Golden Week Plans? I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Plans

Let’s face it, Golden Week in Japan is a terrible time to travel. Trains, planes and highways are overly crowded and the urge to reach out and touch someone (I’m thinking an open-handed slap here) can hardly be restrained. Last year, I took a shinkansen ride up to visit my friend in Niigata. How was Niigata? Well, let’s just say it was good to see my friend. This year, I have no Golden Week plans except for visiting some of my favorite places in Tokyo and Yokohama (likely to be less-crowded since many people return to their hometowns during this period) and taking lots of pictures for a couple of new articles I’m writing for the 7:10 to Tokyo magazine. I’ll post an update here when I post one of them at that site.

Anyway, what are your plans for GW? I’d like to hear them; Maybe they’ll inspire me. If you usually stay in Tokyo during GW, where do you go? What’s the best situation to take advantage of during GW?

Cheers!

At Long Last, Justice Is Served

I’ve been waiting and hoping this gentleman, Hiroshi Motomura, would see justice done and the man who robbed him of his wife and daughter face the death penalty. Well, it’s finally happened. As many of you may know, I haven’t had much faith in the justice system here in the past, but today’s ruling has gone some way to change that for me. I know there are many out there who disagree with me and think that the death penalty isn’t effective in deterring crime and even barbaric in nature, but if the death of the dirtbag who killed the wife and daughter of Mr. Motomura brings him the ability to sleep a little better at night, then I’m all for it.

For more on the story, click here

7:10 to Tokyo is Here!

 

I have launched my new website. It’s a blog-a-zine with several regular contributors.  I’ll be looking for more contributors soon, so please check your e-mail boxes. I’ll appreciate any help I get. It’s meant to be a highly interactive site and, eventually, I’d like to get a discussion forum going on it. The basic site is up and running at this point, but it’s still being modified on a daily basis. So, please drop by, check it out and contribute.

7:10 to Tokyo website - click here

Chin Goo - Eeeew!

I’m not sure if this place is a Chinese Restaurant or some place entirely different. Well, if it is a Chinese restaurant, I don’t think I’ll be trying the Chin Goo soup of the day. As a matter of fact, I think I’ll avoid this little hole-in-the-wall just outside of Shinjuku-gyoen, entirely.

Long Time, No Post

As always, thanks for stopping by. If you’re a regular visitor, I don’t know how to fully express my gratitude, but please know that your readership is greatly appreciated.

The lack of posts on this site lately has nothing to do with a loss of interest in this site, on my part, but everything to do with the fact that I’ve been busy building a full website, which will be featured in a post here at a later date. Please continue to drop by and forgive me if new posts are extremely rare between now and the end of the month.

 Again, thanks for visiting.

 Cheers!

Online Suicide Club

Many people have successfully found their life partners online. These days, however, some people in Japan are finding their death partners online. There have been several stories in the news this year and last year about people in the Kanto area meeting up for group suicides. Upon investigation, in some cases, police found that the participants had met online. To me this is both heart-wrenching and comical at the same time. It’s heart-wrenching in that these people were desperate to die, but did not want to be alone in their final moments. What’s comical (in a sick way that only weird people like myself can appreciate) is that I can imagine the ad-line for a site dedicated to such a service: ‘Tired of life? Deep in debt? Finding it difficult to get over a failed relationship? Thinking of making the grand escape, but would rather do so with like-minded individuals? Well, now there’s a convenient online service just for you: It’s called goodbyeworld.com.’

Ok, I’ll stop there. Here’s the latest from the Mainichi Shinbun:

Trio of strangers commit group suicide in Saitama hotel

KAWAGOE, Saitama — A group of two men and a woman appear to have committed a group suicide in a hotel here over the weekend, police said.

Three bodies were found in the hotel together with a suicide note.

The dead included a 35-year-old unemployed man from Asaka, Saitama Prefecture, a 19-year-old male university student from Chita, Aichi Prefecture, and a 23-year-old female university student from Tokyo’s Meguro-ku.

None of the three knew each other and police believe they met up through an online site and agreed to die together. (Mainichi Shinbun)

Mr. Ishiba, Can We Come Out And Play Now?

Last year, I posted about the need for U.S. Armed Forces officials to do something to put a stop to constantly recurring major crimes committed by servicemen. I even went so far as to suggest that lower-ranking personnel be chaperoned when going off-base on weekends until they establish that they are responsible enough to go out on their own. A reader of this blog at that time accused me of making absurdist generalizations and said that by my logic, all foreigners should be put under restriction. However, I think that U.S. military personnel necessarily must be held to a different standard than say, U.S. civilians in Japan. I admit, it probably would have gone down like a ton of bricks with enlisted men and I was sure that administrators with years of experience in dealing with such matters and thus, more qualified than myself to come up with some reasonable restrictions, would probably have chosen a different measure. Well, now they have. Blanket 24-hour curfews have been established in Okinawa and at Iwakuni. Click here for more information regarding the curfews.

Defense Minister Shigeru made a statement this week about how failure on the part of the U.S. to suppress this kind of behavior by its troops would result in a siginificant weakening in the ties between America and Japan. “I don’t think an alliance is possible unless the U.S. shares the view that if incidents like this continue to happen, it could shake the foundation of the Japan-U.S. alliance,” he said during a parliamentary meeting.

Some Americans living in Japan have stated in Japan discussion forums that the Japanese government is blowing the issue out of proportion since the number of serious crimes committed by U.S. servicemen in Japan represents a very small fraction of the total number of crimes committed in the country, especially when compared to crimes committed by Japanese people. I think it’s a ridiculous point, however.

Your average American who comes over here to Japan to teach English or work in some other field doesn’t come here as a representative of his country. He comes as an individual representing either his company or his own interests. Every U.S. serviceman, however, represents the U.S. and its government. The U.S. government bears direct responsibilty for every incident that arises from the misbehavior of U.S. troops. As I’ve stated before, there are many people serving in the Armed Forces that are not capable of acting responsibly when out for a night on the town in their own country, let alone a foreign one with a different culture and different laws. You may say that U.S. civilians in Japan can be just as socially irresponsible, but that doesn’t change the fact that U.S. military personnel are trained to be disciplined and are supposed to be held to a higher standard than your average Joe Blow. Whatever happened to “The few, the proud”?

Cynical Americans, as well as other foreigners living in Japan may not expect U.S. military personnel to live up to these  standards, but the Japanese have a right to expect them to. The Japanese government extended an invitation to the U.S. to set up base and bring in highly trained, highly disciplined troops to help maintain national security here. Japan certainly has a right to expect that the U.S. will do its part to keep these troops in line and from doing harm to Japanese citizens, many of which see the U.S. military presence here as an intrusion and a nuisance.

Here’s the latest from the Associated Press:

 Defense Minister warns that repeated U.S. military crimes could hurt ties

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s defense minister warned Friday that further crimes by U.S. troops here could shake the two countries’ alliance, while the foreign minister said Tokyo would install security cameras around U.S. bases and take other steps to deter crime.

The warning of fraying ties by Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba came amid a furor over troop-related crimes in Japan after a U.S. Marine’s arrest last week on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old girl on the southern island of Okinawa.

“I don’t think an alliance is possible unless the U.S. shares the view that if incidents like this continue to happen, it could shake the foundation of the Japan-U.S. alliance,” Ishiba said during a lower house parliamentary meeting.

Ishiba urged the U.S. to take concrete prevention measures, and said promises to improve behavior in the future were not enough.

The Marine’s arrest and a series of other crimes blamed on U.S. troops have heightened sentiments against the U.S. military presence in Japan, particularly on Okinawa, where more than half the 50,000 U.S. troops in the country are based.

Also Friday, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura unveiled new security steps to curb crime around bases.

In addition to surveillance cameras, Komura announced joint Japanese-U.S. patrols of entertainment districts around bases and said the U.S. would give Japanese authorities more information about personnel living in off-base housing.

While the patrol applies to only bases in Okinawa, it was not immediately clear which areas the other measures apply to.

“We need continuous efforts for prevention of a recurrence,” Komura said, adding that Japan and the U.S. will review the off-base housing policy. The Foreign Ministry said it would publicly release a list of the measures later in the day.

The U.S. this week imposed tight new restrictions on troops, their families and civilian expatriates in Okinawa and elsewhere, limiting them to bases, workplaces and off-base housing. The military held a “day of reflection” Friday to urge troops not to commit crimes.

The steps were part of a broad U.S. campaign in the past week to soothe feelings as rising anger over the alleged crimes threatened to erupt into widespread protests against the American presence.

The latest furor began last week with the arrest of 38-year-old Staff Sgt. Tyrone Luther Hadnott over the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl on Okinawa. Police said that Hadnott admitted to investigators that he forced the girl down and kissed her, but that he insisted he did not rape her.

The tensions have been compounded in recent days by allegations of other less serious crimes such as drunken driving, trespassing and counterfeiting. Japanese leaders have deplored the behavior and accused the U.S. military of lax discipline.

Okinawa is considered a cornerstone of the U.S. military presence in Asia, and Washington is eager to quell rising negative sentiments. U.S. military officials have apologized profusely, and Ambassador Thomas Schieffer traveled to Okinawa last week to try smoothing relations.