Kamiosawa: Murdered and Chopped Up in Tokyo

How many of you have been following the attempted suicide of Hiroshi Nozaki (野崎浩) on April 6? I’m guessing not that many of you, because for some reason it’s not really receiving that much air time on Japanese TV. Nozaki’s suicide is particularly controversial because after calling an ambulance he gave instructions to the doctor to search in a coin locker at the Hamamatsucho Station (浜松町駅) next to the World Trade Center Building. Inside the locker was a suitcase filled with 10 chopped up body parts of a 22 year old Filipina woman, Honiefaith Ratilla Kamiosawa (上大澤・ハニーフィット・ラティリア). As foreigners in Japan, there is more to this story than the Japanese media make out. How much different would this situation be if she were say, American? Or perhaps if she was a Japanese national, and the killer was an African American?

In case you haven’t seen the news let me give you a very brief rundown on what appears to have happened:

Hiroshi Nozaki – Cut up Pinay into Pieces
• Nozaki shared an apartment in Odaiba with the woman and 2 of her cousins. It seems that the 3 women all worked at the same hostess club in Roppongi.
• Nozaki was a regular patron of Kamiosawa’s establishment, and he was hooked on Filipino women. He offered to pay half of Kamiosawa’s rent, on the condition that he could move in with her. She accepted.
• Kamiosawa and Nozaki got in to a fight after Nozaki failed to pay his share of the rent. The police believe that Nozaki murdered Kamiosawa on April 3.
• After killing Kamiosawa, Nozaki carved her body up in their bath and tried to hide the cause of death by washing her in their washing machine.
• Three days later, Nozaki supposedly attempted to commit suicide by slitting his wrists (hmmm) but then called an ambulance for help (hmmm) . That’s a sure fire way of ensuring that you don’t die.

This video is a sample nonchalant media coverage that this case got on Japanese TV (Japanese language). The last line in the story regarding the washing machine trick is particularly interesting. Translation: “It is thought that Nozaki washed the parts of the body in a washing machine before putting them in a suitcase. The police are thinking about whether to charge him with Murder also”.

This alone is a pretty horrific story. But I ask you, Why isn’t this a bigger issue? Why isn’t it getting more press? Why is it that the life of a Filipino is deemed to be so worthless? Would it have been any different if she was an American? Of course it would have. It would be a high profile international crime case. President Bush would be knocking on Fukuda’s door. I know that Japan is an important country for the Philippines but come on? Where is the power of your politicians? Why aren’t they making a bigger issue of this? The future of the Philippines rides on the success of its overseas workers, it can’t afford to allow Japan to get away with something like this? Has anybody seen any comments from the Embassy?

Coin Lockers at the Tokyo Monorail
Hamamatsucho Station where the body was found

What makes it even worse, is that it is not the first time that this has happened. In fact it is not even the first time that this man has carved up a pinay! I can hear your jaw dropping and hitting the floor right now. Nozaki was arrested and sentenced in 2000 for three and a half years jail for carving up the body of another 27 year old Filipina girl, Longakit Alda Yoneda (米田・ロンガキット・エルダ) that he was living with at the time. After hacking up her body, and boiling it in a pasta pot, he flushed it down the toilet of a park in Yokohama!

This raises a few more questions. Why on earth was he only given a 3.5 year jail sentence? You’re never going to believe this, but apparently he wasn’t found guilty of murder at all. He was “only” found guilty of “mutilating and abandoning of a dead body” (死体損壊・遺棄). At the time he claimed that when he woke up she was lying dead beside him. Well, I guess that explains why he then cut her up into pieces doesn’t it. The investigation into the death of the 27 year old is still unsolved. This is wrong in so many ways (unless of course, Nozaki genuinely couldn’t pay for the funeral of the sexy young lady who died of natural causes in bed next to him – in which case chopping her up and disposing of her in a more unorthodox, though frugal way would have of course been the only option…)

• How do you decide that three and a half years is an appropriate term for the “mutilating and abandoning of a dead body”?
• Why isn’t it obvious that a man who was overheard fighting with a Filipina dancer and then caught flushing her body down a park toilet killed her, too?
• Why does Japan allow such sickos to go back out into society?
• Why would this story have been so different if either of the girls were American?
• Perhaps even more provoking yet, why would this story have been so different if the murderer was an American? (Or even if the girl was British!)

The three star symbol of a Master Taxi Driver – 優良タクシードライバー

Have you ever noticed Tokyo taxis with these three stars atop? They are a type of certification of the level of the driver inside the taxi – they are designated “Master Taxi Drivers” (優良タクシードライバー). Look out for them next time you grab a cab in Tokyo!

The Kanto Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has announced a proposal to designate space at taxi ranks for these master drivers. They have chosen Shimbashi station, near the Yurikamome line, as the first location. Some taxi stands already offered passengers the chance to queue for no-smoking cars but since most Tokyo companies no longer allow smoking, the Ministry has been considering other premium services which might draw passengers and reward those drivers who offer them. A master taxi driver is designated by the Tokyo Taxi Centre as someone with no traffic violations and an unblemished record in dealing with customers. Around 10% of the city’s 90,000 drivers qualify for the “three star designation” which can be seen on the roof of the car.

Hmmm. So what does our friend George think of all this I wonder? I asked him. The first thing he asked me was where the information came from. I told him it was from here, and assured him that it was from a reliable source. He then went on to say he was not surprised by the fact that only 10% of Tokyo’s taxi drivers qualify for the 3-star “Master” designation. That is actually quite an amazing statistic, if in fact correct: only 1 in 10 of the taxi’s that come past you are driven by someone deemed professional enough to qualify. The logic of the designation effectively stating that 9 in 10 of those drivers are not worthy, having at some point infringed on traffic laws or having dealt with their customers in a poor manner, so much so that they were reported.

The last eight or nine months have seen a lot of taxi travel for me, in and around Kanto, as well as other areas of Japan. I have found myself in taxis almost every day, and have wished that there was some way that I could reward outstanding drivers who “delighted me”, and somehow demerit those drivers that enraged me. And yes, there are more of the latter than the former, even in Japan – or maybe my “en” (luck) with taxi drivers is just thin. In any case, the new initiative where taxi drivers are ranked and given preference is a move forward. We choose whom we give money too and whom we don’t in any other industry, so why not taxis!

We all know Japan as the land of wonderful (environmentally unfriendly) product packaging, outstanding customer service and absolute politeness – just a generally good feeling when we are standing on the customers’ side of the counter. I am sure it is one of the elements that keeps many people here. Comparing with the average rude clerk back home in my country, I am addicted to being treated with kindness and a nice smile when I am paying someone money. I don’t care if they mean it from their heart or not – I deserve it. That said, I don’t seem to get the same endorphin rush when riding in Japanese taxis, even at shiharai time, when it is time to hand over the cash (despite the recent hike in taxi fares that has swept over us).

However, just the other day (in Yamagata of all places) I came across the model taxi driver. I just spent the whole ride wishing there was some way I could convert the rest of the arrogant punch-perm sunglass-wearing taxi driver population of Tokyo into this guy. Or at least find out a way to reward him so that he would get more of my money than the punchies.

It was snowing heavily, and I had 2 large cases, and a cardboard box (long story). I flagged a taxi that was driving in the other direction (expecting to be ignored of course) and to my delight, he quickly U-turned and stopped as close as possible. He quite literally flung himself out of the taxi, and helped me settle my bags in the boot, and then opened the door for me (with his real hands, not with the impersonal auto-door standard in Japanese taxis). Now dont get me wrong, I am not from a wonderland where I expect taxi drivers to be chauffeurs, but this was only the beginning of my pleasant surprise.

I got in the car, and watch the guy slipping and sliding on the icy road around to his door as fast as he could. I told him my destination, but his reply was not the standard silent grunt (which Tokyo drivers would so often use when a simple “wakarimashita” is too much trouble for them), but a question. He asked, “there are two pretty fast ways to get where you want, do you have any preference of route?”. Wow! I have hardly ever been asked this question in Tokyo, and never in Osaka. In the big cities, the taxi would leap into action without any dialogue, and I would be 100% at the whim of the driver.

This driver was making an effort to determine the process of our transaction – albeit a simple taxi ride – together. Even though I was exhausted from a long day, and extremely annoyed at the blizzarding snow, this gesture of the driver asking me if I have a preferred route is, in effect, avoiding me having the feeling that I am being taken for a ride. Choice. Customer service is all about choice, and doing what is not only most reasonable, but what is most comfortable for the customer.

After telling the driver my preferred route (yes, I did have one), we set off. The journey to my destination was then filled with some pleasant conversation, and after I received a phone call, some even more pleasant silence. It was a 30 minute ride. There were no steering wheel grip changes (causing jerks), no intermittent and unnecessary taps on the brakes (this really gets to me), and I even was able to doze off to a half sleep by the time I arrived. He was actually a professional driver. In Tokyo, my taxi rides often entail thoughts that I am a better driver than the person behind the wheel. I don’t even have a car, but I can’t help but thinking that the drivers are playing with my head with their constant sudden brake movements, causing mini-whiplash jerks in my neck and back. If anyone deserves the three stars of a Master Taxi Driver atop their vehicle, it was my Yamagata taxi driver hands down.

I hope this new system of giving preference at taxi stands to real professional taxi drivers expands. It should help to raise the bar, and rid the city of the types of drivers that anger me. Specifically, they are:

• Drivers who despite having a passenger in their car, drive with one hand, often at the bottom of the steering wheel and steer with small jerky thumb movements.
• Drivers who open the door of the taxi as if to say, “hurry up and pay, and get the hell out of my taxi. Gaijin”.
• Drivers who’s taxi that smells like a kitsuenshitsu (smoking room).
• Drivers who think they are driving alone, and toggle with the accelerator and brakes like they are in a dodgem car.
• Drivers who constantly complain about the deregulation of the industry (which happened back in 2002!) and how it is hurting them in the current times of fukeiki (不景気, recession).
• Drivers with no manners. Drivers who do not understand their customer’s needs.
• Divers who are selfish, and just plain punch-perm arseholes. I’m sure you’ve met one or two. If not, you will.

When you are next in Shimbashi looking for a taxi, for sure try out one of the certified master taxi drivers. The special rank where only those taxis can wait will start on the 6th March this year. Even if you are not around Shimbashi, look out for a three star
優良タクシードライバー taxi. Take it over the ones without it.

We realise feelings about taxi drivers differ from person to person, and so we’d love to hear your thoughts on taxi drivers, especially if you are first of the rank to try out the new Shimbashi system! How can we reward good drivers and avoid bad ones?

Nova Sagi? Bleak skies ahead for Japan’s Nova Usagi

Japan’s largest English Language conversation school, Nova is the second largest employer of foreigners in Japan (the first being the Japanese government, bless them) employing over 4,500 teachers nationwide. The company name NOVA, originates from the English word for a star that suddenly becomes thousands of times brighter and then gradually fades to its original intensity (or to nothing in this case!). It has however, been made into a now familiar acronym by its eikaiwa (英会話) senseis, who proclaim to be heavily overworked, and given little or next to NO VAcation.

Last Friday (26th October 2007), Nova filed for court protection from creditors, and also temporarily closed all of its 1000+ English conversation schools. It is hard to imagine any other event which could cause as much disrupt to the “Eigoken” foreign population in Japan, short of war or Government meltdown. On Thursday 25th, a finance deal with two foreign funds to save the company in its current form fell through, and in the wee hours of the 26th, the three remaining board members fired the founder and CEO Nozomu Sahashi (猿橋 望), who was absent from the meeting and did not even have the offer of a chance to put in a word of defense for himself.

It has been a rocket ride for Sahashi. He studied aboard in both France and Denmark when he was young, but was overcome by the sadness he felt about not being able to communicate with the locals. Upon returning to Japan, he decided that he didn’t want foreigners to have the same feelings of solitude in Japan, and so in 1990, with two Canadian and Swedish friends he created Nova. 17 years later, as of March 2007, Nova boasted over 1000 schools nationwide and over 500,000 students, which is more than half the entire English teaching market in Japan. In 1995, Nova’s sales were as high as 75 billion yen. CEO Sahashi had changed his name from Saruhashi thanks to the ribbing from diligent kanji studying foreign teachers who relentlessly called him Monkey-Bridge, or just MB. However the company had listed in 1996, he made Japan’s top 100 tax-payers list in 1997 paying over 900 million yen in tax, and Japan’s population was becoming more adept (theoretically at least) at the English language. Not bad for a shy young lad from Kishiwada, the heart of Osaka’s underworld.

Sahashi (MB) Nozomu, The (ex)CEO of Nova
at a June press conference

However at the beginning of 2007, it all started to come crashing down. The company’s business model had relied on selling bulk lessons to students up front, which they could then attend over time. This meant that they had lots of cash coming in, and could finance its rapid expansion, which meant opening almost one school a day during 2005 and 2006. The catalyst for the down spiral however, was a lawsuit from a student who claimed that Nova refused to refund prepayments for lessons that he no longer wanted to take. After a court battle, the Supreme court threw out an appeal by Nova, demanding the repayments to be made. After this began and in early 2007, the media was all over Nova, for all the wrong reasons. First, in January, seven Nova teachers were caught in possession of cocaine. In February, Nova was raided by METI and the police over the refund issue. And then in late March, one of their teachers, a cute Brit was murdered.

With the Japanese school year beginning in April, the first 3 months are vital to Nova sales. However with all the bad PR and the ongoing lawsuits, the number of new contracts dropped and cancellations increased dramatically. With less prepayments for lessons coming in, and more prepayment refunds going out, the cash stopped flowing in, and Nova started to become late on payments. Then in June, METI (経済産業省, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) banned the company from selling any contracts longer than a one year term. After Nova became officially guilty of illegal business practices, Sahashi held a press conference and apologized, but didn’t take responsibility and resign. Also bowing in apology next to Sahashi was his Assistant CEO Shouichi Watanabe.

Here is the NHK news clip (Japanese) in full for some (mi-ni-yo-ku-tsku) revision:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Article 24 of the Labor Standards Law (労働基準法２４条) stipulates that companies must pay wages to employees at least once a month, on a fixed date. In July however, Nova began delaying (by weeks, and in some cases months) payments of salaries and stopped paying office rents. Since September, many schools have been shut down because the firm was unable to secure native English-language teachers, all of which lead to the events of last week.

This business and social disaster has been coming for months, and Sahashi and his aides have been courting potential suitors to takeover the company (and all its problems), but to no avail. The most speculation was around a potential takeover by HIS (Japan’s largest travel agency). Rumour has it that Sahashi pushed too hard of a bargain, and HIS gave up in disgust.

In the end, the building list of creditors, the unknown total liability of the prepayments, and the possibility of underworld connections to the business all contributed to the result of not being able to seduce a suitor. However, with still over 50% of the English language market, some superb school locations, and the mass of students, Nova still has many attractive points. Therefore, now that the company has filed for protection from creditors, the race is on for potential acquirers . Names thrown about so far have included Rakuten, Aeon, and of course now that Sahashi is gone, HIS has come back on the scene. All will likely be revealed in the next few days.

Nova teachers rally outside the Osaka labor standards office
last Tuesday – The signs read, “Sahashi, pay us our money!”

Despite Nova’s largest office being in Tokyo (Shinjuku), the 55 year old, single Sahashi has always spent most of his time in Osaka (Shinsaibashi), where its modest headquarters are located. In past months, he has been said to have been passing the lonely evenings in the local izakayas, slowly drinking his favourite shochus, and desperate for a compassionate ear and new ideas on how he could save his crumbling empire. There have been concerns voiced as to his will to save the company as he has remained mostly hidden from the public and many of his aides, communicating with the staff only through intermittent faxes. That this culminated with him not even attending his own board meeting where he was fired may not come as a surprise to some. However Sahashi has always been said to have a very good heart, and we believe that he has been doing his utmost right up until the end.

The potential fallout from Nova’s implosion cannot yet to be gauged. However it has already begun to cause huge unrest in the foreign community. Nova teachers are represented by a labor union called the General Union, whose homepage is covered with articles and “emergency advice” for its distraught members. It is not only the senseis who should be worried though, 4,500 foreigners suddenly appearing on the local job markets may have repercussions for many people already working here. As well as that for many of the teachers who are in Japan on working holidays straight out of school, without pay checks, how will they survive? The Australian and British Embassies have already begun to offer assistance to teachers who have not received salaries, but there are limits on what they can do, as it is a domestic employment issue.

QANTAS is offering discounted airfares to sacked Nova teachers for the next few days if they want to go home to Australia, as 20% of Nova teachers are Aussies. The Australian Embassy’s website posts detailed info for Nova refugees as follows:

Following discussions with the Australian Government, Qantas has advised that for a limited period it will be offering a reduced air-fare rate for Australian NOVA employees who wish to return to Australia. Enquiries (including about conditions and availability) should be directed to the Qantas Tokyo office on (03) 3593 7000.

For further ongoing information on the demise of Nova, stick with us here at Stippy. There are also a number of other sites providing ongoing coverage of this, including:

Let’s Japan, Japan Today, Japan Economy News, and of course Metropolis.

Starting November 20, 2007, all foreign nationals landing in Japan will be required to submit to fingerprinting and having their picture taken. Yōkoso! Smile! You’re a terrorist suspect!

This controversial new procedure snuck its way into existence on May 24, 2006 when the Japanese Diet passed a law requiring all foreign nationals (with a few exceptions, such as children under 16, diplomats, and special-status permanent residents such as Zainichi Koreans) to submit biometric data to prove they’re not Osama bin Laden or one of his cronies. I’ll spare you the details; if you have five minutes to waste, please check out the cheesy video put out by our friends at the Immigration Bureau.

Basically, the tatemae justification for this new law is that immigration officials will be able to capture any potential terrorists at the airport before they have a chance to commit their heinous crimes on Japanese soil. Sounds fair enough. After all, nobody likes terrorism; what’s the big deal about putting your fingers on a scanner and sucking it up for the camera if it could potentially save lives?

Therein lies the rub. Anyone who has followed the news for the past few decades is aware that the threat of domestic terrorism is much greater than that of foreign terrorism in Japan. Historically, the only terrorism Japan has faced has been from Japanese fringe groups like the Red Army and Aum Shinrikyo. Lest you should think that home-grown terrorism in Japan is ancient history, just this Tuesday news broke of a Japanese man who had explosive substances and was allegedly planning to blow up parts of the Tokyo subway system, having been inspired by the 2005 London attacks. Who presents a greater danger to the citizens of Japan, faraway fundamentalists, or Japanese nationals, disenfranchised with the current system and looking for somewhere to vent their anger?

The logical thing to do would be to fingerprint everyone in Japan who has fingers. Well, it’s not that simple. Japanese may not legally be fingerprinted in Japan unless they are officially charged with a crime. All the easier to get away with chikan! Foreigners, however, in spite of being officially welcome under the Visit Japan “Yokoso!” Campaign, are not offered the same protection under Japanese law.

The actual fingerprinting machine to be used in Japan

My knee jerk reaction upon hearing this news was to assume that Japan was, once again, copying American foreign policy. Upon further inspection, however, it seems that Japan has taken the whole fingerprinting business a step further. Permanent residents of the United States are not required to submit biometric data when they return home – only tourists are. Japan, however, a country that probably ranks pretty low on Al Qaeda’s destruction priority scale, has taken a stronger stance than the U.S., requiring that all foreign permanent residents submit their foreign fingerprints as well. This means that us gaijin with permanent residence status, will be treated differently from our Japanese spouses and children when passing through customs. What an awkward situation, especially when with the little ones… “See you soon son, daddy has to go and line up over there to be fingerprinted with the lovely gaijin “dancers”..again”.

Personally, I would be for any measure that could prevent terrorism, even if it was a little bit flawed. The problem is that the fingerprinting methods used in the U.S., the same ones that are about to be introduced into Japan, would not have stopped any of the 9/11 hijackers from entering into the U.S. Is it possible that this new system is an uyoku (right wing) attempt to crack down on foreign crime (just kidding, George) and visa overstays?

The Immigration Bureau’s FAQ is rather unclear on how the biometric data will be used, except for that it follows the government guidelines on protection of personal information, in which, if you read close enough, you will notice get thrown out the window in criminal cases (Chapter 5, Article 45). None of this is an accident. The Democratic Party of Japan submitted an alternative version of the bill requiring that biometric data be deleted once an overseas national leaves Japan or is granted permanent residency, but this draft was voted down.

Indignant gaijin are not the only ones upset about this law. The Japanese Federation of Bar Associations has published a statement declaring this law to be a bad idea and a half. Amnesty International in Japan has put out a similar appeal against the new law.

It turns out that many Japanese government officials disagree with or haven’t even heard of the law! We’ll see how it all pans out soon enough.

Old Style Japan Alien Registration Card with Fingerprint

As a side note, fingerprinting is not a new concept for those long term gaijin amongst us. All foreigners staying more than three months in Japan are required to get an infamous “Gaijin Card” (Alien registration card). Up until the late 1990′s, the fingerprint of your left index finger appeared on this card. And even though in actual fact, all ten fingers were squeezed against the ink-pad as part of registering one self as an alien, we still loved to joke that we could be safe committing a crime, as long as we only used nine fingers..

Anyway, it looks like mandatory fingerprinting is back, and this time not only for long-stay gaijin, but for every alien coming into the land of the taihen cloud. Will our re-entry permits still permit us to line up at the Nihonjin passport booth? I can’t help but think this is going to land us back into the long snaking gaijin lines, where we will have a frustrating wait for the jumbo full of Chinese tourists (that landed 5 minutes beforehand) to be fingerprinted. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, if any Stippy readers are planning a trip home this Christmas, just be prepared for a special O-kaeri from immigration officers. Remember to smile, and if you’re feeling particularly cheeky, why not throw up a peace sign? After a 10 hour flight, you deserve it.

So what do you think? Is this a heartfelt attempt from the government of Japan to protect us all from terrorism, or are they just using the current state of world affairs as an excuse to crack down on gaijin crime and illegal immigration? Let us know in the comments below.

Kyoto is famous in Japan for many things, in the past for classic temples like Kinkakuji and Kiyomizu-dera and for being the capital of Japan from 794 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. It is well-known more recently for things such as the Kyoto Protocol and Kyoto University. This week, Kyoto University became the first University in Japan to introduce a so-called “University Environment Tax”, sort of an emissions tax to attempt to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases within the University.

The idea is that the amount of energy used by each department is calculated and taxed at a flat rate by the University. The gathered taxes are then reinvested back into the University’s environmental efforts. On top of being taxed, those departments, offices or labs whose usage is above the average will be required to establish some form of system of method to decrease their output. On top of this, they are planning to create an inter-University market for the trading of “carbon credits”. This means that for example if one department is putting out extremely low emissions, they can trade their remaining capacity to a more heavy usage department, maximizing the use of the quotas, and creating new income for the more efficient department.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, Japan is required to reduce its CO2 emissions by 6% by 2012, and the Government has been active in offering up ideas of how this could be realized. One of these includes a national Environment Tax, of which various proposals have been submitted to the Environment Ministry with limited success. This new University Tax by Kyoto University represents a miniature version of that proposed inside the Government. The Kyoto Protocol seems to be a positive initiative against climate change, and indeed since it first came into effect in 1990, Japan has reduced its emissions by 3.5%. Japan is of course one of the majority of developed countries that have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, the only backwards countries that refuse to ratify, are the red ones below (USA and Australia):

I was lucky enough to be able to attend Kyoto University for a couple of years, and from my recollection, they may have some difficulties in cutting their energy costs. Coming from a modern Western University, I was shocked at the lecture halls, which were spartan concrete buildings, with 100 year old wooden benches. The wind and noise would seep in from the outside, and at times it was difficult to tell whether you were actually inside a hall or outside in the elements. These lecture halls were very modest compared to the plush carpeted lecture halls back home, or for that matter the private Universities up the road.

Kyoto University Law Department: Today

The obvious answer would be to renovate these halls, and surely they would be able to cut down on heating and cooling costs in Japan’s more extreme seasons? Well no, there were no heaters or air conditioners in any of the lecture halls. My most vivid memory of this time was cycling into exams in February through the snow, wrapped up in layers upon layers of sweaters and coats, with gloves, scarf, beanie etc. And sitting down to sit final exams, not being able to take any off as it was so cold! It was as if we were taking exams outside, my fingers were completely frozen. Mid-terms in August/September were just as bad, 35+ degrees, and no air conditioner. It may have been a pleasant place to take an exam, if I wasn’t dripping sweat all over the table and exam paper, and taking 2 liters of Pocari Sweat to each exam! I remember thinking how could they possibly decide to have exams right in the middle of summer and winter, as opposed to the wonderful seasons of spring and autumn. And also, with Kyoto University being the largest recipient of research funds of any University in Japan, why don’t they buy some air conditioners!

I am very much in favour of Kyoto University supporting the local efforts of the Kyoto Protocol. It will no doubt stimulate good debate and new research in both the environmental and economic departments. However if the current students are anything like me, perhaps the first this they will want to do will be to allocate some of that University Environment Tax to improving the environment of the students, by adding a couple of air conditioners?

I thought I’d seen everything when I read the headline in today’s paper that Nestle was going to bail out Yubari city from its bankruptcy. As it always turns out with these headlines, it was slightly exaggerated but I really do have to take my hat off to Nestle. It turns out that Nestle has decided to donate 10 yen to the city of Yubari from every pack sold of its latest brand of Kit Kat. From next Monday, Nestle will begin to sell the “Yubari Melon Kit Kat” which as you guessed is filled with powder from the famous melons of Yubari.

Just in case you haven’t been following the news on the quaint city of Yubari, (not to be confused with Gogo Yubari), I’ll do my best to give you a ten second summary of why the largest food company in the world would be donating yen to a local government. Back in the Showa period, Yubari was a symbol of post-war Japan with a healthy population of over 100,000 people and a vibrant industry centered around the Mitsubishi coal mine. As I’m sure you’ll have guessed already, the canary died about twenty years ago – along with the mine – and since then the population has dwindled to about a tenth of its peak. In order to revive the regions economy, the local mayor decided to build an extravagant amusement park centered around the theme of Yubari’s famous cantaloupe melons. Say no more. The city could never repay the debt related to this and other extravagant projects and resorted to short-term high interest rate financing from the local banks. All of this became public last year and the city was officially declared bankrupt. (Just in case you care, here is a map of where Yubari is in the island of Hokkadio courtesy of the official Yubari City page.)

So, you may ask, why on earth should Nestle donate 10 yen to a bunch of amateurs who thought that they could turn a fruit into an amusement park? You’re absolutely right. It is just ridiculous. Except this is Japan, and the population clearly has a soft spot for the 0.01% of Japan’s population that is stuck still living in poor old Yubari. Nestle claim that their new product is answering the wishes of the people of Hokkaido who wanted to know if there was a way that they could help Yubari. Of course, they could just donate cash directly to Yubari’s “Yellow Handkerchief of Happiness” which is the official fund that the Yubari city has set up to help return the city’s debt. (Wow!) What if I don’t want to donate to Yubari but I still want to eat a melon flavoured Kit Kat? Do I get my 10 yen back?

Even better yet – and this is why I really do take my hat off to Nestle – apparently they are going to sell the new “Yubari Melon Kit Kat” for 150 yen – a full 30 yen higher than the price that they normally charge for Kit Kats. Can anyone tell me what happens to the 20 yen that they are not donating to Yubari City? I’ll guarantee that I can’t get that back.

Kampai to them. That is why they’ve been able to grow a business which is as large as their neighbour, Ezaki Glico who is famous for the Pocky line. (Nestle is in Kobe and Glico is in Osaka. Both had sales in Japan of about 2.5 billion US dollars last year). The last time Nestle was being “more Japanese than the Japanese” was back in 2002 when someone realized that Kit Kats could be sold to Kyoiku Mamas (教育ママ, overly protective Mothers who wanted their kids to study a lot) who had children sitting University exams. It turns out that if you pronounce Kit Kat with a Japanese accent, it sounds very similar to “You are sure to succeed” (きっと勝つ) and so the Mum’s thought it was a good omen to give to their jukensei (受験生, studying for an exam) children. This time it seems that the Kat in Kit Kat might be referring to what they should do to the salary of the local politicians in Yubari…

Update: This video report from Monacle was done on Yubari in Feb 2008. Adds some quite interesting insights into the town, its history and its plight. Click the middle of the movie to play:
[MEDIA=24]

As you may have noticed, we were down for the last 4 or 5 days. Some malicious person decided that hacking stippy would be a novel idea. Well, I was away for a week, and did not have access, and therefore not a chance to restore from backups until now, but this is the first time that a hacker has really, no I mean REALLY annoyed me. Someone found a way (god knows how) to modify almost every file in the directory where stippy is stored, without making any obvious changes. So, it was either compare each and every file with those in the backup, or just restore from the backup. What sort of dumb-arse does this sort of thing. People who hack others’ home pages deserve the same fate as kiddy fiddlers and granny rapists. They ought to be strung up by their you know whats, and hung out to dry. They are the cholesterol, the cancer and the gall stones of the internet all in one. There I go. Don’t I feel better just getting all that out. Whoever did this, you’ll have to try harder than that! Go get yourself a stippy friend, and let your steam off elsewhere. (But then again, it was a learning experience, and I have tightened a few screws so that this should be much harder to achieve for the next dimwit with too much time on his/her hands).

Biodiesel and Biogas – What does it all mean for Japan?

Judging by some of the comments from readers over the past months, I get the feeling a lot of people are far more up to speed than me when it comes to things that are good for the planet. However, I had a bad day at work the other day and spent some time bouncing my way through the Internet to take my mind off the office. It so happened I bumped into some interesting things in the way of “green”, specifically, the controversy over “biofuels” and what they could mean for Japan.

My journey started out with an article declaring that Japan will trial bio-ethanol with a view to meet a target of having 20% of all “gasoline” to be made up of this more “natural” product. I browsed on to a BBC article (Jan 07) that told me that corn prices are at a 10 year high. Not exactly exciting stuff on the surface though great for mid-Westerners with ridiculously red necks, I thought, and soon clicked on. It all eventually cycled back to the article on proposed bio-ethanol targets in Japan, with detours through rice, and tortilla (corn) prices.

Japan has been injected right into the biofuel debate, and has recently started trialling the bio-based “green” diesel and petrol in 55 “gasoline stands” around Tokyo. What does biogas mean for Japan? Will Japan be importing corn from the US rather than crude from the Middle East? It turns out the fact that corn prices are up has a lot to do with going green (as I assume many of you know ahead of me). You’ve heard of “ethanol”, right? (No, not the stuff they sell in green bottles at Heartland) Well, Japanese distributors of gasoline products have just announced that a mixture of bio-ethanol (ethanol made from corn and other crops) and gasoline were just made available at 55 gas stations in Tokyo on a trial basis as an alternative to regular gasoline. The alternative fuel will go on sale nationwide by fiscal 2010. At least that is the plan and the government is even looking at incentivizing the Japanese farmer to help produce the stuff, or at least to supply the raw materials – here we go again, another tail wagging the dog story.

It all initially sounds great when sold in terms of a reduction of stinky diesel and petrol exhaust in through the streets of Tokyo. I ride a (big) scooter so I know how smelly life is a meter above the road, and am used to clawing the black diesel powder mass out of my nose, but first up, is this “biofuel” thing really such a great idea in terms of greenness? The fuel still gets burnt, and it will still produce greenhouse gases as exhaust. This is a debate that has been going on in the US and other countries where ethanol has taken a step into the limelight, so I learned.

As said, I am a rookie on the subject, so bear with me – I haven’t done a thesis on this, just a bit of de-stress procrastinatory browsing. I guess at the end of the day, I am slowly becoming a greenie, as the evidence just seems too blatantly damning to stay with the status quo. Even if at this stage my “green” is more of a mental state than actually counting my carbon footprint on a daily basis, I admit that I need to take far greater steps to really improve on this. And I shall.

Anyway, there are plenty of interesting things for us to ponder when thinking about this increase in bio-ethanol destined for our roads in Japan.

Here’s one. According to this US article the impact of biofuels is not actually as green as we would like to think. Among the arguments for this, there is the theory that revolves around the miles to the gallon to be had from a pure gasoline drive and a cruise based on a mix of gas and ethanol. The author claims that his Honda Accord gets less miles to the gallon with the mix of ethanol/gasoline, which means more consumption overall of the gasoline (and ethanol) and meaning a worse output in environmental terms. Basically we are not seeing the wood for the trees in terms of the overall impact, especially when you bring in the energy required to grow the corn, harvest and turn the stuff into fuel.

An interesting twist the author also puts forward is that agribusiness is driving the push for ethanol and it is simply not the answer to a sustainable environment. In fact looking at the few sites ranked highly on Google that were pushing “biogas”, it did seem that they were Universities and organizations a bit too closely linked to the corn belt of the mid-West and those sun burned necks.

What is more, the author raises a very interesting point that by putting more land and its output to the production of “fuel”, are we not adding to the potential famine effects that poor nations suffer, as the world will be producing less food and more “fuel”? That does sound a bit weird. The impact to the land from biofuel production is a topic which bio-advocates will skip over when given the chance. Not only is corn is one of the planet’s most energy-intensive crops. Industrial corn production requires huge quantities of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers (derived primarily from natural gas) and petroleum-based pesticides like atrazine, a known endocrine disrupter. Soybeans need less nitrogen, but farmers douse bean fields with other nutrients and with chemicals like Roundup to keep them pest-free – all these chemicals go into our soil.

To push the point further, there is even much debate about whether biofuels actually do produce positive “net energy balance” after taking into account the amount of fuel that goes into making them. Although the calculations seem fairly straightforward, squabbles over numbers have led to a wide range of estimates for the net energy balance of even the most common biofuels — corn ethanol and soy biodiesel. Corn ethanol, for example, has a net energy loss of 29 percent, or a gain of 13 percent or even 67 percent, depending on whom you ask. The trouble begins with decisions over what counts as an energy input. Should some of the food a farmer eats be included? What about the energy used to manufacture the farmer’s tractor?

This ties in to the price of corn. The fact that corn prices are at 10 year highs really sucks for Mexicans, as tortillas (their staple food) have gone up 400% in price; and it probably is more than annoying for any Westerners on a tight budget who like their breakfast cereals. So where am I going with this? Well, is planting more food to be ultimately used to drive rich people like us to the shops, work or up to the ski fields really the right answer for our planet? The articles above brought that question into focus for me.

Japan seems to have bitten (or sucked) into the “bio-ethanol” story but even so, it seems a bit irrelevant to me here in Tokyo until 2010. I figure there are two critical factors in the overall equation that make this whole thing very theoretical at this stage: distribution and prices. That is, even if 55 gas stations in Tokyo try this out, it is going to be really hard to find a place to buy bio-ethanol for my scooter and even if I did find it, it would be double the price of nasty old gasoline. Hmmm. I probably won’t, but will the Japanese consumer buy into this?

Soybeans – Tofu, or Diesel?

By the way, as if you didn’t know, corn is not the only source for bio-ethanol. There are loads of other crops out there. Also there are even sources of inedible raw materials from which biofuels can be derived: soybeans in Japan or rice straw in China, palm oil in Malaysia and the most innovative – halophytes (plants adapted to living in a saline environment) from salty marshlands everywhere – the production of which requires no fresh water! But, is bio-ethanol really the way forward? Can’t they just make the fuel cells in battery-powered cars gruntier?

Will Japan be able to meet their target for fiscal 2010 where biogasoline is projected to constitute 20 percent of all gas sold? Is this Kyoto Protocol derived target even the right thing to be focused on given the arguments for biofuel inefficiencies?

If they do really want to meet those targets, it sounds like there will be major hurdles for the Japanese government to overcome. And why would the government want to promote incentives for domestic bio-ethanol production to farmers, when Japan is probably one of few countries around the planet with less land to spare than the Vatican? Won’t that ultimately mean higher rice prices or higher taxes to pay for more farm subsidies? More Thai rice imports and increasing my perennial anger with the zeimusho (tax office)? You tell me. I’m still learning.

This article is a rare (for stippy) direct quote from another article on Yahoo but we thought that is is interesting for our readers also, as we have written quite extensively on the Yakuza and their recent dramas in Japan, and given a locals insight surrounding some of ongoings of the Yamaguchi-gumi and Sumiyoshikai in Tokyo.

Well, the Yakuza is back in the news in a way that nobody expected. A senior member of the Yamaguchi-gumi has shot dead the mayor of Nagasaki, for not compensating him when his car was damaged at a public works construction site! This is the forth murder of a politician since WW2, and virtually unheard of in Japan.

The following is the news of the shooting of the Mayor of Nagasaki (from the article mentioned above):
The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki was shot to death in a brazen attack Tuesday by an organized crime chief apparently enraged that the city refused to compensate him after his car was damaged at a public works construction site, news agencies reported.

The shooting was rare in a country where handguns are strictly banned and only four politicians are known to have been killed since World War II.

Mayor Iccho Ito, 61, was shot twice in the back at point-blank range outside a train station Tuesday evening, Nagasaki police official Rumi Tsujimoto said.

One of the bullets struck the mayor’s heart and he went into cardiac arrest, according to Nagasaki University Hospital spokesman Kenzo Kusano. Kyodo News agency and national broadcaster NHK said Ito died of his wounds early Wednesday.

Tetsuya Shiroo, a senior member of Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest organized crime syndicate, was wrestled to the ground by officers after the attack and arrested for attempted murder, police said.

He later admitted to shooting Ito with a handgun with the intent to kill, Nagasaki chief investigator Kazuki Umebayashi said at a news conference.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for a “rigorous investigation.”

It was the second attack in the last 20 years against a mayor of Nagasaki, which was destroyed by a U.S. atomic bomb in 1945 and whose leaders have actively campaigned against militarism.

In 1990, Mayor Hitoshi Motoshima was shot and seriously wounded after saying that Japan’s emperor, beloved by rightists, bore some responsibility for World War II.

Tuesday’s attack appeared to involve a more trivial matter, however.

Shiroo reportedly clashed with Nagasaki city officials in 2003 after his car was damaged when he drove into a hole at a public works site. He tried unsuccessfully to get compensation from the city after his insurance company refused to pay up, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK.

Shiroo also sent a letter to broadcaster TV Asahi to protest recent money scandals linked to Ito, including hidden accounts and public works contracts, Kyodo reported.

Backed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Ito was campaigning for his fourth term in office before Sunday’s elections. He was an active figure in the movement against nuclear proliferation, heading a coalition of Japanese cities calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

“Mayor Ito had a strong and boundless passion for peace,” said Sunao Tsuboi, leader of a survivors’ group based in Hiroshima, a city also flattened by a U.S. atomic bomb in 1945. “We all pray for his recovery.”

Commonly known as yakuza, Japan’s organized crime groups are typically involved in real estate and construction kickback schemes, extortion, gambling, the sex industry, gunrunning and drug trafficking.

The yakuza also have had a long-standing political alliance with right-wing nationalists in Japan, although authorities did not indicate that Tuesday’s attack was politically motivated.

Organized crime groups are behind most shootings in Japan, with two-thirds of the country’s 53 known shootings last year being gang-related, according to the National Police Agency. Police estimate there are about 84,500 gangsters across Japan.

Attacks on politicians in post-war Japan are extremely rare.

In 1960, Socialist leader Inejiro Asanuma was killed in an attack by a sword-wielding 17-year-old that riveted the nation.

In 2002, a ruling party politician was fatally stabbed in a dispute over political funds. In the 1990s, a Liberal Democrat lawmaker was killed at his home by his daughter and an opposition lawmaker was stabbed to death by a mental patient.

Last year, a right-wing extremist burned down the house of ruling party lawmaker Koichi Kato after the politician criticized then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s pilgrimage to a controversial Tokyo war shrine. No one was home at the time.

JAL to finally join OneWorld from Today, 1st April 2007

Today, Japan Airlines officially becomes a member of the OneWorld alliance. Perhaps you remember the joy and expectation that you felt back on Oct 25, 2005 when JAL announced this for the first time (official release). Or if you haven’t been in Japan for two years, perhaps you remember feeling that joy on Feb 8, 2006 (official release) or even June 4, 2006 (official release) when JAL proceeded to again announce exactly the same thing. Well it seems as though JAL has finally got its act together and can’t delay the move any longer. (Yeah) Finally, we gaijin who come from the US, UK, Australia and Hong Kong (to name a few) can show our home country mileage cards with pride (and without frustration) every time we pay exorbitant prices to ride on JAL around the Japan countryside. I don’t know about you but I was sure getting sick of fighting with the グラホ (Guraho, “Ground hostess”) every time I went to Haneda about why she couldn’t accept my card and that just because JAL had announced it three times already, why would that actually mean that they were going to do it!??? Then again, if you’re half savvy you’re probably about to tell me that you stopped using JAL altogether after the spate of accidents that were all over the press last year. (If you are new to Japan or missed the news, then I recommend you have a read of Japundit’s very thorough history of accidents last year here.) While I do feel sorry for JAL being such a feast for the media during 2006 (*) you start to raise questions when you see signs of such disorganization on almost every front – maintenance, decision making, pilots, public relations, you name it. It is in stark contrast to the heart warming story we discovered last year by researching the up and coming female CEO of Air Transse.

(*) apparently the journalists decided last year to team up against JAL and make as much noise as they possibly good about every single mishap to “commemorate” the 20th anniversary of the horrific Osutakayama crash.

You only have to open up JAL’s homepage to see how JAL has lost a grand total of almost 100 billion yen during the last four years. JAL has had three CEOs in the last year and each one of them has announced aggressive restructuring plans at the start of their term, only to see their targets disappear in smoke months later. The source of these problems began to surface early last year when Itoyama Eitaro (糸山栄太郎 , Japan’s most infamous corporate raider) started threatening the then CEO (Toshiyuki Shinmachi, 新町敏行) to quit on his homepage (first of many posts to be found here). Surely enough, Shinmachi was replaced within three months and now it is the former CFO, Nishimatsu (西松遥), that is tackling the huge task of turning around Japan’s near-bankrupt national carrier. But the dethroning had nothing to do with Itoyama’s vocal complaints. Shinmachi was actually the victim of a board-room coup which ended up seeing a vast majority of the old board resigning as a result.

So what really happened?

Since JAL was founded over fifty years ago, the company has had more politics than the LDP. Each time the president has changed, it has been a mixture of a trade-off and a battle between the major factions: Sales (営業) 、 HR (労務)、 Planning (企画). Especially when you consider that Japan is not a country where you hear of strikes and other industrial action, the strength of JAL’s labour unions (労働組合, rodokumiai) are amazing and perhaps the strongest ingredient in the recipe of management at JAL. Sure, human relations are also issues in Western Airlines. Everyone knows that the main reason that United Airlines has gone bankrupt three times is because it fails to win enough sacrifices from its labour unions. What is most amazing at JAL is the number of unions. At last count, JAL had 11 different labour unions. While some of these were inherited from the JAS merger, even the old JAL has historically had numerous, very powerful labour unions(*). Becoming the President of JAL was like coxing a United Colours of Benetton rowboat with eleven (sometimes thirteen) rowers who each spoke different languages.

(*) Unfortunately it is only available in Japanese, but the book “沈まぬ太陽” by “山崎豊子” offers a fascinating look into the life of a senior labour union member in the 80s at JAL and the pain he is put through. Highly recommended. (link to it on amazon.co.jp here) Let me know in the comments section below if you want me to review it in more detail.

Nishimatsu’s appointment was special in that he was the first ever CEO to come from a financial background (read no faction). While it was the four young directors who threatened to quit if Shinmachi didn’t step down that received a lot of the credit at the time of the coup, it turns out that there is another power figure hidden behind the galley curtain. JAL’s king maker is man called Yasunaga Sumio (安永純雄) and he is the real reason behind the tying of the noose around Shinmachi’s neck.

Unlike the usual elite Salaryman at JAL that have graduated from Tokyo or Kyoto University, Yasunaga was the odd one out. He graduated from Kyoto Gaidai (京都外国語大学) and wasn’t even employed by the honsha (本社, head office) in Japan. In fact, his most important promotion was to run a small ryotei (料亭, Japanese eatery) in Ginza during the bubbly 80s. A promotion you say? Well, yes. Just like the rest of the world, Japan is all about connections and that is what Ginza was all about. While he was head of the Ryotei he had the chance to mingle with the most important up and coming politicians of the day. Although JAL is technically a public company, it is still seen by many as a division of the Japanese government and even today large decisions have to be vetted by Nagatacho.

While Kaneko Isao (兼子勲) is often referred to as one of JALs most charismatic former CEOs he had one major weakness – that was Nagatacho. Without either a talent or an interest for entertaining the mandarins, he had to find someone from within the organization to deal with the bureaucrats downtown. Yasunaga was that man. In part due to his powerful backing from the HR faction and in part due to Yasunaga’s political skill at massaging the MLIT (国土交通省, kokudokotsusho) Kanekos rule was sweet and successful (he lead the company from ’98- ’05). Although Yasunaga was never officially named to the board of directors, he was an adviser to Kaneko – and the board – throughout Kaneko’s rule.

Alas, Kaneko made a poor choice for his successor. Shinmachi had no real base in any of the strong factions (he was from the weak cargo faction) and so had an unstable power base from day one. Even after Kaneko stepped down, for better or for worse, Rasputin was still there and Shinmachi realised that by manipulating the strength of Yasunaga, perhaps he could extend his reign of the JAL empire for longer than most people expected. (Indeed Kaneko was rumored to have only chosen Shinmachi because he knew it would guarantee a quick changeover to his favorite kouhai in his faction). Unfortunately this backfired, and the factions (all sensing that their turn at the throne might be delayed further) restarted their war. Worse still, they started washing their laundry outside of the firm. This culminated the board room coup last year.

This is where the story takes a real “only in Japan” type twist. Following the coup, three of the four zohangumi (造反組, rebels) actually resigned from their posts! How weird is that? They won the fight, Shinmachi resigned – they even got the scalp of several key Kaneko aids – yet the protaganists were forced to “take responsiblity” for their controversial actions as well. It’s almost resemblant the blood balance sheet that you see in the Yakuza wars.

The unanticipated by-product of this was Nishimatsu. After the shakeup, Nishimatsu was Switzerland. He was the only person left on the board who hadn’t taken sides in the feud. Nobody at JAL wanted a finance man to be running the company, they just had no other choices. I’m not even sure that he wanted the job. It is no easy feat running JAL at the best of times, but without the support of a faction, it will be extremely difficult for Nishimatsu to force real changes at any level. Unfortunately, the signaling from the continually delayed OneWorld announcement is hinting that maybe JAL’s problems have yet to be solved. Good luck Nishimatsu, but I’d be watching your back if I was you.