Straight talk on whaling

IF YOU THINK everyone in the West is bashing Japan for whaling, think again: Brendon O’Neill in the Comment is Free section of the Guardian newspaper in Great Britain does not beat around the bush in his attacks on what he calls Ecoimperialism. And that’s not all he calls it:

Under the cover of concern for marine life, Australia and New Zealand are throwing their white weight around in the Pacific, to demonstrate their cultural superiority over the “yellow” nations. They may not be able to touch Japan in economic terms, but they can use the issue of whaling to show the world that they’re morally better than the Japs. It took a contributor to an online discussion forum to spell out openly what everyone else has only said in code. The person posting said “They don’t kill whales for scientific purposes, that is utter bullshit, they kill them because they are fucking evil bloodthirsty amoral wankers”.

His statement of policy?

Demands that the Japanese stop whaling call into question Japan’s status as an independent, sovereign nation. It should be for Japan’s democratically elected leaders alone to decide what to do with the resources in their own seas, as well as in seas to which they have legal access.

He also notes that some African countries are quite sympathetic with the Japan:

It is telling that Japan is being supported by developing countries that know a thing or two about western meddling dressed up as animal rights activism. The Los Angeles Times says some developing countries now look to Japan as a “rebel” voice against “interference by Western activists eager to protect [various] creatures”.

He concludes:

“What could be more barbaric than whaling?”, activists and officials ask. I can think of one thing: the depiction of foreign peoples as uncivilised, and the curtailment of their sovereign rights by white nations and green campaigners who think they know better than the Japs and blacks.

The column has more jolt than a mug of espresso. Another fascinating aspect is its appearance in the Guardian, whose political stance is similar to that of the Asahi.

The article to which Mr. O’Neill links in the Los Angeles Times presents yet another side to the story. The author of that article, Bruce Wallace, claims the Japanese government has a problem with double standards:

Yet despite contending that tradition justifies the whale hunt, the Japanese government balks at accepting similar arguments from the Ainu people on the northern island of Hokkaido who want to fish for wild salmon. The Japanese government has long prevented the indigenous Ainu people from exercising their traditional hunting and fishing rights, including the right to catch salmon as they return to Hokkaido’s rivers to spawn.

Salmon have always been a food staple for the Ainu, such a fundamental element of their culture that they annually perform ceremonies to give thanks for the fish. Only in recent years has the government bent to Ainu lobbying and agreed to permit a small salmon haul that allows a few fish to be caught for ceremonial purposes.

This year’s allowance is 1,700 salmon, up from the 20 approved in previous years.

He seems to be stretching the point somewhat: The Japanese allow salmon catching within limits, and they maintain limits on their own whale hunting.

Mr. Wallace also contradicts his own reporting:

Japan has not yet found a way to extend that principle (support for the traditional way of life in small communities) to its own Ainu community.

Sorry, didn’t he just say that the Ainu are allowed to catch salmon?

Since the number of people in Japan whose ancestry is half Ainu or greater is estimated to range from only 150,000 to 300,000, it’s not as if the amount of salmon caught is insufficient for Ainu ceremonies. And since few, if any, of them live off the land in the way their ancestors did, the Ainu aren’t being deprived of their food supply. There are plenty of salmon in the supermarket, which is where the Ainu find their food these days.

Hasn’t the Japanese government listened to the Ainu appeals and increased the amount of salmon they are permitted to catch? That cannot be said of other governments in their dealings with the Japanese. Nor do the Ainu have to deal with the dangerous mouth-foamers of Sea Shepherd.

Frog(s) Bridge

IF YOU WANT A PEEK into the Japanese soul, one small window might be the Frog Bridge in Inami-cho, Wakayama Prefecture.

Perhaps it would be more proper to call it the Frogs Bridge, because it actually has two frogs, as you can see from the photograph. It’s worth describing the background of the bridge’s construction, because people unfamiliar with the country might not be aware of just how characteristically Japanese this project is.

This Japanese-language profile of the municipality explains that Inami-cho is a small municipality in a beautiful natural environment surrounded by the sea and mountains. Many people in the area are commercial farmers of vegetables, flowers, and ornamental plants. It has a long history, and there are many legends and stories associated with the district.

Unfortunately, not many people know about the place, few visitors come from the big cities, population growth is sluggish, and young people tend to leave on reaching adulthood. The town received a grant from the government to promote regional growth and development, and one of the ideas they came up with for spending the money was the Frog Bridge.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The word for frog in Japanese is kaeru, which has several homonyms. Kaeru became the concept for the bridge’s construction. The inspiration came from the father of Japanese calligraphy, Ono no Tofu (no, not that tofu), who is also known as Ono no Michikaze. The story is told that he found the determination to become a calligrapher by watching a frog try to leap onto a willow branch. From this, he learned the value of effort, patience, and taking bold steps.

The municipality also explains there are five kaeru that are used as hooks in the naming of the bridge. These are:

1. kangaeru (Thinking)
2. Hito wo kaeru (Changing people)
3. Machi wo kaeru (Changing the town)
4. Furusato e kaeru (Returning home)
5. Sakaeru (Flourishing)

I can’t begin to explain how quintessentially Japanese this story is. They’ve managed to use a historical Japanese figure for inspiration and connected him to a unique, instantly recognizable public works project to gain some recognition for themselves in a positive way, and incorporate the Japanese love of wordplay in the process. When I was new to the country, unaware of how affected (infected?) I was by the sense of cynical irony so fashionable in the West, I would have rolled my eyes until they slid out of their sockets at the dorky, hellokittyishness of this bridge and the people who built it.

After so many years in Japan, however, I have come to realize that nothing grows out of cynical irony but weeds, and I’ve begun to appreciate the sincerity and the earnestness of the emotion behind the effort of the people of Inami-cho. I wish them the best, and if I’m ever in their neighborhood, I’ll be sure to stop by to look at the bridge and buy some vegetables or flowers. I’m sure they’re excellent.

Here’s a link to a close-up of the bridge plans, and here’s a link to several more photos; the Japanese writing on the bridge in the fourth photo from the top is the list of five kaerus explained above.

Estúpido

ANDREW BOLT, columnist and blogger for the Herald Sun newspaper of Australia, reports in his blog on a Chilean politician who says that Japan’s claim that it hunts whales for scientific reasons is comparable to the medical research the Nazis conducted on humans.

Former Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel asserted in 1992, “The era of absolutist reason is drawing to a close. It is high time to draw conclusions from that fact.”

Mr. Havel thought this was a positive development. I rather think it would mean the return of the Dark Ages. Putting that discussion aside, however, it is still worth remembering his admonition because we must draw conclusions from the disturbing rise of emotionalism in today’s world, particularly as it affects political and social issues.

Logic and rationality will never be effective with people such as the Chilean politician, those for whom Environmentalism is a religion, or the growing multitudes of people who prefer indulging their emotions rather than doing the hard work of thinking.

That brings up the question: What will be effective?

Matsuri da! (62): Asking for rain–and getting it!

RAIN DANCES aren’t just performed in TV reruns of old Westerns—they’re still part of the annual festival at the Takinomiya Shinto shrine in Ayagawa-cho, Kagawa Prefecture, held every year in late August. The Japanese aren’t dancing to make rain, however. They’re offering their thanks to celebrate the rains that came after a politician interceded with the divinities on behalf of local farmers more than a millennium ago.

The story begins in 888 in Kagawa, then known as Sanuki Province. The area was stricken by drought, so local governor Sugawara no Michizane asked the people to fast and the local Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples to conduct amagoi, or special prayers for rain.

After the skies remained uncloudy all day for several days, the governor took matters into his own hands by clasping them together and beginning a seven-day prayer vigil. Exactly a week later, there was a doshaburi that lasted for three days and nights. (Doshaburi means to rain earth and sand, which is what the Japanese say when it rains cats and dogs.)

The elated farmers rushed to the Takinomiya shrine to thank the divinities for the weather, praised the name of Michizane, and erupted into spontaneous dancing. It was so much fun they kept performing the dance every year, and now it has been designated an intangible cultural treasure of the nation.

Honen’s Addition

But it had already been an established custom for 300 years when the Buddhist monk Honen wandered through the area, watched the dances, and suggested the addition of some choreography. The new version took the form of a nembutsu odori, a Buddhist folk dance that also goes back more than a millennium. These dances are to express the joy of those who receive salvation by chanting the Buddha’s name.

Here’s yet another example of the Japanese taste for mixing and matching. Note that these are Buddhist dances performed at a Shinto shrine. This approach is a lot less contentious than the thou-shalt-have-no-other-God/Allah-before-me attitude of religions in the rest of the world.

The Event

This year’s performance included the Sakamoto nembutsu odori, a similar dance from nearby Marugame, for the first time in three years. In fact, the more stately Sakamoto dance was the first one performed at 5:50 p.m.

The dancers were preceded up the shrine’s main pathway by a group blowing on seashell trumpets. They were followed by the livelier main attraction, as jimbaori- and hakama-clad performers arrived, some carrying umbrellas, and others carrying the flat fans called uchiwa, larger than the usual variety at 60 centimeters (almost two feet). The musical accompaniment was provided by taiko drums, bells, and flutes.

It was unfortunate that this year’s festival happened to coincide with a dry spell, so it was not appropriate to perform a dance of thanksgiving for rain when none had actually fallen. Discretion and restraint being highly esteemed in Japan, the performers decided to tone down the intensity level this time around.

Historical Connections

It sometimes seems as if everything in Japan is connected with everything else in a sort of Nihon-wide web of culture and history, and this festival is an excellent example. Sanuki Province Governor Sugawara no Michizane belonged to a family instrumental in bringing Chinese culture to Japan, and was the most important poet writing in the Chinese language in the country at the time. His anthologies of Chinese poetry have survived to the present.

Michizane later became an influential member of the Imperial court. Known as the patron of learning, he died in Dazaifu, in Fukuoka Prefecture, and he is the tutelary deity in the Dazaifu Tenmangu (another Shinto shrine) built to honor him. It is packed with students studying for entrance examinations every year. Michizane prayed for rain, and the divinities granted his request, so naturally it makes sense to ask his spirit for a little extra help on the tests. Besides, amphetamine-fueled all-nighters are not good for the health, and they don’t do a lot to boost test scores, either.

Meanwhile, Honen was a leading figure of Japanese Buddhism in his time. He was the founder of the Jodo, or Pure Land sect, which still exists today.

Begone!

Ironically, both were exiles. Court intrigue landed Michizane into hot water, and he wound up being banished to Kyushu, where he spent the rest of his days in poverty bemoaning the unfairness of it all. In fact, the Tenmangu shrine was built to placate his ghost, which some thought had returned to cause trouble for those who plotted against him.

Honen’s movement got him in hot water of his own with the Buddhist authorities, and he too was told to get lost. He was finally allowed to return to Kyoto a few months before his death.

Chinese Rainmaking

Michizane’s response to a drought was to cloister himself in prayer for a week. One wonders what the man so familiar with Chinese culture would have thought of contemporary Chinese rainmaking efforts. The leaders of China seem to have a predilection for controlling things the rest of us leave to nature, such the number of children in a family. It’s only short skip from there to controlling when and where it rains, as this brief article describes. The author seems a little too impressed with the authoritarian hubris of the Chinese for his own good.

Far be it from me to suggest that superstition is superior to science, but the worship of the latter often creates a different set of unforeseen problems. It’s an interesting contrast. Michizane lifted his face to the sky in supplication for rain, but the new mandarins hire the peasantry to lift anti-aircraft weapons and rocket launchers instead.

Nippon noel: Christmas trees in Japan

THE START OF CHRISTMAS SEASON means that children everywhere begin dreaming about the present they will receive under the small artificial tree on the 25th and the treat of Christmas cake that awaits them. Young singles look forward with excited anticipation to (or obsess about their prospects for) the traditional heavy date with their significant other on Eve.

Meanwhile, adults get in the spirit by making the rounds of the “forget-the-year” parties held throughout the month. Others with a more sober disposition, particularly women and the elderly, enthusiastically support the combined amateur/professional productions of Beethoven’s Ninth throughout the country with their attendance or active participation.

And everyone looks forward to a finger-lickin’ good fried chicken dinner with their friends or family.

Yes, that’s what Christmas means in Japan. Not everyone stuffs themselves with turkey, hangs stockings by the chimney, or sings about Mommy kissing Santa Claus.

After all, they’ll be eating rice porridge and dried fruit soup in Finland, cabbage, sausage, and brown peas in Latvia, dried salted codfish in Portugal, and fried carp, potato salad, and fish soup in the Czech Republic.

Hungarian children will receive presents in shoes they’ve placed outside the door or window. In some places the Baby Jesus brings the presents, while in Russia the goodies are delivered by Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost), who employs his granddaughter the Snow Maiden as his helper rather than elves and reindeer. Mexican children have to wait until 6 January for their presents, while those in Russia hold out until the 7th. And in Australia and Brazil people are more likely to go to the beach than go dashing through the woods in a one-horse open sleigh.

Some might wonder why Japan, with a Christian population estimated at 1%, would celebrate Christmas. The answer is that the Japanese love a festival better than anyone, and more than a millennium of experience with secular celebrations based on religious ceremonies gives them a head start.

Let’s be honest here—while there are many Christians who focus on the religious aspects of the holiday, millions of people throughout the world celebrate the day and the season as a grand Winter Festival. What could be more natural than for the Japanese to do the same?

Christmas Trees in Japan

The most visible aspect of Christmas in Japan is the public display of Christmas trees. In addition to knowing all about festivals, the Japanese are past masters at borrowing elements from another culture and adding some flair of their own to create something distinctive. The design of public Christmas trees is just another example.

Most of these trees, of course, are erected at department stores, shopping malls, or in commercial districts. One of the first to go up was the Fantasy Tree, shown in the first photo, which was lighted for display on the 23rd at Tokyo’s Yurakucho Seibu Department Store.

Seven meters tall, the Fantasy Tree has 8,000 blue bulbs and is trimmed with a motif of white angel wings. It will be lighted every night through Christmas night.

Visitors who came to see the lighting ceremony were treated to a live concert with several performers, including Korean singer Len (Lee Gi-chan), who performed duets with the Japanese singer Lio from their recent CD LxL.

It might be ungenerous to suggest that blue is an unsuitable color for the season, by the way. In the American city where I grew up, one family in an upscale mid-town residential district on a busy road decorated their house and the hedge surrounding their large yard entirely in blue bulbs. Everyone loved it, and folks still recall it fondly three decades later.

Representing a more religious approach to the holidays is the tree unveiled on the night of the 24th at the Megumi Chalet Karuizawa , a Christian conference center in Karuizawa-cho, Nagano Prefecture. This is also a seven-meter high tree, but it’s trimmed with human beings instead of electric lights. About 80 members of the local Ueda Church clad in red robes arranged themselves in the wooden structure to represent Christmas decorations. They sang Kiyoshi Kono Yoru (Silent Night), Morobito Kozori (Joy to the World), and five other hymns. (Second photo)

The wooden tree—well, that’s what they call it–has seven platforms ringed by green walls decorated with lights. Since this is a Christian facility, the tree is topped with a cross. The human tree was just part of the Christmas decorations and lighting that were unveiled on the same night, which was a chilly 1.1 C—perfect Christmas weather for northern Europeans and North Americans.

The decorations will stay up until the 25th of December, with performances every weekend until then.

The facility says it’s the first outdoor installation of its kind in Japan, but the idea originated in the United States. In fact, they paid two million yen (about US$ 18,500) to have the tree platform shipped from the United States.

Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to get the Americans to send a diagram and hire local carpenters to build one themselves? Ah, but in the spirit of the season let’s let that slide, shall we? Besides, it’s their money!

For a more artistic expression in holiday trees, the Verde Mall shopping district at the JR Kakogawa Station in Kakokawa, Hyogo Prefecture, held a ceremony at 6:30 p.m. on the 22nd to present the Kakogawa River Fantasy, which includes not only an illuminated tree but an entire illuminated shopping district. A crowd of about 1,000 turned out on the first night to see the display, which uses 45,000 light bulbs, 5,000 more than last year. (Third photo)

Yes, there was music underneath the tree in Kakogawa, too, as six groups selected through a preliminary competition performed songs with a winter, rather than a Christmas, theme. The popular female duo Kiroro appeared and sang Fuyu no Uta (Winter Song) among other numbers.

The lights will be lit every night from 5:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. until January 14. That’s even later than Russian Christmas!

Some people in this country—the usual suspects—find Christmas in Japan incongruous. But why should anyone begrudge the Japanese a good time, especially at this time of year, or archly snicker behind their backs because of the local Christmas customs? There’s a word for folks like that.

Scrooge!

Junior high journalism in Japan’s English language press

THE JAPAN TIMES is running an article on its website by Michael Dunn about the Tokyo National Museum’s exhibit of items related to the Tokugawa shogunate. It seems to be an excellent presentation, and if I were in Tokyo I would make a point of paying a visit.

The exhibition, called Legacy of the Tokugawa, is divided into two sections. One contains the shogunate hardware, if you will–weapons, armor, helmets, and other military equipment. The other focuses on the software: items related to culture and the arts.

While the exhibit seems outstanding, the article describing it is less than satisfactory. Mr. Dunn seems to have done some history homework, but there are doubts about the accuracy of his claim that Tokugawa Ieyasu died from the aftereffects of wounds suffered during the siege of Osaka Castle.

This information apparently comes from a book published in 2006 called Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns. This is a revised edition of the original translations and memoirs of Isaac Titsingh, edited by Timon Screech. Titsingh was in charge of the Dutch trading mission at Dejima from 1779 to 1784, more than 150 years after Ieyasu’s death. He claimed to have mastered Japanese in two years.

In the linked review of the book, C.B. Liddell says that Titsingh’s historical accounts have been superceded by more recent research. (Another complication is that Liddell has his own eccentric ideas about Japan, and usually writes about the arts. Is there any country anywhere more ill-served by foreign observers than Japan?)

It is suspicious that this theory on Ieyasu’s death is the only one mentioned in Wikipedia, a source I would not rely on if I were writing something for publication. In addition, modern Japanese sources, who have studied the matter in much greater detail, are not certain how Ieyasu died. (A previous theory of food poisoning from tempura seems to be out of favor, and other theories are stomach cancer and venereal disease.)

Further, Mr. Dunn does the exhibit no justice by conveying the information in the sort of prose one sees in reviews of classic rock music on Amazon.com. (Writers should bury the word “haunting” until they can come up with a better single-word synomym for “lingers in the memory”.)

The real problem, however, lies in the last sentence:

Looking at politics today — and what passes for democracy — there are surely some who would see merit in reinstating them.

By them, he means the shoguns, who were military dictators.

Some questions come to mind after reading this sentence.

Why does Mr. Dunn presume that people reading an article about an exhibit on the Tokugawas care what he thinks about contemporary Japanese politics?

Does he really believe that Japan has a bogus democracy? There are millions of people in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, not to mention more than a billion in China, who would be thrilled to have “what passes for democracy” in Japan.

If he suspects some Japanese would see merit in reinstating a military dictatorship, why does he not present evidence that such people exist? If such people do exist, where is the evidence that suggests their numbers are significant enough to merit mention in an article about a museum exhibition?

Must newspaper readers be subjected to the irrelevant figments of an immature imagination every time they pick up the paper?

Weren’t there any adults at the editors’ desk at the Japan Times to redline this journalistic juvenalia?

Meanwhile, newspaper readership in the United States continues to plummet like a rock. A recent report states that the circulation of the New York Times fell nearly 5% in the past six months alone.

And that brings us to the final question:

Can’t these people put two and two together?

Ave atque vale: Kazuhisa “Iron Arm” Inao (1937-2007)

THE NICKNAME “IRON MAN” in American baseball was bestowed on Cal Ripken for the qualities of physical durability and mental toughness that enabled him to appear in a record 2632 consecutive games—the equivalent of every game for more than 16 seasons–and on Lou Gehrig, the man who held the record before him. Their counterpart in Japanese baseball was infielder Sachio Kinugasa, who played in 2215 consecutive games.

But these three men were what is known as “position players”. It was physically possible for them to play every game in a season, barring injury, because they were defenders in the field reacting to batted balls and were not involved in every pitch or every play.

That’s not the case at all for pitchers, however. The demands of throwing a baseball 100 or more times a game at speeds of 85 to 100 mph and twisting the arm to cause the ball to spin in different directions mean that starting pitchers now play only once every five days. Lasting as many as seven innings of a nine-inning game is considered an excellent performance. Winning 20 games in the 162-game American baseball season places them among the elite of their profession. Today’s benchmark for a strong, durable starting pitcher is to work 200 innings in a season.

Relief pitchers, who are brought into the game when the starting pitcher tires or is ineffective, play more frequently. An excellent relief pitcher with stamina will appear in a third or more of his team’s games during the season, but he will only pitch an inning or two at most.

What standards of performance would earn a pitcher the Iron Man moniker? In Japan, every baseball fan knows that the man who epitomized the physical durability and mental toughness deserving of that term is Kazuhisa Inao, the player they called Tetsuwan (Iron Arm). Inao died on 13 November, and his memorial service was held on Thursday.

Here’s the story behind that nickname, but be prepared. Those of you outside Japan who follow baseball will be astounded by what you are about to read.

Unheralded Rookie Steps Up

Inao made his debut as a professional baseball player in 1956 for the Nishitetsu Lions of Fukuoka City and played for that team his entire career. His skills did not attract the attention of manager Osamu Mihara or the coaching staff at first, but he was signed to pitch batting practice in accordance with the universal baseball axiom that a team cannot have too many pitchers. Inao established himself over the course of the exhibition season, however, and won a spot on the roster as a relief pitcher. His initial appearances were in mop-up roles out of the bullpen at the end of games already decided.

The rookie was so effective that he was shifted to the starting rotation in mid-May. The right-hander went on to compile a 21-6 won-lost record for the year, with an eye-popping earned run average of 1.06, still the single-season record for the Pacific League. To no one’s surprise, he was named Rookie of the Year.

Most pitchers would sell their souls to the devil for a season such as that, but Inao was just getting warmed up. The next year, 1957, he won 35 games, a number inconceivable in the sport today, and 20 of those were in a row—another Japanese record. (You’ll be seeing that phrase a lot.) He went on to win at least 30 games in three consecutive years, which no other Japanese pitcher has ever done.

Career Highlights

If that victory total is inconceivable, no words exist to describe his 1961 season, when he won 42 games to tie the Japanese single-season record. (He shares the mark with Russian-born Victor Starfin, who racked up that total when the standards for awarding wins to pitchers were more ill-defined than they are now.)

We should note that when Inao played, the staff’s ace pitcher was also expected to pitch in relief. Still, Inao threw 25 complete games in 1961–seven of which were shutouts–started another five that he didn’t finish, and appeared in 78 games in all. He finished a total of 43 games, suggesting he was used in the role of closer for as many as 18. He pitched 404 innings that year, one of five in which he pitched more than 370 innings.

Could anyone top that performance? Inao already had.

Inao’s Lions squared off against the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, the perennial powers of Japanese baseball, in the 1958 Japan Series, a seven-game tournament to determine the championship. The Lions lost the first three games, meaning they were one more loss away from elimination.

Explaining his thought processes some years later, Lions manager Mihara said he was resigned to losing the series at that point. He based his strategy for the remaining games on what he thought the other players and fans would want him to do, so he decided to go again with his ace, Inao.

Inao had already started games one and three, pitching a complete game in the latter, which he lost 1-0. But Mihara brought him back to start game four…and to pitch seven innings of one-hit relief in game five…and to start game six—all of which he won. To be sure, the games were not played on consecutive days. There was a rainout between games three and four, and a two-day layoff between games five and six.

The man with the arm of iron still wasn’t finished. He pitched in relief in game seven, and was the winning pitcher in that game, too, as the Lions stunned Japanese baseball with an unprecedented come-from-behind surge to win the championship four games to three. Inao was credited with the win in all four of the Lions’ victories in that series (and suffered two of their three losses), pitching 47 innings—a record–and striking out 32 batters—another record. His ERA over the six games in which he appeared was 1.57, with a WHIP (walks plus hits divided by innings pitched) of 0.72.

But this was a series of the kind dreams and movies are made of, so before you pick your jaw up off the floor, here’s something else—as a batter, he hit a walk-off home run in the 10th inning of game five to win that contest. (In Japan those are called sayonara home runs, by far the better term.) It was the first sayonara home run in Japan Series history. (The second photo shows him approaching home plate after the home run.)

Celebrating the victory, the local paper covering his team ran a headline that was to become famous: “Kami-sama, Hotoke-sama, Inao-sama”. The first is the Shinto deity, the second is the Buddhist deity, and the third, Inao, was now the God of Baseball.

Years later, when Inao visited his manager Mihara in the hospital, the latter apologized for overusing him to suit his own circumstances. Inao shrugged it off: “In those days, I was happy just to be able to pitch.”

Overuse Takes its Toll

Inao notched his 200th victory in 1962, not surprising when you consider that he won at least 20 games in his first eight seasons. But even iron is subject to metal fatigue, and Inao suffered a shoulder injury in 1964 that caused him to sit out most of the season.

His rehabilitation program was just as incredible as his performance on the field. The concept of sports medicine didn’t exist in those days, and someone came up with an idea that would render the modern baseball observer speechless. Inao had an iron baseball made and practiced pitching with that. The idea was that he would became used to the weight of the iron ball, so throwing a regular baseball would no longer seem painful.

At this point, do I need to tell you that it worked? His shoulder pain disappeared after a few months.

He returned as a relief specialist, though he was not as effective as before. He still had enough gas in the tank to win the ERA title once again in 1966, but he finally retired in 1969 at the age of 32. His early exit as an active player spurred Japanese baseball to rethink the role of the starting pitcher and increase the size of the starting rotation.

Post-Retirement Career

The following season, the Lions hired him as manager, the youngest man to hold that position in the Japan League. But the franchise was beset with other problems, and he was not as successful in the role of skipper as he was a pitcher. The team finished in last place three years in a row, and he stepped down in 1974.

Inao returned to baseball in 1978 as the pitching coach for the Chunichi Dragons (the team Tom Selleck played for in the movie Mr. Baseball), a role he performed for three seasons. He later came back to manage the Lotte Orions from 1984 to 1986.

After hanging up his spikes, Inao worked as a baseball analyst in both the print and broadcast media. For his career, he compiled a won-lost record of 276-137 (10th most wins in Japan), 2,574 strikeouts (8th all-time), with a lifetime ERA of 1.98 (3rd all-time). His career WHIP was 0.99. He also holds the Japanese record for most wins in a month, with 11. Yet another record he holds is the number of complete games pitched in a career in the Japan Series, with nine. He was named Most Valuable Player in 1957 and 1958. It goes without saying that he was inducted into Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993 (third photo).

Upbringing a Factor

Inao was born in Beppu, Oita Prefecture, to parents who were fishermen. He was known for being unflappable in the tightest of circumstances, which he attributed to a childhood spent working on a flimsy fishing boat:

“There was just a thin board and underneath that was the sea. Every day I got on that boat without knowing whether I would live or die. That’s the reason I never got flustered on the mound.”

In addition to coolness under fire, he was also known for his courtesy as a player. At the end of each inning, he made sure to leave the resin bag in exactly the same spot and to fill in and smooth over the holes he had dug at the front of the pitching mound by striding with his front foot.

Inao’s pitching technique also set him apart from his peers–he pitched without his back heel on the ground, spinning on his toes. Inao said he developed this technique from rowing the family fishing boat. His two best pitches were a slider and screwball, and he is said to have been able to change the grip on the ball from one to the other in the middle of his pitching motion. He also mastered the forkball, but—in yet another astonishing aspect of an astonishing career—only did so because of the difficulty he had facing Kihachi Enomoto, the batter who had the most success against him. Inao said he never threw a forkball in a game to anyone else.

Extraordinary pitching control was one more reason for his success. Recalled longtime batterymate, catcher Hiromi Wada, “He was like a machine with his control. He could place his pitches within a third of a baseball where he wanted to at any time.” (Wada is on the right in the fourth photo, with Inao on the left.)

Admitted to the hospital in October complaining of a loss of feeling in his shoulder and leg, Kazuhisa Inao died of a malignant tumor less than a month later. He was 70 years old.

The jigsaw puzzle of Japanese politics

THOSE WHO ENJOY thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles would love the challenge of trying to create a single picture out of the jumble of Japanese politics. Imagine puzzle pieces capable of spontaneously changing shape. One minute they are a frustrating unmatched mess, the next minute they morph into a perfect fit, and a minute after that you find yourself working on a different puzzle altogether.

To give you an idea of what’s involved, here’s some surprisingly straight talk for a Japanese politician from Shizuka Kamei (first photo), one of the leaders of the People’s New Party.

The apprentice geisha

IF YOU’VE NEVER SEEN an apprentice geisha perform, this is your chance.

KNB-TV in Toyama City, Toyama Prefecture (which has a 70% chance of snow tomorrow) broadcast a 59-second report on a maiko, an apprentice geisha in Kyoto, returning to her former nursery school in the city of Kurobe to perform for the children.

If you have RealPlayer, you can access the clip here.

Following is a quick translation of the newscaster’s report:

“A Kyoto maiko originally from Kurobe visited her former nursery school on the 21st and performed a graceful dance for the children.

“The visitor to the Ishida Nursery School in Kurobe was the Kyoto maiko Miharu (17), whose original name was Yurina Jodo.

“Miharu attended the Ishida Nursery School, and on the 21st she performed the dances Kyo no Shiki (The Four Seasons of the Capital [Kyoto]) and Gion Ko’uta (Gion Song) for the students and local residents.

“Miharu wanted to become a maiko in her primary school days. After being graduated from junior high school, she trained in Kyoto and debuted as a maiko in October 2005.

“The children were thrilled to see an authentic maiko, and they were captivated by her charming and graceful dances.”

Partway through the broadcast, there is a shot of three girls saying “kawaii” simultaneously. That’s the word for cute.

This should play if you have RealPlayer. If there are a lot of problems, let me know and I’ll see if I can figure something out.

A moral absurdity?

DAVID WARREN THINKS the global warming campaign of environmentalists is a crock comparable previous scares concerning nuclear winter, the population bomb, and global famine.

He also thinks that to:

…”force the relatively efficient and cleanly Japanese to surrender huge quantities of cash in “carbon credits” to China’s dictatorial regime, while also surrendering advanced technology…”

is a moral absurdity.

He notes that:

…”Japan…for ideological purposes…now counts — along with South Korea, Taiwan, and any other technologically-advanced, free Asian countries — as part of the West. Largely bereft of natural resources, these countries built what they have by their own inventive efforts, paying all the way. Mainland China, by comparison, has enjoyed the latecomer’s advantage of massive foreign investment and technology transfer, under the direction of a heavily militarized system of central command.”

The entire piece is here.

While I agree that it is morally absurd, China is indeed fouling the East Asian nest with its pollution, and someone has to deal with all that muck. The Japanese government has apparently concluded that the Chinese (and Indians) are not going to clean up after themselves, as Prime Minister Fukuda is about to unveil a major environmental initiative for Asia this week.

Major Japanese daily Mainichi reported Monday…that Fukuda will unveil an environmental aid package worth US$2 billion over the next five years.
The seed money and resources for Asian nations will go toward the transfer of technologies for clean industries. Japan already gives roughly US$450 million worth loans and grants to China for environmental programs.
Japan’s western coast suffers greatly from air pollution drifting from China, whose industries are 10 times less energy-efficient than Japanese industries, according to the Japanese officials.

Here’s a previous Ampontan post discussing the consequences for Japan of Chinese pollution, and another on a different columnist’s morally (and intellectually) absurd solution.

Those readers who feel the urge to upload a rant about global warming are encouraged to read this, this (and the wealth of links), and this first.

If going through all that material seems as if it might be too tedious, then here’s the best single-shot package. It also has the advantage of providing comic relief.

To conclude, a question: Which do you think will receive more media coverage in the week ahead? The generous Japanese environmental aid package, or the new whaling expedition in the South Pacific?