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The obsession of some Japanese folks have been noted by many and this article in the WSJ explains just a few more examples in length. How far does authentic need to go? Does it need to match the roots of the product or project? Does it match a hybrid that’s current? In Japan, it seems to need to find the best time or era of the item, if not, it needs to be as obsessive as possible to satisfy the perfectionist. It ranges from clothing, food, and more. Made in Japan means something to many and that stamp is something that’s sought after. Even the toy companies like Gargamel proudly lives with that stamp on their figures. In the (WSJ- Made Better in Japan) read a bit more about how far people go for that perfect something.
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Kei Fischer’s American father met her mother in Japan as an English language teacher. They married and sired her shortly thereafter. Years later, they immigrated to the United States. “I know it sounds clichéd,” Fischer said as she related her story. It may sound like every other story where an American visits Japan and returns with a wife. There’s just one thing. Kei Fischer’s mother isn’t Japanese. She’s Korean. She didn’t discover this until after death of her grandfather. It was then that her mother finally came clean. She deliberately passed herself as Japanese to avoid the negative stigma associated with Koreans in Post-War Japan. Kei Fischer constitutes a marginalized minority in Japan called Zainichi. The Zainichi consist of multigenerational Koreans who immigrated to Japan after the annexation of their homeland in 1910. Some of these minorities sought economic opportunities and scholarships abroad, while several others worked as slave laborers under Japanese Imperial Rule. Koreans eventually lost their Japanese citizenship after the dissolution of Japan’s colonial reign. Many returned to their broken homeland while others decided to stay and resume their lives in Japan. Since then, they’ve faced fiscal and prejudicial hardships resulting from institutionally discriminatory practices in Japan. Fischer learned about this as she set out to explore this forgotten part of her life. Her journey eventually led her to the Bay Area, where she met Miho Kim. Like Fischer, Kim was a Zainichi from Japan and together they formed an organization called Eclipse Rising with other Zainichi Korean Americans. As founders, Kim and Fischer have been a driving force behind the organization, which doubles as an activist group rather than merely a club of solidarity. “[We want to] develop a Zainichi community that’s physical and recognize a unique perspective that our experiences offer that really can’t be understood beneath a lens of nation states and internationalism since we’re essentially stateless,” Kim said. Other parts of their mission statement include cultivating stronger relationships with other oppressed groups like the LGBT community, Burakumin (‘untouchables’ in Japan), Okinawans, and Ainu among others. In addition to this, they campaign for the peaceful reunification between North and South Korea. As wide reaching as this objective is, it maintains the consistent focus of supporting, empowering, and granting further rights to Japanese minority groups like them. “We’re really fighting the root cause of structural racism within Japan because that’s the only way we can really bring resolution to what has perpetrated this subjucation of Zainichi,” Kim said. She further related her experiences as a Zainichi to those of the Japanese Americans interned during World War II. “Being immortalized, criminalized, and banished, your entitlement taken from under your feet overnight.” Some of their past activities included a recap of their 2010 U.S.-Japan Solidarity Tour. They hosted this as a joint holiday party at the School of Unity and Liberation Office in Oakland, California on December 16th, 2010. The participants of this tour reported the findings of their 9-day long trip where they met the political prisoner...
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Want a banana? Can’t find one. Supposedly bananas are harder to find by 12 noon in Japan. They get sold out. The morning diet is eat a banana with room temperature water and then eat a lunch and dinner or any size, no dessert and sleep by midnight. Yes, do you think it’s really going to work? Who’s behind these diets and how do they get started? It’s usually a “quack” who makes a statement of some sort, has very thin proof, and off to the races the idea goes. If they could do this often with paying scams, they’d be richer than they probably already are. How about “Banana Pills”? It’s a fad, and like many diets in Japan, it’ll pass. (Time – Banana Diet)
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It’s hard to write about 3.11 from this side of the planet. I watched the horrors on television, Ustream, and Twitter just an hour or so after attending an after event for an exhibition by James Jean, where I stood when I heard about the quake and tsunami. Like 9.11, you’ll remember what you were doing and who was around when you heard, and like with most, I experienced the devastation virtually. Living just a few blocks away, I’ve known filmmaker Shunji Iwai for a bit over a year as he was working on projects outside of Japan. He often discussed his life in America that didn’t include a need to work in Japan any time soon. Over many meals, he talked about the quake and had powerful views of how dangerous the radiation was for Tokyoites and of course the surrounding areas of Fukushima. Depressed, he was positive that if he was in Tokyo, he’d have moved far away as should everyone else. He knew the media was lying. He newly established an office, staff, had a completed film “Vampire,” and before I knew it he left America nearly overnight for Osaka. I’ve often wondered how my neighbor was doing. Just the other day I ran into him on Facebook. He messaged me that he’d send me his film about 3.11. I only loosely heard of his project and expected something that would be cinematic – in his way. It’s not. At least that’s what I thought at first. By the end, it is. It’s more of what can be thought of as a text book on film that’s heavy with interviews. As you’d expect there will be scenes of wreckage, but what Iwai captures is also his own experience that he shares with his new friends including a young girl activist. He too is experiencing the scenes, explanation and people as you are when you watch it. It’s not cinematic in a sense that he’s not trying to sway your emotions with pretty shots, but you are pushed deeply into understanding what 3.11 means from angles of indie media, nuclear plants, locals, professors, involved actors, and more. I was most touched by a professor in Kyoto who’s remarks about the children affected by the radiation was especially touching and only then does his film crescendo into something that I could see crafted by Iwai’s hands. It’s all in the last last few minutes that you realize his artistic vision for this film.
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“The Industry” is seeing older customers who are paying for “companionship” by the ladies. Customers are in the 60+ range and some business cater specifically to this age group. . The prices are about $200 an hour and don’t boast much more than massages or platonic companionship, although “handjobs” are happening as part of some “courses.” (Tokyo Times – Senioritis)
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