Rocking in Hakata

This is my response to NPR’s Intelligence Squared U.S. debate on the proposition: “Beware the Dragon – A Booming China Spells Trouble for America.” Just thought I’d throw it out there. You can grab the podcast of the last season even though it’s over already. I’m not particularly knowledgeable about China, though I am interested in its history and the way that popular culture and digital media especially are aiding its economic growth and boosting its quality of life. Since I’m not a China scholar, I hope you’ll go easy on me if I come off as incredibly naive. I’m learning. This is just something I thought was interesting. Below, I’ve sort of paraphrased what I got from each speaker. Then I’ve responded after that. Feel free to respond. Read more…

Deas Customary Drivel, Politics, Unsolicited Commentary

I just finished reading a really interesting 3-part survey over at What Japan Thinks. If you’re interested, or if you want to know what I’m talking about, I encourage you to go take a look: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. While Ken Y-N seems to think that a few folks will jump on it because it’s wide open for foreigner discrimination based criticism, I’m going to briefly talk about what I found interesting.

I guess you could say that Japan is headed slowly in the direction of modern Western liberalism. I’m not a big fan of the American variety, and by extent, I’m not a huge cheerleader for the entirety of Western liberalism. Looking at the multiple answers used in this survey, I feel like Ken Y-N hit it on the head when he wrote, “The key question is, of course, what do Japanese consider human rights?” Sure, they have defined them in the Constitution, but the survey to me had a distinctly different flavor.

The responses that surprised me (taken from multiple questions, in no particular order) were as follows:

- People staring, running away

- Opposition from others regarding marriage

- Problems being financially independent

- Rumors, others speaking ill of me

These things are not what I consider human rights. In fact, I get pretty annoyed when someone starts bandying about trying to enforce public behaviors that fix the so-called problem. This is an issue for me when dealing with Western liberalism: people are unbelievably hypersensitive! Now, don’t get me wrong. That doesn’t mean that I think people staring at you or running away from you, opposing you regarding marriage, or speaking ill of you are good things – or even socially acceptable. I simply feel that they fall outside of the realm of human rights. It aggravates me that in my country people cannot put up Nativity Scenes during Christmas anymore because they’re considered eyesores to people of differing religious beliefs, in the same way that hearing “Merry Christmas” is a startling affront. Nobody has the right to not be offended. That’s just silly. Similarly, I don’t feel like any laws or government intervention is called for in the case of people staring / running away, opposing marriage, or rumor mongering. People’s behavior is ultimately their responsibility.

I also don’t think that being financially independent is a human right. I think it’s a goal, not a condition to be taken for granted. And I don’t feel like its the government’s role to “help” in that case either. Surely society should step in and help our floundering individuals. But the individuals who are currently floundering would be mistaken to charge everyone else with breaking their inviolate human rights if they did not help out. In short, I draw the line between social ills and legally protected human rights. Anyway, it was an interesting survey. I just hope that Japan doesn’t encourage the same mentality of victimhood that is so pervasively nurtured in America and other Western countries. It seems to run hand in hand with this kind of thinking. And hey, once you have victims, you have court cases and an increasingly litigious culture. Please, Japan, think that over. I’d rather see you fix the actual problems, and not fight the windmills. (And this is coming from a fellow who gets stared at, run away from, and incorporated into rumors every day I live here.)

Deas Customary Drivel, Politics, Unsolicited Commentary

Here’s the other half of my meandering thoughts about diversity. Might be a bit heavy for some, so again – if you’re bored, skip this one. I’m going to attempt to limit my ramblings to a quick discussion of planned diversity in institutions of higher learning, glocalism / globalization, multiculturalism, and token diversity. Read more…

Deas Customary Drivel, Politics, Unsolicited Commentary

Diversity. Love it, loathe it, or laud it, but acknowledge that it is one of the biggest buzz words in hyper-politically correct America today. This piece will serve as both a deliberation and a diatribe against the concept and its purpose in mainstream, liberalized, internationalized society today. Please keep in mind that I wrote this piece while in Japan working as a living agent of diversity. Read on for my ruminations on illegal immigration in the US, the emphasis on diversity in institutions of higher education, confusion about racism / nationalism / domestic character, trendy terms like glocalisation / globalization / multiculturalism, and lastly token diversity. I’ve split these topics into two posts, so that neither is novel-sized. If you’re bored already, just skip this entry. If you’re like me, though, and like to kick around big thoughts and chew on them once in a while, please read on. Read more…

Deas Customary Drivel, Politics, Unsolicited Commentary

Let me first say that I think some of these things are worth talking about and valuable to understanding the modern state of the United States of America. Having said that, let me say that it is ridiculous to use them as the top keywords necessary for obtaining a basic grasp of the country and its position in the world. I present to you the 4-word-long list found on pages 15 and 16 of The English Odyssey (英語百科). Incredulous is not the right word. Saddened or dismayed might be more accurate.

1) WASP
2) Civil Rights Movement
3) Affirmative Action
4) Ebonics

That’s it. The list of keywords necessary for comprehending America. Anybody but me sensing an agenda in this textbook? Where are words like “representative government,” “checks and balances,” “constitutional democracy,” “democratic republic,” “freedom,” or even the archaic language that marked into our history the concept of humanity’s “unalienable rights?” Ha ha. Nowhere to be found. You see, America is about racial conflict. No more, no less. All bad history, no good history. Sigh. Sure, there are tensions in America, but of all countries, Japan? If I had to pick the most important concept out of the above, I’d go with the Civil Rights movement, hands down. But seriously. There is more to America than this, folks. I just hope that some students go on to discover what can really be like. There are faults in every country, but for a cursory overview of America, this is adamantly bleak. Uncool, textbook. Uncool.

This book is hard to track down online. The ISBN is 4-469-34239-4. It’s put out by Taishukan Publishing (website is crappy, but works – may take forced refreshing and re-encoding of characters, though), and is listed in an Excel file alongside other English texts like the Genius, Captain, and Departure books. Nice. Just thought you’d like to know. (I’ll get some pictures up later, if possible.) In the meantime, what four words would you choose as keywords to represent your country to Japanese school kids who’ve never seen it? There are entries about loads of other countries, so I’m willing to bet that yours is in there too. Thoughts?

Deas Customary Drivel, Politics, Unsolicited Commentary

Not just the poles in the arctic where Japan conducts its routines, but at the voting polls. That’s right, we’re talking about whale suffrage. Hat tip to Bryan at Hot Air for this.

Presidential candidates who take a firm stand against Japanese whaling practices are more likely to gain support from swing voters, a new poll has shown.

That’s right. The Washington Times has an article out that claims that Americans’ anger at Japan’s whaling practices is large enough to comprise a swing vote. That is, that enough voters in America might swing their vote based solely on the presidential candidates’ individual stances on Japan’s whaling practices that it could change the outcome.

I find this patently absurd, as does Bryan at Hot Air. He analyzes the impetus behind the poll, as well as the organizations behind it. I think his conclusions seem are entirely reasonable.

So…half of the country’s swing voters would give up Sony, Honda, Toyota, Panasonic etc etc etc to protest Japanese whaling? Riiiight.

I have posted about Japanese whaling practices before. I got in trouble with friends for having partaken of whale flesh. It wasn’t particularly appetizing. I’ll have a followup entry hopefully soon, because I am determined to go whale watching. It’s weird to have eaten an animal that I’ve never seen alive. But I digress. The Washington Times article makes one particularly interesting anti-whaling thrust, urging the United States to return to an anti-whaling position.

Whales Need US called on the Bush administration to re-establish the United States as a country that “confronts those countries that kill whales” after the announcement of the poll results in Washington yesterday.

“We want the U.S. government to rediscover its backbone and to restore its leadership to protect whales” said D.J. Schubert, wildlife biologist at the animal-welfare institute.

Restore its leadership? Re-establish the country’s anti-whale stance? Some of you might remember that my original article was spurred on by a New York Times story that a friend sent to me…a story explaining that the United States started and encouraged the Japanese whaling practice while Japan was rebuilding post-WWII.

It comes as little surprise that foreign opposition to whaling has fueled nationalist sentiments in Japan. What is far less known is how the United States instigated, at least partly, Japan’s nationalist obsession with whaling by first encouraging the Japanese in the postwar years to hunt and eat whale meat, and then urging them to stop.

So…were we against whaling before we were for it? Or what? I’m confused. I guess I agree with Bryan’s conclusions, though.

Bottom line: I’m skeptical that the 08 vote might swing decisively on the whale question. This one poll is not convincing. But if I’m wrong and this poll turns out to be right and the presidency does hang on the end of a harpoon, expect to see a lot more whale blogging as we run up to ‘08.

Hey, if he’s right about the blog-fodder-ization of whaling as a topic, I guess I’m on the cutting edge. It’ll be an interesting thing to see unfold, anyway. No worries, I’ll keep my limited coverage running as long as the stories keep popping up.

Deas Customary Drivel, Politics, Unsolicited Commentary