Politics on Nanikore

The Words of Noda

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 03:49:40 +0000

I don’t usually stray into the world of politics on this blog, it’s [hopefully] meant to be informative and constructive, rather than a critique of the national political psyche. Japan’s political system is as odd as most other countries, still being based on political families and dynasties and a reliance more on yelling people’s names during campaign times than actually discussing issues.

The current Prime Minister is called Yoshihiko Noda, who replaced Naoto Kan, the man who saw Japan through last year’s quake and the immediate response to it, and was thus summarily fired, likely due to saying and supporting some fairly straight things about TEPCO and their supporters, which didn’t go down well with the Old Men, meaning Japan was back to lacklustre suits, spouting the same old stuff and not trying to fix 20 years of stagnation, and the world’s largest public debt.

Yes, I know Greece is exciting and all that, but for sheer number of zeroes, Japan has long been up there (228% of GDP, at $10.5tn.).

Anyway, getting to the point, over the last month, I couldn’t help notice Noda has come out with a couple of interesting soundbites which in a short space of time which seem to completely contradict each other within the same story - here’s a quick one about Japan’s recent execution of 3 prisoners:

“I have no plans to do away with the death penalty,” Mr Noda said, according to the Kyodo news agency.

“Taking into consideration a situation where the number of heinous crimes has not decreased, I find it difficult to abolish the death penalty immediately,” Mr Noda said.

So, you’re keeping it even though it has been proven in your country (as most others) to have no effect whatsoever on the number of murders etc.? Does that make sense? Many foreigners (and some Japanese) are surprised at the fact Japan has the death penalty, and how it is used (Amnesty International have major issues not just with the killing, but with how it is conducted - even more so than in other nations).

Another one I saw from him was discussing tax increases to deal with the aforementioned epic national debt - on January 24th 2012:

“The current system, if unchanged, will put an unbearable burden on future generations. We don’t have time left to postpone reforms,” Mr Noda told parliament.

Wow. Then three weeks later:

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, in an online message after the cabinet’s vote, said Japan had “no time to spare” in reducing its debts.

He added: “Some of you may think you are an unlucky generation which needs to support many elderly people - but those who built the current affluent society are the senior generation - your parents’ generation.”

I’m not understanding this statement. The country is massively in debt, has had 20 years of stagnation, and the youth are told to just deal with it (like they have a choice) and be appreciative of the affluent society their seniors built? How can you claim to be affluent and massively in debt? Their parents built the bubble, not affluence - perhaps the generation before that had built affluence?

Anyway, these stories aren’t at all surprising - the level of denial in Japan is what sustains its institutions it seems, but it was fun to see simple, basic contradictions so close together.

That said, Noda seems to just be confused when he speaks, whereas if you want to see the Shogun of great political quotes, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has him beaten.

Recommended Documentaries - February 2012

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:51:15 +0000

I like watching documentaries, often of topics I have only a basic knowledge of, and whilst some are great, many are often flawed or too skewed. I thought that since it’d been a year since I last listed some, I’d drum up a new list

Inside Job - This was recommended by Gen Kanai after my brief listing last year of documentaries, and is a very well produced account of the 2008 financial meltdown, and how it happened. Like the Enron documentary (‘The Smartest Guys in the Room’), it looks past all the complicated financial tools, and presents the peoples and the motivations behind it, because like Enron, it’s always about people at the end of the day.

After watching it, you’re really left to wonder whether governments (especially in the US) were incompetent or somehow complicit with the bankers, and just how hand-in-glove the financial and governmental people are anyway. This would make you believe it’s a bit of all of the above. There’s a lot of intriguing interviews, some abandoned part way through, and of course, those who refused to be interviewed, and the question of what the goal really was all along, though the end result for the most part was that it was the poor who suffered. Matt Damon does a decent job on narration. [ Sony Link]

The Cove - Although it’s perhaps more well known for the furor it caused over the vicious slaughter of dolphins in ’the cove’ in Taiji, Japan - leading to those cinemas who chose to show it in Japan being abused by right wing groups - it’s actually a much broader documentary, investigating the motivations and history of aquatic mammal culls in Japan, the joke which the International Whaling Commission appears to be, the economics and the health situation surrounding it.

lt essentially follows former Flipper trainer Ric O’Barry who turned environmentalist, as he tries to find out what is going on in the cove, and puts together an intelligent and motivated team to find out, which they of course do. Like all good documentaries, it’s about people - the people of Taiji and elsewhere in Japan who either don’t know the cove exists or are unsure themselves of why they support it, with several essentially citing the old Japanese establishment mantra of not letting foreigners dictate their actions, and yet most Japanese interviewed were shocked to see some of the footage. It also goes into the sale of dolphin meat, often as whale meat, and the dangerously high levels of mercury it contains, and the battle of local councillors trying to stop it being fed to local school children because of these health hazards. Some people have seen it as an attack on Japan, but I actually saw it highlighting how difficult it is for small Japanese groups to stand up against this kind of thing and effect positive change - these people are truly the Japanese heroes. [ Website]

Man On Wire - I’ve been trying to hunt this DVD down for a while, and had trouble getting hold of a copy, but finally Amazon.co.jp got me one! It’s the rather odd story of Philippe Petit, who in 1974 put together a rag tag team of people to run a wire between the then newly built twin towers of the World Trade Centres in New York, and not only walked between them, but spent over 40mins performing a high wire routine before being arrested, and becoming something of a celebrity. The documentary tells the story of his life, and the very loose team he put together, several not knowing each other before the attempt, some of whom didn’t even share a language, and others who had known him for years; it also highlights his obsessive qualities, but also the exclusion within his private life that this kind of obsession or addiction brings. The actual act of walking a highwire so high up, and the detail of planning required just for the sake of doing it, is impressive, and you’re left respecting the man, admiring the sheer detail required, but also, that the price of such dedication is an amount of disconnection. [ Wikipedia page]

The last two here were actually introduced to me by a friend when I was visiting the UK last year, and have more of a UK bent to them -

Starsuckers - This assesses how the media works, and how peoples obsession with fame may have been an innate part of our evolution, and how it is exploited upon by the media to continue interest and growth, from childhood onwards. It’s really quite interesting, especially through some of the staged events they do and the set-up interviews. They also look into how news nowadays really isn’t news as we may think it is, but how it’s gossip, press releases and in some cases just completely fake - they call in to newspapers with completely false gossip tips, which are then repeated by several papers, each of which adds their own embellishments. They also follow one family who are trying to get their son into some kind of ‘fame’ career, it seems relatively harmless, though it feels odd that the goal is not to be an actor, or singer, it’s just to be famous, to be a celebrity. It’s an interesting look at modern celebrity culture from a different angle, and definitely worth a watch. [ Official Website]

Taking Liberties - Taking Liberties assesses the effect of 10 years of Tony Blair’s policies on UK civil right laws, and what it shows as the erosion or outright elimination of them; in one example it cites Blair’s claims in the mid nineties to abhor national ID cards, but then just a few years later advocating them in the case of fighting terrorism. It takes the structure of assessing how Blair undermined the basic human rights identified after World War 2, which were largely shaped by Winston Churchill, and how in some people’s views, Blair’s Britain is more authoritarian and intolerant of demonstration than many former Soviet nations. Obviously a lot is tied back to the War on Terror, and the deals Blair did with George W. Bush, including allowing extradition of UK citizens with no hearing or cases to answer in the UK, to the US. Interestingly, when Dubya is discussing Blair’s morality as British nationals were being tortured in Afghanistan, I’m sure the backing music is a orchestral version of the BlackAdder theme. The film finishes with a quote from another statesman, Thomas Jefferson, “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.” [ Official Website]

Original Comments

Comments from the original WordPress blog post.

Gen Kanai — 2012-02-27

Glad you enjoyed “Inside Job” :)

The Baker and the Bromate

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:39:15 +0000

Chances are if you go to buy bread in Japan, the vast majority of it in most supermarkets comes from the Yamazaki Baking Co. and in general, it tastes pretty good. ( TSE Ticker code: 2212 Equity GP)

I was surprised then, to read in a few news articles about their usage of a fairly suspect ingredient:

“They are the only Japanese baked goods company who use potassium bromate in their bread; all Japanese baking industry companies voluntarily ceased using it in 1980 due to suspicions of carcinogenicity, but Yamazaki resumed in 2005.”

Wikipedia

I have to say that just reading that, and confirming it across several relatively respectable news stories and agencies, we effectively stopped buying Yamazaki bread and most of their other products - not actually through any fear of getting cancer from the bread, but just because it seemed irrational to continue using a suspect ingredient, when other ‘safe’ flour / dough enhancers were available.

Generally, we now buy Pasco when we do buy bread, but I did wonder whether or not this practice had crept in in other parts of the Japanese market - from Pasco’s website though, apparently not - it’s interesting they have that page devoted to it (and nicely, it’s in a URL link called ‘feeling’).

“Pasco eliminated the use of potassium bromate in 1980, and we continue to strongly stand against the use of it. We have no plans to start using it in the future. Pasco continues to observe the self-imposed control measures established by the Japan Baking Industry Association Corp. in 1992.Pasco uses vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid) as a safe alternative to potassium bromate. "

Potassium Bromate is indeed a fairly controversial chemical - broadly used historically to improve various attributes of bread dough as a flour enhancer, though through the 1970’s a body of evidence grew that it may be carcinogenic, or at least made the mutation of cells more likely.

In the European Union, it goes by the descriptive alternate name of E924. Those of us from Europe will be fairly familiar with the ‘E’ number system, which symbolically held the meaning that a food was more made of chemicals, than real ingredients, if you know what I mean. Nowadays I wonder if the E number system was to distract us from what these things actually were.

Interestingly, in the UK’s Food Standards Authority database, E924 is only listed under revocations - [ link] , so apparently, it’s not allowed in the UK either - specifically having been revoked in 1990 - bakers can’t use it - the same goes for Canada (1994) and China (2005). In the US many companies were still using it in the 1990s, and it’s still legal and apparently well used today.

So why would Yamazaki Baking - and seemingly only Yamazaki Baking in Japan - start re-using this chemical since it, and many other companies stopped in 1980? Yes, they did actually stop, and only restarted in 2005.

Well, it seems there may be two reasons.

Firstly, they believe they’ve found a method of getting the chemical’s benefits, yet only using a minute amount, which wont cause health concerns as it shouldn’t end up in the final product on the shelf, as it is only used in the production process.

Secondly, but slightly more troubling, a blog article, from a fairly well regarded blog, suggested it was more interested in sticking to it’s founding family’s traditional recipe- [ link].

However, to take the first concept - a quick Google through Yamazaki’s website threw up two real hits on potassium bromate - one a gnarly white paper from 2004 entitled " The study of bromate residues in bread Part1 - Effect of Reducing Agents and Baking Procedure on the Residual Bromate in Bread” (no longer on their website it seems), and the second in their investor guide (also since removed).

From the whitepaper, the English summary states:

“Potassium bromate, which contributes to the formation of disulfide bonds in wheat protein in dough and increased gas-retaining capacity, has been used as a bread improver since the 1910s. However, it has been reported that potassium bromate has a mutagenicity based on experiments with rats. Thereby, the regulations in Japan stated that in the case of bread, residual bromate must be reduced or removed from the final products.”

So that essentially lays out the ground rules as Yamazaki saw them, in their own words - the key point seems to be final products. The summary goes on:

“Residual contents of potassium bromate in bread extracts prepared by the improved method were measured by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with post-column reaction for the coloring of bromate. No residual bromate was detected in Pullman-type breads with +- or +/mg potassium bromate added per kg of flour.”

As a note of explanation, a Pullman loaf is one baked in a long narrow tin, with a lid - that is, pretty much all of the square sliced bread in Japan. The summary goes on to note that:

“On the other hand, the residual bromate determined in open-top type bread with 9-30 mg potassium bromate added per kg of flour, was found localized on the top of crust put out of the baking pan. Reducing agents such as L- ascorbic acid (AsA), cysteine and glutathione and ferrous sulfate were added to the open-top type bread to reduce the residual bromate. Adding both AsA and ferrous sulfate accelerated the decrease in the residual bromate in the open top-type bread.”

I’m not a scientist but, what they’re saying is, they have to do this to say there shouldn’t be any Potassium Bromate in the bread after they’ve added even more chemicals. In 2005, the FDA in America noted as a post (co-authored by Yamazaki) detection techniques for Potassium Bromate which is an important requirement if something is only legal up to minute quantities in a baked product.

This seems to be a lot of trouble to go to to keep using a chemical largely frowned upon internationally, and which according to their competitors, there are acceptable alternatives available to, which suggests that the second point - because it’s a tradition - starts to seem all the more plausible?

Well, for another angle, let’s look at that second hit, the 2008 investor guide, from the section “Fiscal 2008 in Review” which generally paints a dismal economic picture :

“To maintain top levels of product safety and quality, despite the soaring cost of ingredients, particularly flour, we had to execute another round of price increases. Even though we had only just increased prices on some of our breads and Japanese- and Western-style confectionery in December 2007, we had to push through more increases in May 2008. Hoping to make the new prices more palatable to consumers, we emphasized the quality aspect of our products by applying a new technology to Pullman - type bread using an aqueous solution of potassium bromate as an oxidizing agent, and then, the technology were applied to Open-top bread and sweet buns.”

So there’s an economic justification too? I appreciate investor guides are dry tomes intended to attract funds and other interested parties into buying shares, bonds, whatever, but this is an interesting tack to take on what is I would have thought, a sensitive subject.

For a ‘defence’ of the use of Potassium Bromate, I had to go to The American Institute of Baking ( AIB), (which also has a Japanese site amateurishly done in Adobe GoLive 5) and [their paper](https://www.aibonline.org/press/SafeUsePotassiumBromate 09_08.pdf) " Commercial Baking Industry Guide For The Safe Use Of Potassium Bromate" [2008] but even they don’t seem overly confident. Though this is obviously a bit of a weak stance as an opener in the paper:

“Potassium bromate (KBrO3) has been used in limited ways and amounts by the baking industry for almost a century with no known health concern. It has been used in baking since at least 1914 …”

I’m not sure I put a lot of faith in something being safe since before penicillin, and decent analysis methods. However, they do go on:

“Concern about the potential harmful effects of potassium bromate was raised by Japanese researchers in the mid-1980s. While the research was inconclusive, some countries adopted a precautionary-principle response and removed potassium bromate from the approved list of dough conditioners. More recent research in Japan casts doubt on this level of concern, at least as it refers to the amounts of potassium bromate used in the baking industry, concluding that there is a threshold below which no adverse effects can be detected.”

I’m wondering if the more recent research was by Yamazaki Bakery. The paper does immediately point out though, and with it’s own bold emphasis:

“It is recognized that it is inappropriate to use potassium bromate in any product or production method which cannot be formulated without residues below the level of 20 ppb in the finished product.”

That’s not really a huge endorsement to me. However, the paper does a decent job, in basic terms explaining the reason why Potassium Bromate is used, and for that, the PDF is worth a download, and at 15 pages of text, worth a read.

So what we have is a chemical known to cause renal cancer in rats, at least, and which is controlled by amount in foods, or outright banned in many countries, and yet Yamazaki Bakery here in Japan have gone to a lot of effort to use it in their production system - again, I’m not saying it’s in the bread - it shouldn’t be - but why even use it? Is it really because old man Iijima did? Then the question becomes, if he were alive today, would he still use it?

Propaganda collection from World War 2

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:11:50 +0000

This is a collection of material housed at Pacific University website showing propaganda matter produced mainly in the U.S. during World War 2.

There’s a whole section on Anti-Japanese War posters.

What’s really striking about these, is how similar they are to virtually all other propaganda ever done - certainly akin to those produced by both the U.K and Nazi Germany during the same time-frame. Today it looks weirdly over the top, but it’s also worth remembering that it still happens today but is a lot more subtle - and you don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to believe that.

Also, before people complain, it is an academic collection, and that that portion of the website is sponsored by Matsushita Corp.

Want a job? Ganbatte?

Wed, 10 Mar 2004 16:19:09 +0000

As those of us who live in Japan know on a day to day basis (and have done for some time), jobs in Japan are a bit scarce - especially for those who are emerging from University. The unemployment rate currently runs around 5%, and that’s under Japan’s rather bizarre employment definitions (though to be fair, all countries make some pretty odd definitions of ’employed’).

Having survived the entry exam, and then ’endured’ a curriculum known by some as the ‘4 year holiday’, many graduates are emerging, blinking, into the job market realising it’s going to be tougher than getting into University. The days of full employment are over, and more and more employers want to see some benefit to hiring people, rather than just getting people, and molding them through the company training scheme.

An interesting article is here as the youth rally together to get fired up to look for jobs. I remember a few months ago seeing a march in Omotesando by university students demanding the government create more jobs. No argument here on either idea, but I have to ask - how hard are they looking for work? That’s an open question, as I don’t honestly know.

As in all countries, there are jobs out there (indeed, my company is hiring), but the task as ever is matching them up, but with a massive growth in recruiting companies in Japan, one would hope this is possible.

Original Comments

Comments from the original WordPress blog post.

kevin — 2004-03-10

I recently quit my job despite fear of the unemployment boogy-man, and nothing bad happened to me. I have too much work and “can do if I want to” work waiting for me. I’m actually disapointed that I didn’t get a little break to be a bum.

Point is, I think there is still a lot of work out there. My old company is hiring now to, just like yours. Of course, no one is just going to hand someone a job. I don’t know how hard the people are tyring to get jobs either, and I don’t mean to disrespect them, but I think that the best thing anyone of them can do is to consider themselves a free-agent, and make the work happen. This goes beyond sending in resumes, and joining the shin-sotugyo job-fairs.

I guess that’s what you meant by “Ganbatte”

Koizumi ichiban...

Wed, 12 Nov 2003 12:10:44 +0000

As most people will know, Koizumi-san won his election on Sunday, but not by as much as many suspected. For an overview of what the election consisted of, take a look at this BBC article. The results are here.

This left Koizumi-san’s LDP to make deals with several other parties, including New Komeito who may (or may not) be backed by the Soka Gakkai group, a Buddhist group/sect/cult/whatever. Japanese political parties are more like groups of factions in themselves, who reform every now and then to present a new face (hence all the ‘New…’ names in the English party names).

For once, I actually sat through as much of the TV coverage as I could (pausing just for a delicious spot of dinner - grilled fish). Most of the channels looked the same - lots of celebrities chatting, and one could be forgiven into thinking you were watching any one of the generic ‘variety’ shows (generic variety…).

However, there was a little bit of debate, and some cool computer graphics of Koizumi-san’s little samurai fighting opposition samurai for control of a board. One interesting trait for me (and any other Brits raised on Jon Snow’s swinging pendulum on Newsnight) was that the numbers along the bottom of the screen were based on exit polls, and not actually declared ballots - at first I couldn’t understand why some of the numbers were going down! Anyway, let’s see what Koizumi-san can do now.