Four seconds, after the counting of the ballots. That’s how long.
Four seconds in, and Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike knew she had won the Tokyo gubernatorial election for the second term. Her aides said later that it was more like two and a half seconds; a historical, landslide victory with nearly 60% of the vote in her name. The other candidates were dead in the water before they realized what hit them. Koike’s contender candidate Taro Yamamoto, an actor turned politician whose ideas for government reform made significant waves in the Lower House elections last year but who lost to Koike by over 3 million votes, told the press: “Mt. Yuriko was higher than I thought. I just couldn’t climb over it.”
If Yamamoto’s statement sounds rude or vaguely sexual, don’t worry – he probably intended it that way. Yuriko Koike was and continues to be, the first woman governor of Tokyo and her term in office has been defined by a lot of ruffled feathers in the male-dominated world of Nippon politics. Not just because she’s a woman, a fact which many older Japanese men still have trouble wrapping their minds around, but because Yuriko Koike has never ceased to remind everyone of her femininity.
It all seems a bit Marie Antoinette-ish. Let them refrain from everything. Let them stay home and Zoom their lives away while wearing face masks in the clammy Tokyo heat.
At age 67, Koike is well-preserved, perfectly coiffed and shod in a way that would earn applause from Carrie Bradshaw. She never loses her cool, raises her voice or looks harried. Her thirst for designer hand-bags is legendary, and rumor has it she keeps a room designated solely for the purpose of storing her darlings. Other rumors swirling inside the corridors of the Tocho building, says that she’s an old-fashioned gal who got to where she is today, by sleeping around with the right men yesterday. Or that she often treats her male staff as if they were hosts working in her own private host bar.
Ouch. That’s not nice, Yuriko-san, considering you’ve been waging war on host bars since day one of the pandemic. Most of these bars are located on YOUR turf in Shinjuku ward and yet you refer to them as “places of the night” that must be “refrained (your favorite word)” from visiting more than a few times a year. It all seems a bit Marie Antoinette-ish. Let them refrain from everything. Let them stay home and Zoom their lives away while wearing face masks in the clammy Tokyo heat.
Excuse the tone – I’ve just read through Jotei (Queen) – Yuriko Koike, the unauthorized biography by Taeko Ishii that came out on May 29. As of July 6th, the day after Yuriko Koike won her second term, the book had sold over 200,000 copies. “It’s not a flattering portrait of Koike-san,” said Ishii in an online interview. “It’s frightening to think that ultimately, this woman won’t rest until she becomes the next Prime Minister. Who put her in this position? We all did. Japan put her in this seat of power. It’s the culture of old Japanese men, who will empower women only if they’re attractive and will bend to their will. It’s the culture of Japanese women who believe that women politicians are clean and selfless and will battle old men politicians on their behalf. The whole of Japanese society created Yuriko Koike, Tokyo governor.” Ishii’s book is densely researched, especially in regards to Koike’s past. The governor has an impressive CV – for a long time, she had told the press that she had graduated from the University of Cairo in Egypt, at the top of her class and was fluent in Arabic. Based on an interview with Koike’s old roommate in Cairo, Ishii writes that Koike quit the university after two years and only pretended to have graduated. Her knowledge of Arabic is sketchy at best, and that she had told this friend, “I’m going to write an autobiography but I won’t include you because then people will know I lied.”
There are other examples of Koike’s brazenness. When victims of the Hanshin Earthquake back in 1995 came to her for help at her office, Koike started painting her nails, and then told them to leave. When the late Shigeru Yokota, father of Megumi Yokota who had gone missing when she was 13 years old, suspected of being kidnapped by the North Korean government, held a meeting with her present, Koike shed tears as she listened to his story. After it ended, she left and then came back for her precious handbag. Her words were, “Oh good, there it is. I thought my bag had been kidnapped!”
Ishii calls Koike “a monster” but from Koike’s point of view, that title may have just as well have gotten her re-elected. Koike has thrived on negativity, in particular the sexist, ageist jibes aimed at her by fellow politicians and the public. Four years ago when she was running for governor, Shintaro Ishihara – himself Tokyo’s ex-governor, called her “an old woman with too much make-up. Who would vote for her?” In that instant Ishihara dug himself into a hopelessly deep grave, and Yuriko Koike won the election.
This time around, it was former Livedoor CEO Takafumi Horie, who did the honors. Horie is he head of his own political party, and had called for a complete reopening of the metropolis plus an acknowledgment from the Tokyo metropolitan government that they had been mistaken in installing “severe” shutdown measures during April and May. To this end, Takafumi Horie sent three contenders into the gubernatorial race, but in total vain. His public image went down the tubes too, after he publicly called Koike “a piece of shit” when she called out for limited entry to Tokyo supermarkets, to avoid congestion at the cash registers.
Ishii points out that Koike will be in power for as long as Japanese male politicians refuse to hold any meaningful political discussions with women in politics without resorting to gender issues, ageist issues and just plain mud-slinging. Koike may have showed these old men who’s in charge, hah! But after that personal triumph, she has left Tokyo staring into an abyss. She seems to have no real plans for the bad stuff: rising infections, the scaled-down but still expensive Olympics slated 12 months away, joblessness and bankruptcies and a floundering economy. What now, Yuriko-san? The answer surely, is not in your handbag.
*Editor’s Note: This was originally published at “The Empress of Tokyo Reigns Forever” but Kaori Shoji, the author, had some misgivings. ‘As a Japanese, I’d prefer not to refer to anyone as Empress unless they’re a part of the Imperial Family. Which is why I used the word Queen instead.’ However, queen is not quite a proper translation for 女帝 (jotei) so we used the term Imperatrix instead which has a closer meaning to the title of the book about Ms. Koike, and sounds a little like Dominatrix, which is also a nice fit for Madame Koike.
They say it takes more than a death to change the world but perhaps that’s not true in the case of 22-year old Hana Kimura (木村花). She was a professional wrestler and one of the cast members of Terrace House, the now defunct reality TV franchise that first launched in 2012 and went on for eight seasons. For the uninitiated, Terrace House follows the relationship dynamics of three boys and three girls as they live as housemates in a posh seaside house with a terrace. Hana-chan as she was called, starred as herself – an up and coming wrestling star with pink hair who was eager to get ahead in the entertainment industry. In an episode aired on March 31st, Hana-chan unleashed her anger over a laundry mishap committed by a fellow (male) housemate. The two made up, but the whole thing exploded right in Hana-chan’s face.
Hordes of Terrace House fans posted Hana-chan hating comments – upwards of 300 a day – and many demanded that she either leave the show or die, immediately. It’s said that the Covid-19 induced isolation further drove Kimura over the edge. Alone in her home, she couldn’t help but read and obsess over the hellish comments on social media, directed straight at her.
On May 23rd, Hana Kimura was rushed to the hospital after friends found her lying on the floor in her apartment, but it was too late. The details of her death have not been disclosed, but she left a note, apologizing to her friends and thanking her mom for “bringing me into this world.” Astonishingly, the anonymous cyber bullies who were at least partly responsible for her death resumed their bashing, accusing her of being ‘weak and needy’ and ‘not cut out to endure the hardships of working in the entertainment industry.”
All that hate though, faded away after Fuji Television Network, the creator of the Terrace House franchise pulled the plug on the show five days after Hana-chan’s suicide. Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Sanae Takaichi is now pushing for a law to hunt down those who post hate comments, and slap them with fines or worse. Even Prime Minister Abe has moved on the issue, remarking that “hateful comments on the Internet have the power to do irreparable damage, and they should be stopped, if possible.” Since then, things have been pretty quiet. Hana Kimura’s critics have seemingly disappeared off the face of the Net at least for now, and news commentators are continuing to express their ‘profound regret’ over her death.
That said, a certain apprehension hangs in the air; it seems that the Abe Administration is milking the Terrace House tragedy to its own advantage. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, PM Abe’s popularity has hit an all-time low and the belated delivery of two “Abenomasks” per household that he promised back in March, has become a running joke. It seems that most things he does these days is being ridiculed. The death of Hana Kimura may have been a welcome respite from having to deal with the social ills spawned by the lingering coronavirus, and the pile of political embarrassments racked up during the nation’s 49-day shut-down. Moritomo scandal, anyone?
it seems that the Abe Administration is milking the Terrace House tragedy to its own advantage.
In the meantime, media pundits are pointing out that both the Abe Administration and the Japanese populace should have their minds on other, more relevant issues, like the racial protests tearing the US apart, and now raging in Europe as well.
Political columnist Takashi Odajima observed in Nikkei Shimbun that the pandemic has afforded the US an opportunity to take a hard look at social injustice, while in Japan that same pandemic has given the government an excuse to cover things up. “In Japan, the government hides its scandals and inconvenient truths under the masks they insist on wearing,” he wrote.
You don’t have to be a pundit like Odajima, to get that sinking feeling: once again, Japan lags way behind the west when it comes to grappling with stuff that truly matters, in spite of, or maybe because of, an ongoing pandemic. While we’re still wrapping our faces and panicking about the number of new infections cropping up in Tokyo (more than 10! How horrifying!), protesters across the Pacific are risking their lives for racial justice. The comparison is scathingly humbling. Gosh, we’re small. And scared shitless of direct conflict.
Odajima pointed out that the Japanese are hopelessly bad at arguing a point, or any form of adverse social interaction unless it’s done among family members. He’s right. The bad stuff happens mostly at home and behind closed doors. In some cases they continue for years before anyone finds out. There’s anonymous groping on trains, and faceless bullying on the net but public protests in broad daylight rarely occur unless the protesters are hiding their faces behind masks. This explains why Hana-chan got so much flack – she dared to express rage over public airwaves, in her own name. And though it’s been pointed out that the show’s producers obliquely coerced her to do so, many Terrace House viewers were too naive to see the difference between the ‘reality’ of reality shows, and real life.
Maybe that’s just the way the Abe Administration wants it. Passive silence behind masks is vastly preferable to outright self-expression, in whatever situation. Imagine if the Japanese took to the streets to protest income inequality, the plight of temp workers, foreign laborers, and single mothers, domestic violence and rampant child abuse–just a few items off the top of an endless list?
The truth is that at this point, the nation needs many more Hana Kimuras–brave enough to express anger and negative feelings without fear of being punished for it. Hopefully, we can do that better, once the masks come off.
The whole world is somewhat baffled by how Japan is handling the coronavirus aka COVID19 aka Sars-CoV-2. The Diamond Princess debacle in which inept Japanese officials turned a cruise ship into a floating incubator for the virus did not bode well. Early on in the crisis, several politicians from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party expressed what was close to delight about the coronavirus disaster, stating that it would finally justify changing Japan’s constitution to a new one that gave the Prime Minister sweeping powers.
Japan has infamously under-tested, turning away most people who were not displaying already full-blown symptoms of coronavirus induced illness-–a fever over 37.5 degrees for four days, loss of sense of taste and smell, had been in contact someone diagnosed with the virus etc.– and has been extremely stingy in releasing information. Some suspect that Japan is hiding coronavirus cases and deaths in pneumonia statistics. Possible. Let’s assume that’s not true for the time being.
The Ministry of Health, which managed to get their own workers and medical staff infected on the Diamond Princess and then refused to test them, sending them back to work, where they infected others–doesn’t inspire confidence. The best they have done seems to be to warn people about the Three Cs (in Japanese 3の密. 密閉・密集・密接): closed spaces, crowds and close contact. Miraculously, avoiding an overlap of these three should keep you safe—until it doesn’t.
If a cute poster could stop the spread of COVID-19, Japan would win the war hands down.
Despite having the first cases of coronavirus in January, the number of deaths in Japan remains very low, 108 today (April 12th) out of a nation of 126 million people
This week I wrote a piece for the Asia Times–TB vaccines offers hope in Covid-19 war –about studies that show a correlation between low numbers of deaths in countries that had a universal tuberculosis vaccination program for decades–and coronavirus. The vaccine is called BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin). Infection rates also appear to be strongly impacted positively by the vaccine. The vaccine is nearly a hundred years old. It was developed by French physicians and biologists Léon Charles Albert Calmette and Jean-Marie Camille Guérin in the 1900s and first successfully tested in 1921. Some theorize that when the vaccine is given to very young children and/or infants, that it creates ‘attained immunity’ which helps the older generation (those most vulnerable) battle the virus. Personally, I sort of hope that it’s true, that BCG is the BFG (Big Fucking Gun) in the war against this pathogen, kind of like the iconic weapon in the first-person shooter DOOM. (It’s a video game). It has been suggested that the vaccine only works if given to very young children and that the strain of the vaccine matters as well. Could be.
NOTE: BCG vaccine has many strains (types). The BCG-Japan strain seems to be the one that actually works against the coronavirus. France uses the BCG-Denmark strain. If anyone reading this has access to materials about the BCG-Japan strain, please share them with me. I would like to know.
Could the 100-year-old vaccine BCG be the Big F*cking Gun (BFG) in the war on coronavirus? It would be nice if it was.
There are problems with the theory that BCG vaccine is a silver bullet (or a BFG). Correlation is not causation. France and England had a vaccination program but they have a high number of deaths. They also appeared to have inoculated their citizens when they were in their teens rather than as infant, and both countries use a different strain of the vaccine then the predominant one used in Asia. However, even if the BCG vaccination works/worked to prevent fatalities, is there any reason to believe it will work on adults? In the Netherlands and Australia clinical tests are underway. We shall see.
One of the joys of running this blog, with the help of others, since 2007, is that sometimes we are leaked good information that can be used to generate a solid news story. That is usually rare. The nature of the internet is that you tend to get lots of criticism, threats, accusations or wild conspiracy theories that can’t be verified. Comments are all read and edited before being posted. Many on-line sites have gotten rid of comments altogether. When I looked at the comments and letters today, I thought of doing the same….once again.
But then I read this letter below. It’s intriguing. The anonymous source asserts that they are a member of the medical community in Japan. I have edited it slightly for clarity and removed some possibly identifying details. Below the letter, I have added some notes and observations.
As the headline tells you, it is a conspiracy theory, of sorts. A “conspiracy” is usually defined as a secret plan by a group of people to do something harmful or illegal. If the writer of this letter is correct, the steps Japan has taken so far are not completely harmful. Indeed, it could be argued that testing everyone is not a great idea and that it overloads the health care system. Japan’s approach to the coronavirus has had its merits.
“The Japanese Society for Infection Prevention and Control (JSIPC) updated their coronavirus manual on March 10.
The tone is calm. “Japan is moving from containment measures to a period of spreading infection and we must adjust accordingly,” it says. Since March 6, Covid-19 testing won coverage under national health insurance – ergo, “as public money is being used for the coronavirus testing, it is necessary to carefully screen who gets tested.”
It gently chides anyone who seeks “needless” testing and urges medical professionals to prevent overcrowding at hospitals by instructing patients with light symptoms to stay home and avoid others.
Critically, it points out that since there is no specific treatment for Covid-19, the priority must be treating the illness via its pathogen causes.
“The foundation of treatment is symptomatic therapy,” the manual reads. When signs of pneumonia are found, it suggests using all possible methods of treatment, such as giving oxygen and vasopressors as necessary. Above all, it reminds medical staff of the top priority: “Protect the lives of seriously-ill patients, especially in cases of pneumonia.”“
This makes sense on some levels. However, if you don’t know who has the coronavirus, how can you possibly contain it? The manual does note that Japan has moved beyond containment measures (水際対策) and must conduct a sort of triage.
And so we come to the letter. It was written in response to the article TB vaccines offers hope in Covid-19 war and mailed to Japan Subculture Research Center.
I don’t know if it’s true nor can I say it’s untrue. Don’t believe it. I have limited resources, so I’ve decided to crowdsource this. I would like to know what you, the readers, think. And if anyone has supporting data, I’d love to have it–links and documents appreciated. If you can refute it, please do. Sometimes, many minds are better than one.
Send all mail, thoughts, comments, evidence and refutations to japansubcultureresearchcenter @ gmail.com with the heading, BCG and Japan.
Some short notes and observations on the letter are at the end of the document.
＊＊＊＊＊＊
Dear Mr. Adelstein,
I’m ●●●● and I’ve just been reading your report into BCG.
You’ve got the half the story, and while there are clinical issues with the variables and the science, you’re on the right track.
The other half is on the Japan side.
Have you noticed why Japanese aren’t talking about their immunity through BCG? There’s reasons for this.
Japan has invested a lot of capital into developing and selling Avigan as a coronavirus treatment. They’ve put the weight of Japan Inc behind this, and [Prime Minister] Shinzo Abe is their pitch man.
Did you notice the abrupt change in Abe’s policy around the end of February? That’s because Japanese researchers and doctors, including my colleagues, became aware at that time that BCG vaccines were possibly also working with the immune systems of most Japanese under age 70. NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) and MHLW [Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare] policies prohibit researchers and doctors from speaking publicly about this. But this is well-known in the medical community here.
What’s not understood is whether BCG is protecting children in the same way. We don’t have enough scientific or anecdotal evidence to rule out tuberculosis vaccine in Japan with confidence, especially because of the large number of foreign workers and tourists from at-risk countries, or whether BCG is working properly in tandem with other vaccinations in Japan. In layman’s terms, the younger generation of children in Japan don’t have the same immune system as the older generation. While we have decades of data about the health of the older generation, we still have insufficient clinical data about kids who haven’t been alive long enough to build up a reliable data base.
In the field of medicine, you can’t make a diagnosis or prescribe treatment based on anecdotes or hunches. We have to follow regulations and existing practices based on years worth of data and peer-reviewed studies. We simply can’t assume that BCG is protecting children from the novel coronavirus. Thus the medical community instructed Abe to protect these children as a preventive measure owing to the lack of available data on how their immune system would respond to Sars-CoV-2.
This also gave Abe and the MHLW political cover. Instead of doing nothing, they had to do something (1) . Abe couldn’t publicly announce that BCG was protecting the innoculated population of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. As you know, Abe is beholden to Keidanren (経団連・Japan Business Federation) and companies such as Fujifilm Holdings and their subsidiary Toyama Chemical, which manufactures Avigan (3). Who is going to buy Avigan if all they have to do is buy BCG? Why should Japan promote Avigan if most Japanese don’t need it? That is their reasoning. This is all about the sale of Avigan. (5)
This also explains why Japan was resisting international pressure to postpone the Summer Olympics. Abe and his panel of experts were assuming that BCG was protecting most of the population from the novel coronavirus. They had to cancel the games because of foreign pressure and the International Olympic Commission (IOC) (4), not because of any concerns about an overshoot of cases here in Japan.
There’s another issue that the media are overlooking. Japan now has millions of foreign residents and foreign tourists who didn’t get BCG shots. They are the most likely groups to acquire the novel coronavirus and spread it through the population in Japan. But Abe couldn’t say that due to policies of boosting tourist arrivals and preparing for the Olympics. Even if you think he’s a racist xenophobe, you have to credit him for respecting the rights of foreign COVID patients. Look at what China is doing with Africans, and you’ll understand Japan’s official thinking on this.
This also explains the Ministry of Health policy of keeping people away from hospitals (2). We don’t want people with colds, H1N1, ordinary coughs or sniffles to show up at hospitals demanding swabs, which also put health care workers at risk. They should stay home and rest anyway. MHLW set up a hotline for this purpose. If they didn’t, half of Japan would demand a test claiming to be sick. In most cases, patients with real COVID19 symptoms aren’t going to die anyways if they had their mandatory BCG vaccinations. Japan only wants to treat the most severe cases while protecting medical workers from infection. This is a reasonable policy. Most doctors support this, though some feel that we should be more proactive with outreach programs and advocacy on behalf of patients.
Try to see things from our perspective. We are watching more than a hundred doctors and nurses die in Italy. We saw the same thing in Wuhan. This scenario is Japan would serve nobody. It’s not selfish for us to protect ourselves. It’s good public health policy, and Japan is doing the right thing.
Please understand that the science isn’t black and white on this. Just because Japan made BCG shots mandatory doesn’t mean that every doctor gave them out, or that every parent took their kid to the doctor for the shot. Millions of people fell through the cracks and didn’t get vaccinated for TB, especially in the 1950s and 60s when Japan’s health care system was evolving. That’s why you are seeing numbers rise now, though on a much smaller level than in the U.S. or Italy. Most of the new cases now are people who didn’t get BCG shots. This is the common view of medical practitioners here.
This is especially true of patients in areas such as Taito-ku, which is the closest thing in Tokyo to Skid Row in LA. Many of these new patients are homeless, or they were born into impoverished families who didn’t vaccinate their children. You will see similar stories in impoverished areas of Osaka and other cities. Look at the data and you will find it.
You’re welcome to this information but ●●●
Good luck with your reporting. Ganbare.
Notes:
(1) In February, Prime Minister Abe’s request that schools nationwide be closed down was greeted with great puzzlement at the time. He later said that he had not consulted with experts when making the decision.
(3) It’s not clear how well Avigan, an anti-influenza drug does in fighting COVID-19 but Japan has offered to give it away to 20 countries that need it to fight coronavirus. It isn’t offering to give it away free to every single country in the world, so if you’re cynical you could see the giveway as free advertising, and/or free testing. Avigan was used to combat Ebola in the past.
(4) It would appear that after the Olympic Games were postponed that suddenly the number of Covid-19 cases jumped considerably. Correlation perhaps. Governor Yuriko Koike, who had been remarkably silent about the dangers of coronavirus, suddenly began talking about ‘a lockdown’ and the need for hyper vigilance with the pathogen only after March 23rd.
5) The Japanese government, including our friends at the Ministry Of Health, have conspired in the past to keep important medical data away from the public. The result was many innocent people being infected with AIDS and dying. Green Cross was the beneficiary and some of their executives were convicted of criminal negligence resulting in death. Government officials basically walked. See below and research more if you’re interested. Green Cross Executives receive prison terms in Yakugai (薬害エイズ) case.
On March 18th, the Japan Medical Association announced that there were 290 cases of doctors deciding that a patient needed to be tested for coronavirus, and even then the patients were not tested. The term used by JMA “不適切事例” literally translated means “inappropriate/unsuitable cases”.
The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seems intent on keeping the official numbers of infected down and that means not only making the standards for getting a test very high (for example, you must have a fever of over 37.5 degrees Celsius for four days) but it also seems to be actively discouraging tests.
Japan’s testing for coronavirus falls severely behind many other countries. see https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing
Nathalie Kyoko-Stucky interviewed one woman who was denied testing in Tokyo. This is her story.
Patient Zero, age 31 is a project manager in Japan working for an IT firm. She asked for her name to be omitted and some details of her story obscured for fear of being stigmatized socially. She lives in Tokyo.
“I started to feel very tired March 7th and had a low fever of 37.2. Thought i was just tired from work. On Monday, I felt really tired at work and on Tuesday, I struggled to go to the office and only stayed 2 hours and came home. Tuesday night, I started to get a cough and by 10pm I felt i was getting sick and my fever was 37.5 degrees.
Wednesday morning I woke up feeling sick and extremely tired and had a fever of 38 degrees.
Over the next few days, I stayed in bed sick. I started feeling a pain in my chest and it was getting painful to breathe. On Saturday, I called the Coronavirus hotline because by that point I had fever over 37.5 for 4 days.
I called them because I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to go to a normal hospital and accidentally spread it so I called for advice.
The lady told me that the Shinagawa Healthcare Center (品川保健所）is closed on the weekend, and I should call them on Monday when they opened. But, she said if I became sicker, I should just go to the hospital.
On Sunday there was still no improvement. I had pneumonia when I was in high school and my body felt similar to that time so I was a bit worried. So I called the hospital and told them my story and that at the minimum I wanted an x-ray. They told me, “Okay please come in.”
At the hospital they asked if I went to an onsen, had overseas travel, or if was in direct contact with a COVID-19 patient. I said no.
Luckily my x-ray came back clear for pneumonia, but the doctor diagnosed me with pleurisy.
Note:(Pleurisy (PLOOR-ih-see) is a condition in which the pleura — two large, thin layers of tissue that separate the lungs from the chest wall — becomes inflamed. Also called pleuritis, pleurisy causes sharp chest pain (pleuritic pain) that worsens during breathing.It can be caused by viral infections, pneumonia and other conditions
I felt the doctor was kind but his hands were tied.
On Monday, my fever was will going between 37.5-38, and my boyfriend called the health care center. It took hours to get through because the phone line was always busy.
After getting through to someone and explaining the situation, the women answering the phone said she can’t authorize a test because I have not traveled abroad and I have no direct contact with a COVID19 patient.
Her advice was, ” If it is still bad or gets worse in a few days, go back to the hospital and beg the doctor himself to call the healthcare center and request a test for me.
At that point I realized it’s impossible to get a test. I didn’t want to risk going outside and accidentally infecting someone.
Unfortunately, the part which is most frustrating for me now is that I don’t know if I actually have it or not.I was considering trying to go back to the US to help my mother who is in her seventies, but I cannot risk going back and spreading it to her.
Luckily today, on March 21, it was the first day that I haven’t had a fever since March 7. I lost my voice and talking still irritates my lungs but most of the chest pain is gone.
So I had fever for 14 days. It’s very surreal.
I was so surprised why they set up the hotline to call, but advice from both numbers was “just to go the hospital”.
I expected they would tell me where to go for example or perhaps advise me to stay home in quarantine.
What’s the point of a hotline if the advice is “just go to the hospital”?
Personally that made me feel like there is not much fear about it spreading in the medical establishment. This worries me.
Also as a side note, I had been extra careful , carrying hand sanitizer everywhere I went and also never was outside without a mask. I even was using taxis the majority of the time to avoid the train.
****
This is just one example of a person who most likely should have been tested for the virus and was not. If you have experienced something similar, please write us with the heading CVTESTS at japansubcultureresearchcenter@gmail.com
A priority item on the agenda of the first Shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Iyeyasu when he seized power in 1603, was to limit foreign travel to Japan. He issued several orders like the ones we’re seeing around the world at this moment: urging the Japanese to stay put in their own communities and urging all foreigners to get the hell out. By foreigners, Iyeyasu specifically meant the European missionaries who were spreading ideas – like a virus! – about an omnipotent God that transcended traditional Japanese values. They also extolled the virtues of non-violence and giving to the poor; two factors that the new Shogun viewed as particularly harmful to his authority. The ‘aliens’ had to go, and those who didn’t, were eventually executed or banished to Dejima Island, off the coast of Nagasaki. Iyeyasu’s son and grandson tightened the screws on the lockdown as they in turn, became the Shogun. Japan effectively bolted its doors to the outside world and Sakoku*・鎖国(shutting down the country)’ went into effect.
Initially, other clan lords were skeptical about this sakoku thing. Before Iyeyasu came along, Japan had a fairly robust import/export system, supported by a prosperous merchant class in Osaka. Without inbound travelers and foreign business, these merchants were sunk, as was the burgeoning currency economy. But Iyeyasu shrugged off their complaints and worries. He chose reclusive isolation over commerce and progress, and for the next 265 years, Japan became a ‘hikikomori (shut-in)’ in the global community. Everything passed us by: the Industrial Revolution and the locomotive, colonialism and corsets, Mozart and coffee, the printing press and chocolate. Everything.
*Writer’s Note – Contrary to the belief that the Tokugawa Shogunate coined the term ‘sakoku’ which literally means a ‘country in chains,’ it was actually invented by German explorer Engelbert Kaempfer in the late 17th century and later translated into Japanese.
In the meantime, the Japanese got a lot of practice on keeping calm and carrying on behind closed doors, in spite of or because of everything happening in the larger world. Sure, sakoku sucked in a hundred ways but it also created a uniquely weird culture that continues to enthrall or amuse people all over the world. Iyeyasu’s capital city of Edo – now called Tokyo, was a haven of stability and prosperity with an unparalleled ecological and recycling system.
The sakoku mind-set made all this possible – a willful and deliberate closing of the shutters to the outside world while making sure that plenty went on inside. Call it aloofness, coldness or a thick-skinned pragmatism. In times like this, such traits can come in pretty handy.
You may have heard that the Japanese aren’t very expressive – well that’s just not true. The Japanese are THE LEAST expressive people in Asia which probably makes us the most rigid people on the planet. Long before this virus thing the Japanese have been wearing masks – as a prevention against all ills including a bad skin day and questionable breath. The mask was also fashionable among teenage girls, as hiding their mouths made them feel more attractive. (Kissing with masks was a real thing in the early aughts too, because many young couples deemed it erotic.) We were also adamant about washing hands, gargling and refusing to eat off communal plates.
Smiling and laughing in public, talking to strangers, physical displays of affection – these things are normal in western cultures but they’ve never taken off here unless it became a fad. Like being friendly to foreigners and embracing diversity was a fad that many Japanese felt pressured into doing because hey, globalism and the Olympics 2020. But now COVID-19 has given the Japanese a very good reason to go back to the way we were. Unrelenting, inexpressive, rigid and distanced. It’s all cool. Show me a person with a secret stash of face masks and 30 rolls of toilet paper and I’ll show you a model Japanese citizen.
As for touching one another, it’s a whole other issue unto itself. The Japanese just don’t do this, and never had. Though many of us love the idea of casual cheek kisses a la Francaise, we just couldn’t muster the courage to try it on a Tokyo street. Now, we don’t have to pretend anymore. Social distancing may be a new and scary concept for the west but to us, it’s very familiar, like our parents to whom we pay the obligatory visit over New Year’s.
Speaking of which, I don’t ever remember being hugged by my late father, who devoted much of his life to wedging a good, 1.7 meter distance between himself and the rest of the world. It wasn’t just him of course, many Japanese males can’t bring themselves to get close to anyone they know, which paradoxically explains why there’s so much groping on the trains. But the virus has resolved that snag–what with schools closed and people ordered to work remotely, the morning trains are far less crowded and consist mostly of masked salarymen clutching phones with one hand and briefcases in the other, studiously avoiding all eye and physical contact.
You might say the Japanese are good at this. There is little of the sense of deprivation and loneliness that say, an American person might feel about the loss of casual physical contact. We’re not touching, we’re not smiling, but who’s to say we’re not having fun underneath our face masks?
Editor’s Note: And judging by the hanami crowds this weekend and in accordance with the Ministry of Health’s “Let’s go outside!” admonitions, it seems like Japan’s 鎖国（sakoku ) period may end very soon.
Just for the record, while big concerts and public events are not happening, there’s still plenty going on in Tokyo and most restaurants and department stores have stayed open. Other venues include:
1) Shinjuku Gyoen Park Located in Sendagaya, this place is heavenly for a stroll among the greenery and themed gardens.
Unanswerable questions of the year: Is Japan really going to war? Is Japan’s peacetime constitution going to be trashed by the ruling party and returned back to the Imperial Constitution, which did not give suffrage or equal rights to women?
This question will be on the mind and haunt your waking hours after reading “The Only Woman in the Room” by Beate Sirota Gordon. In this memoir, she takes us through the various events in her life made remarkable by the fact that in late 1945, she became a member on the US Occupation team that drew up Japan’s National Constitution. Not only was she the only woman in the room, she was just 22 years old.
Her passport said she was an American citizen, but Beate Sirota had lived for 10 years in Akasaka, Tokyo with her Russian Jewish parents (her father Leo Sirota was a celebrated musician from Vienna and a close friend of Kosaku Yamada). For the past five years, she had been in the US while her parents had been in detention in Karuizawa. The only way to catch a plane out of America and into a ravaged, defeated Japan to see them again, was to get a job in the army. Beate’s Japan experience and the fact that she could speak, write, and read with fluency got her that position.
“The Only Woman in the Room” is honest, plain and straightforward – written not by a professional author but an extremely well-bred, cultured woman who had forged a career for herself in a time when women – even in America – were expected to marry, have babies and sink themselves in domestic bliss. Or just sink. Across the Pacific, American women her age were sizing up future husbands at cocktail parties. Beate was commuting from Kanda Kaikan to Occupation headquarters and working on the constitution 10 to 12 hours a day. She often skipped meals, since food was scarce and the work was so pressing. Her male colleagues pushed themselves harder and put in more hours – and Beate mentions that she admired and respected them for that. Her tone is never feminist, probably because she comes from a generation told to revere males and elders. Besides, she grew up in Japan where women shut their mouths and looked down when a male spoke to them, and that was exactly what she did when she first landed in Atsugi and an official asked to see her passport.
On the other hand, though her tone is consistently soft and modest, her voice is clearly her own – and when it’s time to stand up for the Japanese and their rights, she apparently didn’t give an inch. What an ally the Japanese had in Beate, especially Japanese women whom she describes in the book and in interviews she gave later on: “Japanese women are treated like chattels, bought and sold on a whim.”
Rather than change the whole world, Beate wanted to contribute to the building of a modernized Japanese society. Rather than yell out for women’s’ rights and organizing feminist rallies, she sought to raise awareness about the historical plight of Japanese women and children. And just as earnestly, she wished to help her parents, in particular her mother, who was suffering from severe malnutrition. Beate wasn’t a saint nor interested in being one. Without meaning to, she came pretty close. Her prose is never condescending, nor does it brim with self-congratulations as in the case of many memoirs. She had a story to tell and she told it and as far as she was concerned, when the story was over there was no reason for fuss or lingering.
After the army stint, Beate Sirota Gordon returned with her parents to the US in 1948, married a former colleague in the Army and later worked as the director of the Asia Society and Japan Society in New York. She continued to give interviews about her work on the Constitution but only because she felt that the peace clause (the controversial Article 9) had to be defended repeatedly. She venerated her parents and remained very close to her mother until her death, while raising a family of her own, because family and love were precious and she knew first-hand the tragedy of losing them.
What culminates from her memoirs is her selflessness. Helping others, being fair, and maintaining a striking modesty in spite of her many accomplishments were the defining factors of Beate’s life. She died in 2012 from pancreatic cancer, four months after the death of her husband Joseph Gordon. The Asahi Shimbun printed an extensive obituary on the front page, lauding her work and reminding the readers how the Constitution had protected Japan all these decades, for better or worse. Mostly for the better.
We in Japan tend to take the Constitution for granted. Many people remember and harp on the deprivation of the war years but few bother to recall the dismal details of everyday life before that. Women couldn’t go to school; they were expected to serve their parents and male siblings before marrying into households where she continued to serve and slave her husband and his clan. These women brought up their sons in the traditional way – which resulted in an unending circle of entitlement and arrogance for men, and toil and servitude for females. In poor families, parents sold off their children. Soldiers and military policemen detained ordinary citizens on the slightest suspicion and beat them during interrogation. They were responsible for committing unspeakable atrocities in China and Korea.
There was happiness, peace, equality, and respect in the Sirota household when Beate was growing up, but she knew too well how the average Japanese in Japan fared; how women and children were cut off from beauty, culture, or anything out of the familial box. She wanted a magic wand that would somehow change all that, and her idealistic, 22-year old mind told her that if she couldn’t get a wand, the Constitution was bound to be the next best thing. The task was daunting – she was working for peace and gender equality in a country steeped in tradition and ‘bushido’ feudalism. At this point in 1945, not even American women had gender equality and there she was, giving her all to ensuring that Japanese women would get that right. And just for the reason, there wasn’t nor has there ever been, anything in the American Constitution that resembles Japan’s Article 9.
At the end of the book is an elegy by Beate’s son and part of it goes like this: “Your legacy is the art of living in beauty and truth, of speaking up and out for what is right, and of finding our best selves and sharing them.”
As of March 1st, Japan has already seen more than 900 people get infected by the deadly coronavirus. To avoid contributing to the spread, many businesses have decided to suspend operations; schools in some prefectures are closing for a couple of weeks.
Naturally, you might wonder how you are going to survive all of March if your employer suddenly cancels some or all of your shifts. This has happened to a number of teachers already. Here is a guideline which summarizes everything you need to know to still receive your salary.
If you were Hired by Board of Education and Teaching at Public Schools
If you are employed by a board of education, teaching language classes, or working for a public school in any way, you should contact your employer (it would most likely be the prefectural board of education) and ask whether you will still be guaranteed your March salary. Essentially, it’s up to your employer (board of education) whether to continue to pay for the classes you were forced to miss. The Tokyo Board of Education has decided that part-time lecturers/teachers would still be guaranteed the same amount they would have received even if schools are closed due to coronavirus. (授業がないと給与が払われない？ 一斉休校による「非正規」教員への影響)
Remember, this particular rule only applies if you work for a public school and are employed by a board of education. Thus, assistant language teachers (ALTs) who are employed by dispatching agencies do not have to worry about contacting their local board of education.
Everyone Else
If you are NOT employed by a board of education, then this is what you have to know. Unless it is you who decided not to go to work, due to various reasons–such as the fear you might get infected commuting–you should still be paid for the time missed. It does not matter if you are working full-time or part-time, whether you work as a regular employee (seishain) or on a temporary, fixed-term contractor (hi-seiki), every worker has the right to receive the full amount.
No matter what the reasoning behind closing operations temporarily, employers must pay at least 60 percent of your salary if they tell employees not to show up. Article 26 of the Labor Standards Act which states that “in the event of an absence from work for reasons attributable to the Employer, the Employer shall pay an allowance equal to at least 60 percent of the Worker’s average Wage to each Worker concerned during said period of absence from work.”
For example, your March shifts had already been set, and you had ten days/shifts, 8 hours a day, in March, and your hourly wage is 2000 Yen, for a total of 160,000 Yen. Your employer canceled all of your shifts because of the coronavirus. You should still be able to receive at least 60 percent of that 160,000 Yen which is 96,000 Yen, according to the Labor Standards Act, no matter what your employer tells you or what the reason for closing the company operations.
On top of that, 60 percent is the absolute minimum that your employer must pay to avoid being persecuted for violating the Labor Standards Act. You have the right to demand that your employer pay 100 percent of your missed salary since it was not your fault that you could not work. It might not be your employer’s fault that the coronavirus is spreading so rapidly and we are in a total chaos (Japan Shows Coronavirus May Be a Gift—for Would-Be Dictators https://www.thedailybeast.com/japans-coronavirus-cruise-ship-debacle-shows-epidemic-can-be-a-gift-for-would-be-dictators?ref=author) , but what matters in receiving renumerations is that it was your employer (and not you) who told you not to come to work.
In order to still receive your salary, make sure to keep track of your missed shifts (dates, hours) and calculate how much you ended up not getting paid. When your March payday comes, and you find out your employer did not bank transfer your March salary, then you can write a letter to your employer demanding that it pay your March salary. If your employer still decides not to compensate, then you can go to the labor standards office, which oversees the district where your workplace is (not where your company headquarters is) and have an officer investigate.
Or you can contact labor NGOs or labor unions for assistance. There’s a labor NGO called Posse, which is running a coronavirus hotline for foreign workers on March 4thfrom 5 pm to 8 pm, offering legal advice in English free of charge (WE ARE STARTING A CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) HOTLINE FOR FOREIGN WORKERS! https://blog.goo.ne.jp/posse_blog/e/0125cd742806a2d9b201bbae5d7c29b1).
What if the company wants you to come, but you don’t want to show up?
You have two options. The first option is to use your annual paid leave. Article 39 of the Labor Standards Act guarantees ALL workers that you are entitled to receive at least a day of paid leave after working for the same employer for six months. If you work full time, then you should have at least ten days per year after six months of being employed by the same employer. The chart on page 42 tells you how many days of paid holidays you should have (https://www.hataraku.metro.tokyo.jp/sodan/siryo/29-5rodojikan.pdf) and you could have more if your contract states otherwise. You have the right to decide when you want to use your annual paid leave. It would be illegal for your employer to restrict you from using your paid leave.
The second option is to apply for a benefit called “shou byou teate kin (傷病手当金)”. You can receive a payment from your health insurance provider if you are sick and have to take more than three consecutive days away from work. You need to have missed your paycheck and have to have your doctor fill in the paperwork to receive a payment, which guarantees you get 67 percent of your monthly salary.
What if You Are Infected with Coronavirus during Work?
This might be the worst-case scenario, but if you are (or if you think you are) infected with the coronavirus during work, you should apply for workplace injury compensation (Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance is the official English translation of the Japanese term, rosai 労災). It’s up to the labor standards office to determine whether your infection is work-related or not, but if it does so, you should receive free medical services, and 80 percent of your salary is guaranteed. For the 20 percent of your salary the insurance does not cover, you have the right to demand your employer to cover that part since it is a workplace injury. No employer can terminate a contract of an employee who is taking a leave due to workplace injury.
See Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare: Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Guideline for Foreign Workers
So what should you do if your employer tells you not to come? First, you should make sure to keep track of how many days or hours you are forced to miss. If you use an online calendar in which your employer can delete your shifts easily, make sure to take a screenshot of your schedule before your shifts get removed. Then you should demand your employer to still pay for the time missed. If you are not sure about what to do, there are several NGOs and labor unions which you can contact in English. There’s Tokyo General Union (https://tokyogeneralunion.org/), which mainly organizes language school teachers, and there’s Posse (https://foreignworkersupport.wixsite.com/mysite/english), a labor NGO working on behalf of foreign/migrant workers.
(This post is based on the material published in the article written first in Japanese by a labor activist/researcher Haruki Konno. Some parts of the original material are modified. If you are looking for similar information in Japanese, please refer to the link below)
TOKYO–Mickey Mouse, the Chairman of Tokyo Disneyland Resorts Worldwide (TDRW), and his number two, Donald Duck, were arrested today by Tokyo Special Prosecutors on charges of accounting fraud, as they arrived on a private magic carpet at the Tokyo Disneyland Resort around midnight on January 10th.
Mickey Mouse in a Japanese jail where he will reside for the next 23 days, or until he is rearrested next month. “He’s no mouse; he’s a rat,” said CEO Duffy in a press conference today.
Mickey Mouse, “The Cheese and Expenses Eater” once considered a hero in Japan for his successful turnaround of Tokyo Disneyland when it was threatened with bankruptcy thirty years ago, had no comment about the arrest. This may be because he was immediately thrown in a cage, where he will be held for twenty-three days, where he will be interrogated without a lawyer from morning until night, without being informed of the charges against him, kept in solitary confinement and will be urged to confess to his crimes before being rearrested, while the prosecutors obliquely threaten his family and friends. The Tokyo Prosecutors are already preparing an arrest warrant for Minnie Mouse–according to official unofficial leaks to the Japanese press.
CEO Duffy, once considered Mr Mouse’s protege, held a press conference this morning where he decried his boss as a traitor and maniacal dictator who desperately needed to be removed for the greater good of TDRW (Tokyo Disneyland Resorts Worldwide) and Japan.
“He’s no mouse,” said CEO Duffy, “He’s a rat. We’ve already spent the yen equivalent of 100 million dollars on an internal investigation to determine that Mr Mouse has eaten several cheese dogs at the park without paying. Although, the blow to our public image may cost us the yen equivalent of $900 million, we feel that every yen spent or that will be spent was worth it.”
Duffy would not answer questions as to whether Disney executives, specifically The Beagle Boys, had made a plea bargain with the prosecutors prior to the arrest. Some of his answers were unintelligible, as he kept eating cheese dogs through most of the Q & A.
Justice Minister Minnie Mori in a hastily released statement said, “I realize that to many children Mickey Mouse is a hero but not here. The real heroes here are the daring prosecutors that have devoted a year of their time to catching this dastardly threat to Japanese corporate elites and Japanese sovereignty.”
The hastily prepared statement released today in 37 languages, had special praise for Japan’s once respected Office Of The Special Prosecutors.
“These heroes, the special prosecutors could have wasted their time going after the executive at TEPCO, who’s criminal negligence probably made them responsible for the worst nuclear accident of the last decade . Or the bureaucrats who forged and destroyed public documents related to the Moritomo Gakuen project, which would have needlessly embarrassed the Abe administration. (And really, the public doesn’t have the right to know…anything) They could have indicted Prime Minister Abe’s biographer on charges of sexual assault, or executives at Takata Airbags for making defective products that killed people, or gone after Toshiba, but that would have been cowardly pandering to public opinion and not serving the greater interest of the Liberal Democratic Party nation.”
“I can personally assure you that Mr Mouse will go through a farcical trial after several arrests and spending months in jail, only to be convicted in our incredibly just and fair system with its 99% conviction rate. It is a system where above all else, we completely respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which says that the accused is presumed guilty until proven guilty innocent.*”
At the cursory press conference, when questioned by the foreign media about the treatment being given to Mr Mouse, with the presumption of guilt, the pre-trial incarceration in a solitary jail cell and other issues, Minister Mori refused to comment. When asked what was the evidence of financial fraud, Minister Mori just giggled and ate a cheese dog.
When a reporter from the New York Times, speaking out of turn, yelled “Don’t you feel that the harsh treatment might be violating his human rights?” Mori had a snappy comeback.
“What human rights? He’s a fucking mouse.**”
The article posted above is satire. Any resemblance to events related to the Tokyo Prosecutor and Nissan’s disastrous collusion in prosecuting Carlos Ghosn are purely intentional. Japan’s current Minister of Justice stated twice, tweeted once and posted on Facebook the words ˆ無罪の証明” stating that the accused must prove their innocence in Japan, which is the reality. In theory, the prosecutors must prove guilty, or the accused must be found not guilty and go free. In Japan, once you are arrested you can be held up to 23 days without being charged. Those who assert they are innocent are often held for months and sometimes years before their trial, a system called “hostage justice“. Nissan has now spent close to $200 million pursing a case against the CEO that rebuilt the company. The amount of funding Ghosn is accused of putting into his own pocket is less than $20 million–assuming that there is any merit to those claims by Nissan executives. In consideration of the drop in share value, the pubic relations fiasco, and the amount of money already spent on this debacle, the whole thing seems to be a great example of poor cost performance.
** “I was taught yakuza and foreigners have no human rights,” said a former prosecutor who also authored 検事失格.
Carlos Ghosn, the former chairman of Nissan, now a fugitive, will make his first public appearance on Wednesday, several days after his dramatic escape from Japan. He was scheduled to be tried for alleged financial misconduct….in 2021. (He was arrested in 2018 and detained for 128 days)
After being muzzled for months by Japan’s prosecutors, under a Damocles sword that if he held a press conference, he would be re-arrested and thrown into “the pig-box” (detention cells/jail), Carlos Ghosn will tell all tonight.
Ironically, the Japanese media, which has except for a few periodicals, kept leaking information from Nissan and the prosecutors without scrutiny, has been shut out of the press conference.
According to Fox Business News:
Carlos Ghosn told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo this weekend that he has “actual evidence” and documents that will prove that this was a coup to take him down.
Ghosn told Bartiromo that at a press conference this week he plans to name names, including some people behind the Japanese government which he believes, are behind his 2018 arrest over financial misconduct allegations. Ghosn believes “they wanted to take him out” because he was going to merge with Nissan and Renault.
The big questions: who are the suspects, who will be on the J’Accuse list？
Based on talks with Carlos Ghosn, his lawyers and former Nissan and Renault executives here is my list of the unusual suspects .
Yoshihide Suga (Cabinet Spokesman)
菅義偉官房長官
Hari Nada (Nissan executive who made a plea bargain with prosecutors)
ハリ・ナダ氏
Hitoshi Kawaguchi (Nissan executive and close friend of Suga)
川口均氏
Akihide Kumada (former special prosecutor, Prime Minister Abe’s pet lawyer)
熊田彰英氏（ヤメ検）
Toshiaki Ohnuma (Nissan executive who allegedly made a plea bargain with prosecutors)
大沼敏明氏
Masukazu Toyoda (former METI official who seems to have been put on Nissan board just in time to plot Ghosn’s downfall. Nissan spy?)
豊田正和氏
Phillippe Klein (Renault)
Allegedly was in Renault on November 20th all the “evidence” to prove Ghosn was guilty.
Hiniku Taro, a former special prosecutor, implores Ghosn to respect Japan’s rule of law
Shame on you Mr. Ghosn, for not allowing us to prove you’re guilty in our very fair system of 99% conviction Japanese law!
It is most regrettable that Carlos Ghosn, the convicted criminal, former CEO of Nissan has cowardly chosen to escape from Japan rather than face a fair trial and inevitable conviction in Japan’s prestigious courts. This is very disruptive of our justice system and the prosecutor conviction statistics.
I think there is a cultural misunderstanding on the side of Ghosn-san that has led to this rash decision. As you may know, Japan is a country where justice works on the presumption of innocent until proven guilty. Which is the tatemae–like when your mama makes you a rice cake with zoni and you say it is good even if is not so tasty. Some have said, that in Nippon you are presumed guilty until proven innocent. This very true—up to certain point. That certain point, in my experience, being when we decide whether to indict or not. If it is not a slam dunk case, then we presume you are innocent because we don’t like to lose.
But once we indict you, we have 99% conviction rate. So post-indictment, you are presumed guilty until proven guilty. And Ghosn has unfairly denied us the right to prove his guilt. This is a great shame.
We only denied Ghosn 6000 files in preparing his defense and only kept him in jail for 129 days before his trial. We most benevolent but no no thank you from him. Just whine whine whine. He would have had a fair trial and been fairly convicted based on the incredibly slanted, selective testimony and evidence the prosecutors had arranged and altered, and a stark refusal to allow in any testimony that might exonerate him,.
Even then, he would still have a 1% chance of being found not guilty of some or all of the charges. Of course, since the prosecution can appeal cases in Japan, and we like to do, we’d probably have convicted him the second round. Yes, because you can get tried for the same crime here but we have no double jeopardy–in theory.
How do we know what’s a serious crime? Well, when a foreigner does it, it’s a serious crime. It is in the unwritten Roppo. When Coincheck, loses over a billion dollars worth of virtual currency–was there a crime committed? We don’t care. When Mark Karpeles, a FRENCHMAN, running a virtual currency exchange is hacked out of a half billion worth of virtual currency, we arrest him on whatever charges possible. knowing he must be guilty. And we hold him for 11 months, questioning him with no lawyer present, because we know he’s guilty. And when the IRS, Homeland Security and US authorities arrest the real hacker, we try to block that evidence from being submitted into court. And when the court finds him not guilty on major charges, and the crazy judge rebukes us?
We don’t talk about that. Not good idea to talk about that. And what about Enzai (冤罪) –wrongful convictions? This only happens in case of Japanese, who are very old and probably going to die in prison, so we say okay, maybe not guilty. Oh and that Nepalese guy wrongfully convicted of murder. Oops. Prosecutors are humans, too. PS. Don’t read those back issues of that magazine devoted to cases of injustice in Japan. Very old now. Much changed!
We work very hard to find or make evidence that will our make case. Ghosn and his lawyers were very uzai. Why would we want evidence that could exonerate the accused when we already have enough to win the case? We get so tired of whiny liberal lawyers who want a ‘fair’ trial for their client. L-o-s-e-r-s. This is why we will find any reason to deny them crucial evidence or share it with them—and also because we can!
The judge is almost always going to give us what we want. That’s how the system works. And as a long time resident of Japan, Carlos Ghosn must respect that system. It is the honorable thing to do. It very simple.
A Guide To The Japanese Prosecutor’s Office
You do or not do a crime.
Someone reports the crime to the police, who may or may not make an arrest. THEN
A) If you are politically connected to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his friends, or LDP and bonus points if you are wealthy business executive, the case is stopped early and investigation quashed.
If gung ho police insist, or foolish lower level prosecutors take papers from police, we wait until Japan wins Olympic bid or some big event and then announce that we won’t prosecute—so nobody notice.
B) If you are politically connected, you report crime to the police or even better, special prosecutor, and make back-door deal. Plea bargaining now welcome, welcome.
We arrest suspect (dirty foreigner or vocal critic) on lesser charges! Go to jail. If you don’t confess, we go to friendly judge and say, “He/she will destroy evidence or escape while we work little bit more. Can we keep them 10 more days?” Judge says, OK! We can hold you for up to 23 days, easy-peasy. Then like fish on a hook, we let you go–then rearrest! We hold them in jail until they confess and rigorously interrogate them every day.
If they don’t confess, it’s only because they’re guilty. And if they do confess, well we were right, they’re guilty.
Get With The Game, Ghosn!
This is Japan and everyone must play their part. We make occasional politically motivated public arrest of big person, but not anyone close to the Prime Minister. We leak like crazy to Japanese media bad things about suspect–even that they confessed. We prepare for the trial, hoodwink the lawyers, refuse to show them our evidence–because we can get away with it and the law doesn’t force us to do it, nor will the judge, and then we win. 99% of the time. And if we lose 1% of the time, well we win on the appeal. 😜
The role of the indicted is to either confess early or endure the proceedings and then get convicted anyway, but winning or escaping–that’s not an option.
Shame on you, Carlos Ghosn. You have made a mockery of the Japanese system of injustice justice. And what is even more unforgivable is that your selfish act may actually lower our conviction rates to less than 99%!
Hiniku Taro is a former prosecutor, now in private practice, after resigning from office when he was discovered to have forced a local politician to confess to being a serial underwear thief, ‘on a hunch’, in 2002. He says, ‘Even though I may no longer be a prosecutor, I never forget the valuable lessons I learned on the job such as yakuza and foreigners have no human rights’. For more information see the webpage for Hiniku and Tanuki Sougo General Law Horitsu Jimusho, located in Chiyoda-ku, Otemachi.
This question will be on the mind and haunt your waking hours after reading “The Only Woman in the Room” by Beate Sirota Gordon. In this memoir, she takes us through the various events in her life made remarkable by the fact that in late 1945, she became a member on the US Occupation team that drew up Japan’s National Constitution. Not only was she the only woman in the room, she was just 22 years old.
