Weird moment of the week

Seated next to Dr. NakaMats at a study group at the International House of Japan, I listened to researcher Watanabe Tsuneo -- not the onetime Yomiuri boss -- explain the meaning of "nappy-headed hos" in Japanese to an audience of businessmen and retired diplomats and politicians.

Beat that, if you can.

All fungoes, all the time

Believe it or not, the year-round extravaganza that is Japanese baseball is gearing up for another season.

It seems like only yesterday -- mere weeks after my arrival here -- that the Trey Hillman-managed Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters bested the Chunichi Dragons in the Japan Series.

What prompted this post? One of the sports channels offered by my cable provider has been showing Hanshin Tigers spring training round the clock all week. And by spring training I don't mean exhibition games -- actual training. Over the past several days I've seen catchers doing pop-up drills, pitchers going through their daily workouts, and hitters taking simultaneous live batting practice with a row of batting cages lined up at home plate. These aren't highlights or anything: just raw footage with commentary.

While I know that the Hanshin Tigers are a special case, as Tigers fans are perhaps the most fanatic in the world, this strikes me as a bit much.

Then again, I hope that I'll catch infield drills one day. Japanese teams run infield drills with greater intensity than I'm used to back in the US.

Passing out leaflets on cold January morns

I've just arrived at the office after an hour and a half -- from 6:30am to 8am -- of distributing fliers outside a nearby train station. This was the third morning this week of standing outside a train station during the morning rush greeting commuters with "ohayou gozaimasu" and "Minshuto desu."

I figured that three mornings of waking up at dawn in order to stand out in the cold would make me miserable, but, surprisingly, I've had a great week. Unlike earlier occasions when I assisted with distributing fliers, I've been placed in positions of greater visibility and heavier traffic. And I love it.

Watching the morning commute in process provides a great cross-section of Japanese society, (at least in this electoral district): young, old, men, women, lots of school children of all ages, middle-aged and old men dressed in natty, three-piece business suits, young adults who look like they're ready to hang out in Harajuku. Lots of iPods. A lot of people who appear to be literally sleepwalking their way to work. I've played a game over the course of the week, trying to "profile" people and guess who will take a flier. Not surprisingly, middle-aged to older men are far more likely to take a flier than any other demographic category. Behind them are probably older women and younger men, followed by middle-aged women. The least likely has been younger women. I hope the interest in taking a flier is not reflective of an interest in politics, although I suspect it is -- which means Japan may have a government by and for old men for some time to come.

Meanwhile, I remain a curiosity, especially to school children.

Earlier this week, I wrote about the coming of mass communication politics to Japan. While I remain interested in seeing more use of mass communications media to communicate with voters, I hope that Japanese democracy retains its emphasis on persistent direct, personal contact with voters even as it makes more use of TV and radio.

Consider this: my boss is not even up for election this year, and while his appearances this week have been partially in support of a candidate for the prefectural legislature, the idea of addressing and meeting voters in a non-election year strikes me as unusual. These appearances aren't coordinated events at which the politician preaches to the converted. They are simply a matter of mingling with the electorate, without separating out voters by partisan, professional, or other affiliations.

There are a number of possible explanations for Japan's reliance on this type of mass politics, include the geography of Japanese society (densely populated, with train stations serving as major nodes of activity), election law that limits the types of campaigning that candidates may use, and a society that continues to stress the importance of personal connections in politics and business.

This is neither the time nor the place to dig deeper into which of these causes is the leading explanation for the Japanese style of campaigning, but I think the result is that elected officials and candidates are more accessible to voters than in the US.

Soy it ain't so

And now for some serious news...

In early January natto -- a uniquely Japanese soybean dish about which no Japanese is neutral -- was hailed on a Japanese variety show as being able to reduce a person's weight by two-three kilograms in two or three weeks if eaten twice a day. It turns out, however, that the magical weight loss properties of natto were more than slightly exaggerated.

Richard Lloyd Parry on The Times (of London, for my fellow Americans) is all over the story surrounding false reports about the natto diet. (Check out Parry's posts on the subject -- full of puns as awful as natto is said to smell -- here, here, and here.)

For my part, I love natto. My preferred way of preparing it is in fried rice, but I also like it on toast with mustard and a slice of cheese melted on top. I'm not quite sure how I will feed my addiction once I return home.

The rotten heart of 'ugly Japan'

Taking a break from chronicling the fortunes of Abe Shinzo, I found this article in the Japan Times fascinating.

It reports on talk of relocating the elevated expressway that currently runs over the Nihonbashi Bridge, a historic landmark in the center of Tokyo and once the origin point for the Tokaido trunk road that ran from Edo to Kyoto during the Tokugawa Shogunate. (See Hiroshige's ukiyo-e print from his series on the fifty-three stations of the Tokaido.)

When I first saw the bridge three years ago, I was stunned. I couldn't believe that a historic landmark -- albeit, one that was built only about a century ago -- was trapped in the shadow of a massive concrete expressway. But now, being more familiar with Japan, I'm not surprised at all. There is a mistaken impression that the Japanese have a unique respect for their past, and for nature; it does not take long to see how mistaken this notion is. Particularly when the country was in the frenzy of rapid development during the 1960s and 1970s, considerations of history or the environment more or less fell by the wayside. Just look at Japan's concrete shorelines and riverbanks. There are, of course, places of substantial historical value and natural beauty -- I'm fortunate enough to live among many of them in Kamakura. But to argue that the Japanese have a kind of unique devotion to public aesthetics and respect for the environment is specious.

As for the Nihonbashi Bridge, I'm not the only one who thinks it's an aesthetic tragedy. It topped Itoh Shigeru's list of Japan's most atrocious sites in his 2006 report "Ugly Japan."

In any case, for a more sustained argument on this point, check out Alex Kerr's Dogs and Demons.

(Thanksgiving) Evening in Japan

Meanwhile, Thanksgiving here has come and gone. Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers.

Thanksgiving being my favorite of American national holidays, I would have liked to find somewhere to have Thanksgiving dinner tonight, but emails went unanswered, so I made pancakes and watched Simpsons DVDs while waiting for Kamakura Cable to set up my internet and cable television. For "Thanksgiving" dinner I made vegetable udon, salmon, and rice. At least I had the day off, it being Japan's Labor Thanksgiving Day.

The nicest thing about being in my own apartment -- apart from living in Kamakura, which is truly amazing -- is cooking for myself again after a long hiatus. There's something therapeutic about coming home at the end of a long day and making a meal with your own hands.

In any case, believe it or not, having had the cable installed I'm all set up now. Posting will now be on a more regular schedule.

Tightrope walking

Before I continue with my running commentary on Japanese politics, I want to just make it clear to my readers the fine line I'm treading. Because I'm on the staff of a senior member of the opposition DPJ, I'm perhaps not as free to be objective about Japanese politics as my academic's mind would prefer to be. I have to be careful about (1) being overly critical of the DPJ and (2) being overly supportive of the governing LDP.

That said, if it seems like I am a cheerleader for the DPJ, I'm not. That's not why I'm writing this blog. I will, however, be writing a lot about events from the DPJ's perspective because that's the value I can provide, and beyond that, the question of if and when the DPJ will be ready to govern Japan is one of the most interesting questions in Japanese politics today.

So if it seems like I'm cheerleading, let me know, but also be aware that because of my position I must exercise discretion.

Having made that clear, now I can describe what I've seen thus far. I've already been fully incorporated into Mr. Asao's prefectural office in Kamakura. Yesterday his entire staff -- divided into the constituent support/communication side here and the policy side at the Diet -- gathered here to discuss campaign strategy. Japanese politics too has the permanent campaign that is present in most advanced democracies. Interestingly, Asao is using his office to support candidates in a forthcoming municipal election in nearby Zushi. I don't know how common this is, but it seems that Mr. Asao would like to make Kanagawa Prefecture into a kind of DPJ stronghold, and a bastion for his Young-Turk reformist ideas.

I started work today at 6:30am: standing outside Higashi-Zushi station with the candidate and several other Asao staff members handing out pamphlets to commuters entering the station. I think some were surprised to see a foreigner assisting with a local campaign, at least that's what I think the laughter meant. All I had to do was bow, say "ohayoo goizamasu" and "arigatoo gozaimasu," so they couldn't have been laughing at my Japanese (to which I'm all too accustomed -- the Japanese regularly laugh at foreigners' linguistic mistakes, even if they appreciate the effort).

The election is in early December, so my work for the next several weeks will largely be helping the campaign. I may even be going door-to-door.

I move to Kamakura, and the education bill moves to the Upper House

I have now moved out from Kaiyo Gakuen -- where I spent my last night speaking to the students, pegged as future leaders of Japan, about the importance of learning about foreign societies and appreciating Japan's responsiblities as a great power. (I previously wrote about my surveying of students' ideas here.)

I have moved to Kamakura, and have begun working -- today, in fact -- for Asao Keiichiro.

The timing for my arrival is auspicious. On Monday the Upper House is due to begin debate on the Abe Cabinet's revision of the Fundamental Education Law, which it rammed through the Lower House over strident opposition from all opposition parties. The DPJ is in the process of determing its strategy for resisting the bill, as well as attacking Abe on a range of issues, including the government's reported manipulation of town hall meetings on education policy and Messrs. Aso and Nakagawa's remarks on nuclear weapons.

The opposition's offensive is on hold for the moment, as the governing coalition and the opposition parties have been geared up to contest the 19th November Okinawa gubernatorial election.

The Lower House's passage of the bill was undoubtedly a defeat for the opposition, but some in the DPJ are hoping that the government's tactics will be rejected at the polls next summer. There's certainly an argument that the Abe Cabinet's aggressive legislative strategy could be presented as consistent with the overall impression that the Abe Cabinet is unfit to govern (previously discussed here). I expect the formation of this election strategy by the DPJ in the coming months, particularly if the government continues to furnish examples that support this picture.

For the moment, however, the LDP enjoys the upper hand.

My little survey

Over the past several days, I have given my students essay topics -- explained here -- that have asked for their views on US-Japan and Japan-China relations. My prompts weren't explicitly political; they could address any and all aspects of these relationships, including culture, economics, cuisine, language, and politics.

I'm not going to say that I was especially surprised by what they wrote. To the first question, on US-Japan relations, I got a mix of comments on how Americans eat Japanese food and Japanese eat American food, the ubiquitous presence of American movies, a few discussing about how the US defends Japan from its frightening neighbors, and a couple on US troops in Japan -- one that was particularly opposed to Japanese subordination that results from the presence of US troops in Japan, one that was especially supportive (the latter, surprisingly, being written by a student from Yokosuka, home to a large US naval base).

I was a bit more surprised by the responses to the China question, which I read today. I was expecting a lot of discussion about the threat posed by China, but instead I read about how much Japan and China trade with each other and how much Japan has been historically influenced by Chinese culture. There were, of course, a few that discussed the anti-Japanese demonstrations in China in the spring of 2005, but they were on the whole positive about Japan's relations with its colossal neighbor.

I don't want to be too idealistic, but I found this (admittedly highly unrepresentative) survey encouraging. This group has only known the Heisei Emperor, they have never known a Japan whose economic success inspired fear around the world, and since around the time they were born Japan has contributed troops to peacekeeping missions around the world. Their Japan will be more globalized and ever more dependent on the outside world. To see that they appreciate Japan's international relationships and have apparently resisted the tendency to see China as an unmitigated threat gives me hope that Japan might be in good hands.

Now to sort out their Chinese counterparts and we'll be all set.

(Meanwhile, if anyone reading this has any ideas for essay prompts, I'm all ears.)