast, the Japanese have the hardware, but can’t develop the software—the national will–to stick up for itself. While many Japanese would be eager to see the country assume responsibility for its own defense at long last, many others—including politicians with influence in the current government—espouse pacifism out of (a) principle, (b) the failure to grow a backbone while living under the American nuclear shield, or (c), ulterior motives that aren’t pacifist at all, as one moves further leftward.

When all three of those groups are maneuvering to exert their influence in the current government, is it any surprise that government is flummoxed over handling the move of one American military base under the terms of a four-year-old agreement?

Is it any wonder a government that said it wanted to distance itself from the U.S. and move closer to Asia lacks the nerve in the real world to team up with the Chinese and demand that America get its finances under control? (It would be interesting to see the American response in such a scenario.)

Whatever happened to the Japan that can say “no”?

That was, and still is, a figment of the imagination. Japan is still a military vassal of the United States, and will remain one for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the Chinese have developed the confidence of a man who knows he can walk down a dark alley in a bad neighborhood late at night and make it out the other end in one piece.

The differing levels of confidence in one’s statehood seem to be having repercussions in areas beyond the perimeter of military defense. Is not a nation’s approach to economic affairs in this environment an important element of national defense?

Isn’t that one reason why pacifism is a multidimensional moral failure which is harmful to the national health?

Afterwords:

Zuo Xiaolei, chief economist at China Galaxy Securities, said the U.S. had no choice but to rely on massive government spending to ensure the economic recovery. The budget deficit will pump money into the economy and generate jobs, which in turn will generate greater tax revenue that can help pay off the debt, Zuo said.

Except the American stimulus measures have so far generated very few jobs in the private sector. It’s only helped to save some public sector employment, which contributes nothing to economic growth.

Who knew the Chinese were Keynesians?

(And here’s a brief reminder of why that’s not necessarily a good thing to be.)

Why state ownership of any enterprise is wrong, reason #26,192

TOYOTA IS IN BIG TROUBLE in the United States auto market, with more than five million vehicles recalled due to faulty accelerator pedals. Congress is saying they will look into similar problems with some Toyota trucks that weren’t recalled.

In fact, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood accused Toyota of dragging its feet, and:

He also caused a brief panic when he told a congressional panel that owners of 5.3 million Toyota vehicles affected by the recalls should “stop driving” them.

A Congressional committee is now holding hearings.

Some, however, think that people shouldn’t make a federal case out of it.

David Champion, director of automobile testing for Consumer Reports magazine, said the reaction to the recall was overblown.

“When you look at the statistics we are putting an awful lot of effort on a very small risk,” he said.

“There has been something like 2,000 complaints of unintended acceleration in some 20 million Toyota vehicles — it’s almost like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”

…(H)e said a congressional investigation was an “overreaction” and noted that the “sticky” pedal problem that caused Toyota to halt production and sales of eight models last month was not linked to any accidents or injuries.

Indeed, the AFP article is titled, Is U.S. Bullying Toyota on Recall?

But why would the U.S. bully Toyota?

It wouldn’t have anything to do with the American government’s 60% ownership stake in GM, now would it?

Think ya used enough dynamite there, Butch?

“The optics are terrible because — and this is what happens when a government owns a company – the two companies that are going to gain the most out of this are General Motors and Chrysler,” said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s business school.

“But their behavior is consistent with the general policy of the US government, whether it’s dealing with coffeemakers or cars.”

Their behavior may be consistent in this case, but governments can’t be trusted to behave properly on a consistent basis–not even the American government.

It makes no difference whether it’s General Motors, or Chrysler, or Goldman Sachs, or Japan Air Lines.

If a company’s too big to fail, it’s too big. There’s a reason they call it creative destruction.

When a government’s so big that it can own international companies of that size, it’s too big. And governments that are too big always turn despotic, regardless of the system that puts them in place.

Afterwords:

“The ‘optics’ are terrible”? So is that choice of words.

And GM and Chrysler may not be the ones who gain the most. Non-U.S. automakers were the primary beneficiaries of that government’s Cash for Clunkers program.

Horns of a dilemma

HERE’S A BRIEF REPORT in The Scotsman explaining that Chinese authorities are concerned that never have so many ever had so few opportunities to transmit their precious bodily fluids:

Guangdong, China’s export powerhouse, is home to about 30 million migrant workers, the most in the country. Many leave wives, husbands or children in their native villages to seek the higher wages factories pay compared with agricultural work.

That’s not counting the millions of randy young men who don’t have wives, girlfriends, or a reasonable facsimile thereof because of the demographic overhang created by those authorities.

Well, one solution would be to handle the problem the way the Korean government handled one of theirs, according to this report in the JoongAng Daily.

And what’s this “Or children” part? They’re not that desperate, are they?

Bagging beans to beat the devil

SOME AMERICAN TELEVANGELISTS want you believe you have to send in money—right away!—to beat the devil, but the Japanese have a more inexpensive way to send Beelzebub packing. They scatter beans at Shinto shrines and households once a year.

Today was the day the demons took it on the lam, as 3 February is known as setsubun in Japan. Several traditional ceremonies are held to dispatch Old Scratch, and the magical rite of scattering beans (usually roasted soybeans) is one of those.

After a process of cultural evolution, the practice of setsubun was applied to New Year’s Eve in the ancient solar calendar, which is the traditional beginning of spring. Note that Chinese New Year, which is a moveable holiday, falls around this time of year. In traditional Chinese culture, lichun—or risshun in Japanese—is a solar period or term marking the start of spring, which occurs around February 4.

The connection with New Year’s led to associations of the ritual purification and exorcism thought essential for the coming year and the spring planting season.

Yet another connection was made with the tsuina rite, or zhuinuo in Chinese, another ceremony for driving out demons that originated in the Zho dynasty (1027 BC-256 BC). In those days, when men were men, the Chinese wore bear skins and masks and carried sharp weapons when they stalked the evil spirits. The practice was later adopted in some form in Japan, became an annual Imperial court event by the 9th century (hence the association with shrines), and had turned into a bean scattering rite by the Muromachi period (1333-1568).

The ceremony can be conducted at home, but nowadays most folks head for a Shinto shrine to snatch a bean bag tossed by the priests. One incentive is that some of the bags contain gift certificates for items which can range from stationery to consumer electronics products. In addition, toshi otoko, men born under the Chinese zodiac sign for that year, help toss out the beans, and some shrines bring in the famous or celebrities from the area to juice up the PR value.

The visitors to the larger shrines can number in the thousands, and somebody’s got to put those beans into the lucky bags. When it comes to performing such menial chores at a shrine, the lot usually falls to miko, or shrine maidens, the Shinto equivalent of altar boys.

The first photo shows three miko at the Ikuta Shinto shrine in Kobe, Hyogo, using a masu, a traditional measuring box, to scoop up the beans and put them into the lucky bags. On one side of each is the kanji for kotobuki, which means long life, while the illustration on the side of the masu is of a cute little devil. They put about 120 grams of beans into each bag, making them quarter-pounders, and they filled 3,000 bags, which the shrine sold for JPY 300 (about $US 3.30) apiece. Send in your money to beat the devil!

Some shrines put in certificates for different sorts of gifts. One of them is the Kirishima-jingu in Kirishima, Kagoshima. This year, among the lucky slips were those for 240 bottles of shochu donated by 41 Kagoshima distillers.

The Japanese have no problem at all mixing hooch and holiness, and many Shinto festivals involve the brewing of sacred sake. The Kagoshimanians down south, however, much prefer shochu to sake, so while it’s unusual to offer booze in the bean bags, none of this staggers the imagination, either. The only staggering is done by the shochu drinkers.

The shrine asked the distillers for donations at the end of last year in a transaction that contains an element of the marketplace in addition to the mystical. In return for offering prayers for safety for the distillers, the Kirishima shrine put up labels of their product as PR on the shrine grounds. Each of the distillers ponied up six bottles each, as you can see from the second photo. Starting at 4:00 p.m. today, the priests started tossing about 5,000 beanbags, of which 1,000 contained gift certificates. Among the lucky recipients, 240 are going to get righteously high.

Here’s a setsubun scene from the Kirishima shrine in the past.

Afterwords:

The toshi otoko who was the main attraction at the Ikuta shrine in Kobe this year was Hasegawa Hozumi, the current WBC world bantamweight champion. He’s the only Japanese boxer to have defended a world bantamweight title more than four times.

This ESPN.com article on the fighters of the year for 2009 says Hasegawa “might be the best fighter boxing fans haven’t heard of”.

Drawing blood

THE AMERICAN POLITICAL COMMENTARIAT was pleased as punch last weekend when President Barack Obama visited an opposition Republican retreat in Baltimore for a dialogue of sorts. Close encounters of that kind are rare in the political arena of the United States, and everyone was delighted that courtesy and civility ruled the day. Two GOP Congressmen were singled out for praise for very politely telling the president he was full of crap, and Mr. Obama was also hailed for his even temper when he returned the criticism, though his performance was tinged with the surreal. Reuters headlined their story: Obama Assails Republican Foes; Urges Bipartisan Effort.

Meanwhile, the Japanese, who have a reputation as being courteous and civil in formal public settings, have no qualms about locking, loading, and firing live ammo in high-level political debates. A case in point is the mano-a-mano debate/questioning between party leaders in the Diet, in which the opposition party chiefs take on the prime minister.

Of course the participants can be civil and even gracious. During the Abe administration, then-DPJ party head Ozawa Ichiro began his questioning of the prime minister with some very kind remarks about Mr. Abe’s father Shintaro. Mr. Ozawa went out of his way to express his appreciation for the help and advice he received from the elder Abe (who served as foreign minister and might have become prime minister had he lived) when both were in the Liberal Democratic Party.

But these sessions can also turn into a blood sport, and that’s just what happened on Monday when LDP head Tanigaki Sadakazu got first crack at Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio.

The working assumption of most observers in Japan since the two DPJ leaders traded jobs is that Ozawa Ichiro runs the show as Secretary-General and Mr. Hatoyama is a convenient figurehead. A similar arrangement worked for a time when Mr. Ozawa’s mentor, Tanaka Kakuei, ran the LDP and the government from behind the scenes.

Providing additional fodder for those who run with the narrative of Mr. Ozawa as a chip off the old Tanaka block—yeah, me too—is the political funding scandals that threaten to wound the former as gravely as they did the latter.

The media widely remarked that Mr. Hatoyama frequently used the word “life” in his recent speech to the Diet, in the sense of saving people’s lives. On Monday, Mr. Tanigaki favored the terms “dictator” and “secret room” (back room).

He asked Mr. Hatoyama to his face:

Who is the real ruler of this country?

And asserted:

The Dictator Ozawa decides all in a secret room.

He also asked:

Are you really the person who governs this country, the person who has the ultimate decision-making authority?

And then answered his own question:

This is really the Ozawa Administration. The Hatoyama Administration has degenerated into the Ozawa Dictatorship.

Then he reloaded:

Decisions (on the budget and tax revisions) were made at the discretion of Secretary-General Ozawa—whose political philosophy begins and ends with elections—on which groups would be given a taste of candy and which would be given a taste of the lash.

And concluded:

If it weren’t for Secretary-General Ozawa, this Administration would be without a control tower or a compass.

It would have been entertaining and educational to hear someone as quick-witted, clever, and self-assured as former Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro respond to that, but he wouldn’t have left himself open to that sort of criticism to begin with.

Alas, the lighter-than-air Mr. Hatoyama lacks Mr. Koizumi’s footwork.

His rebuttal:

The Democratic Party is permeated by a sound internal democracy. The Secretary-General in no way controls either the party or the government.

That’s akin to telling people that a poorly received comment was really a joke. If it was humorous, people wouldn’t need to be told.

Mr. Hatoyama also tried the nyah-nyah-it’s-all-your-fault gambit:

Who were the ones who put us in such harsh financial circumstances?

That one doesn’t work when you’re the one pushing the most debt-laden budget in Japanese history to pay for all sorts of programs that people don’t want and an economic stimulus unlikely to have a lasting effect. You own the economy now.

Be that as it may, there are more compelling ways to make the same rebuttal.

In the end, he was reduced to:

It goes without saying that I make the final determination of Cabinet policy, based on my own judgment.

If it went without saying, he wouldn’t have to be saying it, now would he?

A rainbow bridge between Japan and Korea

A SPLENDID PLACE to start when looking for an exemplary case of international cultural exchange would be the program conducted by Tohoku University of Art and Design in Yamagata City, Yamagata, and the Korea National University of the Arts in Seoul, that country’s only national arts university.

The Japanese university explains its motivation for signing an exchange agreement on 23 February 2008:

This school is attempting to use culture and the arts to create a new philosophy and sense of values in Yamagata and the Tohoku region. We conduct education and research with the objective of clarifying Tohoku’s place in Japan and Asia…We also think the people “living in Asia” must interact and create an identity, which is the starting point for building a peaceful world in this age of globalization. (My quotes)

No, that’s not a justification for a 21st century cultural version of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. They explain in the next sentence that the Korean university shares the same sentiments, and those shared sentiments became the basis for their relationship. The Japanese school refers to their interaction as a “Rainbow Bridge”.

In addition to talking the talk, both schools are walking the walk.

For most of March 2009, the Buyeo National Museum in Buyeo-gun, Chungcheongnam-do, sponsored an exhibit of Nihonga, or traditional Japanese painting using techniques, materials, and conventions more than a millennium old. The works displayed were rendered by teachers and six graduates of the Tohoku school. Each of the six graduates is now affiliated with Japanese museums that have a strong background in the traditional arts.

Korean court music in Yamagata

The name of the exhibit in Japanese was マウムと心展. The first word is the Japanese katakana spelling of the Korean word maum, which means heart or spirit. The Japanese equivalent is kokoro, which is the first word in the kanji at the end (心展). In other words, it was a bilingual expression of a “Heart to Heart (or Spirit to Spirit) Exhibit.”

Two other aspects of that exhibit are worth noting. First, those Japanese artists stressed they use traditional techniques to create original works that are not a slavish imitation of the past. We’ll hear an echo of that idea in just a bit.

Second, Buyeo was the name of an ancient Korean kingdom located in what is now Manchuria. Of the three latter-day Korean kingdoms, both Goguryeo and Baekje considered themselves to be its successor. The museum introduces itself on its website by saying that it specializes in Baekje culture.

The Baekje kingdom had close ties with the evolving Japanese state, and the two entities eventually formed a military alliance to help the former survive in the struggle for supremacy on the Korean Peninsula. That ended when Silla, the third kingdom, conquered Baekje in the 7th century. Some of the nobility on the losing side fled to Japan. The 25th Baekje king was born in Japan, and one woman of the royal house married into the Japanese imperial line, as the current Tenno (emperor) freely admits.

On the 13th of last month, the Koreans returned the favor of the art exhibit with a concert by a group of 23 teachers and students from the Korea National University of the Arts. They presented a program of traditional music and dance and—here’s the echo—“newly composed music”, or recent compositions performed in the traditional style with traditional instruments.

The conductors included Kim Hae-suk, former director of the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts, Kwak Tae-gyu (郭泰規; feel free to correct my reading), the former artistic director of the center’s group for newly composed traditional music, and Bak Yong-ho, the former head of the KBS orchestra. They performed eight pieces of orchestral music, percussion music, and court music, including Sujecheon, a popular piece in the classical repertoire.

The reviewer for the Yamagata newspaper singled out the piece Chungsungguk as having a “clear, beautiful flow” musically. It was used as the setting for a student performance of a traditional crane dance, a symbol that was likely to appeal to the Japanese. The reviewer said the audience was “enthralled by a world of mystery”.

Here’s a YouTube clip of Sujecheon. The similarity with gagaku, Japanese court music that originated primarily in China and to a lesser extent on the Korean Peninsula, will be apparent to those familiar with Japanese music.

Here’s some gagaku for comparison:

The exchange between the two schools are yet another demonstration of several aspects of international relations in Northeast Asia that I keep banging on about. First, the ties between Japanese and Koreans are quite good on a non-official level, contrary to what some people might have you think. Countless numbers of people in the arts, academia, business, and finance get along just copacetic and enjoy each other’s company through programs such as these. Some financially prosper in commercial ventures, if not become gloriously rich. There’s also a constant two-way traffic of students and everyday folks going sightseeing, playing golf, splashing around in hot springs, or shopping till they drop. (A case in point: Two of my wife’s nieces, both in their early 20s, already have a room reserved at the Lotte Hotel in Busan for a trip later this month.)

Second, governments always are, always have been, and always will be the last to get it. People have no trouble working things out for themselves when left to their own devices. They don’t need to hear vapid platitudes; what they do need is to have the politicos put a minimal regulatory system in place that facilitates rather than hinders the interaction and then get out of the way. Bottom-up is always better than top-down.

Finally, this story is just a small part of a larger, ongoing process that began in antiquity. The reason it’s a big deal is that it’s not really a big deal at all. It happens every day.

Afterwords: The Tohoku university people wrote “living in Asia”, and not “Asians”. Did they not choose those words on purpose?