The Imperial Moat

Impatient Film Buff

2009-05-28T05:36:00.000-07:00

One of those things I fail to comprehend about Japan even this many years in is why so many Hollywood films open later in Japan than in other countries. I don't just mean later than English-speaking countries, either. When there is a film I want to see, it inevitably opens in Russia and Malaysia and Djibouti before it opens in Japan. The same translation issues apply, don't they?
Lately Japan has been getting international premieres in Tokyo, and most big action blockbusters open just a couple weeks later than in LA. If they can open some movies in a similar time frame, why not all?
There seems to be no rhyme or reason the the selection of movies. Harry Potter opened soon after the US release, which is understandable, but so did House of Wax (this is how desperate I am for English, I paid ¥1800 to see this steaming pile of shite). Star Trek (which I am going to see this weekend!) is only a month late, but Twilight opened 5 months after the US premiere.
My biggest disappointment is that all of the Chronicles of Narnia films open much later here. I loved the books, and I have loved the films, and I hate waiting. The first film was 5 months later than its US premiere, and Prince Caspian was 3 months later. The DVD was out in the US a week after each of the films opened over here. I prefer watching films in theatres, but when it's faster to import the DVD than to arrange childcare, I'll do that.
I've never figured out why films open so late here. I do have a conspiracy theory that involves Johnny's Jimusho and the protective Japanese film industry, but nothing concrete. Whatever the reason, I hope this practice stops. I'm impatient and I don't want to wait until 2011 for Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Good news for abused kids (and all families)

2009-05-28T00:04:00.000-07:00

Today finally brings some happy news to the children of Japan. Only 20 years after signing the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, Japan has decided to consider suspending the parental rights of abusive parents.
I am not foolish enough to believe that this means the government will do this within the next year or 3, but just discussing the issue is a long-awaited step in the right direction.
The issue at hand is the feudalistic family register. The head of the family in Japan has all the power. Even if he lives away from the wife and children he abused, since they are in his family register, he gets payments from the local government for children's benefits (usually around 10 000 yen a child per month), as well as the recent 12 000 yen per person vote-buying scheme.
The family register has no place in modern society- I am not even really sure it had a place in history either. Now, I love records, and historical records like this would normally make my heart flutter with excitement. The problem is that the historical records are not normally kept in Japan. Japan's municipalities are notoriously crap with keeping records, and once everyone in a certain family register has died, there is not much chance of archiving. So if these aren't going to be kept as historical records, what's the reason for having them at all?
I think it's to have a legal way to discriminate against those who are different. One look at the family register, which is required for school registration, passport applications among other applications, and someone can tell if your family is the right kind or not. If you (or your parents) were not born in wedlock, it says the child is a "boy" or "girl," rather than "oldest boy," "oldest girl," "second boy" and so on. Which doesn't matter in the rest of the world, but Japan prides bullying those younger than you, so birth order (even for twins) is extremely important.
I'm getting somewhat off-topic (what's new?), but I think that the idea of suspending parental rights is a good one for the the reformation of the legal standing of people within a family.
Eventually, I hope that neglect is considered child abuse, and that children languishing in institutions with no ties but legal ones to their families are able to have their guardian's rights suspended so they can be available for adoption.
Adoption is a sensitive topic for me. We've been trying to adopt through the government (rather than through a religious agency) for 5 years, and had one adoption fall through. The reason that we can't adopt is because there are so few children available. Even though orphanages have hundreds of residents, there are very few whose parents or guardians actually give up their rights so that the child could be adopted by a loving family. Adoption outside the family is looked down upon in Japan, and living in an institution is considered better than living with another family that is not blood related. It's also about saving face. If another family can raise the child you gave up on, that makes it your fault rather than the child's, and no Japanese wants anyone to know when something is their fault. This makes me blind with rage. I really hope the government steps up to the plate and suspends the parental rights of people who have abandoned their kids as well as those who are being physically abused.

Cashless in Japan

2009-05-27T23:31:00.000-07:00

Japan is a cash society. It is slowly moving away from this, but it is still predominantly run on cash.
One of the reasons for this is the tax system. Like in France, small businesses prefer to receive cash so they don't have to log a purchase and therefore don't have to pay taxes. Almost all Japanese businesses run a loss every year to get out of paying taxes, and many salaried workers have a small business on the side, such as rice farming, in order to report a loss and get their taxes reduced on their regular salary.
It's not all about tax evasion, however. Now the problem is the lack of a coherent cashless system. It's not that there are no options in Japan for paying without cash, it's that there are too many.
Many stores and petrol stations have their own cards. You load the card with cash and then just use it for that- but they are never unified, so you end up with dozens of cards. The way the company makes a profit from this is those tiny balances you just can't use up, similar to North American gift cards. I just counted up the cards I have in my wallet (5) and the balances- and I have 7230 yen just waiting unused in my wallet. I am going to use that up over the next month, come hell or high water.
The good thing about some of these cards are their rewards. I've gotten free elecronics from BicCamera using this system, and a lot of batteries. The best for me, however, is Jusco's Waon card, with which I collect JAL airmiles. Between this and excessive use of my JAL credit card, I earned a free domestic flight last year and a free overseas flight this summer. My husband has enough on his card for a flight to Asia, and I hope we can take advantage of the recent 2-for-1 JAL mileage campaign to have a long weekend in Shanghai or Phuket this autumn.
My parents were highly amused with my ability to pay for things with my mobile phone when they visited. This has the potential to be very convenient, but for some reason it's been mucked up. A quick perusal of the Wikipedia page about the "mobile phone wallet" lists 37(!) different systems for paying with your mobile. You have to sign up for each. If you lose your mobile, you have to contact each company to cancel each system as well. This means it's actually a gigantic pain in the rear. What happened to the good old monopoly? I think Japan needs Bill Gates to come over and reform the cashless system.
Today I read about the ability to send money to someone's bank account using their mobile number. This sounds great, a very Japanese take on Paypal (which cannot yet be linked to Japanese bank accounts, although that might be coming in 2010 or 2011). It also helps with privacy issues and with avoiding having to go to the bank or ATM during the short hours they are open. I hope this doesn't get mucked up as well. I can just imagine that you could only send to someone on the same service provider as your mobile phone or something else ridiculous.

What do you believe?

2008-12-17T03:33:00.000-08:00

Over the last couple of years I have become more and more sure in my atheism. I'm not a militant atheist by any means. I'm not going to convert theists. But I do enjoy my spiritual journey much more now that I am not feeling guilty for not believing what I was taught to believe.

I recently took one of those meaningless quizzes on the internet to figure out if I am as much of an atheist as I proclaim. Apparently I am not. The site recommends these as the religions that are most closely aligned to my beliefs.

1.	Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2.	Secular Humanism (93%)
3.	Theravada Buddhism (87%)
4.	Neo-Pagan (86%)
5.	Liberal Quakers (78%)

Am I surprised? A little. If I had ranked them myself in the first place I would have probably done it in the order of 1. Non-theist, 2. Secular Humanism, 3. Neo-Pagan, 4. Mahayana Buddhism, 5. Liberal Quaker.

Of course, being in Japan does give me a different perspective from the writers of this quiz. Our door-knockers are just as often from Buddhist sects as they are Mormons or Jehovahs Witnesses.

I do believe that it is nye on impossible to choose a religion by multiple choice. I believe in a lot of "probably but coulds." There is probably no afterlife, but our essence could be reincarnated. There is probably no reckoning, but karma could take care of evil to give cosmic balance. Just more questions on my spiritual journey. If I had all the answers it would be a damn boring journey, wouldn't it?

What do you believe? Take the quiz here.

So Long Life-Time Employment

2008-12-17T00:13:00.001-08:00

The job losses at Canon, Toyota, and Sony last week are hitting hard. The mood around here is not happy- in fact, this is the bleakest I've seen it since I arrived. Japan's economy was a bit shite from the moment I arrived, but with no inflation whatsoever and a consumer price index that fell from its height of the bubble era, people could make do.
How do they make do now?
These companies basically prop up the little towns in which they are located. Outsourcing is a huge part of their succcess- so it's not just the thousands of temp workers who have been fired, but also the small parts business which are going bankrupt. So many of the little factories in my neighbourhood are going to go belly up in the next few weeks, just because one of these companies is cutting production in our town. The snowball effect isn't going to leave anyone unscathed. There's a little family-run alcohol shop by our house, which is owned by a couple the same age as my husband and I. They had been doing quite well- they are open at odd hours which is good for a 3-shift factory system, and our neighbourhood is peppered with workers from that big factory. On Sunday the husband told me he will have to decide whether or not to close by January 15th. That's how scared they are.
Honestly, I was shocked that Sony cut thousands of full-time regular (seishain) workers. Those of us who are seishain work hours that are too long without overtime pay for the main reason that our jobs are supposed to be safe as long as the company doesn't go bankrupt. That's not the case anymore. I hope my co-workers realize it's all a big fallacy and they might as well spend time with their families now. I doubt it though.
I, too, am scared. My husband's work depends on the local economy justifying his branch's existence. He won't get fired, but if his branch closes down he will be commuting for hours a day in a car we don't own (because the trains don't run at the time he has to go to work), and I won't stand for that. I have so few precious fucking hours with him I don't want to lose any more. But what can we do? I want him to try to find other work now, but he has this stupid sinking ship mentality.
What can anyone do? Sacrifice more Ichiban noodles to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I guess.

Attack of the Killer Foot Massager

2008-12-17T00:11:00.000-08:00

Three people who used a foot massager for a neck massage died when their clothes got caught in the uncovered massager.
The manufacturer has recommended not taking the cover off of the massager.

Why not just recommend taking your clothes off first? Makes sense to me!

Sending New Year's cards to online friends and enemies

2008-12-08T18:13:00.000-08:00

December has rolled in again, and like most people in Japan, I am busy scribbling addresses and the same boring greeting to all my colleagues, bosses, and acquaintances in Japan. Things have gotten easier over the years. You can buy custom printed cards and even use your computer to print the addresses on (if you can figure out how, which I decidedly cannot).

Mixi, the myspace of Japan, has figured out how to make things easier on you if you want to send new year greetings to your online friends- by introducing an SNS greeting card service. The apparent plus point is that you can send this but still be anonymous. If your mixi screen name is kawaii-kitty-chan-daisuki, that's the name that will be on your greetings. No fussing about with learning the real names or addresses of the people you flirt with online.

Maybe it's just me, but I find this creepy. My foyers into the Mixi world haven't been very interesting, so I might be biased. I do find that Japanese web forums, all stemming from the totally anonymous 2-ch, lack the community feeling that most English-language forums have. I'm also scared that anyone I meet on Mixi might end up inviting me to a suicide pact forum, but that's probably just irrational. Probably.

If I like someone online so much that I want to send them a new year's greeting, why wouldn't I already know their name and where they live, or at least have the balls to ask them for that information? I guess it would stop pervs from getting the addresses of 12 year old girls, but there should be something in place to stop this happening long before these pervs are getting close enough to send them cards.

Who do I want to send anonymous greetings to? Certainly not people I like. Prime Minister Asshole is on the list, as are most goverment ministers. Bullies I have worked with in the past and the nutjobs who commit crazy crimes around Japan are at the top of my list. They wouldn't be the normal greetings, which are basically just a plea for people not to hate you (thank you for everything last year, please like me next year too). It would be more along the lines of, I hope you get attacked by this:

Or, since 2009 is the Year of the Bull/Cow

I like this idea better and better.

Burning Question

2008-12-04T18:45:00.000-08:00

Why is there no Chicken Soup for the Atheist Soul? Everyone else has one. I like sappy overly moralistic stories as much as the next chick, just without the whole Jesus element. I think they're missing out on a serious demographic here.

Want to improve the economy? Get diabetes!

2008-12-03T17:34:00.000-08:00

The newest idiotic scheme to improve the Japanese economy from the people who brought you "cement every river" and "work 100-hour weeks" is: eat more rice.

Huh?

Shigeru Ishiba, the Minister for Agriculture and Idiocy, suggests that an additional bite of nutrient-free white rice at every meal will save the Japanese economy. Oh rly? He wants Japan to be more self-sufficient.

How is this going to happen? Even though tariffs on imported rice exceed 700%, rice is still imported. If it wasn't, Mikasa Foods wouldn't be in a world of trouble after the tainted rice scandal earlier this autumn. Even if Japanese people do increase their average annual rice consumption from 60kg to 63kg, that money might be going into the pockets of a farmer in California, Kunming, or the Philippines. Personally, I am not opposed to that, but I'm pretty sure Minister Ishiba's tighty-whities would be permanently knotted if that happened.

The big problem with increasing rice consumption? It's bad for people's health. With all the focus on the Japanese "metabo," a made-up "disease" which takes attention away from the real health problems of diabetes, stomach cancer, and heart disease, you'd think that the Japanese government would try their damndest to get people to eat healthier food, right? Wrong.

White rice is pointless. After the war it was a luxury people could not afford before the war. Just like ugly Louis Vuitton knockoffs, eating white rice is a holdover from the poor days of Japan's past. Everyone in Japan wants to ignore their lack of central heating by pretending they are rich. Eating brown rice (you know, the stuff with nutrients in it) is looked down upon. My own mother-in-law told off my midwife for suggesting it for post-baby regularity. Good thing she's never looked in my pantry.

It's not 1946 anymore. It's time that Japan stopped its focus on unhealthy white rice as its staple food and returned to its roots- by eating high fibre carbohydrates including brown rice. It would be nice to see whole wheat pasta and bread on store shelves as well. The price should be lower than white rice or white bread, because they don't need to overprocess the food to take out all the taste.

Unless the Agriculture Ministry is working with the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare to ensure jobs in the future for Filipina nurses who will take care of those dying due to their unhealthy lifestyle choices.

Japan’s foreign worker training program is a pile of steaming crap

2008-10-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

New data on the foreign worker training program shows that it is so bad many workers don’t even complete their terms. The program started as a way to recruit foreign workers for the 3K jobs (dirty, dangerous, and under terrible conditions) most Japanese don’t want to do. The benefits the Japanese government touted were that these jobs would be filled and these workers would take back technological skills to their own countries. The key part of that is actually not the feeling of noblesse oblige, of First World Japan doing its part for the dumpy nations of Asia, but the part where the foreigners go home.
The Japanese government poured money into this program, not just the recruitment part or matching of potential employees with employers, but they subsidize the pitiful wage. All for what? I don’t want foreigners to be exploited on any level, but using my taxes to do it? Shameful.
So why don’t employees want to stay? Isn’t this just like a college study-abroad term?
No way. I’ve known about 6 people who worked in Japan as foreign trainees, and the term “trainee” is a misnomer. Training is usually limited to Japanese conversation, usually provided free by female university students. Otherwise these trainees are supposed to show up at their manufacturing or garbage-picking job (sorry, recycling technology)and just do their jobs. They stay in rooms provided by the company with other trainees. I have never known a Japanese person to have a roommate in this country, it’s just not done, but they force roommates (and in tiny Japanese apartments) on their trainees. My trainee acquaintances complain of the same thing other foreigners do; since they won’t be staying long none of the Japanese employees tries to get to know them. Then there are the working conditions; long hours, peer pressure to do overtime without recording it, no days off, no sick time. Basically it is the sad plight of most Japanese blue-collar workers but with two big differences; there is no hope you will one day become manager if you keep your head down, and the salary is vastly lower than the measly one given to the Japanese in the same positions. That’s right, even though the Japanese government subsidizes the wages, they can’t even be bothered with minimum wage which does not apply to trainees (Japanese or not).
My first few years in a Japanese company were hell. The problem with coming from another country to Japan is that you know how productive people can be, and you know how workers should be treated. Japanese workers are neither respected nor productive, but they don’t know anything else. If I hadn’t been given a living wage, I would not have stayed. There is no incentive for foreign trainees, primarily from countries with lower costs of living than Japan, to go into debt to come to Japan to be exploited.
This system has to change. There have to be stricter regulations. The employers should prove not only that they have a training regimen, but also how it will be useful to the trainees in their own country (carefully placing a key into a cellphone keypad: not useful). The way blue-collar workers are treated in Japan is disgraceful, and the fact that foreign trainees are treated even worse is despicable. Japan has already been called out by the US for its role in trafficking women, and it must change its foreign trainee system before once again faces censure from the world for continuing its slave trade from the 1930s.

What is this blog?

2008-10-09T18:32:00.000-07:00

This blog is the honest ramblings of a mouthy expat working mother in Japan. It is inspired by the emotionally honest blogs that drew me into the blogging world, like A Little Pregnant, Uppercase Woman and other infertility blogs, as well as feminist and political blogs that inspire me. I hope to blog about news in Japan, from the absurd things that make up an anime geek's wet dreams, to the politics that shapes my world. As an added treat: lots of dirty posts and filthy language.

What this blog isn't
It's not a travel blog. I will give recommendations if you request them, but I am not a tourist in Japan. Living somewhere for more than a decade pretty much means that the wide-eyed newbie who loves the magic of temples and pottery shops is gone and replaced with someone who is more likely to point out the motorcycle gang hangouts and most obnoxiously neoned pachinko parlors than a place to buy postcards.
This is not a blog for my grandma and grandpa at home who want to see pictures of their great-grandchildren. Mostly because I no longer have any grandparents left, but also because those are the blogs which are not emotionally honest. You, dear reader, are just as anonymous to me as I am to you.
This is not a blog where I will complain about my spouse. To me, those are the worst blogs in the world. Possibly because I married the world's best man, but I would be unbelievably pissed off if I found out he was complaining about my cooking or the way I fold clothes or pretty much anything else about me on the internet. So I won't do it to him.
This is not a food blog either. If you want Japanese recipes, try OishiiOishii. If you want bento tips (other than get your child into a daycare or kindergarten where they are not required), try Lunch in a Box.